OWI Archives - Cold War Radio Museum

April 22, 1954: Howard Fast Accepts the Stalin Peace Prize in New York

Curator — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 23:05:17 +0000

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 and editor for Voice of […]

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Voice of America and Soviet “Democracy”: How VOA Journalists Helped Establish Communist Regimes

Curator — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:26:35 +0000

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 entirely false, is incomplete. In the case of the Polish-language sections of the Office of […]

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Walter Lippmann, the Voice of America, and the Limits of Liberal and Conservative Thought

Curator — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:32:34 +0000

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. Lippmann’s Prestige—and the Context He Carried With Him A Celebrated Journalist in a Contested Information Environment In August […]

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John Houseman, Howard Fast, and the Pro-Soviet Voice of America

Curator — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 07:11:05 +0000

Houseman’s Role in VOA Propaganda John Houseman, long mythologized as the “first director” of the Voice of America (VOA), was in reality its first chief producer — a man of the theater rather than a journalist. Editorial policy was shaped by Joseph F. Barnes, a pro-Soviet fellow-traveler newspaper reporter and close associate of Walter Duranty, […]

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Communist secret police in Poland spied on Voice of America’s Willis Conover to shut down Radio Free Europe

Curator — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 23:24:31 +0000

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 Poland’s presidency in 2020 and 2025. Trzaskowski’s late mother’s cooperation with the communist secret police, which also involved spying […]

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Did Radio and TV Pioneer David Sarnoff Coin the Voice of America name?

Curator — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 16:50:47 +0000

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-funded international radio broadcasting and one of the first to suggest for it the […]

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Soviet Spy Uncovered Through Venona Project Worked at Voice of America Library

Curator — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 23:55:57 +0000

Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum News reports that Poland, in the latest Russia-West prisoner swap, handed over an alleged Russian spy, who had worked for the Voice of America (VOA) as one of its freelance journalists, exposed some of the methods of Russian spying similar to Soviet spying during the Cold War. One […]

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Howard Fast – Voice of America’s First Chief News Writer and Editor and Future Stalin Peace Prize Winner Goes to Prison

Curator — Sat, 06 Apr 2024 23:56:07 +0000

by Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum On June 8, 1950, American novelist and Communist Party USA (CPUSA) activist and journalist Howard Fast, a former Voice of America’s (VOA) chief news writer and editor in the wartime United States Office of War Information (OWI), began serving his three-month prison sentence at Mill Point Federal […]

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For Poland’s Freedom From Beyond The Green Border – The Story of Radio Free Europe and Voice of America Broadcaster Marek Walicki

Curator — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 01:31:14 +0000

Summary Marek Walicki, a journalist and former broadcaster of the Polish Service of Radio Free Europe (RFE) and the Polish Service of the Voice of America (VOA), is the author of a book, Z Polski Ludowej do Wolnej Europy (From People’s Poland to Free Europe), a memoir of his life and radio career. First published in Polish […]

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Walter Duranty on Voice of America’s First Program Director Joseph F. Barnes

Curator — Sun, 01 Oct 2023 16:36:58 +0000

A commentary by Ted Lipien for the Cold War Radio Museum In doing historical research, I found a few indirect links between one of Joseph Stalin’s greatest apologists, the New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent in the 1930s Walter Duranty, and the Voice of America (VOA), the international radio broadcasting station, which since 1942 […]

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