Broadcasting freedom
Subtitle: the Cold War triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty
By: Arch Puddington.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2000
Place of publication: Lexington
Language: eng
Number of pages: 382
Subjects: Radio Free Europe -- History; Radio Liberty (Prague, Czech Republic) -- History; International broadcasting -- Europe, Eastern -- History; Radio in propaganda -- History; Cold War
Description: "Among America's most unusual and successful weapons during the Cold War were Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Disseminating information and stimulating political unrest behind the Iron Curtain, they played a vital role in bringing about the fall of communism.".

"Broadcasting Freedom draws on rare archival material and offers a penetrating inside history of the radios that helped change the face of Europe. Arch Puddington reveals new information about the connections between RFE-RL and the CIA, which provided covert funding for the stations during the critical start-up years in the early 1950s.

He relates in detail the efforts of Soviet and Eastern Bloc officials to thwart the stations; their tactics ranged from jamming attempts, assassinations of radio journalists, the infiltration of spies onto the radios' staffs, and the bombing of the radios' headquarters.".

"Puddington addresses the controversies that engulfed the stations throughout the Cold War, most notably RFE broadcasts during the Hungarian Revolution that were described as inflammatory and irresponsible. He shows how RFE prevented the Communist authorities from establishing a monopoly on the dissemination of information in Poland and describes the crucial roles played by the stations as the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke apart."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [359]-364) and index.