Over the past few months, there’s been a flurry of media attention focused on the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Some reports describe it as a “little-known” agency and, in fact, it may seem mysterious to many in the United States, since it oversees international broadcasting programs all over the world, including Voice […]
Anyone interested in how broadcast radio and international politics merged in the late 20th century should watch Alexandru Solomon’s masterpiece, Cold Waves, a documentary on Radio Free Europe’s role in Romanian society from the 1950s through the Cold War. LinkTV ran it over the weekend here in San Francisco. “I grew up with it,” Solomon […]
No doubt many Radio Survivor readers remember and still love Nena’s 80s rock song, Ninety Nine Red Balloons. It’s about a couple of kids who let loose a slew of balloons, and trigger the early warning systems of Europe, unleashing nuclear war. Ninety-nine dreams I have had And every one a red balloon It’s all […]
It was 1958, and the staff of Radio Free Europe pondered what to do next. The CIA funded broadcasting service was still reeling from the disastrous Hungarian Revolution of 1956. The United States had encouraged Hungary to revolt against Communist domination, then did nothing when the Soviet Union crushed the uprising. RFE took much of […]
