Richard H. Cummings, former Director of Security at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), has posted a new, updated article on the history of Radio Liberty, which started its first broadcast in Russian on March 1, 1953.
Cummings wrote that because Radio Liberation was only able to use two low-powered 10 KW transmitters purchased from Radio Free Europe, only the Soviet armed forces in Germany and Austria were targeted.
Cummings is the author of “Cold War Radio: The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989” (2009) and “Radio Free Europe’s ‘Crusade for Freedom’: Rallying Americans Behind Cold War Broadcasting, 1950-1960” (2010).

“There was no record that the first broadcast was actually heard in the target area. Yet, within ten minutes, the Soviet Union started jamming the broadcasts, and the jamming of Radio Liberty’s broadcasts would continue uninterrupted until 1988. It has been estimated that the Soviet Union and other communist countries spent four US dollars for each dollar RL expended on broadcasting.”

READ MORE: 60 Years Ago, Radio “Liberation” began broadcasting