by Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum April 22 is not a date usually remembered in the history of the Voice of America (VOA). Yet it deserves to be. On this day in 1954, at the Hotel McAlpin in New York, Howard Fast — a former chief news writer...
Voice of America, OWI, and the Polish Desk: A Reconsideration The history of the wartime Voice of America (VOA) is most often presented as a story of broadcasting truthful news in defense of freedom and democracy. That description, while not...
A reexamination of Walter Lippmann’s critique of the Voice of America (VOA) in light of wartime propaganda, Soviet influence operations, and the practical realities of Cold War broadcasting—revealing both the insight and the limits of his analysis...
An early preserved recording documenting the program’s beginnings — and the later rise of Pat Gates as one of the Voice of America’s rare internationally recognized broadcasting personalities. The Breakfast Show was a worldwide English-language...
Recovering a forgotten Voice of America / RIAS relay preserved on magnetic tape At a glance Listen first: Murrow’s introduction + RIAS Christmas segments (VOA WW English relay, Dec. 1961) Why it matters: A rare example of Cold War broadcasting as...
Identification photograph of John Houseman from his Office of War Information (OWI) personnel file in New York, circa 1942. Houseman played a leading role in organizing U.S. wartime radio broadcasts, including foreign-language programming that later...
One of the secret police informants spying on the Voice of America’s (VOA’s) famous jazz DJ Willis Conover during his visit to communist-ruled Poland in 1959 was the mother of Rafał Trzaskowski, the unsuccessful candidate for...
Summary David Sarnoff, the pioneer of the radio and television industry in the United States and the founder of the NBC network, was most likely the first American with access to the White House to present a comprehensive plan for U.S. government...
As of March 20, 2025, it is unclear if and when the Voice of America (VOA) radio and television broadcasts and online publications will resume following the implementation of President Trump’s Executive Order, Continuing the Reduction of the...
I published my op-ed in The Hill today (March 17, 2025) about the the Trump administration’s sudden, drastic and counterproductive action of shutting down all journalistic operations serving audiences abroad under the umbrella of the U.S. Agency for...