Pigeon Power: The Cold War's "Leaping Lena"

A true story of when in the 1954-55 Radio Free Europe and Crusade for Freedom used a "Freedom Pigeon" to fight Communism.

As the story goes, a German racing pigeon was to fly from Munich in a race back to her home base of Klautzenbach, near Nuremberg. She got lost and landed in Pilzen Czechoslovakia. Someone, apparently a pigeon fancier, found her, attached a message for Radio Free Europe to her leg and let her go. She flew back to Klautzenbach. Her owner found the message and notified RFE; the pigeon and message were given to RFE. "Leaping Lena" became her nickname. The message she carried was

We plead with you not to slow down in the fight against communism because communism must be destroyed. We beg for a speedy liberation from the power of the Kremlin and the establishment of a United States of Europe. We listen to your broadcasts. They present a completely true picture of life behind the Iron Curtain. We would like you to tell us how we can combat “bolshevism” and the tyrannical dictatorship existing here. We are taking every opportunity to work against the regime and do everything in our power to sabotage it.

    

                  Unbowed Pilsen

"Leaping Lena" was brought to the United States in August 1954, where four World War II hero pigeons from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and 15 news 

photographers greeted her as a V.I.P. (Very Important Pigeon). Fort Monmouth was the site of the U.S. Army Signal Corps Pigeon Breeding and Training Center. Her arrival was sponsored by the American Racing Pigeon Union and the International Federation of American Homing Pigeon Fanciers.

One thousand American carrier pigeons were released in her honor and flew off in all directions as they headed home. But one carried a copy of the "Unbowed Pilsen" message to President Dwight Eisenhower in Washington, D.C.,  and one flew with a copy of the same message to Henry Ford II, president of the Crusade for Freedom, who was in Detroit, Michigan.

Newspaper headlines included, "Star Crusader for Radio Arrives in Nation," and "Lena, Pigeon Who Crashed Curtain, Gets Big Ovation." One photograph carried the caption: "The bird won honorary pigeonship in the United Slates after flying an anti-Communist message over the iron curtain." Another read "Pigeon of Pilsen on Mission in US." One New York Times headline was "Coos and Kudos to Greet 'Anti-Red" Pigeon Who Flew Message Through Iron Curtain."

One newspaper reporter not so kindly described her as "a rather drab looking expanse of feathers resembling any plump pigeon in any park."

After three weeks of quarantine at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Clifton, New Jersey, "Leaping Lena" reportedly then went on a press tour, helping to raise funds for Radio Free Europe in the 1954-1955 Crusade campaign. She was the "model for an insignia to be used in the fund drive to support Radio Free Europe broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain" and presumably retired in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey.

One of the four World War II hero pigeons was to be her mate, but, unfortunately, "Leaping Lena's" fate in the United States is not known. It is possible she was given to a zoo. According to a history of the U.S. Army Signal  Corps.

The advent of the electronics age brought about the demise of one of the Signal Corps' oldest forms of communications, pigeons. The Army's birds, like horses and mules before them, had fallen victim to progress. Consequently, the Signal Corps closed the Pigeon Breeding and Training Branch (formerly Center) at Fort Monmouth on 1 May 1957. The Corps sold its birds to the public except for the remaining war heroes, such as G.I. Joe, which it presented to zoos around the country.

For more information 

Rebecca Robbins Raines. Getting the Message Through: A Branch History of the U.S. Army
Signal Corps. http://www.history.army.mil/books/30-17/Front.htm#toc

The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: USA Domestic Impact

1957 Crusade Poster

One of the ever-lasting controversies that has remained alive for over half a century is the role that Radio Free Europe (RFE) played in its broadcasts to Hungary leading up to and during the 1956 Revolution. This controversy will not be resolved in a single blog posting, obviously, and I will not even try to do so. I encourage readers to comment on this controversy. At the end of this posting are some recommend sources of information.

The 1956 Hungarian Revolution was a focal point for the 1957 Crusade for Freedom campaign. Below we will briefly look at the controversy surrounding RFE and how the Hungarian Revolution played out domestically in the United States -- a subject not examined in much detail in Cold War histiography.

The new Communist government in Hungary needed a bogeyman to blame for the Revolution, rather than publicly admit to any shortcomings of the political system. Radio Free Europe as a recognized symbol in Hungary was the ideal candidate. The post-Revolution Hungarian government issued a “White Paper” on the events of the Revolution and directly blamed Radio Free Europe as one of the agitators guilty for not only inciting the revolution but also in allowing to it continue longer that necessary -- charges that continue to have believers today. 

The Hungarian White Paper included the following charges against RFE:

• The ideological preparation and practical direction of the counter-revolution,
• Provoking the armed struggle,
• Non-observance of the cease fire, and
• Arousing the mass hysteria, which led to the lynching of innocent men and women loyal to their people and their country.

Both the United Nations and West German governments investigated these and other allegations against Radio Free Europe and concluded differently. The West German government found that,

This investigation has shown that the assertions, which appeared in the press, that Radio Free Europe promised the Hungarians assistance by the West-armed assistance by the West-are not consistent with the facts. However, remarks were also made which were liable to cause misinterpretations. But a discussion, an exchange of views, took place, which also resulted in personnel changes and I believe that the matter can be considered settled for the time being.

The United Nations report concluded:

It would appear that certain broadcasts by Radio Free Europe helped to create an impression that support might be forth coming for the Hungarians. The Committee feels that in such circumstances the greatest restraint and circumspection are called for in international broadcasting.

Crusade for Freedom 1957 National Chairman Eugene Holman and Crusade president Arthur W. Page briefed sixty Crusade  “Trippers” at a luncheon in their honor on October 18, 1956, prior to their departure to Europe.  

The "Trippers" were in Munich on a “study tour,” when the Hungarian Revolution started. During a tour of the RFE headquarters building, they heard a musical program sung by the Hungarian Radio Choir, including “God Bless America.” On October 23, 1956, they visited a Free Europe Press balloon- launching site, where they individually launched balloons, with miniature newspapers.

"Trippers" in Paris

On October 24, 1956, the group visited the RFE monitoring station outside Munich at Schleissheim, where they listened first-hand to the local rebel stations broadcasting in Hungary. They then flew on to Berlin, where Dr. Otto Suhr, West Berlin mayor gave them each a small replica of the Freedom Bell. The “Trippers” then flew to Paris for a briefing by General Gruenther “on the role of NATO and psychological warfare in Western defense efforts."

        

Some members of the group published accounts of their activities and experiences after their return to the United States. For example, after she had returned, Mrs. R. I. C. Prout, president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, was interviewed on the NBC television shows “Home” and “Today,” wherein she detailed what she personally had seen and heard in Europe.

On November 2, 1956, Cord Myer of the CIA, with responsibility for RFE, wrote to Arthur Page, advising him that at that a letter or note from President Eisenhower to the Crusade for Freedom supporters “would not be what we wish. Particularly in view of the news just received of the Soviet intervention in Hungary.” The annual White House luncheon meeting of corporate executives who financially supported the Crusade for Freedom had to be temporarily postponed “because of the international situation.”

Journalist Drew Pearson wrote in his syndicated column that appeared in newspapers on November 8, 1956, about a meeting he had with a Hungarian émigré named Dr. Fabian who told him,

The Green candles in the windows. Green is the color of the peasants’ party. It has become the symbol of freedom, the symbol of protest, or revolt. All over Hungary you will see green candles in the windows. The Soviets can’t stop them.

                 

You will also see the green paint on the walls—slaps of green paint.  It’s a symbol. Your Crusade for Freedom has helped this. Your balloons have helped. They have carried messages, which keep the spirit of freedom alive. They have spread green all over Hungary.

The NBC television network series “Armstrong Circle Theater” aired a docudrama “Flight #387 from Budapest” on November 13, 1956, that was about a group of six men and one woman who escaped to West Germany by hijacking a commercial airliner. The television show was “based on research material supplied by the Crusade for Freedom in support of Radio Free Europe and Free Europe Press.”  One newspaper previewer wrote, "No tribute to the Hungarian love for freedom could hope to match the events of the past month but this story ... is exciting and well-written."

The December 1956 Crusade for Freedom Newsletter sent out to supporters focused on the events in Hungary. There were photographs and first person accounts of the events in Hungary. The newsletter editorial was “RFE must continue to bridge the Iron Curtain” and began with,

The Soviet Empire is in upheaval. Long years of oppression and brutality are reaping their harvest...The smiling faces of the Russian overlords have been ripped from their faces...One of the major instruments keeping the truth alive behind the Iron Curtain through these dark years was Radio Free Europe, supported by the American people through the Crusade for Freedom. And today, more than ever before, Radio Free Europe is needed by the people behind the Iron Curtain.

The main slogan for the 1957 Crusade campaign was: "The one thing the Iron Curtain can't keep out -- TRUTH." Advertisements were placed in such diverse magazines as Popular Science, Sports Illustrated and the Locomotive Engineers Journal. The 1957 Crusade began in February and the Advertising Council's newspaper advertisements contained other slogans such as “Great is TRUTH and Shall Prevail,” “Underground by Air,” and “...above all things TRUTH beareth away the Victory.”

In a press release, published in full in the December newsletter, Joseph C. Grew, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Free Europe Committee, not only denied in details that Radio Free Europe incited the Hungarian Revolution, but also he added, 

Radio Free Europe and Free Europe Press have performed the functions of a free press for the people behind the Iron Curtain. It is vital that they continue this work until freedom is regained. It has never been the policy or practice of Radio Free Europe to incite rebellion; instead it has been the policy to keep the hope of ultimate freedom alive and to encourage the captive peoples to seek expanding freedom by peaceful means.

Ike with '57 Poster

On January 8, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a letter to Crusade Chairman Holman that demonstrated his continuing interest in and support of the Crusade campaigns:

Since the Crusade for Freedom began six years ago, I have wholeheartedly endorsed its concept and its activities. More than ever before, contributing to the Crusade is an effective way for every American to reassert his belief in the indivisibility of human freedom, and in the right of peoples, wherever they may live, to have governments of their own choosing.

Events of the past several months are dramatic evidence of the profound depths of the spirit of freedom, which motivates the peoples of captive Europe. Soviet military intervention and repression in Hungary, designed to crush the spirit of freedom so bravely shown by the Hungarian people, makes it more vital than ever that Radio Free Europe continue to provide all the subjugated peoples with unbiased truth about events in their own lands and in the Free World. These peoples must remain assured that their courageous demonstration of mankind’s everlasting love of freedom is not passing unnoticed.

Arthur Page as president of the Crusade for Freedom sent out a letter to Crusade leaders on January 15, 1957, quoting from the Eisenhower letter and adding,

We of the Crusade more than ever must rise to the increased responsibilities which 1957 is placing on us. We know now – because of the way in which the American people responded to the Hungarian situation – that Americans will expect much of the Crusade. We must more than fulfill their expectations.

Just before the kickoff of the 1957 Crusade campaign, Arthur Page wrote a short letter to President Eisenhower that showed his close relationship to the President:

Dear Ike,

I shall be most happy to lunch at the White House on the fifth of February and do all I can to justify your sponsorship of the Crusade.

And, may I add, the State of the Nation message was a great paper.  There are two great dangers, the Russians from without and inflation from within and, of these, I fear inflation the more, for if it devitalizes us it also invites the Russians to increase their pressure.

For more information:

In the 1950s, Cord Meyer was the CIA Chief of the International Organization Division, which had administrative oversight of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, among other organizations. In his memoir Facing Reality: From World Federation to the CIA (New York: Harper and Row, 1980), there is a full chapter on RFE and detailed information on his and the CIA’s role in Hungary. 

A. Ross Johnson, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: The CIA Years and Beyond, Woodrow Wilson Press, Co-publisher: Stanford University Press, 2010. The book has what is probably the definitive analysis of RFE’s role in Hungary in 1956, Chapter 3, “Two Octobers in 1956,”  pp. 79-130, with full documentation from NSC, CIA, German, and RFE archives. 

For a scholar’s view of the CIA’s intelligence failure, see the excellent book by Charles Gati, Failed Illusions: Moscow, Washington, Budapest and the 1956 Hungarian Revolt. (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 2006). 

George R. Urban, Radio Free Europe and the Pursuit of Democracy: My War within the Cold War. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997). This book contains a detailed chapter review of the Hungarian Revolution, based on his access to the full set of recorded RFE programs in the German archives. His book The Nineteen Days: A Broadcasters Account of the Hungarian Revolution (London: Heinemann, 1957) is an insightful and contemporaneous review of Hungary 1956 and the role radio broadcasting.