Sumner Welles Archives - Cold War Radio Museum

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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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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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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A Stalin Peace Prize Laureate Still Waiting for Acknowledgement of His Soviet Agent of Influence Role at Voice of America

Curator — Tue, 08 Nov 2022 01:31:30 +0000

Stalin Peace Prize laureate Howard Fast has been erased from the history of the Voice of America, but an honest analysis of his Soviet agent of influence role as the station’s first World War II news chief could help VOA confront propaganda and disinformation today from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s state media and intelligence services. […]

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Office of War Information – Descriptions of Voice of America, OWI, and Office of Censorship Show Similarities to Disinformation Governance Board

Curator — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 23:25:33 +0000

The Office of War Information (OWI) and the Voice of America (VOA) during the Second World War would have been the closest model for comparison to the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), an advisory board of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced on April 27, 2022, to protect national security by disseminating guidance on combating disinformation but later paused […]

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Mira Złotowska – Michałowska — among Soviet sympathizers at VOA

Curator — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 06:23:27 +0000

By Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum Soviet influence at Voice of America during World War II — documents and analysis Soviet influence at WWII Voice of America From VOA to communist regime journalist Choices of VOA’s pro-Soviet journalist VOA journalist marries Communists A pro-Soviet propagandist at OWI and VOA VOA communist partner Stefan […]

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First VOA Director was a pro-Soviet communist sympathizer, State Dept. warned FDR White House

Curator — Sat, 05 May 2018 06:23:44 +0000

Cold War Radio Museum April 1943 – State Department Warns White House of Soviet Influence at Voice of America May 4, 2018 Analysis by Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum In 2018, the online Cold War Radio Museum presented for the first time to a broader online audience a secret 1943 memorandum sent to the Roosevelt […]

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