My new op-ed in The Hill includes comments on the latest barbaric attacks by Hamas terrorists on Israeli civilians—defenseless Jewish women, children, and the elderly. I discuss the hard-to-understand and explain defense of propaganda and disinformation from Iran and Russia by U.S. government-managed and funded U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) journalists, including federal employees working for the Voice of America (VOA). They went…
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,…
Cold War Radio Museum Support Cold War Radio Museum By Buying Our Books on Amazon VOA’s 15th director from March 1980 to January 1981 during President Jimmy Carter administration, Mary Bitterman presided over VOA in a period of turmoil in Afghanistan, Liberia, and Poland – which brought a resurgence of jamming against VOA and other international broadcasters.…
1944 Warsaw Uprising Betrayed by Pro-Stalin WWII Voice of America
August 1, 2015 marked the 71 anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Uprising, a 63-day unsuccessful operation by the Polish resistance Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. About 16,000 Polish fighters were killed and between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions. After the Home Army capitulation in Warsaw, the Germans…
Tomlinson on Voice of America coverage of Pope John Paul II
Former Voice of America (VOA) director and former Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Chairman Ken Tomlinson, who died in 2014, told the Voice of America in 2012 that his most memorable moment at VOA was when he visited the Polish Service and helped to arrange extensive news coverage of Pope John Paul II’s visit to Poland when the country was…
Lech Walesa’s Nov. 15, 1989 speech in Congress was broadcast jointly by Voice of America and Polish Radio
Photograph of President George H.W. Bush and Lech Wałęsa was taken a day before Solidarity leader’s historic speech to the joint session of the United States Congress on November 15, 1989. The historic speech delivered on November 15, 1989 by Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa to the joint session of the United States Congress was broadcast to Poland in a joint…
Lech Walesa 70th Birthday Stamp – Historic VOA Interviews – 1985 – 1987 – 2002
“It is difficult to imagine what would have happened if it were not for the Voice of America and other sources with the help of which the true information squeezed through, which showed a different point of view, which said that we are not alone and that something is happening in the country — because our mass media did not…
Poland, A Season of Light, and of Darkness
In 1982, the United States International Communication Agency (USICA), earlier and later called the United States Information Agency (USIA), published a booklet “Poland: A Season of Light, and of Darkness,” to complement its “Let Poland Be Poland” television film produced by the agency as a response of the Reagan Administration to the imposition of martial law in Poland by General…
Interweaving of Public Diplomacy and U.S. International Broadcasting
Interweaving of Public Diplomacy and U.S. International Broadcasting A Historical Analysis by Ted Lipien Published in American Diplomacy, December 2011 Summary U.S. policy makers have used traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy and government-sponsored journalism to promote America’s interests and to influence public opinion abroad. On the journalistic side, the so-called surrogate radios: Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty – more…
Voice of America during the martial law in Poland – Radio stanu wojennego
Radio of the Martial Law Thirty years ago, on December 13, 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski had declared martial law in Poland, imprisoning Lech Walesa and other Solidarity Trade Union leaders. The Polish communist rulers placed the country under a complete information blockout, but thanks to radio programs in Polish from the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE)…
Who is the leader of the Free World? – Reagan, Bush, Obama – lessons in public diplomacy in response to anti-democracy crackdown in Belarus
En ce moment, il n’y a plus de pilote dans l’avion. [At the moment, there is no longer a pilot on the plane.] — A European comment on President Obama as a leader of the Free World. TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, USA, January 03, 2011 — Who is the leader of the Free World when democracy is under threat? For a…
Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): It was thirty years’ ago, on 31 August 1980, that strikers from Gdansk’s Lenin Shipyard forced the communist regime to recognize Solidarnosc as an independent trade union, release political prisoners, end media censorship and accept the right to strike. The regime later imposed martial law and Solidarity was forced underground before being…
FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, Commentary by Ted Lipien, September 8, 2008, San Francisco — A country like Russia either needs surrogate broadcasting or it doesn’t. Many countries, however, need balanced and objective news from the Voice of America that surrogate broadcasters living overseas are not trained to provide. If a country also needs a genuine surrogate broadcaster — as it is the case now with…