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Foreword
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xv foreword in a tumbledown farmhouse in the poorest corner of south-eastern Poland , at the height of the solidarity revolution of 1980-81, i met a farmer who had just sold some home-weaved baskets in order to buy a radio. He had bought it to keep himself informed about the farmers’ solidarity strike by listening to radio free europe. “there it stands on the rickety table” i noted, “apart from the electric light and the wooden wall clock (permanently telling twenty minutes to eight) the only object in the room which could not have been there a hundred years ago.” another farmer said, “they taught me at school that it was forbidden to listen to radio free europe, but how can we know what’s going on in the country when our press, radio and television lie?” anyone who traveled through central and eastern europe under communism understood the immense importance of western shortwave radio broadcasting to those countries. it is, however, remarkable to find its impact documented in such detail, as this book does, from official and secret sources. the sheer numbers of those who listened are extraordinary: up to two-thirds of the Polish population in 1981, more than fifty percent of the soviet urban population in the early 1980s, according to estimates given here. What is more, according to internal official surveys, well over two-thirds of those asked in Poland believed that radio free europe was “reliable.” a daily complete transcript of its news and political content was made available to the Politburo. across the whole region, and in the soviet union, there was extensive jamming —the tribute that vice pays to virtue. and who could wish for a nicer compliment than the east german spymaster markus Wolf saying , in his memoirs, “of all the various means used to influence people against the east during the Cold War, i would count radio free europe as the most effective.” i4 J&P.indb 15 2010.07.05. 7:54 xvi this book examines the work of radio free europe, radio liberty and the Voice of america in a rigorous, detailed comparative framework, drawing on a wide range of sources in many countries. it will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of communism and the Cold War. at the end, the editors draw some important general lessons for those seeking to impart reliable information to people living in unfree countries. one hopes that these lessons will be noted by journalists and policymakers today. However, it is hard to imagine that any single medium will ever again have the singular importance that short wave radio broadcasting had in central and eastern europe during the Cold War. today, the myriad resources of the internet, twitter, facebook, sms messages, email and satellite television all compete for the citizen’s attention . then, the “noise” with which western broadcasts competed was mainly the noise of deliberate jamming by a single totalitarian regime; now, while there is still jamming, blocking and filtering by authoritarian regimes, there is also the “noise” of thousands of competing channels of communication, media, and sources of entertainment and distraction. History never repeats itself. one should try to learn from it nonetheless . this is an excellent place to start. timothy garton ash oxford, June 2010 i4 J&P.indb 16 2010.07.05. 7:54 ...