Hot Books in the Cold War : The CIA-Funded Secret Western Book Distribution Program Behind the Iron Curtain

Chapter 1. Origins, Objectives, and Launching of the Book Project Under Sam Walker

Chapter 1 Origins, Objectives, and Launching of the Book Project under Sam Walker, Jr. On the basis of the documents found at the Hoover Institution Archives, it can be ascertained that the idea of creating Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty and of using radio to penetrate the Iron Curtain with news from the West first grew out of discussions held in 1948 between former Ambassador to Moscow George F. Kennan, then director of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, and other government officials.1 Among them was Frank Wisner, who served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Europe during the war. In 1948, he became director of the Office of Special Projects, soon to be renamed Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), the future espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency.2 1   Kennan’s Policy Planning Staff Memorandum, May 4, 1948, Document 269, in “Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment,” Department of State: http://www.state.gov/about_state/history/intel/index. The use of cover organizations was in line with National Security Council directive NSC-4(a), which instructed the director of the CIA to “initiate and conduct covert psychological operations to counteract Soviet and Soviet-inspired activities which constitute a threat to peace.” Accordingly, surrogate radio stations not officially connected with the U.S. Government were created to broadcast programs to Soviet satellite countries and to take positions for which the United States officially denied responsibility. For a photocopy of NSC-4, see Warner (ed.), CIA Cold War Records: The CIA Under Harry Truman, 175–7. 2   Frank W. Wisner (1910–1965), responsible for covert operations abroad, was concerned about the spread of communism and lobbied hard for a new intelligence agency with the support of Kennan and Defense Secretary James Forrestal. He served under CIA directors Allen W. Dulles and Richard i5 Cold War.indb 7 2013.03.04. 13:37 8 Hot Books in the Cold War With the covert financial assistance of the CIA, deemed essential to ensure a fast start, the National Committee for Free Europe (NCFE) was incorporated in May 1949 in Albany, NY, and underwent another name change until the final designation of Free Europe Committee (FEC), Inc. was adopted in March 1954.3 This book is not the story of Radio Free Europe, but of one of its many other “special projects.” These included a Division of Intellectual Cooperation set up as early as 1950, a West European Branch Office in Paris under Eugene L. Metz, and a West European Operations Division in London headed by Mucio L. Delgado. The Free Europe University in Exile established in Strasbourg, later moved to Paris, was given generous financial support in the form of yearly scholarships and the organization of seminars. In 1952 and in subsequent years, the Free Europe Committee (FEC) also gave financial support to the Polish émigré periodical Kultura, the Polish Library in Paris, the Hungarian publication Amerikai Népszava, the General Sikorski Historical Institute in London, and various recipients in West Germany. Columbia University also received funds to set up a program of East European Studies. The Free Europe Press Division prepared the monthly publication News from Behind the Iron Curtain, followed later by a German and a French edition. An executive memorandum from 1951 to the NCFE Board of Directors from FEC President C. D. Jackson called for the setting up of four operating divisions—American Promotion, Educational Relations, Political Relations, and European Propaganda. The latter division was “charged with the responsibility and authority to carry out all European propaganda operations by radio, publication, or other means.” Another 17-point memo on the functions of the Educational Relations Division included such tasks as “To provide a complete set of acceptable textbooks for primary and secondary schools of all Satellite countries revised and supplemented for immediate post-liberHelms , suffered a mental breakdown after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, retired from the CIA in 1962, and killed himself three years later. See also http://www.Sparatcus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKwisner.htm, 1–10. 3   For a detailed account of the creation of FEC and RFE/RL, see Johnson, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty: The CIA Years and Beyond, especially chapters 1 and 2, 7–78. i5 Cold War.indb 8 2013.03.04. 13:37 9 Origins, Objectives, and Launching of the Book Project ation use.” The division was also tasked “To keep currently informed...