Cold War Broadcasting

Cold War Broadcasting

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  • Author: A. Ross Johnson
  • Publisher: Central European University Press
  • ISBN: 9639776807
  • Category : Performing Arts
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 612

"It was not a matter of propaganda ... black and white ideological broadcasts ... What made [Radio Free Europe] important were its impartiality, independence, and objectivity."---Vaclav Havel "Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were critically important weapons in the free world's competition with Soviet totalitarianism---and without them the Soviet bloc might even have not disintegrated ... The account in this book of their activities is therefore not only informative, but critical to understanding recent history."---Zbigniew Brzezinski "The studies and translated Soviet bloc documents published in this book demonstrate the enormous impact of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Voice of America during the Cold War. By promoting democratic values and undermining the monopoly of information on which Communist regimes relied, the Radios contributed greatly to the end of the Cold War."---George P. Shultz "I know of no other mass media organization that has done more than RFE/RL to help create the Europe in which we live today---a Europe not divided into two opposing camps."---Elena Bonner Examines the role of Western broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, with a focus on Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. It includes chapters by radio veterans and by scholars who have conducted research on the subject in once-secret Soviet bloc archives and in Western records. It also contains a selection of translated documents from formerly secret Soviet and East European archives, most of them published here for the first time.


Broadcasting Freedom

Broadcasting Freedom

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  • Author: Arch Puddington
  • Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
  • ISBN: 9780813171241
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 422

Among America's most unusual and successful weapons during the Cold War were Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. RFE-RL had its origins in a post-war America brimming with confidence and secure in its power. Unlike the Voice of America, which conveyed a distinctly American perspective on global events, RFE-RL served as surrogate home radio services and a vital alternative to the controlled, party-dominated domestic press in Eastern Europe. Over twenty stations featured programming tailored to individual countries. They reached millions of listeners ranging from industrial workers to dissident leaders such as Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel. Broadcasting Freedom draws on rare archival material and offers a penetrating insider history of the radios that helped change the face of Europe. Arch Puddington reveals new information about the connections between RFE-RL and the CIA, which provided covert funding for the stations during the critical start-up years in the early 1950s. He relates in detail the efforts of Soviet and Eastern Bloc officials to thwart the stations; their tactics ranged from jamming attempts, assassinations of radio journalists, the infiltration of spies onto the radios' staffs, and the bombing of the radios' headquarters. Puddington addresses the controversies that engulfed the stations throughout the Cold War, most notably RFE broadcasts during the Hungarian Revolution that were described as inflammatory and irresponsible. He shows how RFE prevented the Communist authorities from establishing a monopoly on the dissemination of information in Poland and describes the crucial roles played by the stations as the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke apart. Broadcasting Freedom is also a portrait of the Cold War in America. Puddington offers insights into the strategic thinking of the RFE-RL leadership and those in the highest circles of American government, including CIA directors, secretaries of state, and even presidents.


What's Fair on the Air?

What's Fair on the Air?

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  • Author: Heather Hendershot
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press
  • ISBN: 0226326764
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 271

The rise of right-wing broadcasting during the Cold War has been mostly forgotten today. But in the 1950s and ’60s you could turn on your radio any time of the day and listen to diatribes against communism, civil rights, the United Nations, fluoridation, federal income tax, Social Security, or JFK, as well as hosannas praising Barry Goldwater and Jesus Christ. Half a century before the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, these broadcasters bucked the FCC’s public interest mandate and created an alternate universe of right-wing political coverage, anticommunist sermons, and pro-business bluster. A lively look back at this formative era, What’s Fair on the Air? charts the rise and fall of four of the most prominent right-wing broadcasters: H. L. Hunt, Dan Smoot, Carl McIntire, and Billy James Hargis. By the 1970s, all four had been hamstrung by the Internal Revenue Service, the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine, and the rise of a more effective conservative movement. But before losing their battle for the airwaves, Heather Hendershot reveals, they purveyed ideological notions that would eventually triumph, creating a potent brew of religion, politics, and dedication to free-market economics that paved the way for the rise of Ronald Reagan, the Moral Majority, Fox News, and the Tea Party.


Cold War Frequencies

Cold War Frequencies

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  • Author: Richard H. Cummings
  • Publisher: McFarland
  • ISBN: 1476678642
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 270

Published for the first time, the history of the CIA's clandestine short-wave radio broadcasts to Eastern Europe and the USSR during the early Cold War is covered in-depth. Chapters describe the "gray" broadcasting of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Munich; clandestine or "black" radio broadcasts from Radio Nacional de Espana in Madrid to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine; transmissions to Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Ukraine and the USSR from a secret site near Athens; and broadcasts to Byelorussia and Slovakia. Infiltrated behind the Iron Curtain through dangerous air drops and boat landings, CIA and other intelligence service agents faced counterespionage, kidnapping, assassination, arrest and imprisonment. Excerpts from broadcasts taken from monitoring reports of Eastern Europe intelligence agencies are included.


Cold War on the Airwaves

Cold War on the Airwaves

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  • Author: Nicholas J Schlosser
  • Publisher: University of Illinois Press
  • ISBN: 0252097785
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 257

Founded as a counterweight to the Communist broadcasters in East Germany, Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) became one of the most successful public information operations conducted against the Soviet Bloc. Cold War on the Airwaves examines the Berlin-based organization's history and influence on the political worldview of the people--and government--on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Nicholas J. Schlosser draws on broadcast transcripts, internal memoranda, listener letters, and surveys by the U.S. Information Agency to profile RIAS. Its mission: to undermine the German Democratic Republic with propaganda that, ironically, gained in potency by obeying the rules of objective journalism. Throughout, Schlosser examines the friction inherent in such a contradictory project and propaganda's role in shaping political culture. He also portrays how RIAS's primarily German staff influenced its outlook and how the organization both competed against its rivals in the GDR and pushed communist officials to alter their methods in order to keep listeners. From the occupation of Berlin through the airlift to the construction of the Berlin Wall, Cold War on the Airwaves offers an absorbing view of how public diplomacy played out at a flashpoint of East-West tension.


Radio Wars

Radio Wars

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  • Author: Linda Risso
  • Publisher: Routledge
  • ISBN: 1317373200
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 245

During the Cold War, radio broadcasting played an important role in the ideological confrontation between East and West. As archival documents gathered in this volume reveal, radio broadcasting was among the most pressing concerns of contemporary information agencies. These broadcasts could penetrate the Iron Curtain and directly address the ‘enemy’. Radio was equally important in keeping sustained levels of support among the home public and the public of friendly nations. In the early Cold War in particular, listeners in the West had to be persuaded of the need for higher defence spending levels and a policy of containment. Later, even if other media – and in particular television – had become more important, radio continued to be used widely. The chapters gathered here investigate both the institutional history of the radio broadcasting corporations in the East and in the West, and their relationship with other propaganda agencies of the time. They examine the ‘off-air’ politics of radio broadcasting, from the choice of theme to the selection of speakers, singers and music pieces. The key issue tackled by contributors is the problem of measuring the impact of, and qualifying the success of, information policies and propaganda programmes produced during the Cultural Cold War. This book was originally published as a special issue of Cold War History.


U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947-1960

U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947-1960

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  • Author: Nancy Bernhard
  • Publisher: Cambridge University Press
  • ISBN: 9780521543248
  • Category : Performing Arts
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 270

How US government and media collaborated in their dissemination of Cold War propaganda.


War of the Black Heavens

War of the Black Heavens

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  • Author: Michael Nelson
  • Publisher: Syracuse University Press
  • ISBN: 9780815604792
  • Category : Social Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 316

International diplomacy and a changing global economy did not bring about the fall of the Iron Curtain. Radio did, and it was mightier than the sword. Based on first-hand interviews and documents from the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, Michael Nelson shows that Western radio—principally, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and the Voice of America—were unrivaled forces in the fight against communism and the fall of the Iron Curtain. The Communists did everything in their power to prevent the infiltration of Western thought into their world, resorting to jamming radio signals, assassinating staff, and bombing stations. The Russians, for example, decided to stop the mass production of short-wave radios so that their citizens could not hear Western broadcasts. War of the Black Heavens reveals that, due to administrative incompetence, short-wave radio production continued, making worthless many of the billions of dollars spent on jamming. These radio programs introduced a forbidden, exciting culture to millions of eager listeners. Pop music, talk shows, news, and information about consumer goods all relayed a message of the good life, subtly undermining the values of the communist regimes. Western radio actively connected listeners with the cultures of Europe and North America. War of the Black Heavens describes an unheralded story of success and adds a new interpretation that helps us understand some of the most momentous political events of this century.


Radio Free Europe's "Crusade for Freedom"

Radio Free Europe's

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  • Author: Richard H. Cummings
  • Publisher: McFarland
  • ISBN: 0786462078
  • Category : Performing Arts
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 267

From 1950 to 1960, millions of Americans participated in Radio Free Europe's "Crusade for Freedom." They signed "Freedom Scrolls" and "Freedom Grams," attended Crusader meetings, marched in parades, launched leaflet-carrying balloons, and donated Truth Dollars in support of the American effort to broadcast news and other programming to the peoples of communist-governed European countries. The Crusade for Freedom proved to be a powerful tool of the state-private network's anti-communist agenda. This book takes an in-depth look at the Crusade for Freedom, revealing how its unmatched pageantry of patriotism led to the creation of a dynamic movement involving not only the government but also private industry, mass media, academia, religious leaders, and average Americans.


Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty

Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty

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  • Author: A. Ross Johnson
  • Publisher: Cold War International History
  • ISBN: 9780804773560
  • Category : History
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 0

An examination of the workings of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty during the period in which the two broadcast organizations were covertly supported by the CIA.