We tell the story of Radio Liberty. First, the CIA project, and then – an important source of independent information in the non -free countries of the KGB could not cope with it. Now Trump closes it

The US presidential administration Donald Trump has sharply terminated the funding of Radio Liberty. Once it was one of the first and one of the most successful examples of the American “soft power” – and played an important role in the US victory in the Cold War. We recall the history of this institution. “Radio Liberty” arose as a CIA project to combat communism in 1949, after the Eastern Bloc took shape, the “Free Europe Committee” appeared in the United States – formally a public organization, which aimed at the confrontation of communist expansion. It included the hero of World War II General Dwight Eisenhower, Media Magnate Henry Luc (founder of Time magazines, Life and Fortune), the famous film director Cecil Demill and other prominent people. The Committee proclaimed a “Crusade for Freedom” – a campaign to raise funds for an ideological struggle against communism. Factically, it was a cover operation. The Free Europe Committee worked under the control of the Office of Political Coordination – a unit of the recently created CIA, responsible for secret operations abroad. And the “Crusade” was needed to wash the budget money received by the CIA committee. Ideological narrative promoted by the CIA was simple: communism is nothing more than a new “shell” of Russian imperialism. And the form of the struggle of the “Free European Committee” came up almost by accident. Immediately after the war and the German section, the American occupation administration created the Radio of the American Sector. It was intended for West Berlin, but soon they began to listen to it in the eastern, occupied USSR. Eisenhauer, who headed the American occupation administration, his deputy and successor General Lucius Clay and their employees quickly became convinced that this gives them a considerable advantage in the ideological struggle. Crue decided to reproduce this model on the scale of all Eastern Europe. So appeared Radio Free Europe. In 1950, it began broadcasting in all the main languages ​​of the Eastern Bloc: Czech, Slovak, Romanian, Hungarian, Polish and Bulgarian. The headquarters was in Munich-the most eastern of the large “western” cities, the important center of the Eastern European emigration. “Free Europe” was guided by the principle of “Best propaganda is not propaganda” (though it was formulated in this form a little later). She did not fill in the air with the rectilineous denunciations of communism. Mostly emigrants from the relevant countries worked there, who could turn to listeners as their own. The news and political analysis tried to serve more or less neutral. They put a lot of popular Western music. The attractive image of the West and the image of the USSR as an oppressor took place gradually, as if by itself. “A lighthouse for those who were Totalitarianism deprived of the truth.” “Radio Liberty” and “Voice of America”-under the threat of closing due to the decree of Trump, journalists around the world criticize this decision “Lighthouse for those that Totalitarianism deprived of the truth”. “Radio Liberty” and “Voice of America”-under the threat of closing due to the decree of Trump, journalists around the world criticize this decisive figure in the creation of “Radio Free Europe” was an American intelligence veteran. At the end of the Sorokovs, holding various advisory positions, he actually worked as a liaison between the CIA and the American political elite. In 1951, he became deputy director of the CIA for planning (actually coordinator of secret operations). Two years later, Eisenhower became the president of the United States – and appointed Dulles as the director of the CIA. The work of Radio Free Europe was recognized as successful, and after a couple of years they thought in the CIA that the anti -communist “non -decam” should be extended to the USSR itself. This time, the role of the charming founder was played by the American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia – another organization that was supervised by the CIA and “Free Europe”, the Committee turned to the national feelings of the peoples of the USSR, contrasting them with communism as a new form of Russian imperialism. He established ties with the Ukrainian, Belarusian, Georgian, Armenian and other diasporas. Radio Liberation, created in the image and likeness of Radio Free Europe and its infrastructure, began broadcasting in Russian on March 1, 1953. He immediately had a great success: on March 5, Joseph Stalin died and the lighting of this event allowed the radio station to quickly gain a significant audience. By the end of the year, she began working in 17 languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR, including the Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Kazakh, Tajik, Avar, Chechen and Tatar. Ukrainian broadcasting began in 1954. The renewal of Radio Liberation into Radio Liberty in 1959 occurred due to a revision of the ideological strategy. By this time, the Soviet regime managed to completely suppress the national liberation movements like in the Baltic countries. In the same 1959, in Munich, the Soviet agent killed the leader of Ukrainian nationalists Stepan Bandera. The propaganda emphasis decided to shift to the promotion of the ideas of political freedoms and human rights. In 1967, the American left -wing magazine Ramparts published a journalistic investigation dedicated to the activities of the CIA within the United States (which the department is directly prohibited). It was proved that the agency secretly finances many formally independent anti -communist organizations and uses them to justify the Vietnamese war. Among them were Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. After long trials in the CIA Congress were banned to continue this activity. But the American administration did not want to lose such an important asset. In 1973, reform followed: two radio stations were combined into one and registered as a non-profit organization officially funded from the US federal budget. The declared goal of the organization was to “convey the truth” to those who live behind the iron curtain. “Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty” has ceased to be an American propaganda body in a strict sense: no departments officially could dictate an editorial policy for him. However, in fact, the function of the ideological struggle, of course, remained. In this form, “Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty” lasted until 2025, when the Donald Trump administration deprived him of state money. Radio Liberty grew the role of the CIA Rupe and became the most important source of free information in the USSR “non -PAGANDISTICAL” radio in detail the most important events that are official communist. The press tried to shut up, such as in Hungary in 1956, the Berlin crisis of 1961 and the Prague Spring of 1968.SSR and its satellites tried to “jam” his broadcasting, scoring with obstacles. It did not help: the “enemy voices” still broke through, listening to “Radio Liberty” became a routine practice of millions of Soviet citizens-a kind of ritual of freedom. In the 1960s, a student from the Politzekov family tried to blow up a tower that jammed “enemy voices”. He served 10 years, became a legend for dissidents-and the hero of the adventure novel, we tell the amazing story of Sergei Khanzhenovav, the 1960s, a student from the Politzov family tried to blow up the tower that was jamming of “enemy voices”. He served 10 years, became a legend for dissidents-and the hero of the adventure novel, we tell the amazing story of Sergei Khanzhenovov seventies, with the beginning of the mass emigration from the USSR, “Radio Liberty” acquired an additional function. It has become a source of earnings for many emigrants of creative professions. In 1972, the writer Anatoly Kuznetsov settled there, in 1974-poet Alexander Galich, in 1975-writer Viktor Nekrasov. In the eighties, Vasily Aksenov and Sergey Dovlatov worked on Radio Liberty. That is why many literary readings appeared on the radio. For Soviet citizens, they began to get acquainted with non -certificate literature, along with Samizdat. That is how many first joined, for example, to the “Gulag Archipelago” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the poems of Joseph Brodsky. Many learned about historical episodes that did not fit into the official Soviet narrative: about and uprisings, about the scale of Stalinist repressions, and so on, for the programs for “Radio Liberty” (more precise The leader of the communist Bulgaria Todor Zhivkov) Bulgarian intelligence services killed in 1978 in London the writer and journalist Georgy Markov.rumynskaya Secret Police to the Securitate for many years, the broadcast of the Romanian Radio Liberty Service operations. The authorities arranged attacks on journalists, carried out an explosion at the Munich headquarters of the radio station in 1981 (the organizer of the hiring terrorist attack was no less Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos Shakal). The second-Umitate also allegedly killed the director of the Romanian Svoboda Service Vlad Giorgrak in 1988. The Radio Liberty Valens and Vaclav Gavel, and many other political leaders of Eastern Europe emphasized Radio Liberty in the Eastern Bloc. It became one of the first and most successful examples of what experts in international politics subsequently called the “soft force.” Effective anti -Soviet weapons were not only the content of the programs and the very fact of overcoming censorship, but the approach to propaganda: ostentatious separation of facts from opinions and news from assessments. Even the leading intonations were anti -Soviet – not peremptory, but usually thoughtful (listen, for example, as Galich talks about war or dovlatov – about sex in literature). The project survived the USSR. He had to re -“look for himself” the current “Radio Liberty” – this is not only the radio station itself, which broadcasts in many languages ​​around the world, it is also many independent publications and projects. Although the radio is still important: in Central Asia, for example, it remains one of the few sources of independent information. In Russia, Radio Liberty gave rise to several very important regional media: North. Realia, Siberia. Realia, Idel. Realia, Caucasus. Realiy. The Current Time TV channel is also the Radio Liberty project (together with the Voice of America). The investigative project “System” is also Radio Liberty. (Tagstotranslate) News

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