History

Featured, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, Russia, VOA, VOA80

VOA at 80: Different Names of the Voice of America

80 years ago today, on February 1, 1942, the first Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcast in German may have gone on the air. There is some uncertainty as to the exact date in February 1942. Moreover, for the first several years, the name “Voice of America” was not yet used. The early broadcasts had various names, such as “America…

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OWI Press Release, Wallace Carroll, London Office Appointment, August 13, 1942.
Cold War, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, Poland, RFE, Russia, VOA, VOA80

Voice of America Fellow Travelers Who Spread Soviet Propaganda – Wallace Carroll

One of Voice of America’s fellow travelers who spread Soviet propaganda lies in VOA’s early years was a celebrated American journalist, Wallace Carroll. Commentary By Ted Lipien The Voice of America (VOA), the U.S. taxpayer-funded broadcaster with a budget of $252 million (FY20) in the federal U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), plans to observe in February its 80th anniversary.…

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Voice of America at 80 – Howard Fast OWI Personnel Record Card
Cold War, History, International Broadcasting, OWI, VOA, VOA80

Voice of America at 80 – VOA’s Pro-Soviet Fellow Travelers and Lessons for Today

Voice of America at 80 – the hidden record of VOA’s pro-Soviet fellow travelers, Howard Fast and John Houseman, offers lessons for today Commentary By Ted Lipien The Voice of America (VOA), the U.S. taxpayer-funded international broadcaster with a budget of $252 million (FY20) in the federal U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), plans to observe in February its 80th…

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Voice of America (VOA) Latin American Division Spanish Service graphic posted as VOA Spanish Facebook page cover image following the death in 2016 of Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro. The Voice of America is part of the $800-million (average annual budget) federal U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
Cold War, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, Russia, VOA, VOA80

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.…

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Józef Czapski in 1942
Cold War, Glos Ameryki, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, Russia, VOA, VOA80

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…

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Tanks during the martial law in Poland in December 1981.
China, Cold War, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, Russia, VOA, VOA80

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,…

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Józef i Maria Czapscy w mojej bibliotece Tadeusz Lipień grudzień 2021.
Featured, Glos Ameryki, History, OWI, Poland, Radio, RFE, VOA, VOA80, Women

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…

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Three sisters, ages 7, 8, and 9, Polish evacuees from Russia, August 1942. Photos by: Lieutenant Colonel Henry I. Szymanski, U.S. Army.
Ethiopia, Featured, Glos Ameryki, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Iran, Media, OWI, Poland, Radio, RFE, RL, Russia, VOA, VOA80, Women

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…

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Tadeusz A. Lipien (Ted Lipien)
Ethiopia, Featured, Highlights, History, International Broadcasting, Media, Newspaper Articles, Public Diplomacy, Radio, Russia, VOA, VOA80

At Voice of America, history repeats itself

At Voice of America, history repeats itself because of poor USAGM leadership, partisan bias and violations of VOA Charter. USAGM Watch Media Commentary According to the former Voice of America journalist and manager who led the VOA Polish Service during the peaceful Solidarity revolution against communism and Soviet Russia’s control of Poland, “The taxpayer-funded Voice of America is increasingly being…

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Dwugłos Wspomnień by Józef and Maria Czapski in Ted Lipien Library in Portland Oregon 2021
Highlights, History, Poland, Radio, VOA, VOA80, Women

Maria Czapska and Józef Czapski – Unknown Links to Censorship and Refugee Journalism at Voice of America

Józef Czapski (1896-1993) was a major artistic and literary figure of the Cold War period Polish refugee community in the West. He was a painter, writer, a pacifist who became a military officer, a prisoner in the Soviet Union, and a witness to the coverup of one of the major war crimes of the 20th century. His sister, Maria Dorota…

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Cold War, Featured, Glos Ameryki, History, Radio, VOA, VOA80, Women

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…

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Cold War, Glos Ameryki, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, Radio, RFE, VOA

Polish Journalist Stefan Bratkowski Dead at 86, Praised Radio Free Europe During Cold War

I was saddened to learn that Stefan Bratkowski, born 22.11.1934, described on Culture.pl website as “one of the outstanding Polish journalists of the last few decades” died on April 18, 2021. He was one of the organizers of the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański Association of Employees, Freelancers and Friends of the Polish Service of Radio Free Europe formed in Poland in 1994.…

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Cold War, History, International Broadcasting, Russia

Techniques of Soviet Propaganda – Radio Broadcasts

By Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum Recently I bought on eBay a pamphlet titled “The Technique of Soviet Propaganda” published in 1960 by the United States Government Printing Office. It is described as a study presented by the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the…

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Cold War, History, International Broadcasting, Poland, Radio, RFE, VOA

Voice of America Polish Service journalists accused of being anti-communist Reagan saboteurs

by Ted Lipien Kazimierz Adamski, “Dywersja Głosu Ameryki: Polska na specjalny obstalunek,” Głos Pomorza, January 9, 1986. An article titled, “DYWERSJA ‘GŁOSU AMERYKI’ Polska na specjalny obstalunek” (“‘Voice of America’ Sabotage: Poland by Special Order“), appeared in the regional Polish Communist Party newspaper Głos Pomorza on Poland’s Baltic coast on January 9, 1986.[ref]Kazimierz Adamski, “Dywersja Głosu Ameryki: Polska na specjalny…

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Blog, Children, Highlights, History, RFE, Russia, Women

Planned assassination of a journalist linked to Polish children prisoners in Soviet Russia

Having served briefly (Dec. 2020-Jan. 2021) as Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) President and having been before Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service chief in the 1980s and VOA acting associate director in 2005/2006 in charge of central programs, I wanted to repost my 2019 Silent Refugees website’s article on how early VOA managers, editors and journalists lied about Stalin’s crimes and repeated Soviet propaganda. Fortunately, VOA no longer repeated such Soviet disinformation during the Cold War, and dropped all restrictions during the presidency of Ronald Reagan on reporting on communist human rights abuses. To their great credit, neither Radio Free Europe (RFE) nor Radio Liberty (RL) ever censored news about the Soviet Gulag, which the Voice of America occasionally did even as late as the 1970s.

A Soviet-instigated plan to kill an anti-communist woman journalist in the early years of the Cold War was linked to her attempts to tell the story of thousands of Polish children who in 1940-1941 had been deported with their families from eastern Poland to Siberia and Central Asia where many died from brutal treatment. The assassination plan was revealed in 1953-1954 by a defector to the West from communist-ruled Poland and was never carried out.

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