MR. LEWIS AND RADIO FREE EUROPE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R000900080069-3
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 2013
• Sequence Number: 69
• Publication Date: March 29, 1958
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Mr. Lewis and Radio Fre,e Europe,
National Review surveys the conflict between Fulton
Lewis Jr. and Radio Free Europe and proposes a course
of action for common enlightenment . . .
If something is not done about it
soon, the war between Fulton Lewis
Jr. and Radio Free Europe may have
unwelcome consequences. For one
thing, the issues, as time goes by, are
becoming so tangled as to make it
more and more difficult to get to the
bottom of them. Tempers, moreover,
are hot. Radio Free Europe has been,
and continues to be, under fire from
other quarters. It was widely alleged
a year ago that RFE's galvanizing
broadcasts brought on the Hungarian
uprising, and the subsequent carnage.
In any case, the danger is that anti-
anti-Communists and neutralists will
exploit the situation to bring on re-
sults that neither Mr. Lewis nor
RFE would welcome. It is time for
anti-Communists to suggest a course
of action; one which, because it is
fair and constructive, might compel
the support and cooperation of the
two camps. We intend to make such a
proposal here, after examining the
nature of the problem.
Fulton Lewis Jr. began to broad-
cast his criticisms on October 31, 1957,
some eight years after Radio Free
Europe was founded. Mr. Lewis does
not object, he has reminded his audi-
ence, to the "ideals" of Radio Free
Europe; but he feels that, for a num-
ber of reasons, the organization is
not living up to its posted principles.
Night after night, week after week,
month after month, he has been giv-
ing reasons to support his central
contentions that Radio Free Europe
is being gravely mismanaged, and
that the line it takes in its broad-
casts is ideologically unsatisfactory.
Unquestionably he has undermined
confidence in the organization on the
part of most of his listeners and
readers, and they are numerous.
What is the objective of Mr. Lewis?
Reform, compelled by a congressional
investigation.
Radio Free Europe at times acts as
though Fulton Lewis Jr. did not exist,
and at other times tears its hair in
semi-public exhibitions of anguish.
RFE has not publicly conceded that
there is merit in any of the charges
Fulton Lewis has made. Privately, it
may be another matter: outsiders
have no way of knowing. RFE's
counteroffensive has been to pretend,
for the benefit of those who are un-
aware of it, that the war does not
exist; and for those who are con-
cerned, to encourage the belief that
Fulton Lewis Jr. is wildly irrespon-
sible, but that RFE, alas, cannot make
a conclusive public demonstration of
his irresponsibility because of the
character of its operations, which de-
pend heavily, for their success, on
secrecy. We can't hit back, they are
saying in effect; and that is why we
haven't annihilated Lewis.
Government Funds?
We come to the crux of the prob-
lem. It is considered indiscreet to
speculate publicly on the extent to
which RFE is a government-directed
enterprise. For one thing, the Com-
munists are constantly alleging this
in an effort to reduce RFE's flexibil-
ity. For purposes of this analysis it
is not necessary to assert or to deny
RFE's dependence on Central Intel-
ligence Agency funds. Conceivably
it gets three quarters of its money
(Lewis estimates it at $20 million a
year) from the CIA; conceivably it
gets not a penny: the analysis is un-
affected because it is obvious that
without government sufferance, RFE
could not operate.
Clearly RFE's bases in Munich and
Lisbon, whence it transmits to coun-
tries behind the Iron Curtain, are
leased to it by Germany and Portugal
by arrangement with the American
government. If the State Depart-
ment, or in any case the White House,
gave the word, the doors of RFE
would close as inexorably as if the
AN EDITORIAL
State Department were dealing with
one. of its consular offices. Shortly
after the Polish and Hungarian up-
risings, for example, the State De-
partment agreed, in conversations
wit it the Soviet Union, to suspend
RFE's provocative balloon program;
and, dutifully, down came the bal-
loons, illustrating the kind of author-
ity the government exercises over
RFE's operations.
But in international affairs, it ap-
pears to be important to be able to
attach a certain plausibility, however
superficial, to routine diplomatic af-
firmations, in this case the statement
that CIA (i.e., the government) does
not direct (even negatively) the pol-
icy of RFE. To strengthen that im-
pression?and perhaps to reduce the
drain on CIA funds?a great deal of
trouble is taken to solicit funds from
'private corporations and individual
citizens, a project undertaken every
year by an organization called Cru-
sade for Freedom, whose exclusive
function it is to raise money for RFE.
Crusade for Freedom makes a
prodigious campaign for funds, en-
listing the efforts of a glittering roster
of big-name sponsors. The campaign
is regularly launched by the Presi-
dent himself. Heads of mighty in-
dustrial ?organizations take it from
there, touring the country and mak-
ing speeches, mostly to presidents
of other large corporations. The har-
vest is good. Last year, for example,
Standard Oil gave $250,000. Other
organizations give anywhere from
$500 to $100,000. On top of that, news-
paper boys collect pennies and dimes
from their clients. The total amount
raised is not revealed, but $10 million
appears to be a reasonable guess.
The donations are, of course, tax
exempt.
Rather a good demonstration, then,
can be made in the course of con-
tending that RFE is privately
financed, as RFE officials stoutly in-
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sist it is?therein observing if not
the truth, at least the protocols. Ful-
ton Lewis Jr. asserts that CIA puts
up a large part of the money. But
as we say, this is not a dispute that
needs to be?or even should be?
adjudicated; it is enough to bear in
mind that, as lessor, the government
has a veto power over RFE, and
that therefore any criticism of RFE
for conforming with American foreign
policy is inapposite, since RFE pre-
sumably has no alternative. For ex-
ample, if the Eisenhower Administra-
tion comes out for aid to Tito?as,
regrettably, it has?it is unrealistic
to suppose that RFE could get away
with broadcasting analyses as to why
aid to Tito is unwise. Fulton Lewis
can, however, correctly protest the
representations of Crusade for Free-
dom to anti-Communist donors; for
Crusade is not above suggesting that
Radio Free Europe, as an independent
organization, can hew a tough anti-
Communist line which the American
government, weighted down by diplo-
matic and political inhibitions, could
never do?even if it were so disposed.
In other words, if RFE must adopt
a friendly attitude toward Tito be-
cause the U.S. Government does,
is it right to solicit anti-Tito dollars
from Americans who assume that
Radio Free Europe, an organization
of perceptive anti-Communists, would
never fall for the delusions that tend
to bewitch our policy-makers?
RFE's refusal to publish reports
on its intimate affairs cannot he as-
sumed to confirm its connection with
CIA. RFE can adduce altogether con-
vincing reasons for keeping its opera-
tions secret. Under RFE cover, the
organization presumably engages?
let us certainly hope it does?in
clandestine, quasi-conspiratorial anti-
Communist operations. To put it an-
other way, if it does not do so, with
the singular opportunities open to it,
its directors should be hanged. One
must bear in mind, then, that RFE
can reasonably refuse to ventilate
its intimate operations on the ground
that to do so would be to -"blow"
(a spy=word meaning to expose and
thus render ineffective) its valuable
operations.
We have arrived at a point where
a crucial distinction needs to be made,
and hereafter borne in mind. Some
operations of RFE are secret, and
cannot, without damage to them, be
publicly surveyed; but some are not,
and therefore could be, without dam-
age to anything except, possibly,
malefactor directly involved, properly
investigated. RFE and Fulton Lewis
Jr., it appears to us, have both failed
to make that distinction as sharply
as it should be made: RFE by apply-
ing the cloak of immunity to opera-
tions that appear to be self-confined
and overt; Fulton Lewis by implying
that everything RFE does bears pub-
lic investigation. The distinction is
not always easy, to apply, to be sure.
What may appear to an outsider
wholly aboveboard may in fact be a
painfully contrived cover for a
clandestine enterprise. A publication
may take a particular position on
a particular issue for reasons that
have nothing to do with the 'merits
of the case?but because by taking
that position, attention is distracted
from Operation X; and so on. The
fact that the distinction is not readily
applied will figure in the proposal
we make below.
Heated Words
In the current dispute between Ful-
ton Lewis Jr. and RFE, what one
might have expected to happen has,
alas, happened: passion has crept in.
Fulton Lewis Jr., RFE officials are
saying, has been so outrageously ir-
responsible as to make preposterous
the suggestion that we undertake a
serious discussion with him. If any of
my facts are off, Fulton Lewis Jr.
answers, it is because RFE has re-
fused to cooperate with me in check-
ing the material I have, and in
answering, responsibly, the charges
that I have made.
And indeed, RFE has behaved
strangely to say the least. Until a
few weeks ago, the president of
RFE, General Willis D. Crittenbergei-,
an old subordinate and friend of
General Eisenhower, refused to see
Fulton Lewis or to answer any com-
munication or inquiry Fulton Lewis
addressed to him. During Christmas
week Mr. Gwylim Price, at the time
president of Westinghouse and presi-
dent of Crusade for Freedom, made
an appointment to see Fulton Lewis
in New York. Lewis came up from
Washington prepared to see Mr.
Price, but Mr. Price cancelled the
appointment and failed to make an-
other one.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
letters have been written by listeners
of Fulton Lewis to presidents of
corporations in which they own stock,
asking how the corporations justify,
in the teeth of Fulton Lewis' revela-
tions, making gifts to Crusade for
Freedom. Inevitably the replies to the
stockholders, some of them calm but
most of them seething, are forwarded
to Fulton Lewis Jr., and he has,
in the choicer cases, read them over
the air, thus understandably inflam-
ing his audience. A lady who, as a
consumer of Westinghouse products,
wrote questioning the company's sup-
port of RFE, received a letter from
Mr. Lester J. Marier, the secretary
of the president, as follows:
I naturally regret that you have ap-
parently accepted as gospel truth the
tripe which Fulton Lewis Jr. has seen
fit to write in his newspaper column
and say over his radio program about
the Crusade for Freedom . . . it is
your privilege to place your con-
fidence in whomever you wish. Per-
sonally I prefer to place my trust in
the people who are directly, responsi-
ble for the welfare and security of our
country, rather than a washed-up
third-rate columnist, who, with total
disregard for the accuracy of his
statements, by inference, innuendo,
half-truth and misrepresentation is
franticallistriving to attract attention
with the sole objective of bringing
himself to the attention of an audi-
ence greater than the relatively
meagre one he enjoys at the present
, time.
That is not the way to settle an
argument; indeed, one might go so
far as to say that is no way to ad-
dress a lady; in any event, this is
the kind of thing that is being lobbed
back and forth.
Radio Free Europe has not in a
corporate capacity taken part in the
groin-and-eyeball fighting. Its official
salvos have been restrained. On No-
vember, 26, the Crusade issued a
"Fact Sheet" "concerning charges of
Fulton Lewis Jr. against Crusade for
Freedom and Radio Free Europe."
Mr. Lewis, the memorandum began,
had "for reasons unknown to the
Crusade for Freedom" launched an
attack based on "unfounded and er-
roneous charges" which Crusade was
therewith refuting; and a nine-page
memorandum followed. Two addi-
tional fact sheets have been issued,
but their distribution has been
limited; and the general impression
has been one of official silence.
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'Silence, as any controversialist knows,
can be as insulting as insults; and
RFE's silence has clearly enraged
Fulton Lewis' listeners, who construe
it as a snub probably traceable to a
terrified reluctance to examine the
facts.
RFE's rebuttal of November 26
contained a few egregious misstate-
ments which Lewis promptly ex-
posed, thus discrediting, or attempt-
ing to do so by inference, the entire
document. "Lewis," the memorandum
stated, "indicates that various mem-
bers of the RFE staff were 'Red
plants.' There is no basis to Mr.
Lewis' charges on security. The chief
security officer of RFE was one of
the founders, with Mr. J. Edgar
Hoover, of the modern FBI, and ac-
cepted FBI procedures on screening
are used."
Lewis submitted the memorandum
to J. Edgar Hoover, who was mani-
festly upset by it, replying to Lewis
I would be inclined to doubt." To
which RFE answered: "The Crusade
board members maintain an active
interest [What constitutes "an active
interest"? Lewis shot back] in Cru-
sade matters, meet regularly [What
is "regularly"? Lewis asked] and
are kept fully advised of [sic] opera-
tional matters. [Does that mean,
Lewis asked, that they know about
the charges he, Lewis, has raised?
Or does their apparent ignorance of
them indicate that being "fully ad-
vised" is in this case to be less well
advised than Lewis believes it neces-
sary to be, under the circumstances?]
In addition, the Executive Committee
meets frequently [There's another
one of those ambiguous words, Lewis
asserts] to consider every phase of
Crusade's operation. [Crusade, Lewis
rightly points out, merely raises
money and turns it over to RFE. The
point is, what do Crusade's directors
know about how that money is
spent?] Eugene Holman,
Chairman of the Board
of Standard Oil Company
(N.J.), is 'Chairman of
the Executive Commit-
tee. Other members are
Gwylim Price, President
and Chairman of the
Board of the Westing-
house Electric Corpora-
tion, and Chairman of
the Board of Directors
of Crusade; Dr. Frank
Stanton, President of
CBS, Inc.; Mr. Earl
Newsom, senior partner
of Earl Newsom and
Company; General Willis D. Crit-
tenberger, President of the Free
Europe Committee, Inc.; Mr. Cecil
Morgan, Vice President of Esso, and
Mr. Arthur Page, President of Cru-
sade, and consultant, to A.T. and T."
So what? Fulton Lewis asks, justi-
fiably annoyed by the tendency of
RFE to name-pull as a means of
meeting criticism. Certainly the re-
liance of RFE apologists on Big
Names has been aggravating, and
perhaps the truest generalization Ful-
ton Lewis has made is that the pre-
sumption is very much against per-
sonal familiarity, by these busy men,
with the intimate life of Radio Free
Europe. The President of Socony
Mobil Oil, which has been giving
Crusade $50,000 a year, informed a
dissident stockholder that "[RFE]
that the gentleman in question had
been hired ten years after the found-
ing of the modern FBI?and as a
temporary typist. (He went on to be-
come ?a special agent, and stayed
with the FBI, performing satisfactor-
ily, until he resigned in 1943.) "It
would appear," Mr. Hoover wrote,
"that the claim that Mr. Myers was
one of the founders of the modern
FBI might be placed in the category
of 'literary license.' Sincerely, Edgar."
Big-Name Sponsors
Or consider Fulton Lewis' incessant
charge that the name-sponsors of
Crusade for Freedom know very
little about what goes on in Radio
Free Europe: "Whether they ever
actually attend any board meetings,
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has the support of our government.
Pending any change by our govern-
ment in its attitude towards Crusade
for Freedom, we expect to continue
contributing to the organization."
"You will note," wrote an executive
of Chrysler to a stockholder, "[the]
endorsement of the Crusade by
President Dwight Eisenhower . . ."
". . . the 'Crusade," wrote Westing-
house to the abused lady mentioned
above, "has the strong support not
only of President Eisenhower and
the numerous prominent industrial
leaders of the country whose names
you will find [in the enclosed litera-
ture] . . . but of the 76 social, fra-
ternal, religious, veteran and labor
organizations mentioned, representa-
tive of every segment of American
population. I ask you, Mrs. Cox, do
you suppose that the President of
the United States, the other indi-
viduals named, constituting a major
segment of the industrial backbone
of this country, and these 76 patriotic
and God-fearing organizations would
lend their endorsement, their sup-
port and their dollars to a discredited
organization? . . . Do you believe that
this endorsement, this support, is
given blindly?" To which Fulton
Lewis, submitting to a rhetorically
irresistible temptation, answered
"Yes, I do suppose that the President
of the United States and the other
individuals named, and' the 76 patri-
otic, God-fearing organizations would
lend their endorsement, their support
and their dollars -Co a 'discredited' or-
ganization?becatIse they're doing it
in this case."
Unsupported Generalizations
Now the fact that Radio Free Europe
is not (at any rate, not yet) a "dis-
credited organization" does not de-
tract from the essential validity of
Fulton Lewis' contention that Big
Name sponsorship does not guarantee
purity. He has not yet done so, but
he could in this connection profitably
recall the impressive sponsorship of
the Institute of Pacific Relations dur-
ing a period when, history has estab-
lished, its effective leadership was
pro-Communist.
This tack has hurt RFE. It does
not require much sophistication to
deduce that the chances are a million
to one against Eisenhower having
any idea whatever as to the nature
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of Lewis' criticisms of RFE; so that
a Presidential testimonial is no more
meaningful?and no more unexplain-
able?than would have been a tribute
to the Department of the Interior by
President Harding on the eve of Tea-
pot Dome.
Lewis, on the other hand, will
sometimes make a charge?or endorse
someone else's?and not return ,to it
if it appears to have been effectively
discredited; as, for example, his sug-
gestion early in November that only
one per cent of Iron Curtain escapees
had ever heard, or heard of, RFE.
He has not repeated or withdrawn
that charge, which is evidently false.
Fulton Lewis Jr. is most vulnerable
to the charge that, by imprecise for-
mulations, and unsupported generali-
zations?e.g., RFE is a "discredited
organization"?he has in effect con-
demned the entire enterprise, and
this without a complete survey of
the amount of good it is doing; with-
out, that is to say, a detailed exami-
nation of the RFE broadcasts them-
selves, or of the extent to which they
nourish or inform anti-Communist
sentiment on the other side of the
Iron Curtain. In short, whereas Ful-
ton Lewis may have made out a case
for reform, he can be construed as
calling for abolition.
The Charges ?
What is Fulton Lewis Jr. saying
about Radio Free Europe? Most of
his charges fall under one of two
headings. The first is maladministra-
tion. RFE, says Lewis, is extravagant,
and its personnel policy is inde-
fensible. Second is the charge of
ideological insufficiency: RFE is anti-
Stalinist, but not anti-Communist.
There is no room to catalogue the
specific charges, merely to give a
few specimens.
RFE is vastly overstaffed (says
Lewis). It has over 2,000 employees,
far more than are necessary to do
the job. In. New York, young Ivy
Leaguers pursue incestuous employ-
ment policies, giving fat jobs at fat
salaries to other Ivy Leaguers, and
disporting themselves as "Rover
boys" romping about the world as
amateur intriguers. In Munich, life
is hedonistic in luxurious, RFE-
owned apartment buildings. Spending
is proffigate, and staffs are swollen.
Security is bad, with the result that
RFE is vulnerable to penetration by
Communists. Indeed, several em-
ployees of RFE have "redefected"
to Communism, and have broadcast
attacks on RFE, raising the possibility
that they were plants.
The Czech desk (and to a lesser
extent the Rumanian desk) is manned
by Marxists who. address their
listeners out of basically Marxist con-
text. Moreover, some of these men
are personally loathed by anti-Com-
munist Czechs in virtue of unsavory
political records piled up before the
1948 coup. These men make the mis-
take which Radio Free Europe char-
acteristically makes: they concentrate
on encouraging Titoist tendencies in
the satellite nations, instead of
fomenting antipathy to the generic
disease of Marxism. That, Mr. Lewis
believes, RFE was 'designed to do,
and should be doing; and that is
what people who give to the Crusade
believe, mistakenly, that they are
supporting.
How effective is RFE? Lewis dras-
tically disputes RFE's claims about
the number of persons who listen to
its programs.
Finally, there is the case that fits
in no particular category, but is of
considerable interest in the area of
civil liberties: the hair-raising case
of Fletcher Bartholomew. Bartholo-
mew was a meteorologist with Radio
Free Europe. In 1956, preparing to
return to Minneapolis with his wife
and three children, Bartholomew sub-
mitted some detailed complaints
against RFE in a confidential memo-
randum of which he made three
copies, sending one to Allen Dulles
in Washington, a second to the head
of RFE in New York, a third to the
U.S. Consul in Munich. A few days
before his scheduled departure he
was lured into the psychiatric ward
at a U.S. Army hospital and forcibly
detained. A few days later, having
first been moved to Frankfort, he was
flown to the United States in a
strait jacket. There he was prompt-
ly released. Lewis asserts that his
detention was illegal even assuming
Bartholomew were insane, which he
is not; and implies that the purpose
of the manhandling was to intimidate
Bartholomew, and to impugn his
credibility.
Fletcher Bartholomew, RFE con-
tends, was a psychiatric case, and he
was handled with reference to the
,
best "interests of Mr. Bartholomew, I
himself, the United States govern-
ment and Free Europe Committee."
Survey Suggested
NATIONAL REVIEW proposes that a
committee be established to survey
the work of Radio Free Europe. The
committee should have three or pos-
sibly five members who are students
of Communism. One member should
have experience in financial affairs,
giving his special attention to the
administration of RFE. The following
list suggests a roster from which the
committee might be drawn: James
Burnham, Sidney Hook, Will Her-
berg, Eugene Lyons, Charles Lowry,
Thomas Murray, Max Eastman,
Ralph de Toledano, William Henry
Chamberlin, Christopher Emmet,
Robert Morris, Francis McNamara,
Stephen Possony, Robert Strausz-
Hupe, Louis Nichols, Henry Kissinger
?to mention only a few who are ob-
viously qualified.'
Responsible anti-Communists
should make every effort to persuade
Radio Free Europe to submit to the
committee's investigation and to make
available to it confidential figures and
reports, on the understanding, of
course, that confidential information
would not be publicized. Fulton
Lewis Jr. should be persuaded to ac-
cept the committee's findings as to
the net value to the West of Radio
Free Europe's operations.
The committee's report would pub-
licly discuss those of Fulton Lewis'
charges that can be discussed with-
out hazard to security. It would pass
judgment on their merit, and call
on Radio Free Europe to reform in
areas where reform is indicated.
In the event that Fulton Lewis or
Radio Free Europe declined to co-
operate, the committee should con-
sider the wisdom of proceeding any-
way, surveying whatever data are
available, and making a report for
the guidance of perplexed anti-Com-
munists.
The plan for an independent com-
mittee to survey the operations of
Radio Free Europe has the explicit
endorsement, at this writing, of the
Rev. John F. Cronin, Max Eastman,
Arnold Beichrnan, Rep. Alvin Bent-
ley, Sol Stein, Marvin Liebman, Her-
bert Philbrick, Sidney Hook, Frank
Hanighen, and Christopher [Emmet.
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