Security at RFE/RL: Lessons Learned from the Cold War

(Updated October 2012)

I had the privilege of being the Director of Security for RFE/RL in Munich from 1980-1995 and then the "security and safety consultant" to RFE/RL in Prague until 1998. At conferences and meetings over the years since 1998, I have been asked, "What was it like being in charge of security for RFE/RL?" It is not an easy question to answer in a few words as most of my activities were transparent to the staff and management. That was the "security philosophy" that began in the 1950s at Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. It is perhaps the nature of the beast of the security profession: be transparent -- "security doesn't need to be obtrusive, obvious, or restrictive to be effective."

Specifically, I was responsible for classical physical security not only at the headquarters building in Munich, but also the transmitting sites in Germany, Spain, and Portugal. In addition, after 1989, was then responsible for security at news bureaus in Moscow and other locations in the former Soviet Union, as well as in Prague, Bucharest, Sofia, Warsaw, and Budapest.

The 1987 Board for International Broadcasting (RFE/RL's oversight board) Annual Report best summed up security for over 40 years in Munich: 

The vice-President for Management directs the Administrative Division, which undertakes a variety of critical tasks associated with the running of a large and complex international broadcasting corporation. These tasks include recruiting and retaining personnel, administering personnel benefits, providing for the physical security of RFE/RL facilities and personnel, purchasing office equipment and supplies, administering the library and archives, and operating the Computer Center, the switchboard and mailroom. Some of these functions—such as security and personnel—are considerably more difficult than in most corporations due to the unique nature of the organization. Maintaining security at an organization with hundreds of employees who emigrated from Communist countries is a sensitive and demanding task.

I think there are lessons to be learned from the "battles" in Munich and list a few below. Here is a quick look at security at RFE/RL in the Cold War.

Famed Cold War novelist John Le Carre best captured the émigré community and intelligence activity in Munich, when he wrote in his class Cold War novel The Secret Pilgrim:

For anybody who has lived in Hamburg, Munich is not Germany at all. It is another country. I never felt the remotest connection between the two cities, but when it came to spying, Munich like Hamburg was one of the unsung capitals of Europe. Even Berlin ran a poor second when it came to the size and visibility of Munich's invisible community … And now and then frightful scandals broke, usually when one or other of this company of clowns literally forgot which side he was working for, or made a tearful confession in his cups, or shot his mistress or his boyfriend or himself, or popped up drunk on the other side of the Curtain to declare his loyalty to whomever he had not been loyal to far. I never in my life knew such an intelligence bordello.

Munich, Germany is where the Cold War was in reality a 'Hot War'. The émigré staff at both RFE and RL faced intimidation, murder, threats and attempts of murder and kidnapping, as we have read in previous postings. Families of the staff in the broadcast countries suffered loss of jobs and worse because their relatives were working for RFE and RL. Intelligence agents penetrated the stations, and some employees became intelligence collaborators. In today’s parlance, the latter would be referred to as “insider threats.”

Cord Meyer, former CIA liaison officer with both RFE and RL, has written in his memoirs, Facing Reality, about security in the early years of RFE and RL: 

Finally, there was the problem posed for the radios by the continuing attempts of the Soviet and Eastern European secret police to intimidate the exile staffs, to sabotage the installations, and to exacerbate frictions between the radios and the West German host government. This campaign of harassment ranged from the macabre to the ridiculous.

Security officers were trained to ensure prompt investigation of every incident or allegation. It was a never-ending task, but we managed to keep the level of intimidation within tolerable limits.

I would argue that the same could be said for the 1980s, long after the CIA stopped sponsoring both RFE and RL: all of the intelligence services of the Warsaw Pact operated against RFE and RL. Sometimes this was centrally coordinated activity and sometimes the countries ran their own operations. Actions (in this case, hostile actions) did speak louder than words in the battle of ideas fought by East and West.

Various intelligence services proposed plans to bomb the headquarters of RFE/RL in Munich, but there was only one physical attack: the bombing of 21 February 1981 – perhaps the ultimate “denial of service attack.“

Today’s communication and information technology is not immune to hostile attacks. Witness the “cyber jamming” of RFE/RL, which started on 26, April 2008. RFE/RL received up to 50,000 fake hits every second in a “denial of service attack,” which, initially targeted the website of RFE/RL's Belarus Service, but quickly spread to other sites. Within hours, eight RFE/RL websites (Belarus, Kosovo, Azerbaijan, Tatar-Bashkir, Radio Farda, South Slavic, Russian, and Tajik) were knocked out or otherwise affected.

An editorial in the Wall Street Journal sums up the everlasting problems:

The medium and the means may have changed from days when this legendary U.S. -funded station set up shop to beam news behind the Iron Curtain. But the conflict is no less pitched. Despots live in fear of accurate information and go to extraordinary means to stop it.

Welcome to the front lines of the 21st century's information wars.

Frank Smyth, Journalist Security Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, wrote in the November 14, 2010 issue of the Harvard International Review:

CPJ Table

More journalists were killed last year than ever before ... Nearly three out of four journalists killed around the world did not step on a landmine, or get shot in crossfire, or even die in a suicide bombing attack. Instead, no less than 72 percent of all 831 journalists killed on the job since 1992, according to data compiled with other figures cited below by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), were murdered outright, such as killed by a gunman escaping on the back of a motorcycle, shot or stabbed to death near their home or office, or found dead after having been abducted and tortured.

According to the CPJ, 45 Journalists have been killed in 2012. Since 1992, 940 journalists have been killed, 581 were "murdered for impunity." 

Journalist Bill Keller wrote in the New York Times on March 1, 2011:

The regimes that have sent their thugs against the press and tried to unplug the Internet are right to fear the media. I’ve cringed under the truncheons of Iran’s official vigilantes, and I worry every day for the safety of the journalists we’ve deployed in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and elsewhere. But I understand why journalists are targets.

Watching how the seep of information stirred ordinary Russians from a paralyzing fear was one of the true joys of covering Moscow’s spring. The Cold War voice of Radio Liberty, the underground copies of Solzhenitsyn and especially Gorbachev’s own attempts to deputize the Russian press by letting it expose corruption and incompetence — they all chipped away at the invincibility of the Soviet Union.

From a RFE/RL press release on March 4, 2011:

On the eve of Kazakhstan's Presidential election campaign, RFE/RL's websites in the country continue to be blocked. All RFE/RL websites, including its Kazakh, Russian and English language sites, have been inaccessible via connections through the country's largest Internet service providers KazTelecom and Nursat since February 21.

In an unofficial conversation with RFE/RL's Kazakh service, a member of Nursat's technical department admitted that the company is 'blocking' RFE/RL and that they 'have to obey their bosses.' Nursat and KazTelecom are closely associated with the Kazakh government. ... RFE/RL has set up a proxy link that enables users from Kazakhstan to connect to the Internet and RFE/RL's websites despite the blockage. There seems to be no interference with Radio Azattyq's radio transmissions at this point.

Later that day access to all RFE/RL websites were restored. 

In my opinion, if programming/information is perceived by the regime to be interfering in its internal politics, and thus a threat to the regime's existence, there is a good probability that the government/secret services would try to affect programming/information in three separate and distinct phases:

Direct Action against staff through

•  Coercion, i.e. Threats and Intimidation
•  Blackmail,
•  Physical attack, kidnapping, murder.

Infiltration of Institution (Insider Threat)

Physical attack on institutions (Denial of Service):

•  Headquarters building,
•  Broadcast center and/or Transmitting site.
•  Data Center.

The list of my predecessors is too long to include here, but I do pay homage to their years of dedication in protecting the staff and institution of the Cold War radios – a sensitive and demanding task. I cannot possible individually acknowledge thanks to all those, with whom I had contact and support in my years at RFE/RL. There are simply too many to list and to exclude anyone would be unnecessarily unfair. 

Security at RFE/RL, in its truest sense, was a "team effort" from both management and staff, which is the basis for a successful "security culture" in any organization facing external and internal threats.