THE ASSAULT ON RADIO LIBERTY

Document Type: 
Collection: 
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 
CIA-RDP90-00965R000100260023-1
Release Decision: 
RIPPUB
Original Classification: 
K
Document Page Count: 
3
Document Creation Date: 
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date: 
December 21, 2011
Sequence Number: 
23
Case Number: 
Publication Date: 
June 22, 1985
Content Type: 
OPEN SOURCE
File: 
AttachmentSize
PDF icon CIA-RDP90-00965R000100260023-1.pdf336.92 KB
Body: 
STAT I Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100260023-1 ~,. -- ~ N[IT~AN Eti'ENTS ^ s on a ~o ~ e e sa u a former s orts- B an t R a P id RUSS BRALEY p , e g res en y caster who still likes to broadcast, gives was recruiting spies. a high priority to extending the Ameri- can broadcasting reach. A key facility is Radio Liberty in Munich. Since its nadir under the Carter Administration, the station has experienced a renais- sance. with growing listener attention and higher staff morale. Now the 3Q-month party is over. Press attacks on Radio Liberty have made some in congress suggest taking an ax to the whole radio buildup in a time of budget austerity. More than a year ago, Radio Liber- ty's director, George Bailey, submitted a letter of resignation to the president of Radio Liberty-Radio Free Europe in Munich, James Buckley, to be picked up if ever a scapegoat might be needed to get the budget through. Recently Bailey's resignation was picked up. It should net surprise that the coalition that got Bailey included Communist publicists in the East and liberal Western publicists, or that the weapon was slander. When Reagan became President, calling the Evil Empire by name, he upset American media commentators and caused consternation in the Carter- era management at Radio Liberty. The President's remarks had a healthy effect in the Soviet Union. l know Russians there who are aware that they are hated in the nations they have colonized. Alexander Solzhenit- syn recalled wartime rape and looting in his Prussian Nights: ?' We have become universally huted, "Everywhere we shalt be cruci- fie~. "They wilt slaughter us on the Vistula, - ' *And in fly build as funeral pyres." In 1982 the holdover radio bureau- cracy opposed the nomination of Bailey, because Bailey had been liaison- editor of Kontinent, the emigre magazine financed by the West German anti-Communist publisher Axel Spring- er. The editor of Kon[inen[, Vladimir Maksimov, had written an open letter to President Carter charging the radio The first press attack on Bailey came from halfway between East and West. Die Wahrlreit, published in West Berlin by East Germany's Socialist Unity (Communist) party, on March 12, 1983, called Bailey a "Springer bud- dy." Communists will not forgive Springer his generosity in creating the only market for Eastern emigres writ- ing in their own languages. The first heavy attack in the United States appeared in the Washington Post of Sept. 25, 1983. The article, head- lined, "How America Backs Critics of Freedom/Our Propaganda Isn't Al- ways Democratic," was written by Josef Joffe and Dimitri Simes. It charged Radio Liberty broadcasts speeches portraying the United States as a decadent power and an unreliable ally. The authors were outraged that Solzhenitsyn's Taiwan speech was broadcast "in full" (would censored be OK?). Solzhenitsyn had condemned a trend in Congress of demanding of allies "total adherence to democ- racy...all the way up to decadence, treason, the right to destroy the state." Simes and Joffe demanded Congress look into Radio Liberty programming, atld Congress'did as it was told. Bailey said some of Simes' free-lance offerings to Radio Liberty had been unsuitable, so his contributions were reduced to around once a month, and Simes stopped contributing. His father, an educator, continued contributing, however. Simes lent weight to the Post article by citing support from Harvard Prof. Richard Pipes, a scholar on the Soviet Union and swell-known anti-Commu- nist. !telephoned Pipes to inquire. He conceded he did not often agree with Simes, but he confirmed he opposed Bailey's appointment as director. 1 asked if he knew Bailey. No, but Pipes opposed anyone whu was a i'riend of Solzhenitsyn, a dangerous na- tionalist. He cited the novel, August 1914. I told him my copy of August 1914 read almost as though a German nationalist had; written it, contrasting neat, clean and competent Germans as opposed to backward Russians. Ah, said Pipes, but 1 should see the Russian-language parts not translated into English. (Note that his emphasis was on dangerous nationalism. Later, it would switch to the virulent charge of anti-Semitism.l Fortunately, the new biography, Solzhenitsyn, by Michael Scammell, explains Pipes' fury. Pipes was proud of his vocal. anti-communism, and when Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union to the West, Pipes could have expected Solzhenitsyn to speak well of him. Instead, Solzhenit- syn, speaking off the cuff at the Hoover Institution, referred to an American scholar who published a "pseudo- academic book" full of tYtlatakes, exag- gerations and perhaps premeditatert distortions." ScammeU said (page 933) the book was Pipes' Russia Under the Old Regime. Solzhenitsyn was angry at Pipes for allegedly suggesting a natural continu- ity between Old Russia and the Soviet Union. - Now, a decade later, Pipes was get- ting even. He was joining, with Simes to get at Bailey, largely because of Bailey's Solzhenitsyn sympathies. It's too bad, really, fo~8ailey knows Russians and other Soviet' nationals as well as any native-born American, and he was the right man for Radio Liberty. . A gifted linguist, who used to call with a bullhorn for Germans to sur- render in World War II-, Bailey also hurriedly translated into Russian the draft of the surrender document, and interpreted in two languages for Gen. Bedell Smith. For several years after -the war (interrupted by a stay at Magdalen Col- lege at Oxford),. he dealt with Soviet personnel. He was a liaison officer with the Soviet army. Then as an Army Department civilian he interviewed Soviet deserters before being attached to the Berlin provost marshal. His job was police department fiaison with Soviets in Karlshorst, usually over GI mishaps. No American .has more friends in Europe, ranging from the late Kon~zd Adenauer and Artur Rubinstein to sies in Rumania who put .Bailey up .~TLr7tC" Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100260023-1 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100260023-1 when the hotels are full. Adenauer made it possible for Bailey to write the introduction to Reinhard Gehlen's autobiography. Bailey made some changes at Radio -Liberty; for example, expanding the or- phan Ukrainian desk. He promoted desk chiefs from the various nationals who had chafed ur;der the tutelase of "American" (more often, Australian or Canadian) desk editors. The inexperienced Ukrainians broad- cast an unfortunate celebration of na- tional day, which occurred under the Nazis, and Bailey was obliged to apologize to B'nai B'rith and to Simon Wiesenthal. Jews never have had a better goyish friend than Bailey. He learned Hebrew while studying at Columbiaand serving as a sbabbas-goyat New York's Jewish Theological Seminary. He is proad. of a certificate a colleague from Eatnp Ritchie gave him claming hiW an "Honorary- .iew." He knows 'more Jewish history than most rabbis. His wife is half-Jewish, so his daughter qualifies .for disposal under Hitler's Nuremberg decrees. Simes arrived in the United States from the Soviet Union during the Ntx- on-Kissinger detente. He came to public notice by telling a congressional aide (Herbert Romerstein) that the Pen- tagon Papers had been at Moscow in- stitutes before the New York Times published them. When I called him to check on this almost a decade later, Simes said he had not actually seen such documents in Moscow. He appeared to regret having brought the matter up. But the infor- mation he had volunteered in Wash- ington gave the impression he was an anti-Communist. Since then, the "MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour" gave him recognition as a television author- ity on the Soviet Union. Early last year the East German magazine Norizont published an attack that was unintentionally amusing, "Habits of a Crusader," by Wassili Viktorow. It attributed to Bailey all the crimes of Mackie Messer, and then some. According to Norizont, Bailey is a CIA man and embezzler who poisoned his wife's uncle, Karl Ullstein, so Axel Springer could seize his publishing company. Bailey also interpreted for Hungarian counter-revolutionaries tor- turing to death a Soviet soldier (of Armenian extraction) in 1956, and in Berlin, lured the fascinating translator Tamara Rusiew-Preisz to the West, ???-.. ~ ...... ............~ ~,..a? ,,,.b ~~ ~ ~~~~ The rest of Markham's story concen- dead finger. traced on "unrest" among the staffers The Norizont article is a collector's of RFE/RL. His theme, in general item, and it was imitated, poorly, in terms, was the same as I;,vestia's, just New Times, the Soviet all-languages as I~vesria's sunburned Iowan quote magazine under the headline "Sinful was borrowed from !~larkham's earlier George." story. Meanwhile, the Simes-toffee piece '~larkham's emphasis on "profes- in the Washington Post took effect. sionalism" was galling. He appeared to Joel Brinkley reported in the New go out of his way to avoid saying Bailey York Times of Feb. 22, 1984, that had won the Overseas Press Club 1959 Geryld B. Christianson, the Demo- award for foreign reporting, was awell- crats' staff director for the Senate For- known ABC commentator, had been eign Relations Committee, attacked the chief editor of The Reporter magazine managers of Radio Free Europe and and wrote three books, including acan- Radio Liberty. He said they "have so did autobiography, Germans (World, weakened the controls over program 1972). To say Bailey is a CIA man but content that commentators hostile to not a professional journalist is not two the United States are allowed to broad- mistakes, it is two old-fashioned un- cast to Soviet bloc audiences." truths. If the Times had named Solzhenit- syn, readers would have seen the fraud, but editors had cut out his name. The newspaper apologized in an Editor's Note on February 23, supplying the names of the hostile miscreants: Solz- henitsyn and Vladimir Maksimov. All the initial attacks were pure- ly ideological, intended to force Solzhenitsyn off the air because he condemns liberals, and to clear the airwaves of anything upsetting to the Soviets. Last June 10 the Times returned to ~"" ""' "" ?"?`~' "?" ""? `?"`' the attack with a story from Munich by demolished by virtue of their falsity and Bonn correspondent James M. Mark- triviality. Solzhenitsyn's themes -that ham, headlined, "At Radio Free the West does not fight communism Europe, a Few Changes of Pace." with conviction and makes irrespon- Markham identified Baffle as "an sible use of its freedom-are shared by y many, including Frances Jean Fran- American who had worked for the coil Revel and Britain's Paul Johnson. right-wing Springer press group in West Germany." (Most Western correspon- But now a killer attack was mounted, dents in Bonn consider Springer con- one that seldom fails. In the New servative, in the manner of his Die Republic of Feb. 4, 1985, Radio Lib- Welt, not right-wing.) erty was charged with broadcasting anti-Semitism in the form of a literary Markham reported that the changes analysis of a new passage in .-1 ugust appeared to have bolstered morale /9/4. The magazine implied that Solz- among many of the two stations' 1,674 henitsyn and "an emigre named George polyglot staffers. "But for others, the Bailey" are both anti-Semites. advent of a conservative, ideologically The magazine printed a reply by activist management closely tied to the Frank Shakespeare and Ben vl~atten- Reagan Administration has caused berg, but declined to take anything concern that the stations are losing their back except the misidentification of cast, when jamming might make a Baffle It cited a memo from James listener lose some words, would have Buckley, president of Radio Liberty, to been irresponsible.) Bailey, telling liim to pay more atten- :~1arkham's story reminded readers lion to words used in reference to Jews. that in the early 1970s the two stations galley said he did not know who sent were demoralized by the revelation that the magazine his memo. the CIA had been financing them. Simultaneously with the New Repub- V1arkham then identified Bailey as "a lic, the Washington Post on February 4 gregarious American linguist andpublished a half-page article charging former ClA officer." Solzhenitsyn with anti-Semitism, in this Now, there is nothing wrong with case in a broadcast on the Voice of someone having been a C[A officer, America. but Bailey never was, except in Soviet The story, by Joanne Omang, de- literature. Put in the context of CIA scribed the arcane dispute between Rus- demoralizing the stations, right after Sian emigres and experts over several Radio Moscow charged Bailey was a paragraphs in Solzhenitsyn's new addi- spy, the mistake had a malicious ap-,;~? ,,, ,,,,,,,,,,, ,~,,, ~~,,,~ ?_.,,,_ ,~_., Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100260023-1 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100260023-1 found anti-Semitism in them, others calling the charge nonsense. Richard Pipes, unfortunately, lent himself to the inflammatory project. Pipes was quoted as saying that, while Solzhenitsyn did not write anything overtly anti-Semitic, he wrote subtly, and audiences in Russia would receive an anti-Semitic message. On the authority of Aipes' statement, a Post headline said, "Parts of `August 1914' Viewed as Being Subtly Anti- Semitic." (No headline noted, "Some Say `Nonsense.' ") The Post also pretended to enlist a powerful authority on anti-Semitism, Norman Podhoretz, quoting his article in Commentary in such a way that a reader would conclude that Solzhenit- syn had no sympathy for Jews and was a poor writer: "August 1914 is dead from beginning to end." The sentence out of context was a total misrepresentation of Podhoretz's views. The thrust of his article in Com- mentary was the opposite: "Solzhenit- syn's two major nonfiction wotbks, The Gulag Archipelago and The Oak and the Ca1J, are among the very greatest books of the age.... The Gulag Archi- pelago will stand forever as one of the majestic achievements in the history of literature." When Bailey was in Washington early in 1985, he mentioned to the Board of International Broadcasting that he was writing to New York Daily News col- umnist Lars-Eric Nelson, pointing out mistakes in a column about him. Al- most immediately, he said, he received a call from Nelson asking if Bailey had indeed written him. Bailey said he did not know who on the board informed Nelson so quickly. Nelson's column was picked up in the Miami Herald. under the irresponsible full-page headline, "Radio Liberty Specializes in Anti-Semitism." Nelson echoed all the charges, but the article omitted the name "Solzhenitsyn" and the book, August 1914, the basis of the story, facts that might have left the readers doubting the veracity of the accusation. He cited as his authority- you have guessed it - "Soviet emigre scholar Dimitri Simes." Solzhenitsyn writes of Jews as he does of anyone. Like Bailey, Solzhenit- syn has ahalf-Jewish wife. In August 1914, the most positive character is the Jewish engineer Ilya Arkhangorodsky, taken from a real person. In Lenin in Zurich, the most negative character is Lenin, not Israil Lazarevich Helphand (Parvus). When Solzhenitsyn first rose to prominence, the KGB spread the word he was a Jew. Soviet Union. But Dim i Stmes and Richard Pipes, using their access to the media, may have silenced him, with the resignation of Bailey, who was too ideally suited for the post of Radio Liberty director. ~ M11r. Brute~?. u jureiXn curres~undem Jur the NrM? York Uaily News jur 20 yturs, rs the uuthur urBad News: The Foregn Policy of the New York Times/RerntrvCiu/twov. t9RIl On the heels of the Washington Post attack, Dimitri Simes resurfaced on the opinion page of the Christian Science Monitor of February 13, and then again in two articles in the same news- paper by Elizabeth Pond, who quoted Simes as her chief expert on disinfor- mation. (She concluded that "one man's disinformation may be another man's free press," and Simes agreed disinformation has been overblown). In his opinion piece, headlined, "The Solzhenitsyn has been a world celebrity for more than two decades, writinK all-out, a Force of nature, like a volcano, earthquake or tidal wave. He reveals every- thing about himself. He could not be a secret, or subtle, anti-Semite because anti-Semitism is alien to every word he has written. Destruction of Liberty," (whose?) Jews should be enraged. There are Simes charged Soviet listeners were anti-Semites around, and false charges hearing "anti-Western, antidemocratic trivialize what should be a deadly polemics, suppression of unpleasant serious subject. The charge is made by news, extremist nationalism and anti- midgets, over whom Solzhenitsyn Semitism." Simes wrote that atop towers like a Colossus. Radio Liberty editor asked rhetorically But they have won. George Bailey during an interview in Bailey's pres- resigned just after his 65th birthday ence, "And who has established that because a handful of his and Solzhenit- anti-Semitism is wrong?" Simes said syn's enemies orchestrated a slanderous the "competent chief of the Russian attack just at budget time. A few per- service and its chief of research have plexed Israelis have asked assurances resigned." that anti-Semitism will not be broad- Bailey said he is dumbfounded that a cast over a Voice of America transmit- newspaper with the reputation of the ter, if one is built in Israel-although Monitor would publish such blatant many other Israelis remember Bailey; falsehoods. He said the quotation is he covered the Six Day War for The false, that the two chiefs did not resign, Reporter. and neither he nor Solzhenitsyn are The KGB could not prevent Solz- anti-Semites. henitsyn from broadcasting to the Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21 :CIA-RDP90-009658000100260023-1