
February 23 1982
December 31 1951
March 3 1943
Special Voice of America 1982 40th Anniversary Broadcast
On February 24, 1982, the Voice of America held a celebration to mark the 40th anniversary of its founding. It was believed that the first Voice of America radio broadcast in German was aired on February 24, 1942, but it may have aired three weeks earlier, possibly on February 1, 1942. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan came to the VOA building at 330 Independence Avenue, SW in Washington, DC to deliver a special address. In referring to the early years of the Voice of America during World War II and first VOA Director John Houseman, President Reagan most likely did not know that Houseman was a radical pro-Soviet propagandist who in mid-1943 was forced to resign for hiring communists, some of whom remained with VOA until the late 1940s and continued to broadcast Soviet propaganda in support of communist dictator Josef Stalin. They were slowly replaced in the late 1940s and the early 1950s with anti-communist refugee journalists from Eastern Europe. Under strong pressure from the U.S. Congress, the content of VOA broadcasting changed from supporting Soviet foreign policy to exposing communist atrocities in the later years of the Cold War.
U.S. State Department Describing Voice of America for ‘The Campaign of Truth’ Circa 1952
In the early 1950s, the U.S. State Department launched its public diplomacy program called “The Campaign of Truth” designed to counter Soviet propaganda using the Voice of America (VOA) and the State Department’s public diplomacy programs. They were described in “The Campaign of Truth: How You Can Help” pamphlet published probably sometime in early 1952. At that time, the Voice of America was operating within the State Department since 1945. Before that, VOA, established in 1942, was part of the Office of War Information (OWI), which President Truman abolished shortly after the end of the war. The launch of “The Campaign of Truth” by the State Department coincided with management and programming reforms designed to make VOA broadcasts more effective against Soviet propaganda. Prior to about 1950-1951, VOA programs were generally not focusing on the Soviet Union and did not pay much attention to human rights violations in the Soviet block countries. “The Campaign of Truth” represented a radical change from the World War II and the immediate post-war period when pro-Soviet Voice of America officials and journalists enthusiastically promoted Soviet propaganda and supported Stalin’s plans for establishing communist governments in East-Central Europe. Some of their influence continued until the early 1950s but was rapidly declining compared to what it was during the war. When the Voice of America started broadcasting, the first permanent VOA chief news writer and editor was Howard Fast who later joined the Communist Party USA and in 1953 received the Stalin Peace Prize. He resigned from his job at VOA in 1944 and became a reporter and editor for the Communist Party newspaper The Daily Worker. A few of wartime VOA broadcasters, among them Stefan Arski (aka Artur Salman), Mira Złotowska Michałowska and Adolf Hoffmeister, went to work for Soviet-dominated communist regimes, and others were slowly replaced in the late 1940’s and the early 1950s with anti-communist refugee journalists from Russia and Eastern Europe. One of them was Helen Yakobson who as a young child had left Russia in 1925 with her parents, was educated in China and came to the United States as an immigrant in 1938. Voice of America programming started to change in the early 1950s largely in response to heavy bipartisan criticism in the U.S. Congress. Changes in VOA programming were also prompted by the escalation of tensions in relations with Russia and Soviet Block countries, the outbreak of the Korean War, and the creation of Radio Free Europe as a competing U.S.-funded radio organization. The “Campaign of Truth: How You Can Help” pamphlet included a photograph of a woman radio announcer holding a script in front of the microphone with the Russian sign “Voice of the United States of America.” According to a former Voice of America Russian Service director Marina Oeltjen, the woman in the photograph was Helen Zhemchuzhny Bates Yakobson (1913-2002). Yakobson had joined the Voice of America as it was being reformed and was put to work on the Russian-language program which was launched in 1947, but she was no longer working for VOA when the pamphlet was published by the State Department in 1952 although as a..Read More
Members of Congress Exposed Domestic U.S. Government Propaganda in 1943
During World War II, the federal government’s Office of War Information (OWI), where Voice of America (VOA) radio broadcasts for overseas audiences were started in 1942, produced news and factual war information as well as deceptive propaganda for both international and domestic audiences. Much of OWI’s and VOA’s propaganda output in radio broadcasts and in print was anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese. News and information radio broadcasts and publications for the press were in many cases truthful on facts, but in some instances important facts were omitted or distorted and opinions were designed to deceive audiences. This usually happened when OWI and VOA officials and journalists felt that negative information about America’s all important important military ally—the Soviet Union—needed to be censored and replaced with false claims of Stalin’s presumed support for democracy to advance U.S. war aims or sometimes to satisfy their own personal ideological preferences even against the wishes of the White House, the State Department or the Pentagon.
In History News
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27 Feb
Voice of America Polish Service journalists accused of being anti-communist Reagan saboteurs
Read moreby Ted Lipien Kazimierz Adamski, “Dywersja Głosu Ameryki: Polska na specjalny obstalunek,” Głos Pomorza, January
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04 Feb
Voice of America and USIA 1958 Promotional Pamphlet
Read moreCold War Radio Museum The 1958 Voice of America (VOA) and U.S. Information Agency (USIA)
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01 Feb
Bipartisan Support for Voice of America Countering of Soviet and Communist Propaganda in the 1950s
Read moreCold War Radio Museum In the early 1950s, the Voice of America (VOA) started to
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29 Jan
Voice of America 1967 First Day Cover with Larry King Autograph
Read moreCold War Radio Museum Larry King who died on January 23, 2021 was a popular
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03 Dec
Different Names of the Voice of America
Read moreCold War Radio Museum By Ted Lipien The U.S. taxpayer-funded and U.S. government-operated international
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25 Sep
Voice of America Japanese Sportscasters Pose with New York Yankees
Read moreTed Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum Cold War Radio Museum has acquired a press
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13 Sep
Voice of America WWII Communist Propaganda to Yugoslavia
Read moreTed Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum Thanks to several lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats,
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10 Jul
Crusade for Freedom: Young women tell stories of lovelessness in Kremlin-controlled countries
Read moreThe 1950s “Crusade for Freedom” media publicity campaign in the United States and to some
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03 Jul
Radio Free Europe Started Broadcasting 70 Years Ago on July 4, 1950 – A Look at RFE Circa 1960 – Happy Birthday
Read moreCold War Radio Museum By Ted Lipien Happy Birthday Radio Free Europe! I had lived
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02 Jun
How Congress Exposed, Defunded and Stopped Domestic U.S. Government Propaganda in 1943
Read moreDuring World War II, the federal government’s Office of War Information (OWI), where Voice of
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19 May
U.S. State Department Describing Voice of America for ‘The Campaign of Truth’ Circa 1952
Read moreIn the early 1950s, the U.S. State Department launched its public diplomacy program called “The
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10 May
‘Shouldn’t they hear both sides? Radio Free Europe 1967 ad
Read moreCold War Radio Museum The Crusade for Freedom was the name of an advertising campaign
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16 Apr
Three U.S. Presidents Publicly Rebuked Voice of America for Promoting Foreign Propaganda
Read moreTed Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum What President Donald Trump said about the U.S.
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02 Apr
Voice of America Doctor Who Brought AIDS Information to USSR and Saved Lives
Read moreBy Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum At one time during the Cold War,
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24 Feb
Voice of America had no audience in pre-Castro Cuba and initially supported Soviet socialism in Eastern Europe
Read moreCold War Radio Museum By Ted Lipien As reported by CNN and other media, Senator
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16 Feb
1961 Radio Liberty – Radio Svoboda QSL Card
Read moreCold War Radio Museum A QSL card sent out by Radio Liberty (Radio Svoboda) in
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12 Feb
Voice of America Polish Writer Listed As His Job Reference Stalin’s KGB Agent of Influence Who Duped President Roosevelt
Read moreBy Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum One of many pro-Soviet journalists working during
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07 Feb
Kirk Douglas on Radio Free Europe and Voice of America
Read moreBy Ted Lipien As Putin’s propagandists are again spreading lies around the world and trying
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02 Feb
Radio Free Europe Fundraising During the Cold War
Read moreThis Cold War Radio Museum updated post covers Radio Free Europe advertising as well as
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31 Jan
USCGC Courier Was Voice of America Radio Transmitting Station (1952–1964)
Read moreThe Truman administration (April 12, 1945 – January 20, 1953) responded to Soviet propaganda during the
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29 Jan
Stalin Peace Prize Voice of America Editor Duped by Soviet Propaganda
Read moreCold War Radio Museum As Vladimir Putin and his propagandists intensify their campaign to falsify
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18 Jan
Russian propaganda at WWII Voice of America
Read moreRussian propaganda influence in the United States is not new. “I established contact at the
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16 Jan
Selling “the religion of democracy” was in Voice of America’s first mission statement
Read moreBy Ted Lipien “To sell the religion of democracy” is believed to be the first
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31 Dec
VOA Guide For Writers and Editors Circa 1972
Read moreBy Ted Lipien Shortly after I had joined the Voice America (VOA) Polish Service 46
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Office of War Information
Office of War Information, O.W.I., was created in June 1942 during World War II as a propaganda and psychological warfare agency of the Executive Branch,…
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (Radio Liberation) were created in the 1950s to broadcast to Eastern Europe and USSR…
United States Information Agency
The United States Information Agency (USIA), which existed from 1953 to 1999, was a United States agency devoted to public diplomacy and a parent agency…
Voice of America
Voice of America, VOA, was created during World War II within the Overseas Branch of the Office of War Information, O.W.I. During the war, the…
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Cold War Radio Museum has opened online in August 2016. Check our website periodically for new exhibitions, articles and events. See Exhibit: Office of War…