WWII Pro-Soviet U.S. Government Propaganda in Polish Was Spread in Pamphlets and Voice of America Radio Broadcasts During World War II, the Office of War Information (OWI) produced and distributed printed propaganda material in the United States and abroad and was also responsible for the Voice of America (VOA) shortwave and medium-wave radio broadcasts for worldwide audiences. Sometime in 1942…
Polish Radio Host Who Resigned from Voice of America to Avoid Broadcasting Soviet Propaganda Lies About Katyn Massacre
Cold War Radio Museum By Ted Lipien We know of only one Voice of America (VOA) journalist, Konstanty Broel Plater, who resigned from his job at the U.S. government radio station during World War II in protest against the orders from the VOA management and the editors in the Office of War Information (OWI) in New York and Washington to…
From Risking Life As A Young Anti-Nazi Scout In Poland To A Cold War Broadcasting Career At Radio Free Europe and Voice of America
By Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum Marek Walicki, the former journalist of the Polish Service of Radio Free Europe and the Polish section of the Voice of America, is the author of Z Polski Ludowej do Wolnej Europy (From People’s Poland to Free Europe), Bellona, Warsaw, 2018, a memoir of his life and radio career. During World…
A Book for Experts and Students of Cold War History
Mark Pomar’s new book about the Cold War political radio could help American government officials unfamiliar with the history of U.S. international broadcasting. Mark Pomar’s book Cold War Radio [Mark G. Pomar, Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Lincoln: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, 2022), Amazon Link] is, in my…
Jamming Was a Sign of Effectiveness of Western Broadcasts
Soviet jamming was a sign of the effectiveness of Western radio broadcasts. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were consistently jammed. The Voice of America was jammed only during some periods. Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum In his book Operation Suicide: “Those Strange Bridges to Communism,” published in 1967, American journalist Eugene Lyons, a former communist sympathizer who interviewed Joseph Stalin…
Beware of Government Propaganda “Experts”
Disinformation governance by government propaganda experts can be dangerous, judging by the record of the early officials in charge of the Voice of America and journalists duped by Soviet propaganda. As the Voice of America (VOA), the United States government’s radio station for international audiences, observes its eightieth anniversary in 2022, it may surprise some Americans, assuming they have heard…
I’m proud of my Polish hometown’s aid to Ukrainian war refugees
This is an excerpt from my March 15, 2022 Washington Examiner op-ed about my Polish hometown’s (Mszana Dolna) aid to Ukrainian war refugees and a few broader propaganda warfare and U.S. international broadcasting issues. I’m proud of my Polish hometown’s aid to Ukrainian war refugees By Ted Lipien Still, over the years, his [Putin’s] propagandists have done tremendous damage to…
Symbolic Justice for Stalin’s Victims, But Not Yet From Voice of America Management
Commentaries about Stalin’s victims, Voice of America By Ted Lipien (Tadeusz Lipień) In my Washington Examiner Christmas Day op-ed, and in my post about Polish artist, writer, and witness of genocide Józef Czapski, I write about Stalin’s victims and the Voice of America (VOA) in the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). I am an East European refugee from communism.…
Censored by Voice of America in 1950, re-interviewed in the 1980s, Józef Czapski gets a plaque in Prague
Censored by Voice of America in 1950, re-interviewed in the 1980s, Józef Czapski gets a plaque in Prague By Ted Lipien On December 21, 2021, a plaque at Józef Czapski’s birthplace in Prague, the Czech Republic, was unveiled in a ceremony attended by ambassadors from Poland, the Holy See, Lithuania, and Estonia. The Embassy of Italy, which now occupies the…
Voice of America and Martial Law in Poland 40 Years Ago
Voice of America and martial law in Poland 40 years ago – a quick response by the Reagan Administration to the communist regime’s attempt at holding on to power and destroying Solidarity. Photo: Polish Army tanks enter the town of Zbąszyń while moving east towards Poznań, 13 December 1981. A Commentary by Ted Lipien (Tadeusz Lipień), December 13, 2021. Martial Law in Poland: December 13,…
Hunger for Truth – Józef and Maria Czapski’s Fight Against Kremlin Propaganda
The announcement of a new book by Polish-American journalist Ted Lipien (Tadeusz Lipień): Hunger for Truth – Józef and Maria Czapski’s Fight Against Kremlin Propaganda. Foreword Hunger for Truth analyzes the contribution of two prominent Polish political exiles in the second half of the 20th century to the struggle against censorship and indoctrination in countries behind the Iron Curtain and against…
At Voice of America, history repeats itself — Part Two: Hidden History
By Ted Lipien As more and more questions are being asked by members of Congress and scandals reported by liberal and conservative press about the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) — the tax-funded, U.S. government-managed international broadcaster — I would strongly recommend that Voice of America (VOA) USAGM federally-employed managers and journalists read The Katyn Diaries, a book about one of World War II major genocide murders. I…
Voice of America Polish Service Olympic Studio 1984 – Studio olimpijskie Głosu Ameryki Los Angeles-Waszyngton – Live Coverage – Archiwalne nagranie
by Ted Lipien Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will open on July 23, 2021. Today I offer a recording from the Cold War Radio Museum to show how the Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service covered the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. The communist government in Poland, which was then still trying…
Biden can combat foreign propaganda by reforming Voice of America
OPINION My op-ed in The Washington Examiner was written in response to recent media reports suggesting that leaders who have been long in charge of both the Voice of America (VOA) and the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) are responsible for a management culture which allows major abuses of journalistic practices and the VOA Charter to occur, such as…
Discrimination of Refugee Broadcasters by Voice of America Management Has Been Hidden for Decades
Treated for decades as second-class citizens and denied direct access to wire services by native-born, mostly white, mostly left-leaning, and mostly male Voice of America (VOA) managers and reporters, these VOA immigrant broadcasters, some of them outstanding women journalists who spent time in communist prisons, did their best to win the propaganda war with the Soviet Union and its satellite…