VOICES THROUGH THE IRON CURTAIN: The Radio Free Europe Story

by Allan A. Michie ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Private, non-governmental, and based on the premise that ""you can create satellite states but you can't create satellite people"", Radio Free Europe differed from the outset (1949) from other propaganda programs, BBC, Voice of America, etc. t was to be ""more flexible, harder hitting, less inhibited"". Also unique was their programming which featured voices of exiles speaking to their countrymen, bringing ope and support to those behind the Curtain. Although liberation of captive peoples became an official U.S. goal in 1952, there was no strategy for achieving it. FE developed its own strategy ""based on understandings (never spelled out in so many words) but...evident from the nature of RFE's programs"". In Hungary this went wry. Although he defends the RFE role in Hungary, the author says that the majority of Hungarians expected aid from the West, particularly the U.S. and felt betrayed when it didn't come; and that ""most Hungarians believe they heard what they wanted to hear--a common trap in broadcast propaganda--and that they read more into RFE's broadcasts than was actually intended. The gap between implied aid and actual promises was one that was easily leaped by despairing listeners."" This reads like n ""official"" history. The author has intimate knowledge of the work, and of the people who set the tone, established the line, and got the message through the Curtain.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dodd, Mead

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1963

Categories: NONFICTION