The story
Founded by Federal Government of the United States and National Committee for a Free Europe in 1949.1
Early history
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe was created and grew in its early years through the efforts of the National Committee for a Free Europe (NCFE), an anti-communist CIA front organization that was formed by Allen Dulles in New York City in 1949. RFE/RL received funds covertly from the CIA until 1972. During RFE's earliest years of existence, the CIA and U.S. Department of State issued broad policy directives, and a system evolved where broadcast policy was determined through negotiation between them and RFE staff.
Radio Free Europe received widespread public support from Eisenhower's "Crusade for Freedom" campaign. In 1950, over 16 million Americans signed Eisenhower's "Freedom Scrolls" on a publicity trip to more than 20 U.S. cities and contributed $1,317,000 to the expansion of RFE.
Writer Sig Mickelson said that the NCFE's mission was to support refugees and provide them with a useful outlet for their opinions and creativity while increasing exposure to the modern world. The NCFE divided its program into three parts: exile relations, radio, and American contacts.
The United States funded a long list of projects to counter the "Communist appeal" among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world. RFE was developed out of a belief that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means. American policymakers such as George Kennan and John Foster Dulles acknowledged that the Cold War was essentially a war of ideas. The implementation of surrogate radio stations was a key part of the greater psychological war effort.
RFE was modeled after Radio in the American Sector (RIAS) a U.S. government-sponsored radio service initially intended for Germans living in the American sector of Berlin. According to Arch Puddington, a former bureau manager for RFE/RL, it was also widely listened to by East Germans. Staffed almost entirely by Germans with minimal U.S. supervision, the station provided free media to German listeners.
In January 1950, the NCFE obtained a transmitter base at Lampertheim, West Germany, and on 4 July of the same year RFE completed its first broadcast aimed at Czechoslovakia. In late 1950, RFE began to assemble a full-fledged foreign broadcast staff, becoming more than a "mouthpiece for exiles". Teams of journalists were hired for each language service, and an elaborate system of intelligence gathering provided up-to-date broadcast material. Most of this material came from a network of well-connected émigrés and interviews with travelers and defectors. RFE did not use paid agents inside the Iron Curtain and based its bureaus in regions popular with exiles. RFE also extensively monitored Communist bloc publications and radio services, creating a body of information that would later serve as a resource for organizations across the world.
In addition to its regular broadcasts, RFE spread broadcasts through a series of operations that distributed leaflets via meteorological balloons; one such operation, Prospero, sent messages to Czechoslovakia. From October 1951 to November 1956, the skies of Central Europe were filled with more than 350,000 balloons carrying over 300 million leaflets, posters, books, and other printed matter. The nature of the leaflets varied, and according to Arch Puddington included messages of support and encouragement "to citizens suffering under communist oppression", "satirical criticisms of communist regimes and leaders", information about dissident movements and human rights campaigns, and messages expressing the solidarity of the American people with the residents of Eastern European nations. Puddington stated that "the project served as a publicity tool to solidify RFE's reputation as an unbiased broadcaster".
Radio Liberty
Whereas Radio Free Europe broadcast to Soviet satellite countries, Radio Liberty broadcast to the Soviet Union. Radio Liberty was formed by American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Amcomlib) in 1951. Originally named Radio Liberation from Bolshevism, the station was renamed Radio Liberation in 1956, and received its present name, Radio Liberty, after a policy statement emphasizing "liberalization" rather than "liberation".
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Radio Liberty began broadcasting from Lampertheim on 1 March 1953, gaining a substantial audience when it covered the death of Joseph Stalin four days later. In order to better serve a greater geographic area, RFE supplemented its shortwave transmissions from Lampertheim with broadcasts from a transmitter base at Glória, Portugal in 1951. It also had a base at Oberwiesenfeld Airport on the outskirts of Munich, employing several former Nazi agents who had been involved in the Ostministerium under Gerhard von Mende during World War II. In 1955, Radio Liberty began broadcasting programs to Russia's eastern provinces from shortwave transmitters located on Taiwan. In 1959, Radio Liberty commenced broadcasts from a base at Platja de Pals, Spain.
Radio Liberty expanded its audience by broadcasting programs in languages other than Russian. By March 1954, Radio Liberty was broadcasting six to seven hours daily in eleven languages. By December 1954, Radio Liberty was broadcasting in 17 languages including Ukrainian, Belarusian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, Uzbek, Tatar, Bashkir, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, and other languages of the Caucasus and Central Asia.
1981 RFE/RL Munich bombing
On 21 February 1981, RFE/RL's headquarters in Munich was struck by a massive bomb, causing $2 million in damage. Several employees were injured, but there were no fatalities. Stasi files opened after 1989 indicated that the bombing was carried out by a group under the direction of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (known as "Carlos the Jackal"), and paid for by Nicolae Ceaușescu, president of Romania.
But, according to the former head of the KGB Counterintelligence Department K, general Oleg Kalugin, the bombing operation was planned over two years by Department K, with the active involvement of a KGB mole inside the radio station, Oleg Tumanov. This revelation directly implicates KGB colonel Oleg Nechiporenko, who recruited Tumanov in the early 1960s and was his Moscow curator. Nechiporenko has never denied his involvement. In an interview with Radio Liberty in 2003, he justified the bombing on the grounds that RFE/RL was an American propaganda tool against the Soviet Union. Tumanov was exfiltrated back to the USSR in 1986. Nechiporenko contacts with Carlos in the 1970s were confirmed by Nechiporenko himself in an article published by Segodnya in 2000 and by an article in Izvestia in 2001.
1980s: Glasnost and the Iron Curtain's fall
Funding for RFE/RL increased during the Reagan administration. President Ronald Reagan, a fervent anticommunist, urged the stations to be more critical of the communist regimes. This presented a challenge to RFE/RL's broadcast strategy, which had been very cautious since the controversy over its alleged role in the Hungarian Revolution.
During the Mikhail Gorbachev era in the Soviet Union under Glasnost, RFE/RL benefited significantly from the Soviet Union's new openness. Gorbachev stopped the practice of jamming the broadcasts. In addition, dissident politicians and officials could be freely interviewed by RFE/RL for the first time without fearing persecution or imprisonment. By 1990, Radio Liberty had become the most listened-to Western radio station broadcasting to the Soviet Union.
Its coverage of the 1991 August coup enriched sparse domestic coverage of the event and drew in a wide audience. The broadcasts allowed Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to stay in touch with the Russian people during this turbulent period. Boris Yeltsin later expressed his gratitude through a presidential decree allowing Radio Liberty to open a permanent bureau in Moscow. The Economist credited RFE/RL with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution
Following the 17 November demonstrations in 1989 and brutal crackdown by Czechoslovak riot police, Drahomíra Dražská, a porter at a dormitory in Prague, reported that a student, Martin Šmíd, had been killed during the clashes. The Charter 77 activist Petr Uhl believed this account and passed it along to major news organizations, who broadcast it. After Reuters and the Voice of America reported the story, RFE/RL decided to run it too. However, the report later turned out to be false. The story is credited by many sources with inspiring Czechoslovak citizens to join the subsequent (larger) demonstrations which eventually brought down the communist government. Czech journalist Petr Brod, was stationed in Prague as RFE/RL's first permanent correspondent in post-revolutionary Czechoslovakia, witnessing firsthand the fall of the communist regime during the Velvet Revolution.
2010s
On 14 October 2014, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and the Voice of America (VOA) launched a new Russian-language TV news program, Current Time, "to provide audiences in countries bordering Russia with a balanced alternative to the disinformation produced by Russian media outlets that is driving instability in the region". Over the next two years, Current Time – led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA – expanded to become a 24/7 digital and TV stream for Russian-speaking audiences worldwide.
Around 2017, Voice of America and RFE/RL launched Polygraph.info, and the Russian-language factograph.info, as fact-checking sites.
On 19 July 2018, RFE/RL announced it will be returning its news services to Bulgaria and Romania by the end of 2018 amid growing concern about a reversal in democratic gains and attacks on the rule of law and the judiciary in Bulgaria and in Romania.
The Romanian news service re-launched on 14 January 2019, and the Bulgarian service re-launched on 21 January 2019.
On 8 September 2020 the Hungarian service was also relaunched.
In a response to the United States Department of Justice requesting RT to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Russia's Justice Ministry also requested RFE/RL and Voice of America to register as foreign agents under the law ФЗ N 121-ФЗ / 20 July 2012 in December 2017.
2020s
In the aftermath of Belarusian presidential elections of 2020, Radio Liberty and independent media resources experienced significant pressure from the government and law enforcement. Journalists’ accreditations were cancelled by the authorities on 2 October 2020. On 16 July 2021, the office in Minsk and homes of the journalists were raided by the police.
In Russia, the government designated the station's website as a "foreign agent" on 14 May 2021. RL's bank accounts were frozen. By that time, Roskomnadzor, the Russian mass media regulator, had initiated 520 cases against the broadcaster, with total fines for the RL's refusal to mark its content with the "foreign agent" label estimated at $2.4m. On 19 May 2021, RL filed a legal case at the European Court of Human Rights, accusing the Russian government of violating freedom of expression and freedom of the media.
In March 2023, a criminal case was opened against Moscow resident Yury Kokhovets, a participant in the RFE/RL's street poll. He faced up to 10 years in prison under Russia's 2022 war censorship laws.
In 2022, Radio Free Europe was awarded an Online Journalism Award for coverage of Russia's War on Ukraine.
In 2023, a court in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan, accepted a request from the Culture Ministry to ban the operations of RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.
On July 31, 2023, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the European Commission and the Member States to strengthen independent Belarusian media outlets and welcoming the relocation of RFE/RL to Lithuania from where it "provides credible media coverage for the audience in Belarus".
In September 2023, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani service, Radio Azadliq, was revealed to have a leadership with links to Azerbaijan's ruling authorities, which censored content critical of the Azerbaijani government and instead published content that promoted the government's agendas.
In February 2024, RFE was listed as an 'undesirable organization' by Russia, effectively making it illegal in the country.
In May 2024, RFE/RL journalist Farid Mehralizade was detained in Azerbaijan in connection with the "Abzas Media case". In June 2025, he was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
2025 grant suspension
In February 2025 the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) proposed that RFE/RL and Voice of America be considered for closure as a cost saving measure for the U.S. government. The latest proposal comes after previous suggestions by other government officials to close RFE/RL.
On 14 March, Trump signed an executive order to eliminate USAGM, among other agencies, "to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law." An anonymous source told Politico that DOGE imposed a 30-day total freeze on funding to RFE/RL and other USAGM outlets, with the intention of making that permanent. On 15 March 2025, the United States Agency for Global Media terminated grants to RFE/RL and Radio Free Asia following a directive from the Trump administration. Reporters and other employees at broadcasters including RFE/RL received an email over the weekend stating that they would no longer be allowed access to their offices and would have to surrender press credentials, work phones, and other equipment. In response, Steve Capus, president of RFE/RL, said that "The cancellation of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's grant agreement would be a massive gift to America's enemies." On 18 March, RFE/RL sued USAGM and two USAGM officials to block the grant termination.
On 22 March 2025, the Czech government pledged to support RFE/RL following funding cuts by the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, rock band R.E.M., who had an early hit with the song "Radio Free Europe", released a remixed version with proceeds going to the organization. In May 2025, Kaja Kallas stated that the EU would provide US$6.2 million to RFE/RL and Sweden pledged US$2 million.
From Wikipedia’s article on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4