Radio Free Europe: Still Broadcasting

Just yesterday, a friend told me he had been listening to “Radio Free Europe” in his first language, Russian. Assuming that he meant the REM song, I made a joke about Michael Stipe and commented blithely that I expected the Russian version of the pop song to be equally unintelligible. He asserted, though, that he was listening to the original Radio Free Europe as a streaming web broadcast. I squinted quizzically. “Didn’t they stop those radio broadcasts after the Iron Curtain fell in the early ‘90s?” I asked. Although I knew that Radio Free Europe’s pro-democracy news coverage and commentaries were sponsored to spread Western values of freedom in Soviet bloc countries, I had assumed that we were no longer countering other propaganda with our own. As it turns out, though, Radio Free Europe has grown and shifted its focus – still broadcasting radio transmissions to parts of the world that the United States deems needy of pro-freedom discourse.

For those of you who are unfamiliar (as I was) with the full history and current status of Radio Free Europe, this article will provide an introduction.

Radio Free Europe: 1950 to 1995

When the Iron Curtain went up after WWII, there was more than just barbed wire separating East from West. The Soviet Union and its satellite states were sealed off by harsh communist regimes, with leaders like Stalin and Khrushchev using military power, communist propaganda, and other repressive controls to keep Western ideologies out of the Eastern bloc. As Americans grew increasingly suspicious and fearful of the Soviet Union, they devised a way to communicate with citizens of Soviet satellite countries and expose those people to pro-Western propaganda that they hoped would result in regime change. The idea was to broadcast news and opinion pieces by recent emigres who had managed to escape to Western Europe. By using the languages and voices of the communist countries, it was hoped, these radio broadcasts could slowly break down the Soviet stronghold on ideas and values.