Cold War Radio Book (Updated)

For a more detailed look at security problems and intelligence activities at Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, my book Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989 is available for order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.  

Description from the publisher, McFarland: "During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty broadcast uncensored news and commentary to people living in communist nations. As critical elements of the CIA’s early covert activities against communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the Munich-based stations drew a large audience despite efforts to jam the broadcasts and ban citizens from listening to them. This history of the stations in the Cold War era reveals the perils their staff faced from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Romania and other communist states. It recounts in detail the murder of writer Georgi Markov, the 1981 bombing of the stations by "Carlos the Jackal," infiltration by KGB agent Oleg Tumanov and other events. Appendices include security reports, letters between Carlos the Jackal and German terrorist Johannes Weinrich and other documents, many of which have never been published."

It is also available for downloading as an eBook.

Reviews: 

"Cold War Radio is well documented and leaves no doubt about the value of the radios to the citizens of communist nations to which it broadcast. It also makes clear that for the broadcasters and the management, the Cold War was anything but cold. This is a valuable contribution to the literature." Hayden B. Peake, The Intelligence Officers Bookshelf, Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54. No. 2 (Jun. 2010). 

"The Director of Security Radio Liberty for 15 years from 1980 onwards. Cummings’ experience as a Russian linguist serving in the US Air Force in Berlin in the 1960s places him in the perfect position to supply this examination. For anyone with even the slightest interest in the machinery of the Cold War, it’s safe to say that "Cold War Radio" deserves your attention"--Historytimes.com

"The book is an excellent resource for future Cold War histories,". James Critchlow, Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2010

"A shortwave radio thriller...takes readers deep inside a world that their casual listening to these shortwave stations would never have revealed"--Radio Heritage Foundation. 

"I heartily reccomend this book to clandestine radio fans and anyone who's fascinated with the secret side of international broadcasting." Gerry Dexter, Popular Communications, November 2010.

Walter Cronkite and the "Towers of Truth"

Walter Cronkite 

In June 1957, Crusade for Freedom national leaders planned for 400 copies of a film Towers of Truth about the Crusade for Freedom and Radio Free Europe. The film was to be distributed to television stations and Crusade support groups around the United States for use in local campaigns.

Crusade for Freedom president Arthur Page wrote Dr. Frank Stanton, radio and television Columbia Broadcast System (CBS) president, a Free Europe Committee director and Crusade corporate member, and explained that the film was, “One of the most important elements of the Crusade’s public information activities, as the 400 prints of the new film are expected, as in the past, to be widely shown in all parts of the country – to various civic, luncheon clubs, schools volunteer Crusade groups and on local television stations.”

Famed television newscaster Walter Cronkite, once called "the most trusted man in America," expressed his willingness to narrate the film but needed the approval of Frank Stanton to do so.

Stanton gave his approval for Cronkite but only on his vacation time. Stanton wrote back to Page,  “We are very happy to give approval of Walter’s Cronkite’s participation as narrator of a film produced for general use in the 1958 Crusade for Freedom Campaign ... Walter has expressed great enthusiasm for the project and I am sure he will turn in a first-class job.”

There was no cost to the Crusade for Cronkite’s work, including his traveling to Munich. After a trade press premiere of Towers of Truth on November 21, 1957, Patterson wrote to Frank Stanton that

At the showing, the trade press, the Advertising Council people and the Radio Free Europe representatives agreed that the film was both highly professional, and highly effective. RFE likes is so much it is having it dubbed in German and several other languages for showing throughout Europe.

On November 22, 1957, John Patterson, Crusade executive vice-president, wrote to Stanton thanking him for allowing Walter Cronkite to narrate the 14-minute film and telling him that Cronkite did a “superb job.” 

1958 Ad

"Freedom is not Free" was the theme of the Advertising Council's 1958 Crusade campaign. One of the advertising appeals was "One dollar buys one minute of time on the 29 truth transmitters of Radio Free Europe." 

One example of how the film was later used at grass-roots Crusade campaigns and meetings in the United States took place in February 1958 in Mason City, Iowa, when 108 carriers of the newspaper Globe-Gazette (newspaperboys) watched Towers of Truth during the 1958 campaign kick off drive. Afterwards, they volunteered to take part in the drive to collect $1,000 for the Crusade. 

1958 Ad

Iowa state chairman W. Earl Hall said, “By joining the Crusade, carriers across the nation are reaffirming their faith in one of America’s most prized possessions: Freedom of the press, or the right to know. Their efforts make if possible for the enslaved millions behind the Iron Curtain to keep in contact with truth.”

Mrs. Camilla Mays Frank, chairman of the Women's Division of the City of New Orleans sent a fund solicitation letter, with a notice of the showing of Towers of Truth, to 500 women's clubs, including garden groups, in the New Orleans area. Another example of grass roots activities, was when the film was presented by Pennsylvania state chairman William K. Harrison at the “Oakmont-South–and-More” Women’s Club covered dish luncheon. 

The film was used in subsequent Crusade annual campaigns, for example, on Tuesday, March 10 1959, Towers of Truth was shown by the Idaho Falls, Idaho, television station KID-TV in cooperation with the East Idaho Crusade campaign. The film also was shown at 5:15 p.m., Wednesday, March 30, 1960, by television station WMAR (channel 2) seen in Hagerstown, Maryland and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Here is how the film Towers of Truth begins:

False Flag Operation: Agent “Krüger”

An approach by a hostile intelligence officer who misrepresents himself or herself as a citizen of a friendly country or organization. The person who is approached may give up sensitive information believing that it is going to an ally, not a hostile power.

"False Flag"

Spy book: the encyclopedia of espionage

  

“Krüger” was the code name for an intelligence agent at RFE/RL, possibly from 1972 to 1986. His story has an interesting twist, sometimes described as a classic “false-flag operation.” Below we will briefly look at his story.

"Krüger” was born in 1922 to Russian émigré parents living in Yugoslavia. During World War II, he went to Berlin in 1941 and studied at the Film Technical School for two years. He 1943, he became an officer of the Russian anti-Soviet army of General Vlasov. He was injured in battle and remained in a military hospital until February 1946. Afterwards, while living in various displaced persons' camps in Austria, He was able to get various jobs with the U.S. Army occupation forces as a film projectionist, until he successfully got a job with the Radio Liberty in 1955.

“Krüger” had a history of serious financial problems which ended in 1972, when that he became an agent of Division IX (counterintelligence) of the Main Administration for Intelligence (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung--HVA) of the former East German (DDR) Ministry for State Security” (Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit”- Stasi). This was the foreign intelligence service that would not normally have had any interest in the Radios, which did not directly broadcast to East Germany though the Russian language broadcasts of Radio Liberty, for example, could be heard in that country. 

The HVA was directly involved in various activities with non-German émigré groups in the West (presumably for the KGB), including employees of RFE/RL. Also part of his tasking was reporting was on the large and active Ukrainian exile community in Munich. He used his RFE/RL employment to maintain contact with them.

HVA officer, Karl-Hermann Mueller was one HVA officer responsible for "Krüger”. Müeller later said the Soviet KGB had originally recruited "Krüger” and in the early 1970s they turned the operation over to the HVA, possibly in July 1976. The HVA earlier had been tasked by the KGB with gathering information about the CIA in Germany. The HVA then wanted to use "Krüger” to gather information about presumed CIA involvement and personnel at the Radio Liberty. "Krüger” was then given his code name. Afterwards, he provided copies of internal RFE/RL memoranda, telephone books and any other written information of interest. “Krüger” met his contacts on a monthly basis in a restaurant in the town where he lived.  

Mueller said that "Krüger” was never told that his information was going to the HVA, or KGB but he believed he was providing information to British intelligence. "Kruger" was "anti-Soviet" and knowingly would have refused any known contact with the KGB. But “Krüger” was possibly originally recruited by a KGB officer, who also was at one time working with or for a British intelligence agency in World War Two. The KGB officer previously had been in "Krüger’s detachment, and the two maintained contact after the war. "Krüger" never knew about this man's Soviet connection.

The HVA used “Krüger” until February 1986, when a Soviet intelligence officer named Gundarev defected in Athens and was flown to the United States. HVA headquartersi sent a message to Moscow asking if Gundarev's defection could jeopardize the "Krüger” operation. The KGB answered that Gundarev had knowledge of the KGB's prior control of "Krüger.” The HVA thereupon stopped the "Krüger” operation.

"Krüger” was paid on the average DM 1000 per month to give his HVA control officer information about employees and supply documents from RFE/RL. Over the years, “Krüger” was paid in excess of DM 100,000 for his information, which totaled over 2,500 pages and was one meter thick and reportedly destroyed, along with all other foreign intelligence files, by the HVA in the immediate post-1989 events.

The only remaining references to agent “Krüger” are in microfilmed paper file cards that had processed before destruction and in the HVA computerized data base SIRA (System Information Recherche Aufklärung) available for research at the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic (BStU), Berlin.

The identity and activities of “Krüger” only became fully known in 1992. Because "Krüger” was last known to have met with his HVA contacts in February 1986, the statute of limitations in these cases was 5 years, thus there was no prosecution possibility.