Ronald Reagan and Radio Free Europe

Sunday, February 6, 2011, is the 100th birthday of Ronald Wilson Reagan. His life is being honored world-wide this weekend. As actor and later as President of the USA, he was a firm supporter of the Crusade for Freedom and Radio Free Europe.

Below is a reposting of the look at Ronald Reagan and his support for Cold War Radios that I posted on December 2, 2010.

The late 1940s witnessed the beginning of the Hollywood Blacklist when many persons working in films were prohibited from working because of their political beliefs and associations. In 1947, actor Ronald Reagan, as president of the Screen Actors Guild Board of Directors, testified before the Congressional House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) on the threat of Communism in the film industry.

Hollywood movie giants Daryl F. Zanuck and Cecil B. DeMille were two of National Committee for Free Europe’s (NCFE) original directors in 1949 and remained active in behalf of Radio Free Europe in the 1950s.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the launch of the first Crusade for Freedom campaign on September 4, 1950, under National Chairman General Lucius D. Clay. On September 16, 1950, Reagan sent a telegram to Chairman Clay offering support of the Screen Actors Guild: 

Dear General Clay: the more than 8,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild are proud to enlist in the Crusade for Freedom and to take as active part in the battle for mend’s minds now being waged around the world. We offer you our complete support in this great counter-offensive against Communist lies and treachery. Please call on us.

Walter Wanger, Los Angeles Crusade for Freedom chairman, wrote to Ronald Reagan on 21 September 1950

         Dear Ronnie:

         Thank you very much for sending me a copy of the wire ... It is very

gratifying to me, as a member of the Motion Picture Industry, to know that the entire industry is willing and anxious to aid in the CRUSADE and on behalf of the entire committee for the CRUSADE FOR FREEDOM I want to thank you and the Guild for pledging your wholehearted support to our drive.

 

(Reagan at a Hollywood Crusade Rally)

Reagan was narrator of the short film entitled "The Big Truth," which was written by Otis Carney and directed by Seymour Friedman and shown in movie theaters around the United States. Carney received a Freedom Foundation award in 1952 for his screenplay. The heavy propaganda film opens with a scene of two Czech soldiers chasing a man in a forest. They shoot at him as he crosses through the barbed wire Iron Curtain, meets two men on the other side and eventually appears in the film reading a script before the RFE microphone.

Reagan was narrator of the short film entitled "The Big Truth," which was written by Otis Carney and directed by Seymour Friedman and shown in movie theaters around the United States. Carney received a Freedom Foundation award in 1952 for his screenplay. The heavy propaganda film opens with a scene of two Czech soldiers chasing a man in a forest. They shoot at him as he crosses through the barbed wire Iron Curtain, meets two men on the other side, and eventually appears in the film reading a script before the RFE microphone.

(Excerpt from "The Big Truth")

The scene then switches to Ronald Reagan, who says, "This is the story of a man whom the Communists call traitor; traitor because he dared to speak of Freedom. Less than 24 hours ago Stefan Macochek met with a small group of men...” Then five men are shown listening to Radio Free Europe, one of whom is later identified as a Czech secret police agent. 

In preparing the American public for the second Annual Crusade for Freedom, in August 1951 the Advertising Council used the services of actor, and future US President, Ronald Reagan in a Hearst Corporation movie newsreel and a televised public service appeal for contributions. Excerpts of the film, including a scene of General Lucius D. Clay speaking in Berlin on October 24, 1950, were then used for a television appeal for the 1951 Crusade campaign.

The film ends with Reagan saying:

My name is Ronald Reagan. Last year the contributions of 16 million Americans to the Crusade For Freedom made possible the World Freedom Bell -- symbol of hope and freedom to the communist-dominated peoples of Eastern Europe. And built this powerful 135,000 Watt Radio Free Europe transmitter in Western Germany. This station daily pierces the iron curtain with the truth, answering the lies of the Kremlin and bringing a message of hope to millions trapped behind the iron curtain.

Grateful letters from listeners smuggled past the secret police express thanks to Radio Free Europe for identifying Communist Quislings and informers by name.

General Lucius D. Clay now asks all Americans to join with him in a second great Crusade for Freedom to build two more powerful Freedom Stations that will send more messages of hope of truth and hope through the Iron Curtain. And, to establish Radio Free Asia to stop the spread of Communism in the Far East.

The Crusade for Freedom is your chance, and mine, to fight Communism. 

Join now by sending your contributions to

         General Clay

         Crusade for Freedom

         Empire State Building

         New York City

Or, join in your local community.

President Reagan

In a speech to the British House of Commons at Westminster Palace on June 8, 1982 (The famous “Evil Empire” speech), President Reagan announced that the U.S. would launch a two-year $85 million “Project Democracy“ and a crusade for freedom:

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term -- the march of freedom and democracy, which will leave Marxism- Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies, which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.

Well, the task I've set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a
 crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.

He would later mention Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s role in the project:

It is impossible to resist oppression without having access to the truth and without being able to communicate with your fellow man. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty can help the people of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union overcome their problems. They are indispensable--the closest thing to a domestic free press that outsiders can provide for them.

In 1982, the Reagan administration submitted a budget increase of $21.3 million for the Board of International Broadcasting (the government oversight board of RFE/RL) and $27.3 million for the United States Information Agency, including Voice of America. In December 1982, President Ronald Reagan wrote to Senator Mark O. Hatfield, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee:

International broadcasting is vital to our national security...The importance of international broadcasting and its role in the worldwide competition of ideas is not always well understood. Radio continues to be the primary method of communication in many areas of the world. In some areas -- notably, in the communist world -- international radio remains virtually the only source of reliable news and information. For this very reason, the Soviet Union has long sought to prevent reception of these broadcasts. Their efforts have increased measurably in recent years in the wake of the turmoil in Poland. The jamming of Western radio broadcasts by the Soviet Union is now of unprecedented intensity, and for the first time extends to broadcasts intended for other countries -- specifically, Poland and Afghanistan.

The existing charters and guidelines of the Voice of America and of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty are sufficient indication of the painstaking efforts that have been undertaken to ensure the accuracy, reliability, and responsibility of our radio stations. There is nothing provocative about broadcasting the truth.

It is vital that we undertake initiatives now for the modernization and strengthening of our international radio broadcasting operations. The time has come to give these operations -- for too long systematically underfunded and neglected -- the attention they deserve. The additional funding I am requesting for the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in FY 83 is a critical first step in this direction.

The budgets were approved.

Mirrors with a Memory: Surveillance Photography Behind the Iron Curtain

Every snapshot a person takes or keeps is also a type of self-portrait, a kind of "mirror with memory" reflecting back those moments and people that were special enough to be frozen in time forever. (Judy Weiser, Director of PhotoTherapy Center)

One could, perhaps, think of the countries behind the Iron Curtain as a giant “camera obscura” i.e., completely dark with the exception of small pinholes of light, from which images of the world outside were projected on a wall opposite the pinhole. The free flow of news and information from western countries was cut off externally and internally. These pinholes of light were news and information broadcasts transmitted by the BBC, Deutsche Welle, RIAS, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and other Western radio stations (collectively below, the radios).

Those who listened to Western radio broadcasts had to do it surreptitiously in fear of dire consequences, including imprisonment. Yet, many brave persons made contact directly with the radios, for example through letters smuggled out or were mailed after being photocopied by secret police units. These listener letters illuminated what was happening behind the Iron Curtain. The radios would then broadcast excerpts of the letters back (keeping the names out of the broadcast). In this way, there was continual communication between the radios and their dedicated listeners. The regimes tried to prevent and stop this from happening, through identification of those who did so and then take whatever measures necessary to prevent it from reoccurring. One means the state used was surveillance photography of known and suspected persons (dissidents), who were in contact with the radios.

Below we will look at surveillance photography in Czechoslovakia and East Germany. At this time, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Poland have not focused on surveillance photography as an individual theme: the surveillance photographs remain in the individual files of those “persons of interest” to the secret police.

Czechoslovakia

A traveling photographic exhibit in Europe and in the United States was “Prague Through the Lens of the Secret Police.” The exhibit was assembled in 2008 by two Czech research institutes — the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR) and the Security Services Archive (ABS) — to coincide with the Czech presidency of the European Union. In 2009, it was at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and featured photographs and films taken by the surveillance unit of the Czechoslovak secret police (Státní bezpečnost, or StB) in the 1970s and 1980s—the period of so-called normalization after the 1969 Soviet led invasion to suppress the “Prague Spring.” According to Dr. Mark Kramer, Director of the Cold War Studies Program at Harvard University, 

These photographs illustrate both the strength and the weakness of Czechoslovakia’s Communist regime — strength in being able to keep constant track of anyone who fell under suspicion, and weakness in being so obsessed by people who could not conceivably pose any threat.

The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, produced a “coffee-table“ book with over 200 surveillance photographs of “subjects of interest” that were taken in “golden” Prague, considered to be one of the most “photogenic” cities of Europe, if not the World. The photographs that are displayed in the traveling exhibit were described as black-and-white, which “magnifies the city’s gray, lifeless feel.” Vladimir Bosak, the book’s editor, explained,

Prague at first sight looks like a grey, boring city filled with scaffolding. But under this all there is the magic of a centuries-old city. It’s protruding there in those shadows. I admit that I’ve played with it, to really show in those pictures that genius loci, which even real socialism couldn’t kill totally.

Just before the collapse of Communism in Czechoslovakia, almost 800 persons worked in the Surveillance Directorate of the StB. In reviewing the exhibition at Harvard, Corydon Ireland of the newspaper Harvard Gazette asked, “Who were these secret-police officials, whose naïve pictures — taken without aid of the human eye from satchels and pockets — evoke so vividly the drab Prague of the Communist era?“ Corydon answered his own question in his review:

These domestic spies embraced a James Bond modernity. They used many cameras — concealed in tobacco pouches, purses, briefcases, transistor radios, lighters, and on engine blocks (for mobile surveillance). They mounted Sony television cameras in parked cars and in a baby carriage wheeled around by operatives posing as married couples. They ran up tabs for meals and beer. All was carefully archived, including deadpan written reports that read like postmodern fiction.

East Germany

The East German MfS (Ministirium for Staatssicherheit), commonly referred to as Stasi (short for Staatssicherheitsdienst, or State Security Service) at its height employed 91,000 to watch over a country of 16.4 million people. It has been described as an organization “three times the size of Hitler’s Gestapo ... spying on a population a quarter that of Nazi Germany.“

The ratio of officers to citizens was 1:180, i.e., one Stasi officer for 180 citizens. In comparison, the KGB in the Soviet Union was 1:595. Additionally, in the Cold War years, over 600,000 “unofficial / societal employees (IM)” were listed in the MfS files.

Between 1950 and 1990, Stasi operatives took almost 1.3 million surveillance photographs. The Operation-Technical-Department (Operativ-Technischer-Sektor, OTS), research and development department had over 1,000 persons working for it. Division 26 OTS was responsible for the development of surveillance equipment, including hidden cameras, including those, which were able to photograph through 1mm openings in walls. They were fitted with binoculars for the “photographers”.

In addition the OTS used cameras from the Soviet Union (F21) and Czechoslovakia. The F21 camera was developed by the Soviet KGB was robust, quiet and small—easily hidden in a shirt, jacket, pants pocket, women’s handbags, gasoline cans, watering cans in cemeteries, and even in a bra. It has been estimated from serial numbers on the cameras that a few thousand were built. Through the use of a special device, normal 35mm black and white film was cut to a 21mm format for use in the camera. The well-known optics and photographic companies Carl Zeiss Jena, Pentacon, and Praktica also developed special cameras and lenses for the OTS.

The archives of the Stasi stretch over 180 kilometers and contain more than 1.3 million photographs and 3,750 films taken between 1950 and 1990. German historian Dr. Karin Hartewig is the author of the book Das Auge der Partei – Fotografie und Staatssicherheit (The Eye of the Party – Photography and State Security), which in based on her research into the Stasi archives and details the Stasi surveillance photography of dissidents and others in East Germany.

Khrushchev Book Bombs

Thirty years ago, February 3, 1981, parcel bombs were delivered to the Paris homes of prominent Romanian exiles and free-lane program contributors to Radio Free Europe: Nicolae Penescu and Paul Goma. 

The parcel bombs were packed inside the hollowed-out book Khrushchev Remembers and mailed from Madrid, Spain.

Penescu was the former Romanian Interior Minister. It was reported in the press that he received serious injuries as a result of the explosion. Goma, a well-known dissident, was unhurt, but a French policeman reportedly was hurt when the police attempted to defuse the bomb. 

The following day, in Cologne, Germany, Romanian Broadcast Service freelancer Serban Orescu (later to become a full-time RFE broadcaster in Munich) was slightly hurt when he opened a similar package containing the Khrushchev Remembers book and it exploded. 

All three of these men also were active in the Romanian exile community and leading members of Romanian Human Rights campaigns. All three had been in Spain attending the Madrid Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in November 1980. 

In 1992, RFE sent a request for information about the book bombs, and other matters, to the head of the domestic intelligence service (SRI),who answered, "In order to intimidate some RFE freelancers, or other adversaries of the former regime, some explosive postal devices were used, which through detonation produced the known effects."

On November 7, 2007, the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania (IICCR) “lodged a penal notification with the High Court of Cassation and Justice regarding the acts of terrorism committed by Nicolae Plesita (Director of Foreign Intelligence) and five former "diplomats" from the Romanian Embassy in Bonn, who were expelled in 1984 for plotting to bomb the RFE headquarters building in Munich. One of the expelled "diplomats" had been ordered by his superiors in Bucharest to obtain a set of "specialized medical works about poisons that could not be traced by autopsies." The IICCR press release, in part, read:

The facts incriminated by the IICCR’s penal notification, most of which regard acts of terrorism, are extremely serious and they aimed elimination of some of the communist regime’s adversaries and also to inducing a state of fear and panic among opponents or potential opponents of the regime. 

The evidence used in supporting this penal notification are...official documents, testimonies from different sources, press articles etc. They all offer information about the placement in February 1981 of explosive devices. These devices were disguised as parcels and sent by mail to three well-known communist regime opponents with the intention to cause their death or serious body injuries. 

Since the death of the former Intelligence Director Plesita in 2009, there has been no further movement in the case.