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A Look Back …
The National Committee for Free Europe, 1949
On June 1, 1949, a group of
prominent American businessmen, lawyers, and philanthropists – called the
National Committee for Free Europe (NCFE) – filed incorporation papers in New York City. The event
drew little notice at the time. Only a handful of people knew that NCFE was
actually the public face of an innovative "psychological warfare"
project undertaken by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). That operation – which
soon gave rise to Radio Free Europe – would become one of the longest running
and successful covert action campaigns ever mounted by the United States.
The late George Kennan
of the Department of State could be considered the godfather of NCFE. He – more than any other official – pressed the National Security
Council to reorganize covert action planning and management. This resulted in
the creation of the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) at the CIA in September
1948 and the appointment of the visionary OSS
veteran Frank G. Wisner as its chief.
Kennan proposed that
OPC work through an "American freedom committee" in dealing with
anti-Communist émigré groups in the United States to develop operations
abroad. The idea was to fund selected émigrés in their activities to
demonstrate that the newly imposed Soviet-style dictatorships in Eastern Europe oppressed the aspirations of their people.
NCFE was the American umbrella for these exiled European figures in the United
States, ostensibly raising private funds and organizing their activities to
reach back to their occupied homelands.
From the start, Wisner
and OPC regarded NCFE as one of their signature operations. As the Cold War
reached perhaps its most dangerous phase, NCFE and other projects (such as the
Congress for Cultural Freedom, 1950) rallied anti-Communist intellectuals,
politicians, and activists to fight the Soviets on the “plane of ideas” and
what was later called "public diplomacy."
NCFE soon gave rise to
its more famous progeny, Radio Free Europe, which began broadcasting behind the
Iron Curtain on July 4, 1950. Radio Free Europe aired programs for the
Communist Bloc in several languages. For decades, it was a beacon of hope to
people who had otherwise lost access to the outside world.
CIA subsidies to the
Free Europe Committee (NCFE's later name) ended in 1971, after Sen. Clifford P. Case (R-NJ) revealed
that it received covert assistance. Radio Free Europe was re-chartered as a
public corporation (receiving Congressionally appropriated funds). All funding
and oversight responsibilities were transferred to the presidentially appointed
Board for International Broadcasting.
Radio Free Europe still broadcasts today.
Historical Document
Posted: May 29, 2007 04:10 PM
Last Updated: Jun 20, 2008 09:04 AM
Last Reviewed: May 29, 2007 04:10 PM