1893-1976
Eastern Europe
(372) documents
North America
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1911- 1984
1920- 2001
1893- 1969
October 1, 1963
This report prepared for the Hungarian Politburo in 1963 concluded that current jamming efforts were ineffective. It provided two options for the Politburo: to maintain and redirect jamming, focusing it on RFE, or to end it entirely.
April 11, 1969
This document indicates the continuing influence of German-language and other Western media in Czechoslovakia nine months after the Soviet invasion of August 1968. Czechoslovak officials criticized the heavy-handed Soviet broadcasts of Radio Vltava, and viewed other Soviet proposals to counter Western influence as counterproductive.
September 30, 1975
Pavel Minarik worked at RFE from 1968 to 1976 as an agent of the Czechoslovak Intelligence Service. During these years he provided many documents and analyses to the Service. This document contains Interior Minister Obzina’s approval of an Intelligence Service plan to recall and publicize Minarik’s activities. Minarik was recalled to Prague and surfaced at a staged press conference in 1976.
September 19, 1956
This Czechoslovak Politburo Resolution of 1956 approved an Interior Ministry plan to counter “reactionary exiles.” Radio Free Europe was an important target, and a series of disinformation actions were planned to disrupt its operations.
1979
A Bulgarian Interior Ministry paper details coordinated actions against Western radio in the aftermath of the May 1977 Budapest meeting of Bloc security services. The paper identifies RFE, and notably several of its broadcasters who recently defected from Bulgaria, as a major threat. It accuses Western media of sensationalizing the murder of Georgi Markov (who was killed by the Zhivkov regime).
This document provides further details of joint KGB-Bulgarian measures to counter RFE and RL. It vaunts the effectiveness of Bulgarian regime counterpropaganda, claiming that it thwarted Western efforts to create internal strife in Bulgaria.
December 27, 1977
This document from the Sixth Directorate of Bulgarian State Security thanks “Soviet comrades” for their assistance in combating hostile propaganda against Bulgaria. It acknowledges the role of State Security in publishing articles in the Bulgarian media “exposing” RFE and RL, and refers to joint Soviet-Bulgarian operations against Western radios.
December 30, 1985
This note regarding the results of the visit of a group of Interior Ministry officials to the KGB in Moscow contains a proposal to develop a coordinated plan to discredit RFE and RL.
April 25, 1981
A bomb exploded outside the RFE building in Munich on February 21, 1981, severely injuring several employees and causing major physical damage. This document, and others like it, indicates that the Ceausescu regime commissioned the “Carlos group” to carry out the attack. The Carlos group was then resident in Budapest, and this document indicates that the Hungarian Interior Ministry had advance knowledge of the bombing.
April 24, 1980
In the statement by the Czechoslovak Interior Minister at the Bloc Meeting held on 23 April 1980 to discuss foreign “hostile actions,” including Western radio broadcasting, special attention is given to attempts to form a political opposition in the socialist countries.
