User:Owllover5/sandbox

Radio Propaganda is propaganda aimed at influencing the attitude towards a cause or position by presenting one side of an argument through the radio. No other media outlet has changed the everyday lives of people around the world as quickly and irrevocably as the radio. The radio made it possible for vast populations to listen to descriptions of events and propaganda associated with these events while they are taking place. By the early 1940s, the radio combined the entertainment of large national audiences with the selling of products from commercial sponsors. It provided national and international news coverage, and during World War II, made listeners as well informed as they had ever been. It provided both national and local programs for interest groups, foreign language broadcasts for immigrants, weather forecasts for farmers, sports broadcasting, adventure stories for children, and a variety music. Domestically, the radio was important because 90% of American families owned at least one radio and listened to it on average three to four hours a day. It was a daily companion; a window to the outside world and a trusted provider of important news and information. Internationally, the radio was an early recruit to the propaganda campaign. It willingly disseminated various governments’ propaganda in its attempt to unite listeners around the world behind the war effort.

Of all the channels through which propaganda flows, radio is the most effective in preventing or in accelerating social change. Radio propaganda can be broadcast over great distances to a large audience at a relatively low cost. Through radio, a propagandist could bring his voice and all the persuasive power of his emotions to millions of people. There is a similarity shown in every conflict where propaganda is utilized; aside from convincing those on the home front of the necessity of war, a different kind of propaganda must be directed towards the enemy. Radio became a powerful propaganda tool because it ignored national borders and made enemy lines more assessable. One of the most common way hosts got the civilian and enemy populations to listen to their broadcasts was through the method of dropping leaflets from hot air balloons or airplanes. Most programs were on selected stations at certain times of the day; therefore the leaflets were dropped, explaining exactly when and where the broadcasts could be heard.

World War II

The use of radio as a tool of propaganda in wartime was made famous during WWII by broadcasting organization such as Voice of America and by shows such as Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, and Lord Haw Haw.

Nazi Germany

By 1939, both Czechoslovakia and Austria had vanished as independent states, the Versailles Treaty limitations on German military power had been scraped, and Germany had withdrawn from the League of Nations. Hitler was above all a propagandist. For him, propaganda was an inseparable from the concept of power and power and war were inseparable as well. Therefore, propaganda was an instrument of war that could be used against the enemy. The radio was an important tool in Nazi propaganda and it has been argued that it was the Nazi’s who pioneered the use of what was still a relatively new technology. Within a few months after the break out of WWII, German propagandists were transmitting no less than eleven hours a day of programs, offering most of them in English as well. The first year of Nazi propaganda programming indicated that their broadcasters attempted to destroy pro-British feeling rather than arouse pro-German sentiment. There were certain groups in the country that these propagandists targeted, including capitalists, Jews, and certain newspapers/politicians. By the summer of 1940, the tone of German radio towards the United States had become critical; the Nazi’s had abandoned all attempts to win American sympathy.

German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, was well aware of the necessity to seize every opportunity to benefit and promote the Third Reich. Goebbels claimed the radio was the "eighth great power" and he, along with the Nazi party, recognized the power of the radio in the propaganda machine of Nazi Germany. Recognizing the importance of radio in disseminating their message, Goebbels approved a mandate whereby millions of cheap radio sets were subsidized by the government and distributed to German citizens. It was Goebbels job to propagate the anti-Bolshevik statements of Hitler and aim it directly at neighboring countries with German-speaking minorities. In Goebbels "Radio as the Eighth Great Power" speech, he proclaimed:

“It would not have been possible for us to take power or to use it in the ways we have without the radio...It is no exaggeration to say that the German revolution, at least in the form it took, would have been impossible without the airplane and the radio…[Radio] reached the entire nation, regardless of class, standing, or religion. That was primarily the result of the tight centralization, the strong reporting, and the up-to-date nature of the German radio.”

As well as domestic broadcasts, the Nazi regime used the radio to deliver its message to both occupied territories and enemy states. One of the main targets was the United Kingdom to where William Joyce broadcasted regularly, gaining the nickname “Lord Haw-Haw” in the process. Broadcasts were also made to the United States, notably through Robert Henry Best and 'Axis Sally', Mildred Gillars.

Great Britain

British propaganda during WWI set a new benchmark that inspired the fascist and socialist regimes during WWII and the Cold War; Marshal Paul von Hindenburg stated, “This English propaganda was a new weapon, or rather a weapon which had never been employed on such a scale and so ruthlessly in the past.” It was clear that large numbers of civilians could be mobilized for a massive war effort through persuasive techniques derived from the emerging disciplines of behavioral psychology and social sciences.

An example of effective radio propaganda on the side of the United States for Great Britain is the news reports of Edward R. Murrow. When England stood alone to face the German onslaught in the fall of 1940, Murrow covered the Battle of Britain and particularly the nightly bombing raids on London. His reports described the falling of the bombs, their impact, and the destruction they brought. Murrow developed his own inimitable style; known for its colorful, vivid imagery. Neither melancholy nor soapy, his reports were so rich in detail and description that listeners could almost smell the fumes from the fires burning in the streets of London and feel the heat emanating from the smoldering ruins. Without question, this was radio reporting at its best, but there was also no doubt about its impact. As he described his approach to a London newspaper in 1941, “The official news is perhaps less important than the more intimate stories of life, work, and sacrifice.”

Murrow kept his focus squarely on the common man and how to reach them. He wanted to let the world know that England was fighting a “people’s war,” not a war for its colonies, as the American isolationists charged. He wanted Americans to know that England was standing tall, united in its cause and stood as the final means of protecting Western liberties and European civilization. He wanted Americans to see Great Britain as their natural ally and hurry in extending a helping hand. Because of his reputation and impact, Murrow’s role evolved into much more than that of a broadcaster. Many say he had far greater influence than the American ambassador to London; “He was an ambassador, in a double role, representing Britain in America as well as America in Britain.” He was a diplomat without a portfolio, a spokesman for a cause.”

United States

Historians believe the moment when American radio made its debut as the preeminent means of foreign news was the Munich Crisis in September 1938. Early that month, Hitler began his plans to dominate Europe by demanding self-determination for Germans living in a region of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. He left few doubts that he meant to annex the Sudetenland as part of an enlarged German Reich. High-level negotiations ensued, during which Britain’s Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, journeyed to Germany three times in less than three weeks in a desperate attempt to save peace Fearful that a European war would once again entangle them, Americans became glued to their radios for daily and sometimes hourly updates and interpretations of the latest developments of the crisis. Within a couple of days, American listeners were bombarded with news programs, special news bulletins, and expert commentary on the crisis.

America’s first venture into international broadcasting was in 1940 after Nazi victories in Europe, when the Roosevelt administration was becoming increasingly concerned about the affects of Nazi propaganda, both domestically and internationally. In August 1940, President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order establishing the Office of Coordination of Commercial and Cultural Relations to promote the use of government/private radio, and the Office of Coordinator of Information. By 1942, the most famous radio program airing overseas became known as “Voice of America.” Even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government's Office of the Coordinator of Information began providing war news and commentary to the commercial American shortwave radio stations for use on a voluntary basis.

A popular government wartime radio show, performed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was known as “fireside chats.” Two of the most famous programs on the radio show included On National Security and On the Declaration of War with Japan. “The Arsenal of Democracy” was a slogan coined by President Roosevelt during his national security radio broadcast delivered on December 29, 1940. Roosevelt promised to help the Great Britain fight Nazi Germany by giving them military supplies while the United States stayed out of the actual fighting. This announcement was made a year before the attacks on Pearl Harbor, at a time when Germany had occupied much of Europe and threatened Great Britain. The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor occurred; Roosevelt delivered his famous Infamy Speech to Congress, which was broadcasted to the American people. The President called for a formal declaration of war on the Empire of Japan. The Infamy Speech was brief, running to just a little over seven minutes, and Roosevelt made a point of emphasizing that the United States and her interests were in grave danger. In so doing, he sought to end the isolationist stance the United States had previously been advocating for concerning involvement in the war. The overall tone of the speech was one of determined realism. Roosevelt made no attempt to glaze over the extensive damage that had been caused to the American armed forces, noting the amount of American lives lost in the attack. However, he emphasized his confidence in the strength of the America to face the challenge posed by Japan.

FDR "fireside" chats.

“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.”

“As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.”

“Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the un-bounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt - December 8, 1941

With this declaration of war, the radio joined the propaganda campaign. Throughout the war, Pearl Harbor was frequently used in American propaganda. Direct wartime programming began shortly after the United States entry into the war. The first live broadcast to Germany, called Stimmen aus Amerika ("Voices from America") took place on Feb 1, 1942. It was introduced by "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and included the pledge: "Today, and every day from now on, we will be with you from America to talk about the war....The news may be good or bad for us – We will always tell you the truth."

Famous Radio Shows

During World War II, American GIs in both the Pacific and European theaters of war heard anonymous figures on the radio playing carefully selected American music and extolling the virtues of Japanese and Nazi causes. The DJs continuously encouraged GIs to stop fighting and constantly made false claims of American defeats and Japanese or Nazi victories. They frequently referred to specific American units and individuals by name and in rare cases, mentioned the names of loved ones back home. GIs dubbed the voice from Japan "Tokyo Rose," the two popular voices from Germany "Axis Sally" and “Lord Haw-Haw”.

Tokyo Rose: Iva Toguri wound up at Radio Tokyo as a typist, preparing English-language scripts drafted by Japanese authorities for broadcast to the Allied troops in the Pacific after being stranded in Japan while visiting her sick aunt after the United States refused to let her reenter the country post-Pearl Harbor. At Radio Tokyo, Toguri met captured Australian Major Charles Cousens, and his associates American Captain Wallace Ince and Filipino Lieutenant Normando Reyes. A supporter of the Allies in the war, she was delighted to meet soldiers who had been fighting for her side. Put off by her overt friendliness and pro-Americanism, the POWs initially suspected her of being a Kempeitai spy, but over the next few months, they eventually came to trust her. When Radio Tokyo directed Cousens to write a woman DJ into his Zero Hour program, he asked for Toguri by name. Since their capture and conscription into Radio Tokyo, the Allied POWs had waged a covert campaign to sabotage the Japanese propaganda effort through the use of on-air innuendos, satire, and sarcastic, rushed or muffled readings. Now they had to bring a fourth party into the conspiracy, and the only person they could trust to support their efforts was Toguri. She was dubbed with the name "Tokyo Rose" and listeners came to know her by that name.

Iva Toguri "Tokyo Rose".

After the war, the Army Counter Intelligence Corps, the FBI, and the press continued to refer to Toguri by that name as she was taken into custody and brought to trial. Those defending Toguri stated that clearly she was "forced" to broadcast for the Japanese and was always a loyal American, shown by her many attempts to return home and was continuously rejected. They also pointed to the lack of "tangible" evidence; American investigators never discovered any Japanese documents with the name "Tokyo Rose" because "Tokyo Rose" was coined by American GIs. However, under the United States Constitution, treason is the act of providing "aid and comfort" to an enemy. It does not say that force, loneliness, trickery, coercion, or fright are mitigating factors in favor of traitors. On October 6, 1949, Toguri, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $10,000. She served less than half that time and was pardoned by President Gerald Ford.

Axis Sally refers to Mildred Gillars, who was an American broadcaster employed by the Third Reich in Nazi Germany to proliferate propaganda during World War II. By 1941, the U.S. State Department advised American nationals to return home, but Gillars chose to stay in Germany after her fiancé, a German citizen named Paul Karlson, refused marry her if she returned to the United States. Shortly afterwards, Karlson was sent to the Eastern Front, where he died in action. In 1940 she obtained work as an announcer with the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG), German State Radio. On December 7, 1941, Gillars was working in the studio when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was announced. She broke down in front of her colleagues and denounced their allies in the east. However decided to stay in Germany, Gillar was now faced with the prospect of joblessness or prison, so she produced a written oath of allegiance to Germany and returned to work, her duties limited to announcing records and participating in chat shows. Soon she acquired several names amongst her GI listeners, including Berlin Bitch, Berlin Babe, Olga, and Sally, but the one that became most common was “Axis Sally.”

Mildred Gillars "Axis Sally".

Her most successful show was known as Home Sweet Home. Home Sweet Home attempted to exploit the fears of American soldiers about the home front. The broadcasts were designed to make the soldiers cast doubt on their mission, their leaders, and their prospects after the war. Another show known as Midge at the Mike, broadcasted to late fall 1943, Gillar played American songs interspersed with defeatist propaganda and anti-Semitic rhetoric, as well as G. I.’s Letter box and Medical Reports in 1944, in which Gillars used information on wounded and captured US airmen to cause fear and worry in their families. She was convicted of treason by the United States in 1949 following her capture in post-war Berlin. Her arrest came about after the U.S. attorney general specially dispatched prosecutor Victor C. Woerheide to Berlin to find and arrest Gillars. He only had one solid lead: Raymond Kurtz, a B-17 pilot shot down by the Germans, recalled that a woman who had visited his prison camp seeking interviews was the broadcaster. Gillars was indicted on September 10, 1948, and charged with 10 counts of treason but only eight were proceeded with at her trial which began on January 25, 1949. The prosecution relied on the large number of her programs recorded by the Federal Communications Commission to show her active participation in propaganda activities against the United States. It was also shown that she had made an oath of allegiance to Hitler. She was sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Lord Haw-Haw refers to William Joyce, German radio's most prominent English-language speaker. He hosted a propaganda show on a radio program called Germany Calling, broadcasted by Nazi German radio to audiences in Great Britain on the station Reichssender Hamburg. The program started on September 18, 1939 and continued until April 30, 1945, when Hamburg was overrun by the British Army. Through his broadcasts, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda attempted to discourage and demoralize British, Canadian, Australian, and American troops and the British population within radio range to suppress the effectiveness of the Allied war effort through propaganda and to motivate the Allies to agree to peace terms leaving the Nazi regime intact and in power. The Nazi broadcasts prominently reported on the shooting down of Allied aircraft and the sinking of Allied ships, presenting discouraging reports of high losses and casualties among Allied forces. Although listening to his broadcasts was highly discouraged, many Britons did indeed tune in to them. In 1940, at the height of his influence, Joyce had an estimated 6 million regular and 18 million occasional listeners in Great Britain.

At the end of the war, Joyce was captured by British forces at Flensburg, near the German border with Denmark. Spotting a disheveled figure while resting from gathering firewood, intelligence soldiers engaged him in conversation, asked if he was Joyce, and as he reached in his pocket for his false passport, the solders’ believed he was armed and shot him in the buttocks, leaving four wounds. Joyce was charged on the basis that, even though he had misstated his nationality to gain possession of a British passport, this entitled him (until it expired) to British diplomatic protection in Germany and therefore he owed allegiance to the king at the time he commenced working for the Germans. Joyce was convicted and sentenced to death on September 19, 1945.

Cold War

By 1946, it became clear to the United States that the Soviet Union did not share the American vision of postwar collaboration for peace in Europe. Soviet authorities began to install communist regimes in liberated territories of Eastern Europe, a direct violation of the provisions in the Teheran and Yalta Conference. The radio became crucial in the propaganda war between the two blocs and was the main concern of both participants’ information agencies as the “war of ideas” began. In 1948, Moscow organized the Communist Information Agency (Comiform), which was formed to unite the communist states in forthcoming struggle against “Anglo-American Imperialism.”

One of the earliest responses in Europe was known as Radio in the American Sector (RIAS). RIAS was established in 1946 to serve the American sector in West Berlin. The station's importance was magnified during the 1948 Berlin blockade, when it carried the message of Allied determination to resist Soviet intimidation. In East Germany, broadcasts included news, commentary, and cultural programs that were unavailable in the controlled media of the German Democratic Republic. The management of RIAS developed many of the techniques later used to develop Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The broadcasts of the RIAS concentrated on the idea of democracy and the importance of the breakdown of the international communications barriers erected by the communists. The programming was generally geared towards “special groups” within the East German population, including youth, women, farmers, etc. The broadcast became known as the “bridge” from West to East Germany over the Berlin Wall.

Aside from RIAS, Voice of America began broadcasting in 1947 in the Soviet Union for the first time as a part of U.S. foreign policy to fight the propaganda of the Soviet Union and other countries. Initially, there was only one hour per day of news and other features being broadcasted in the pretext of countering "more harmful instances of Soviet propaganda directed against American leaders and policies" on the part of the internal Soviet Russian-language media. The Soviet Union responded by initiating aggressive, electronic jamming of Voice of America broadcasts on April 24, 1949. This led critics to question the broadcasts' actual impact. However, after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, interviews with participants in anti-Soviet movements verified the effectiveness of VOA broadcasts in transmitting information to socialist societies.

While many acknowledged the importance of propaganda as an instrument of foreign policy, it was primarily the Cold War that institutionalized propaganda as a permanent instrument of U.S. foreign policy. The Soviets suddenly increased the tempo of the war, by taking over Czechoslovakia and attempting to take complete control of Berlin. Realizing there was no further hope in the Soviet Union being considered an ally, National Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed in April 1949, establishing the containment policy of communism as the organizations priority. The escalation of the Cold War intensified America’s interest in broadcasting and information policy. The world was entering into a new era of foreign relations; therefore, the National Security Council produced a study in 1949 that concluded the need for the United States to have a major information program to counter Soviet aggression. The council issued document 10/2, approved by President Truman in June 1948, authorizing a comprehensive program of clandestine warfare, including black propaganda, psychological warfare, subversion, assistance to underground resistance movements, paramilitary operations, and economic warfare. The famous form of anti-Soviet propaganda was the development of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which broadcasted to Eastern Europe. The station’s purpose, above all, was fighting a political mission against Communism and Sovietism, against the representatives of the terrorist regime. Its job was to mask Communist plans and out all of those who were propagandist of communist ideology. While other countries established international broadcasting entities, RFE/RL’s purpose was to change the form of government in foreign nations by airing news not about the country from which the broadcasts originated, but about the countries that were the broadcasts targets.

President Truman announced in 1950 that the United States would launch an information program known as the “Campaign of Truth.” The name was strategically picked to avoid any connotation of propaganda. The goals of the campaign included:

1) Establish a “healthy international community” with confidence in American leadership.

2) Present American fairly and counter “all the misrepresentations.”

3) Discourage further Soviet encroachment by showing that American is desirous of peace but is prepared for war.

4) Help “to roll back Soviet influence” by all means short of force, making the captive people feel like they can identify with the West, weakening the morale of the Soviet military personnel, and encouraging non-communist forces.

In late 1950, RFE/RL 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. The Communist regimes devoted considerable resources to countering Western broadcasts. They organized radio jamming on a massive scale, spending more on jamming than the West did on broadcasting. They placed spies in Western radios in attempt to interrupt information and organized counterpropaganda, while attempting to gain access to top level officials to provide them with the information that may be controlled by Western media outlets or intelligence services. These countermeasures by regimes significantly drained domestic resources, and failed to neutralize Western broadcasts.

During these years, the practice of propaganda became inextricably tied to the practices of psychological warfare.During World War II, psychological warfare was largely seen as an accessory to military operations, but during the Cold War psychological warfare was utilized to influence public opinion and advance foreign policy interests. Psychological warfare became, in essence, a synonym for the Cold War. It reflected the belief that the Cold War was an ideological, psychological, and cultural contest for hearts and minds that would be won or lost on the plain of public opinion. Whenever President Kennedy took office, his administration had a greater interest in the U.S. information effort than any other president up until that time. With Nikita Khrushchev’s address to the Soviet Central Committee in 1961, U.S. leaders believed the Soviet Union would be ready to seek a more limited form of conflict, emphasizing their winning of hearts and minds. The United States saw this as a good sign for psychological resources to their advantage. However, these components of propaganda were put on hold with the Bay of Pigs scandal, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the abrupt end of the Kennedy Administration.

Vietnam

The first Vietnamese-language radio transmission was made on September 2, 1945, when Ho Chi Minh read out the Declaration of Independence. Prior to 1945, Vietnamese people were banned from owning radio receivers, and broadcasting was under control of the French colonial government, who established the first radio station in Vietnam, Radio Saigon, in the late 1920s. Vietnam's national radio station, now called the Voice of Vietnam, started broadcasting from Hanoi the week after declaration of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, stating, "This is the Voice of Vietnam, broadcasting from Hanoi, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.” During the Vietnam War, Radio Hanoi operated as a propaganda tool of North Vietnam. Following Reunification, all of the radio stations were combined into the Voice of Vietnam, which became the national radio station in 1978.

Hanoi Hannah or Trịnh Thị Ngọ, was a Vietnamese radio personality best known for her work during the Vietnam War, when she made English-language broadcasts for North Vietnam directed at U.S. troops. During the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, Ngo became famous among U.S. soldiers for her propaganda broadcasts on Radio Hanoi. She made three broadcasts a day, reading the list of the newly killed or imprisoned Americans, attempting to persuade U.S. GIs that the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was unjust and immoral and played popular U.S. anti-war songs in an attempt to incite feelings of nostalgia and homesickness amongst U.S. troops. Although she used the alias Thu Huong, the GIs usually called her "Hanoi Hannah" or "the Dragon Lady". Few believed to have ensued any desired feelings from her propaganda work and the soldiers often mocked her tactics, but were often impressed by her military intelligence, especially when she mentioned the location of their own unit or and listed specific U.S. casualties. After the war, she returned to live in Ho Chi Minh City with her husband where her voice remained better known in the U.S. than in her own country.

Iraq and Afghanistan

In recent years, the United States has taken the lead in broadcast psychological operations due to its superior technology, and its ability to use aircraft to broadcast AM, FM and short-wave radio from directly over target audience. America has dropped battery or crank-powered radios on third-world nations like Haiti so that the populace could hear the broadcasts. In the more recent struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States distributed various battery and solar-powered satellite radios so that its story could be heard. The U.S. also utilized dropping leaflets to inform Afghans on the attacks of September 11 and the Taliban and infiltrate Iraq with information on anti-Saddam radio programs that would be broadcasted.

Leaflets dropped by aircraft encouraging Iraqis to listen for news broadcasts on special radio channels.

In the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, psychological operations tactics were employed to demoralize the Taliban and to win the sympathies of the Afghan population. At least six EC-130E Commando Solo aircraft were used to jam local radio transmissions and transmit replacement propaganda messages even before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The primary PSYOP objectives were used to counter adversarial propaganda, to discourage interference with humanitarian affairs activities, to support objectives against state and non-state supporters and sponsors of terrorism, and to disrupt support for and relationships of terrorist organizations. In Afghanistan, the U.S. military has long conducted propaganda campaigns to try to sway public opinion against insurgents. Today, the U.S. is teaching Afghan army units how to counter Taliban propaganda, especially with local radio. The idea is to counter the Taliban sponsored stations, so called "Mullah Radios," that operate mainly in the tribal areas along the Pakistani border and broadcast propaganda that helps turn public opinion against foreign troops and the pro-Western Afghan government. Radio is key to reaching the majority of Afghans; with only a limited access to television, newspapers, and the Internet, most depend on radio programs to get their information.

During the Iraq War, the U.S. implemented "black Propaganda" by creating false radio personalities that would disseminate pro-American information but supposedly run by the supporters of Saddam Hussein. Radio Tikrit was a radio station in Iraq that broadcasted programs that reflected strong support for the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his government. The station's name is also the name of the Iraqi town where Saddam and other members of his government were born. However, the tone of Radio Tikrit's programs began to change dramatically; one show reportedly described Iraqis so poor that they had to sell their windows and doors. Another broadcast reported to have encouraged Iraqi soldiers to refuse the "orders of the tyrant" and "be brave before it is too late,” suggesting that the United States may have infiltrated the station. The U.S. was also successful with the "Voice of America" efforts once the censorship of the Iraqi media was lifted with the removal of Saddam from power.

Voice of America

Official logo for Voice of America.

Voice of America, The Voice, or VOA is the official external broadcast institution of the United States federal government, sponsoring programming for broadcast on the radio, television, and the Internet outside of the U.S. in 43 languages. Currently, VOA produces about 1,500 hours of news and feature programming each week to global audience in order, "to promote freedom and democracy and to enhance understanding through multimedia communication of accurate, objective, and balanced news, information and other programming about America and the world to audiences overseas." Under § 501 of the Smith–Mundt Act of 1948, the Voice of America is forbidden to broadcast directly to American citizens. The intent of the legislation is to protect the American public from propaganda actions by its own government.

On July 12, 1976, the principles were signed into law by President Gerald Ford. It reads:

“The long-range interests of the United States are served by communicating directly with the peoples of the world by radio. To be effective, the Voice of America must win the attention and respect of listeners. These principles will therefore govern Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts:

1. VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective, and comprehensive.

2. VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions.

3. VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies.”

Today, the VOA operates shortwave radio transmitters and antenna farms at one site in the United States, close to Greenville, North Carolina. The 44 languages that Voice of America currently broadcasts in include (TV marked with an asterisk):

• Afan Oromo
• Albanian*
• Amharic
• Arabic*
• Armenian*
• Azerbaijani*
• Bengali*
• Bosnian*
• Burmese
• Cantonese*
• Creole
• Croatian*
• Dari*
• English* (also Special English)
• French*
• Georgian
• Greek*
• Hausa
• Hindi
• Indonesian*
• Khmer
• Kinyarwanda
• Kirundi
• Korean
• Kurdish
• Lao
• Macedonian*
• Mandarin*
• Ndebele
• Pashto*
• Portuguese
• Russian*
• Serbian*
• Shona
• Somali
• Spanish*
• Swahili
• Thai
• Tibetan*
• Tigrigna
• Turkish*
• Ukrainian*
• Urdu*
• Uzbek*
• Persian*
• Vietnamese

From 1942 to 1945, VOA was part of the Office of War Information, from 1945 to 1953, a function of the State Department, and in 1953, was placed under the U.S. Information Agency. When the USIA was abolished in 1999, the VOA was placed under the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), where the control remains today. The BBG was established as a buffer to protect VOA and other U.S.-sponsored, non-military, international broadcasters from political interference.

In 1994, Voice of America became the first broadcast-news organization to offer continuously updated programs on the Internet in English and 44 other languages, using more than 20,000 servers across 71 countries. Since many listeners in Africa and other areas still receive much of their information via radio and have only limited access to computers, VOA continues to maintain regular shortwave-radio broadcasts.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty' is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed". RFE/RL is supervised by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, alongside Voice of America.

Founded as an anti-communist propaganda source during the Cold War, RFE/RL was headquartered in Munich, Germany, from 1949 to 1995. In 1995, the headquarters were moved to Prague in the Czech Republic, where operations have been significantly reduced since the end of the Cold War. In addition to the headquarters, the service maintains 20 local bureaus in countries throughout their broadcast region, including a corporate office in Washington, D.C. RFE/RL broadcasts in 28 languages to 21 countries including Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.

RFE/RL 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 United States, acting through the CIA, funded a long list of projects to counter the Communist appeal in Europe and the developing world. The missions of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty were separate from Voice of America in the sense that VOA was meant to be just that, the voice of America, reflecting American foreign policy and disseminating world news from an official American viewpoint. Whereas RFE/RL has the mission of captivating people and stimulate non-cooperation in communist countries.

See also

• Nazi Propaganda
• Voice of America
• Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
• black propaganda
• Political warfare
• Psychological warfare

References

• Horten, Gerd (2002). Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda During WWII. University of California Press. p. 211.
• Smith, Paul (1989). On Political War. National Defense Universtiy Press. p. 279.
• Tyson, James (1983). U.S. International Broadcasting and National Security. RAMAPO Press. p. 153. ISBN 0-915071-00-2.
• Chester, Edward (1969). Radio, Television, and American Politics. Sheed and Ward: New York. p. 342.
• Puddington, Arch (2000). Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. The University Press of Kentucky. p. 382. ISBN 0-8131-2158-2.
• Parta, Eugene (2010). Cold War Broadcasting. Central European University Press. p. 583. ISBN 978-963-9776-80-7.