91-678: RFE may refer to: Radio Free Europe Reason for encounter , in medical records Request For Evidence , issued by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Recursive Feature Elimination, a feature selection algorithm in machine learning and statistics The Russian Far East Rainfall estimates, from the Famine Early Warning Systems Network Request for enhancement, or change request , in software development Road foreman of engines ,
182-761: A "great many hours" of broadcast time were devoted to the dissemination of life-saving news and information following the disaster. Broadcast topics included "precautions for exposure to radioactive fallout" and reporting on the plight of the Estonians who were tasked with providing the clean-up operations in Ukraine. Communist governments also sent agents to infiltrate RFE's headquarters. Although some remained on staff for extended periods of time, government authorities discouraged their agents from interfering with broadcast activity, fearing that this could arouse suspicions and detract from their original purpose of gathering information on
273-591: A European-based organization. According to Puddington, Polish Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa and Russian reformer Grigory Yavlinsky would later recall secretly listening to the broadcasts despite the heavy jamming. The Soviet government turned its efforts towards blocking reception of Western programs. To limit access to foreign broadcasts, the Central Committee decreed that factories should remove all components allowing short-wave reception from USSR -made radio receivers. However, consumers easily learned that
364-821: A German train. After recovering from the Spanish flu he was assigned to the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference , along with his elder brother Foster. In 1921, while at the US Embassy in Istanbul , he helped expose The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a forgery. Dulles unsuccessfully attempted to persuade the US State Department to publicly denounce the forgery. From 1922 to 1926, Dulles served as chief of
455-564: A ban on all foreign media in the country, including RFE/RL. Kyrgyzstan suspended broadcasts of Radio Azattyk, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz language service, because it had asked that the government be able to pre-approve its programming. Other states such as Belarus , Iran , Turkmenistan , Tajikistan , and Uzbekistan prohibit re-broadcasting to local stations, making programming difficult for average listeners to access. In 1998, RFE/RL began broadcasting to Iraq . Iraqi president Saddam Hussein ordered Iraqi Intelligence Service , to "violently disrupt
546-459: A base at Platja de Pals , Spain . Radio Liberty expanded its audience by broadcasting programs in languages other than Russian. By March 1954, Radio Liberty was broadcasting six to seven hours daily in eleven languages. By December 1954, Radio Liberty was broadcasting in 17 languages including Ukrainian , Belarusian , Kazakh , Kyrgyz , Tajik , Turkmen , Uzbek , Tatar , Bashkir , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Georgian , and other languages of
637-491: A failed attempt by a Czechoslovak Intelligence Service (StB) agent in 1959 to poison the salt shakers in the organization's cafeteria. In late 1960, an upheaval in the Czechoslovak service led to a number of dramatic changes in the organization's structure. RFE's New York headquarters could no longer effectively manage their Munich subsidiary. As a result major management responsibilities were transferred to Munich, making RFE
728-628: A former member of the United Fruit Company 's Board of Directors. However, in a detailed examination of the connections between the United Fruit Company and the Eisenhower Administration, Immerman makes no mention of Dulles being part of the United Fruit Company's Board, although he does note that Sullivan & Cromwell had represented the company. Dulles was strongly opposed to Congolese president Patrice Lumumba . In 1960
819-570: A hundred" extramarital affairs, including some during his tenure with the CIA. Initially assigned to Vienna , he was transferred to Bern , Switzerland, along with the rest of the embassy personnel shortly before the U.S. entered the First World War. Later in life Dulles said he had been telephoned by Vladimir Lenin , seeking a meeting with the American embassy on April 8, 1917, the day before Lenin left Switzerland to travel to Saint Petersburg aboard
910-570: A long list of projects to counter the "Communist appeal" among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world. RFE was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means. American policymakers such as George Kennan and John Foster Dulles acknowledged that the Cold War was essentially a war of ideas . The implementation of surrogate radio stations
1001-644: A movement within the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell to close their Berlin office. The effort was successful, and the firm ceased to conduct business in Nazi Germany. As the Republican Party began to divide into isolationist and interventionist factions, Dulles became an outspoken interventionist, running unsuccessfully in 1938 for the Republican nomination in New York's Sixteenth Congressional District on
SECTION 10
#17328526760861092-502: A network of well-connected émigrés and interviews with travelers and defectors. RFE did not use paid agents inside the Iron Curtain and based its bureaus in regions popular with exiles. RFE also extensively monitored Communist bloc publications and radio services, creating a body of information that would later serve as a resource for organizations across the world. In addition to its regular broadcasts, RFE spread broadcasts through
1183-621: A number of central security concerns, including cyberterrorist attacks and general terrorist threats. After the September 11 attacks , American and Czech authorities agreed to move RFE/RL's Prague headquarters away from the city center in order to make it less vulnerable to terrorist attack. On February 19, 2009, RFE/RL began broadcasting from its new headquarters east of the city center. RFE/RL says that it continues to struggle with authoritarian regimes for permission to broadcast freely within their countries. On January 1, 2009, Azerbaijan imposed
1274-583: A permanent bureau in Moscow. Following the November 17 demonstrations in 1989 and brutal crackdown by Czechoslovak riot police, Drahomíra Dražská [ cs ] , a porter at a dormitory in Prague, reported that a student, Martin Šmíd , had been killed during the clashes. The Charter 77 activist Petr Uhl believed this account and passed it along to major news organizations, who broadcast it. After Reuters and
1365-422: A plan to kill Lumumba was considered and Dulles allocated $ 100,000 to the plan, but it never materialised. Dulles believed that Lumumba posed "a grave danger as long as he was not disposed of". Several failed assassination plots utilizing CIA-recruited operatives and anti-Castro Cubans directly against Castro undermined the CIA's credibility. The reputation of the agency and its director declined drastically after
1456-450: A platform calling for the strengthening of U.S. defenses. Dulles collaborated with Hamilton Fish Armstrong , the editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, on two books, Can We Be Neutral? (1936), and Can America Stay Neutral? (1939). They concluded that diplomatic, military, and economic isolation, in a traditional sense, were no longer possible in an increasingly interdependent international system. Dulles helped some German Jews, such as
1547-466: A publicity trip to more than 20 U.S. cities and contributed $ 1,317,000 to the expansion of RFE. Writer Sig Mickelson said that the NCFE's mission was to support refugees and provide them with a useful outlet for their opinions and creativity while increasing exposure to the modern world. The NCFE divided its program into three parts: exile relations, radio , and American contacts. The United States funded
1638-636: A railroad occupation RFE (market research) (Recency, Frequency, Engagement) RFE Phonetic Alphabet , popular for phonetic notation in Spain and Mexico. Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title RFE . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RFE&oldid=1064926407 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1729-473: A result of the report, Truman named a new Director of Central Intelligence, Lieutenant General Walter Bedell Smith . Smith recruited Dulles into the CIA to oversee the agency's covert operations as Deputy Director for Plans , a position he held from January 4, 1951. On August 23, 1951, Dulles was promoted to deputy director of Central Intelligence, second in the intelligence hierarchy. In this capacity, in 1952–53 he
1820-646: A series of operations that distributed leaflets via meteorological balloons ; one such operation, Prospero, sent messages to Czechoslovakia. From October 1951 to November 1956, the skies of Central Europe were filled with more than 350,000 balloons carrying over 300 million leaflets, posters, books, and other printed matter. The nature of the leaflets varied, and according to Arch Puddington included messages of support and encouragement "to citizens suffering under communist oppression", "satirical criticisms of communist regimes and leaders", information about dissident movements and human rights campaigns, and messages expressing
1911-558: A setback in the coup, and the two met while checking in to the Hotel Excelsior . The meeting turned out to be fortuitous for the United States and the coup. CIA and independent historians say that the meeting was happenstance, but conspiracy theories abound. President Jacobo Arbenz Guzman of Guatemala was removed in 1954 in a CIA-led coup carried out under the code name Operation PBSuccess. Eduardo Galeano described Dulles as
SECTION 20
#17328526760862002-495: A transmitter base at Glória , Portugal in 1951. It also had a base at Oberwiesenfeld Airport on the outskirts of Munich, employing several former Nazi agents who had been involved in the Ostministerium under Gerhard von Mende during World War II. In 1955, Radio Liberty began broadcasting programs to Russia's eastern provinces from shortwave transmitters located on Taiwan . In 1959, Radio Liberty commenced broadcasts from
2093-628: Is a private 501(c)(3) corporation supervised by the U.S. Agency for Global Media , which oversees all government-supported international broadcasting. Since the Revolutions of 1989 and the Soviet Union's dissolution , the organization's European presence has been reduced. Radio Free Europe was created and grew in its early years through the efforts of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), an anti-communist CIA front organization that
2184-472: Is considered one of the essential creators of the modern United States intelligence system and was an indispensable guide to clandestine operations during the Cold War. He established intelligence networks worldwide to check and counter Soviet and eastern European communist advances as well as international communist movements. In 1953, Dulles was involved, along with Frank Wisner , in Operation Ajax ,
2275-779: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Radio Free Europe Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty ( RFE/RL ) is an American government -funded media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe , Central Asia , the Caucasus , and the Middle East . Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL operates 21 local bureaus with over 500 core staff, 1,300 freelancers, and 680 employees at its corporate offices in Washington, D.C. Nicola Careem serves as
2366-625: Is still debated. In 1958, the Central Committee mentioned that the sum spent on jamming was greater than the sum spent on domestic and international broadcasting combined. The Central Committee has admitted that circumventing jamming was both possible and practised in the Soviet Union. Due to limited resources, authorities prioritized jamming based on the location, language, time, and theme of Western transmissions. Highly political programs in Russian, broadcast at prime time to urban centers, were perceived as
2457-669: The 1948 Presidential election , Dulles was, together with his brother, an advisor to Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey . The Dulles brothers and James Forrestal helped form the Office of Policy Coordination . During 1949 he co-authored the Dulles–Jackson–Correa Report , which was sharply critical of the Central Intelligence Agency, which had been established by the National Security Act of 1947 . Partly as
2548-743: The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état , the Lockheed U-2 aircraft program, the Project MKUltra mind control program, and the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. As a result of the failed invasion of Cuba, Dulles was fired by President John F. Kennedy . Dulles was a member of the Warren Commission that investigated Kennedy's assassination . A conspiracy theory suggesting that Dulles and the CIA were somehow involved in Kennedy's assassination and its potential cover up in
2639-639: The American Whig–Cliosophic Society . He taught school in India before entering the diplomatic service in 1916. In 1920, he married Martha "Clover" Todd (March 5, 1894 – April 15, 1974). They had three children: daughters Clover and Joan, and son Allen Macy Dulles II (1930–2020), who was wounded and permanently disabled in the Korean War and spent the rest of his life in and out of medical care. According to his sister, Eleanor, Dulles had "at least
2730-400: The Bay of Pigs Invasion fiasco of 1961. President Kennedy reportedly said he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds." However, following a "rigorous inquiry into the agency's affairs, methods, and problems ... [Kennedy] did not 'splinter' it after all and did not recommend Congressional supervision. Instead, President Kennedy transferred the CIA to
2821-584: The Czech Republic proceeded for three more years under the agreement with Czech Radio. In 2004 RFE/RL stopped broadcasting to Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania , Slovakia , Croatia , Montenegro , Bulgaria , and Romania . RFE/RL Chief Jeffrey Gedmin said in 2008 that the agency's mission is to serve as a surrogate free press in countries where such press is banned by the government or not fully established. It maintains 20 local bureaus. Governments that are subjected to critical reporting often attempt to obstruct
RFE - Misplaced Pages Continue
2912-517: The Eisenhower administration 's new Cold War national security policy known as the " New Look ". At Dulles's request, President Eisenhower demanded that Senator Joseph McCarthy discontinue issuing subpoenas against the CIA. In March 1950, McCarthy had initiated a series of investigations into potential communist subversion of the Agency. Although none of the investigations revealed any wrongdoing,
3003-608: The Hungarian revolution that year. During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 , RFE broadcasts encouraged rebels to fight and suggested that Western support was imminent. These RFE broadcasts violated Eisenhower 's policy, which had determined that the United States would not provide military support for the Revolution. According to Arch Puddington, a former bureau manager for RFL/RL, a number of changes were implemented at RFE in
3094-673: The National Security Medal at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia . The next day, November 29, the White House released a resignation letter signed by Dulles. He was replaced by John McCone . Dulles referred to the Bay of Pigs failure as "the worst day of my life" and developed a strong dislike of Kennedy, later telling journalist Willie Morris "that little Kennedy, he thought he
3185-673: The Near East division of the Department of State . He then earned a law degree from George Washington University Law School and took a job at Sullivan & Cromwell , the New York firm where his brother, John Foster Dulles, was a partner. He became a director of the Council on Foreign Relations in 1927, the first new director since the Council's founding in 1921. He was the Council's secretary from 1933 to 1944 and its president from 1946 to 1950. During
3276-451: The U.S. Secretary of State . The end to jamming came abruptly on 21 November 1988 when Soviet and Eastern European jamming of virtually all foreign broadcasts, including RFE/RL services, ceased at 21:00 CET . During the Cold War, RFE was often criticized in the United States as not being sufficiently anti-communist. Although its non-governmental status spared it from full scale McCarthyist investigations, several RFE journalists, including
3367-625: The United States Air Force conducted a competition for a new photo reconnaissance aircraft. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation 's Skunk Works submitted a design number called the CL-282, which married sailplane-like wings to the body of a supersonic interceptor. This aircraft was rejected by the Air Force, but several of the civilians on the review board took notice, and Edwin Land presented a proposal for
3458-573: The Voice of America (VOA) launched a new Russian-language TV news program, Current Time , "to provide audiences in countries bordering Russia with a balanced alternative to the disinformation produced by Russian media outlets that is driving instability in the region ". Over the next two years, Current Time – led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA – expanded to become a 24/7 digital and TV stream for Russian-speaking audiences worldwide. Around 2017, Voice of America and RFE/RL launched Polygraph.info , and
3549-526: The Voice of America (VOA) reported the story, RFE/RL decided to run it too. However, the report later turned out to be false. The story is credited by many sources with inspiring Czechoslovak citizens to join the subsequent (larger) demonstrations which eventually brought down the communist government. In 1995, RFE/RL moved its headquarters from Munich to Prague, to the building of the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly . It had been vacant since
3640-456: The 1960s, direct funding responsibility shifted to Congress. RFE/RL received funds from the CIA until 1972. The CIA's relationship with the radio stations began to break down in 1967, when Ramparts magazine published an exposé claiming that the CIA was channeling funds to civilian organizations. Further investigation into the CIA's funding activities revealed its connection to both RFE and RL, sparking significant media outrage. In 1971,
3731-743: The 1992 dissolution of Czechoslovakia . The Clinton Administration reduced funding significantly and placed the service under the United States Information Agency 's oversight. RFE/RL ended broadcasts to Hungary in 1993 and stopped broadcasts to Poland in 1997. On January 31, 1994, RFE/RL launched broadcasts to the former Yugoslavia in Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian languages. In the late 1990s RFE/RL launched broadcast to Kosovo in Albanian and to North Macedonia in Macedonian. Broadcast to
RFE - Misplaced Pages Continue
3822-496: The American public deserved to be informed of the perils of possible nuclear war with the Soviet Union, because even though America held numerical nuclear superiority, the Soviets would still have enough nuclear weapons to severely damage American society regardless of how many more such bombs the United States might possess or how badly those U.S. weapons could destroy the Soviets. The Agency's covert operations were an important part of
3913-489: The CIA officer in charge of overseeing broadcast services from 1954 to 1971, the CIA took a position of minimal government interference in radio affairs and programming. In 1974, they came under the control of an organization called the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB). The BIB was designed to receive appropriations from Congress, give them to radio managements, and oversee the appropriation of funds. On 1 October 1976,
4004-549: The Caucasus ), focused on local and international news and current affairs, organized in coordination with RFE/RL's Georgian Service. On January 15, 2010, RFE/RL began broadcasting to the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan in Pashto . The service, known as Radio Mashaal ("Torch"), was created in an attempt to counter the growing number of local Islamic extremist radio stations broadcasting in
4095-686: The Caucasus and Central Asia. According to certain European politicians such as Petr Nečas , RFE played a significant role in the collapse of communism and the development of democracy in Eastern Europe. Unlike government-censored programs, RFE publicized anti-Soviet protests and nationalist movements. Its audience increased substantially following the failed Berlin riots of 1953 and the highly publicized defection of Józef Światło . Arch Puddington argues that its Hungarian service's coverage of Poland 's Poznań riots in 1956 served as an inspiration for
4186-566: The Commission did not discover Kennedy's secret involvement in the administration's illegal plans to assassinate Castro and other foreign leaders. Robert F. Kennedy also urged Lyndon Johnson to put Allen Dulles on the Warren Commission most likely fearing revelation of Kennedy's clandestine involvement in Cuba. In 1966, Princeton University 's American Whig-Cliosophic Society awarded Dulles
4277-823: The Department of Defense under the close supervision and control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff which would also report on CIA plans and operations to the President." During the Kennedy Administration, Dulles faced increasing criticism. In autumn 1961, following the Bay of Pigs incident and the Algiers putsch against Charles de Gaulle , Dulles and his entourage, including Deputy Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr. and Deputy Director Charles Cabell , were forced to resign. On November 28, 1961, Kennedy presented Dulles with
4368-536: The Hungarian service was also relaunched. Allen Dulles Allen Welsh Dulles ( / ˈ d ʌ l ɪ s / DUL -iss ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was an American lawyer who was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest serving director. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War , he oversaw the 1953 Iranian coup d'état ,
4459-411: The Iraqi broadcasting of Radio Free Europe". IIS planned to attack the headquarters with an RPG-7 from a window across the street. Czech Security Information Service (BIS) foiled the plot. In 2008, Afghan president Hamid Karzai urged his government to provide assistance to a rape victim after listening to her story on Radio Azadi , RFE/RL's Afghan service. According to REF/RL in 2009, Radio Azadi
4550-421: The Jackal"), and paid for by Nicolae Ceaușescu , president of Romania. But, according to the former head of the KGB Counterintelligence Department K, general Oleg Kalugin , the bombing operation was planned over two years by Department K, with the active involvement of a KGB mole inside the radio station, Oleg Tumanov. This revelation directly implicates KGB colonel Oleg Nechiporenko , who recruited Tumanov in
4641-411: The Nuremberg trial, and creating a diplomatic rift between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. After the war in Europe, Dulles served for six months as the OSS Berlin station chief and later as station chief in Bern. The Office of Strategic Services was dissolved in October 1945 and its functions transferred to the State and War Departments. In 1947, Dulles served as a senior staffer on the Herter Committee . In
SECTION 50
#17328526760864732-452: The Russian-language factograph.info , as fact-checking sites. On July 19, 2018, RFE/RL announced it will be returning its news services to Bulgaria and Romania by the end of 2018 amid growing concern about a reversal in democratic gains and attacks on the rule of law and the judiciary in the two countries. The Romanian news service re-launched on January 14, 2019, and the Bulgarian service re-launched on January 21, 2019. On 8 September 2020
4823-453: The United States Congress and that a new organization, the Board for International Broadcasting (BIB) would simultaneously link the stations and the federal government, and serve as an editorial buffer between them. According to Arch Puddington, a former bureau manager for RFE/RL, though both radio stations initially received most of their funding from the CIA, RFE maintained a strong sense of autonomy; Puddington says that under Cord Meyer ,
4914-418: The Warren Commission have been subject to popular debate among historians, political commentators and conspiracy theorists. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) concluded that the CIA was not involved in the assassination of Kennedy. Between his stints of government service, Dulles was a corporate lawyer and partner at Sullivan & Cromwell . His older brother, John Foster Dulles ,
5005-441: The aircraft to Dulles. The aircraft became what is known as the U-2 'spy plane', and it was initially operated by CIA pilots. Its introduction into operational service in 1957 greatly enhanced the CIA's ability to monitor Soviet activity through overhead photo surveillance. The aircraft eventually entered service with the Air Force. The Soviet Union shot down and captured a U-2 in 1960 during Dulles's term as CIA chief. Dulles
5096-403: The appointment, noting that Kennedy fired him. Therefore, he was unlikely to be impartial in passing the judgments charged to the Warren Commission. In the view of journalist and author Stephen Kinzer , Johnson appointed Dulles primarily so that Dulles could "coach" the Commission on how to interview CIA witnesses and what questions to ask because Johnson and Dulles were both anxious to ensure that
5187-561: The banker Paul Kemper, escape to the United States from Nazi Germany. Dulles was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services by William J. Donovan in October 1941, after the outbreak of the World War II in Europe, and on November 12, 1942, he moved to Bern, Switzerland, where he lived at Herrengasse 23 for the duration of World War II. As Swiss Director of the OSS , Dulles worked on intelligence about German plans and activities, and established wide contacts with German émigrés, resistance figures, and anti-Nazi intelligence officers. He
5278-459: The border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Radio Mashaal says that it broadcasts local and international news with in-depth reports on terrorism, politics, women's issues, and health care (with an emphasis on preventive medicine ). The station broadcasts roundtable discussions and interviews with tribal leaders and local policymakers, in addition to regular call-in programs. On October 14, 2014, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and
5369-450: The conspirators nonetheless gave him reports on developments in Germany, including sketchy but accurate warnings of plans for Hitler's V-1 and V-2 missiles. Dulles was involved in Operation Sunrise , secret negotiations in March 1945 to arrange a local surrender of German forces in northern Italy. His actions in Operation Sunrise have been criticized by historians for offering German SS General Karl Wolff protection from prosecution at
5460-434: The controversial circumstances surrounding the deaths of three directors of RFE/RL's Romanian Service. On February 21, 1981, RFE/RL's headquarters in Munich was struck by a massive bomb, causing $ 2 million in damage. Several employees were injured, but there were no fatalities. Stasi files opened after 1989 indicated that the bombing was carried out by a group under the direction of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (known as "Carlos
5551-455: The controversy over its alleged role in the Hungarian Revolution. During the Mikhail Gorbachev era in the Soviet Union under Glasnost , RFE/RL benefited significantly from the Soviet Union's new openness. Gorbachev stopped the practice of jamming the broadcasts. In addition, dissident politicians and officials could be freely interviewed by RFE/RL for the first time without fearing persecution or imprisonment. By 1990, Radio Liberty had become
SECTION 60
#17328526760865642-408: The covert operation that led to the removal of democratically elected prime minister of Iran , Mohammad Mossadegh , and his replacement with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , Shah of Iran. Rumors of a Soviet takeover of the country had surfaced due to the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company . By coincidence, on August 18, 1953, Dulles was taking a vacation in Rome while the Shah fled there after
5733-415: The death of Dulles and expressed shock that his former boss had never told him about it. After meeting with German Information Minister Joseph Goebbels , Dulles stated he was impressed with him and cited his "sincerity and frankness" during their interaction. In 1935, Dulles returned from a business trip to Germany concerned by the Nazi treatment of German Jews and, despite his brother's objections, led
5824-467: The diplomat Eleanor Lansing Dulles . His maternal grandfather, John W. Foster , was Secretary of State under Benjamin Harrison , while his uncle by marriage, Robert Lansing was Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson . Growing up in a parsonage , Dulles was made to attend church daily. As his parents distrusted public education, Dulles was homeschooled by various private tutors. Dulles graduated from Princeton University , where he participated in
5915-402: The director of the Czech service, Ferdinand Peroutka , were accused of being soft on Communism. Fulton Lewis , a U.S. radio commentator and fervent anti-communist, was one of RFE's sharpest critics throughout the 1950s. His critical broadcasts inspired other journalists to investigate the inner workings of the organization, including its connection to the CIA. When its CIA ties were exposed in
6006-479: The early 1960s and was his Moscow curator. Nechiporenko has never denied his involvement. In an interview with Radio Liberty in 2003, he justified the bombing on the grounds that RFE/RL was an American propaganda tool against the Soviet Union. Tumanov was exfiltrated back to the USSR in 1986. Nechiporenko contacts with Carlos in the 1970s were confirmed by Nechiporenko himself in an article published by Segodnya in 2000 and by an article in Izvestia in 2001. For
6097-497: The editor-in-chief. Founded during the Cold War , RFE began in 1949 targeting Soviet satellite states , while RL, established in 1951, focused on the Soviet Union . Initially funded covertly by the CIA until 1972, the two merged in 1976. RFE/RL was headquartered in Munich from 1949 to 1995, with additional broadcasts from Portugal's Glória do Ribatejo until 1996. Soviet authorities jammed their signals, and communist regimes often infiltrated their operations. Today, RFE/RL
6188-464: The first two days following the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, the official Eastern Bloc media did not report any news about the disaster, nor any full account for another four months. According to the Hoover Institute , the people of the Soviet Union "became frustrated with inconsistent and contradictory reports", and 36% of them turned to Western radio to provide accurate and pertinent information. Listenership at RFE/RL "shot up dramatically" as
6279-401: The hearings were potentially damaging, not only to the CIA's reputation but also to the security of sensitive information. Documents made public in 2004 revealed that the CIA, under Dulles's orders, had broken into McCarthy's Senate office and fed disinformation to him in order to discredit him, in order to stop his investigation of alleged communist infiltration of the CIA. In the early 1950s,
6370-680: The late 1920s and the early 1930s, he served as legal adviser to the delegations on arms limitation at the League of Nations . He met with Adolf Hitler , Benito Mussolini , Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov , and the prime ministers of Britain and France. In April 1933, Dulles and Norman Davis met with Hitler in Berlin on State Department duty. After the meeting, Dulles wrote to his brother Foster and reassured him that conditions under Hitler's regime "are not quite as bad" as an alarmist friend had indicated. Dulles rarely spoke about his meeting with Hitler, and future CIA director Richard Helms had not even heard of their encounter until decades after
6461-420: The late 1960s. Technically, he was not a journalist. As a historian by training, he worked in the RFE's media analysis service in Munich. After more than five years, Czechowicz returned to Poland in 1971 and participated in programs aimed at embarrassing Radio Free Europe and the United States government." According to Richard Cummings, former Security Chief of Radio Free Europe, other espionage incidents included
6552-684: The mass murder in Auschwitz. Through the Maier Group and Kurt Grimm, Dulles also received information about the economic situation in the Nazi sphere of influence. After the resistance group was uncovered by the Gestapo, Dulles sent American agents to Austria to contact any surviving members. Although Washington barred Dulles from making firm commitments to the plotters of the July 20, 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler ,
6643-557: The most dangerous. Seen as less politically threatening, Western music such as jazz was often transmitted unjammed. During and after the Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962, jamming was intensified. The Cuban Missile Crisis, however, was followed by a five-year period when the jamming of most foreign broadcasters ceased, only to intensify again with the Prague Spring in 1968. It ceased again in 1973, when Henry Kissinger became
6734-426: The most listened-to Western radio station broadcasting to the Soviet Union. Its coverage of the 1991 August coup enriched sparse domestic coverage of the event and drew in a wide audience. The broadcasts allowed Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to stay in touch with the Russian people during this turbulent period. Boris Yeltsin later expressed his gratitude through a presidential decree allowing Radio Liberty to open
6825-456: The necessary spare parts were available on the black market, and electronics engineers opposing the idea would gladly convert radios back to being able to receive short-wave transmissions. The most extensive form of reception obstruction was radio jamming . This was controlled by the KGB , which in turn reported to the Central Committee. Jamming was an expensive and arduous procedure, and its efficacy
6916-549: The priest Heinrich Maier , who collected information through many different contacts with scientists and the military. From 1943 onward, he received very important information from this resistance group about V-1 , V-2 rockets , Tiger tanks , Messerschmitt Bf 109 , Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet , and other aircraft and the related factories. This helped Allied bombers to target war-decisive armaments factories. In particular, Dulles then had crucial information for Operation Crossbow and Operation Hydra . The group reported to him about
7007-523: The radio station's activities. From 1965 to 1971, an agent of the SB ( Służba Bezpieczeństwa , Communist Poland's security service) successfully infiltrated the station with an operative, Captain Andrzej Czechowicz. According to former Voice of America Polish service director Ted Lipien: "Czechowicz is perhaps the most well known communist-era Polish spy who was still an active agent while working at RFE in
7098-559: The radio stations came under public spotlight once more when U.S. Senator Clifford Case introduced Senate Bill 18, which would have removed funding for RFE and RL from the CIA's budget, appropriated $ 30 million to pay for fiscal year 1972 activities, and required the State Department to temporarily oversee the radio stations. In May 1972, President Richard Nixon appointed a special commission to deliberate RFE/RL's future. The commission proposed that funding come directly from
7189-595: The solidarity of the American people with the residents of Eastern European nations. Puddington stated that "the project served as a publicity tool to solidify RFE's reputation as an unbiased broadcaster". Whereas Radio Free Europe broadcast to Soviet satellite countries, Radio Liberty broadcast to the Soviet Union . Radio Liberty was formed by American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Amcomlib) in 1951. Originally named Radio Liberation from Bolshevism,
7280-539: The station provided free media to German listeners. In January 1950, the NCFE obtained a transmitter base at Lampertheim , West Germany, and on July 4 of the same year RFE completed its first broadcast aimed at Czechoslovakia . In late 1950, RFE began to assemble a full-fledged foreign broadcast staff, becoming more than a "mouthpiece for exiles". Teams of journalists were hired for each language service, and an elaborate system of intelligence gathering provided up-to-date broadcast material. Most of this material came from
7371-489: The station was renamed in 1956 to Radio Liberation in 1956, and received its present name, Radio Liberty after a policy statement emphasizing "liberalization" rather than "liberation". Radio Liberty began broadcasting from Lampertheim on March 1, 1953, gaining a substantial audience when it covered the death of Joseph Stalin four days later. In order to better serve a greater geographic area, RFE supplemented its shortwave transmissions from Lampertheim with broadcasts from
7462-403: The station's activities through a range of tactics, including extensive jamming, shutting down local re-broadcasting affiliates, or finding legal excuses to close down offices. RFE/RL says that its journalists and freelancers often risk their lives to broadcast information, and their safety has always been a major issue. Reporters have frequently been threatened and persecuted. RFE/RL also faces
7553-473: The two radio stations merged to form Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and added the three Baltic language services to their repertoire. Funding for RFE/RL increased during the Reagan administration . President Ronald Reagan , a fervent anticommunist, urged the stations to be more critical of the communist regimes. This presented a challenge to RFE/RL's broadcast strategy, which had been very cautious since
7644-681: The wake of this scandal, including the establishment of the Broadcast Analysis Division to ensure that broadcasts were accurate and professional while maintaining the journalists' autonomy. RFE was seen as a serious threat by Romanian president Nicolae Ceaușescu . From the mid-1970s to his overthrow and execution in December 1989, Ceaușescu waged a vengeful war against the RFE/RL under the program "Ether". Ether operations included physical attacks on Romanian journalists working for RFE/RL, including
7735-433: Was a god". Dulles found life outside the CIA difficult, with his friend James Angleton recalling "He had a very difficult time to decompress". Later, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, on November 22, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Dulles as one of seven commissioners of the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of the U.S. President John F. Kennedy . Some historians later criticized
7826-523: Was a key part of the greater psychological war effort. RFE was modeled after Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) a U.S. government-sponsored radio service initially intended for Germans living in the American sector of Berlin. According to Arch Puddington, a former bureau manager for RFE/RL, it was also widely listened to by East Germans. Staffed almost entirely by Germans with minimal U.S. supervision,
7917-520: Was assisted in intelligence-gathering activities by Gero von Schulze-Gaevernitz , a German emigrant. Dulles also received valuable information from Fritz Kolbe , a German diplomat, one whom he described as the best spy of the war. Kolbe supplied secret documents about active German spies and plans for the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. Dulles was in contact with the Austrian resistance group around
8008-576: Was formed by Allen Dulles in New York City in 1949. RFE/RL received funds covertly from the CIA until 1972. During RFE's earliest years of existence, the CIA and U.S. Department of State issued broad policy directives, and a system evolved where broadcast policy was determined through negotiation between them and RFE staff. Radio Free Europe received widespread public support from Eisenhower's " Crusade for Freedom " campaign. In 1950, over 16 million Americans signed Eisenhower's "Freedom Scrolls" on
8099-608: Was one of five members of the State Department Panel of Consultants on Disarmament during the last year of the Truman administration . After the election of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Bedell Smith shifted to the Department of State and Dulles became the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence. Dulles played a role in convincing Eisenhower to follow one of the conclusions of the State Department Panel report, that
8190-611: Was the Secretary of State during the Eisenhower administration and is the namesake of Dulles International Airport . Dulles was born on April 7, 1893, in Watertown, New York , one of five children of Presbyterian minister Allen Macy Dulles, and his wife, Edith ( née Foster) Dulles. He was five years younger than his brother, John Foster Dulles , Dwight D. Eisenhower 's Secretary of State and chairman and senior partner of Sullivan & Cromwell , and two years older than his sister,
8281-598: Was the most popular radio station in Afghanistan, and Afghan listeners mailed hundreds of hand-written letters to the station each month. In September 2009, RFE/RL announced that it would begin new Pashto-language broadcasting to the Afghanistan–Pakistan border region. The following month RFE/RL introduced a daily, one-hour Russian-language broadcast, broadcasting to the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia . The program, called Ekho Kavkaza ( Echo of
#85914