Immediately after World War II, U.S. authorities found themselves with very little information about conditions in the USSR. The United States, therefore, tried to reach across the Iron Curtain to increase its knowledge while avoiding direct military conflict and making an effort to cultivate indirect methods of getting at its adversary. Men like Allen Dulles, George Kennan, and General Lucius Clay were prone to believe that the communist system was vulnerable to aggressive forms of psychological warfare. It was in this context that Radio Free Europe in 1950 and Radio Liberation in 1953 (later known as Radio Liberty [RL]) came into existence.2 RL not only broadcast to the Soviet Union in Russian, but by 1954 it was using an arsenal of 17 Soviet languages in an attempt to appeal to non-Russian minorities. From the beginning, the ultimate objective of RL was to promote the collapse of the Soviet totalitarian government. It was an integral part of the U.S. Cold War strategy. (772)
The activities of RL, in contrast, were built around the specific use of Soviet émigrés; it spoke only to the Soviet people, using the Soviet experiences of the émigrés, and it dealt with Soviet internal affairs. Although it was an instrument of psychological warfare, RL likened itself to an alternative domestic service rather than a foreign broadcaster, attempting thus to insinuate voices from the West into the midst of the Soviet people. (773)
My first claims are, then, that foreign broadcasters had a significant audience and that there were people who considered it important to listen to foreign broadcasts. This article concentrates on the early days of RL, when foreign broadcasts in general were still a relatively new phenomenon, both for the Soviet authorities and for the intended audiences. Although the size and composition of RL’s audience from the 1970s onward have been studied, the first two decades of Cold War broadcasting to the Soviet Union have remained poorly covered by research so far.6 Yet these very decades are crucial for grasping the development of Soviet reactions as foreign broadcasts continued to increase and strengthen. (774-775)
The big picture, however, can be filled in by supplementing the available Soviet material with the rich offerings of the RFE/RL collection in the Hoover Institution Archives (HIA), which provide many details about radio listening in the Soviet Union. Beyond this, RL focused much effort on the efficient gathering of current information for two primary purposes: first, to provide Soviet citizens with accurate and substantive facts about internal Soviet affairs absent in the Soviet media;11 and second, to determine what kind of audience listened to foreign broadcasts in the USSR.12 The scheme was conceived primarily by Max Ralis, a Moscow-born, multilingual son of a Menshevik émigré who had lived in Berlin and Paris and had fought with the French army before escaping from the Nazis over the Pyrenees to join the U.S. army as a volunteer. (776-777)
the directorship of RL’s Audience Research Department (ARD), essentially his own creation. (777)
Material was obtained by ARD agents primarily from Soviet travelers to the West, using sophisticated interviewing techniques. The interviews were conducted informally and orally without recording equipment or note taking. Quite often the interviews were based on casual, although hardly accidental, conversations in restaurants, coffee shops, and even bars. ARD agents actively sought contact with travelers when they were alone. The reports were usually written up from memory immediately after the interviews; no systematic questionnaires were ever used. Ralis tried to maintain a high level of source criticism by carefully selecting his interviewers and estimating source credibility from the contexts in which interviews were carried out and from the reports themselves. Whenever Ralis had doubts about the credibility of a report, he would note this in the report. The informal conduct of the interviews was also necessary to get Soviet travelers to speak without arousing their suspicions. To offset the limitations created by the forced informality interviewers would develop their skills in memorizing essential facts. Ralis personally trained and selected interviewers from Soviet émigrés. These were former Soviet citizens, who in most cases had left the Soviet Union recently and knew the behavior and manners of speech of Soviet people.16 (777-778)
Thus, instead of representing the views of average Soviet citizens, the material can provide only some isolated examples and views of some people toward Western broadcasters and RL in particular. But it is enough to indicate that quite a few privileged members of Soviet society did listen to foreign broadcasts. Reports were produced only in cases where someone provided information that was thought useful for RL. Therefore, the true number of interviews conducted can only be guessed. The annual number of reports, however, is easier to estimate: it ranged from 150– 200 reports per year in the early 1960s to 300–500 reports by the end of the 1960s.19 When interviewees felt confident enough, they often revealed facts about their radio listening habits, thus giving valuable information about how foreign radio broadcasts were perceived by Soviet citizens. (778)
As the Cold War quickly intensified, Soviet monitors found themselves in serious trouble: according to one estimate presented to the Central Committee in 1960, as many as 50–60 different radio stations were transmitting short-wave broadcasts to the Soviet Union.26 Even more worrying for the authorities was the fact that instead of short-wave receivers being located in the peripheral areas, 85 percent of them were situated in the European part of the USSR, where often foreign broadcasts, rather than Soviet ones, occurred by short-wave.27 Many Soviet citizens thus had the technical facilities for listening to foreign broadcasts if they so desired. (781)
With the number of foreign broadcasts rapidly growing, the authori-
ties first chose to limit the languages to be jammed. Obviously, they con-
centrated on jamming the most hostile broadcasts that used official Soviet
languages; this was most persistently applied to RL and to a lesser extent
to VOA, the BBC, Deutsche Welle (DW), Kol Israel, Radio Peking, and
others. Thus Radio Madrid, Radio Paris, the BBC’s English Service, or DW
in German would come through without interference. As early as 1958, the
KGB had suggested ceasing the jamming of languages that were not generally
spoken in the Soviet Union, referring to Spanish, English, Finnish, and other
languages.35 Although these were important for a small minority of repatri-
ates from abroad, or those who had otherwise mastered some foreign lan-
guage, the authorities felt more threatened by broadcasts in Soviet languages. (783)
Music, popularity: The popularity of Western jazz and later pop music in the Soviet Union
is well known. This development was largely thanks to Western broadcast-
ers. Western governments did not, however, spend billions of dollars just to
introduce Soviet citizens to the Beatles. Music was used to attract people to
listen to more serious and ideological fare.39 Western broadcasters were able
to use music much more flexibly than their Soviet counterparts. Besides its
appeal, Western pop culture was important in that it undermined efforts to
nurture Soviet culture, which the authorities considered to be healthier and
more morally uplifting. Although an interest in foreign culture as such was
not a harmful phenomenon, Soviet culture constituted an integral part of the
socialist fabric, and a loss of interest in it was considered potentially danger-
ous. Faced with a lack of resources, however, officials had to make qualitative
choices, so they jammed mainly programs with a downright political con-
tent. With regard to cultural programs, it is possible that they felt that the
Soviet culture was superior to that of the West and believed that the people would feel the same. Nonetheless, jamming everything was no longer a viable solution. (784-785)
While the reception of RL, the most heavily jammed station, was re-
portedly sometimes good, on the eve of ideologically or politically important
occasions jamming rose to unprecedented levels, especially in bigger cities,
as interviews with people from Leningrad, Gor´kii, or Iaroslavl´ seem to tes-
tify.41 In all these places, audibility might have been good prior to such an
event, but during it listening became impossible. Similarly, during and after
the Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962, jamming was intensified, making pre-
viously clear signals inaudible.42 The Cuban 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.
The reactions recorded by ARD suggest that jamming had little support
among the people. Even those who in ARD reports seemed otherwise favor-
able to Soviet policies were opposed on this particular matter. The appar-
ent contradiction can be explained in part by the annoyance actually caused
by jamming. Some party sympathizers reasoned that ordinary people could
easily see through Western propaganda, and that jamming only made them
more interested. Yet, despite temporary halts to jamming, Soviet citizens con-
stantly had to live with it. Perhaps thus Soviet travelers were surprised to hear
that the Americans were free to listen to Radio Moscow without jamming.49 (787)
How to avoid jamming: People also quickly learned to follow jamming patterns. RL, for exam-
ple, constantly changed its broadcasting frequencies, forcing Soviet jamming
staffs to make strenuous tuning efforts. Neighboring frequencies were also
used with the goal of forcing the Soviets either to jam their own broadcasts
or to give up jamming altogether.54 Sometimes the jammers were accidentally
directed to the wrong stations, even to Radio Moscow. One interviewee told
about an official who had been punished for making such a grave mistake.55
Even if this particular case was untrue, it points out that he was aware that
RL used frequencies neighboring those used by Radio Moscow. This was
a major headache for Soviet authorities. It was mentioned in the Central
Committee that this practice of RL caused “extreme difficulties for our own
broadcasting.”56 (788)
Radio hams often spotted deficiencies in the jamming and discovered
other limits to it, but they were not the only ones. According to several ARD
reports, jamming concentrated on big cities, and people had learned to go
to the countryside to listen to foreign broadcasts. Just some 40 miles outside
Moscow, the audibility of RL was very good.57 Dachas also provided peaceful
surroundings for radio listening, with no prying neighbors or building super-
intendents. One wounded World War II veteran and active party member,
according to his own account, drove 35 miles to his dacha every other day just
to listen to foreign newscasts.58 The existence of such gaps was listed in reports
to the Central Committee as well. The KGB reported that in the summer of
1958 it had tested the audibility of several foreign broadcasts in numerous
locations in the Soviet Union. Even in the outskirts of Moscow, as close as
Izmailovo and Khovrino, which are just 6 and 11 miles respectively from the
Kremlin, both VOA and RL could be picked up at least during certain times
of the day. Farther away, audibility was naturally better.59 (788)
Circumventing jamming seems to have become almost a kind of hobby
for some people; indeed it should be noted that listening to foreign broadcasts
might not necessarily represent a political act but simply reflect a tempta-
tion to “taste forbidden fruit.” Foreign radio listening was widespread among
Soviet youth, especially high-school students, and it is easy to imagine that
for them the thrill of thwarting the authorities and the opportunity to listen
to Western music were more important than politics. With expensive radio
sets often outside their reach, they set up “radio circles.” These legal recre-
ational clubs became highly popular during the 1960s, but when the authori-
ties found out that in them people learned not only how to build their own
sets but also how to circumvent jamming, they secretly tried to prevent their
further growth.62 There were cases, however, where even elementary-school
children started to build their own sets to listen to Western broadcasts.63 (789)
Khurshchev: The problem for the authorities
they had heard. One obvious explanation for this might be the cessation of
the jamming of most stations in 1963, which suggested to people that foreign
broadcasts were now officially more acceptable. It is important, therefore,
to keep in mind that Soviet policies concerning foreign broadcasts were not
invariable but fluctuated over time. A more persistent specter haunting Soviet
officials was the fear of an alternative worldview from abroad and the loss of
their monopoly of information channels.
By '65-it was a big deal. This was indeed an area where foreign broadcasts had
a major impact: they both answered and added to the Soviet citizens’ tre-
mendous thirst for knowledge. At RL, people had the impression that by the
1960s people in the Soviet Union had become bolder with regard to foreign
broadcasts, and the information obtained from them was effectively passed
on by word of mouth. In Ralis’s opinion, people had initially dismissed for-
eign broadcasts as “nonsense” (chepukha), even when agreeing with them, but
by 1965 they were openly comparing what they had heard and venting their
opinions about it, and they did not hide the fact that their source was foreign
broadcasts when they passed on information. RL believed that most people
tory ideological education and party meetings, which were the traditional
sources of information. Foreign broadcasts had increased people’s need to
know and had helped produce more people who asked questions and were
less afraid.66 Radio Liberty felt that, along with other foreign broadcasters,
it had contributed to the change, although at the time it could hardly point
to any tremendous changes. One case in which RL regarded itself as having
played a big role was the dissemination of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago (1958)
in the Soviet Union.67 At first, this novel was surrounded by official silence,
and it was not published in the Soviet Union until 1988, but it became well
known in the bigger cities and among students through the version of it
read on RL and through samizdat versions, also distributed by RL. This was
part of RL’s objective: to insinuate Western ideas among the Soviet populace.
Although RL naturally exaggerated its role in the overall process, it is quite
evident that foreign broadcasts had played a part in the change of attitudes
in the Soviet Union.
Soviet radio is bad- In the late 1950s, the Central Committee had slowly been waking up to
the dreadful situation concerning the audibility of Soviet broadcasts around
the vast country. The first signs accidentally emerged in the context of other
problems: for example, in a report of struggle against foreign propaganda in
Ukraine. Reading between the lines of this 1958 report revealed that in south-
ern and western Ukraine dozens of foreign broadcasts were audible, whereas
the reception of broadcasts from Kiev was at times very poor. Furthermore,
signals from Moscow were certainly not dependable everywhere, as Soviet
jammers themselves impeded reception.78 Similar hints about problems in
audibility due to lack of resources in local broadcasting poured in from other
republics, too. This, however, was a mere prelude to coming revelations. (794)
Foreign broadcasts, especially newscasts, were thus closely followed by
many people in the USSR, regular citizens and officials alike. News was al-
legedly gathered from American sources, but not everything was repeated in
Soviet newscasts because of censorship and other factors. The result was that
the Soviet media constantly lagged behind in the up-to-date coverage of what
was happening. An illustrative case was the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s.
For years, Soviet media pretended that nothing was wrong, while RL kept
broadcasting news about the corrosion of relations. Many actually considered
news of the Sino-Soviet split to be Western propaganda until the reality be-
came clear to everyone. In the long run, cases like this, which indicated that
the foreign broadcasters had been right, further eroded trust in the Soviet
media and drove people to seek accurate news from foreign broadcasts. It is
hardly surprising, then, that party officials were among the keenest listeners
of foreign broadcasts.104 Foreign broadcasts had become a source that helped
people fill in gaps in their knowledge. The situation was so dire that the au-
thorities could no longer turn a blind eye but were forced to change their own
programming in an attempt to hang on to their crumbling media monopoly. (801)
why western was better: Apart from their greater willingness to answer to local
needs, foreign broadcasters could also count on one permanent advantage:
almost unlimited access to both Soviet and Western media, whereas Soviet
newscasters could never make full use of Western sources. Indeed, before
the late 1980s, Soviet journalists and news personnel had very limited scope
to report even on Soviet affairs. They needed permits from their superiors,
and there were censors who ensured that no unauthorized material went on
the air. (802)
A
bigger problem was the superior quality of American programs, acknowl-
edged by ordinary Soviet citizens and the authorities alike. American exam-
ples were adopted in improving newscasts, more music was introduced, and
concessions were even made in offering pure entertainment programs with-
out a direct educational or political purpose. Despite some genuine successes,
however, foreign broadcasts maintained their popularity, and the only lasting
policy Soviet authorities could come up with was jamming, which continued
on and off throughout the Soviet era. (804)
why it was radical:
Soviet authorities in regard to foreign broadcasts. Even more alarming for the
Soviet authorities than the dissemination of information about how to listen
to foreign broadcasts was the fact that news people had heard from foreign
broadcasts was passed on by word of mouth. Although there were hardly
any clear indications of unrest being caused by foreign broadcasts within the
Soviet Union, the authorities were still afraid of the possible consequences.
However, many party members themselves ardently followed the same news-
casts in pursuit of information. Although Soviet news services were slow and
often concealed information, many journalists were assigned to follow for-
eign broadcasts, not only to help the authorities rebut their arguments but
simply to keep up with world affairs. Thus the foreign newscasts became an
important source for average Soviet people and officials alike to keep abreast
of events, both domestic and foreign. Following the title of its campaign in
the late 1950s, RL, along with VOA and BBC, became the “guest in the liv-
ing room,” thus making real the fears of the Soviet authorities. (805)
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