Where it gets relevant
"Ironically it was the Soviet Union that came to Radio Liberty's rescue--in two ways. First the repression of Soviet dissent and official refusal to permit the publication of nonconformist writing gave rise to the samizdat phenomenon. Samizdat essays or reports typed and retyped in editions ranging from several dozens to a few hundred. Some reflected the opinions of dissident who favored democratic reforms for the Soviet Union. Others were written by those seeking autonomy, cultural freedom, or independence for the non-Russian peoples (p, 170)."
"In typed editions, a samizdat document might reach an audience of a few hundred or several thousand at best. If the document were broadcast on a Western radio station, however, it could reach millions. Because it broadcast many more hours each day than its Western competitors, Radio Liberty was able to devote hours of air time to the broadcasting of samizdat documents. Soon enough, a major goal of samizday authors was to arrange for the documents to be smuggled to the West and given to Radio Liberty." (P,170)
"One of the earliest samizdat documents to reach the West was a transcript of the trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuri Daniel, the first dissidents tried and sentenced to the Gulag for antistate activities. The document was duly delivered to RL's bureau in PAris. Francis Ronalds, bureau chief a the time, verified the document's genuineness and turned it over to the New York Times, on the theory that the news would have a greater impact if carried first by the Times than the avowedly anti-Communist RL. Radio Liberty then broadcast details of the trial after they had appeared in the times. " (P,171)
"Radio Liberty next established a special program at which samizdat was read. Soon enough, the station was inundated with documents from the Soviet Union. The station established a samizdat archive and hired an archival staff to sift through, catalogue, verify, and circulate the thousands of documents that reached the station. Mario Corti, a Russian-speaking Italian who became chief of the samizdat unit, says that procedure. If, for example, a document mentioned a party official or KGB operative, the staff combed through the Soviet press to ensure that he name and posiion in the document corresponded to information published in the press." (P, 171)
"As a matter of strict policy, Radio Liberty never solicited samizdat; to have done so would have placed the author in jeporady of a sentence in the gulag. The samizdat unit was also carefuly to verify that each document was legitimate, in part out of fear that the KGB might concoct a report that, if taken at face value by RL and put on the air, might serve to discredit the dissident movement." (P, 171)
"More important than samizdat to RL's future was the wave of emigration the Brezhnev regime permitted as a concession to the United States during the early years of detente. Quite unexpectedly, tens of thousands of Soviet citizens were allowed to leave for the West. Many of the émigrés were educated, and a few had a journalism background. THe emigration included well-known cultural figures,--writers, singers, musicologists, artists--as well as authorities of Soviet science, economists, and others of the technological intelligentsia (P, 171)."
"It was almost too good to be true. Indeed, some station veterans believe that RL officials, perhaps nervous over the possibility of a renewed curb on exit visa, were insufficiently discriminating in their hiring decisions, grabbing off any new emigrant who might conceivably be taught the rudiments of radio broadcasting. " (P, 171)
"As a matter of strict policy, Radio Liberty never solicited samizdat; to have done so would have placed the author in jeporady of a sentence in the gulag. The samizdat unit was also carefuly to verify that each document was legitimate, in part out of fear that the KGB might concoct a report that, if taken at face value by RL and put on the air, might serve to discredit the dissident movement." (P, 171)
"More important than samizdat to RL's future was the wave of emigration the Brezhnev regime permitted as a concession to the United States during the early years of detente. Quite unexpectedly, tens of thousands of Soviet citizens were allowed to leave for the West. Many of the émigrés were educated, and a few had a journalism background. THe emigration included well-known cultural figures,--writers, singers, musicologists, artists--as well as authorities of Soviet science, economists, and others of the technological intelligentsia (P, 171)."
"It was almost too good to be true. Indeed, some station veterans believe that RL officials, perhaps nervous over the possibility of a renewed curb on exit visa, were insufficiently discriminating in their hiring decisions, grabbing off any new emigrant who might conceivably be taught the rudiments of radio broadcasting. " (P, 171)
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