Ted Lipien

Neglect of Media Freedom Contributed to 2006 Murder of a Russian Journalist

By Ted Lipien February 12, 2021

Russian President Vladimir Putin is again increasing pressure on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where I served briefly as president in December 2020-January 2021. I had worked also indirectly for RFE/RL from 1993 to 2003 in Munich Germany and at their current headquarters in Prague as International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB)-Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) regional Eurasia marketing director. Toward the…

RFE, RL, Russia

My Brief Tenure as RFE/RL President

By Ted Lipien January 24, 2021

Dear Friends: Some of you may have learned that I had a brief tenure as President of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Some of you may be also interested to know that just a few hours before the new Acting U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) CEO, Ms. Kelu Chao, had an e-mail sent to me by an administrative…

RFE, RL

USA: Ted Lipien nowym szefem Radia Wolna Europa: Radia Swoboda

By Ted Lipien December 23, 2020

“Jako były słuchacz programów sekcji polskiej Radia Wolna Europa w PRL-u uzyskałem dostęp do informacji, których reżimowa cenzura chciała nas pozbawić. RWE odmieniła bieg mojego życia i życia milionów ludzi. Dlatego czuję się zaszczycony, że powierzono mi zadanie kierowania tą legendarną instytucją w dalszym przełamywaniu cenzury i udzielaniu głosu niesłyszanym” – powiedział PAP Lipien.

RFE, RL

Ted Lipien returns to U.S. international broadcasting as head of RFE/RL

By Ted Lipien December 23, 2020

“When I was a teenager in Communist Poland, I would listen to Radio Free Europe to find out what the government was not telling me,” said Mr. Lipien. “It had an enormous impact on my life, and on the lives of millions of others. I’m honored, and humbled, to be entrusted with helping this storied organization continue to break the hold of…

History, International Broadcasting, RFE, RL

Archibald MacLeish on the right to a free press

By Ted Lipien December 23, 2020

As I prepare to start my new job as President and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/FL), an organization which contributed greatly to the peaceful fall of communism in East Central Europe and in the former Soviet Union and continues today to counter censorship, propaganda and disinformation with outstanding journalism, I’m re-reading books on U.S. international broadcasting history published…

Cold War, Glos Ameryki, History, OWI, Poland, RFE, VOA

Soft Propaganda by Former Voice of America Editor Targeted Americans in Support of Communist Regime

By Ted Lipien November 5, 2020

Mira Złotowska, later known as Mira Michałowska, who during the Cold War published books and articles in English in the United States and in Great Britain as Mira Michal and used several other pen names, was one of many radically left-wing journalists who had worked in New York on Voice of America (VOA) U.S. government anti-Nazi radio broadcasts in the…

Cold War, Glos Ameryki, VOA

Refugee Voice of America Journalists Stood Up to the Anti-Reagan VOA Newsroom and Won the Cold War

By Ted Lipien October 26, 2020

By Ted Lipien “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” ― L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between In the early 1980s, vehemently anti-Reagan Voice of America (VOA) central English newsroom journalists, almost all of them U.S.-born, engaged in dogged resistance against officials and managers selected by the new administration to run the U.S. taxpayer-funded international media outlet operating…

Cold War, RFE, VOA

Comrade Absolonova is a tall, blond, sexy-looking girl and a devout Communist

By Ted Lipien September 23, 2020

Comrade Absolonova is a tall, blond, sexy-looking girl and a devout Communist who seduced young men and blackmailed them to become informers. “Radio Free Europe calls the citizens of Bratislava! … We are warning you…” Newsweek reported that after RFE called her “a prostitute, an immoral woman, and a tramp … Comrade Absolonova doesn’t work in Bratislava any more.” The…

Glos Ameryki, Poland, Radio, VOA

Voice of America Announcer Who Refused VOA Director’s Orders to Read Stalin’s Lies

By Ted Lipien September 19, 2020

By Ted Lipien One of the most principled and courageous Voice of America (VOA) journalists, Konstanty Broel Plater, was born in Poland 111 years ago on September 19, 1909. Yet his name remains unknown to nearly all VOA employees whom successive U.S. government broadcasting leaders have convinced that the first VOA director John Houseman who, in reality, invented fake radio…

Cold War, Featured, Glos Ameryki, History, International Broadcasting, Radio, VOA, Women

USAGM uhonorowuje Zofię Korbońską, dziennikarkę sekcji polskiej Głosu Ameryki

By Ted Lipien August 16, 2020

Informacja prasowa USAGM [U.S. Agency for Global Media – Agencji Stanów Zjednoczonych ds Globalnych Mediów] USAGM uhonorowuje Zofię Korbońską, dziennikarkę sekcji polskiej Głosu Ameryki [Voice of America – VOA] 16 sierpnia 2020 r Waszyngton, DC – Dziś mija 10-ta rocznica śmierci Zofii Korbońskiej, uczestniczki antyhitlerowskiego ruchu oporu w Polsce w czasie drugiej wojny światowej, która po wojnie w ucieczce przed…

Cold War, Glos Ameryki, History, Poland, RFE, VOA

Communist secret police in Poland spied on Voice of America’s Willis Conover to shut down Radio Free Europe

By Ted Lipien August 16, 2020

By Ted Lipien for Cold War Radio Museum Polish communist intelligence service and secret police spied on Voice of America’s (VOA) jazz expert Willis Conover during his visit to Poland in 1959 and tried to exploit it to influence U.S. diplomats into silencing Polish broadcasts of Radio Free Europe (RFE). As reported by Polish media, the spying on Conover is…

Audio, Cold War, Glos Ameryki, Radio, RFE, VOA

Soviet Block Jamming of Western Freedom Radios

By Ted Lipien July 5, 2020

Toward the end of the Cold War in the 1980s, the Republican administration of conservative President Ronald Reagan greatly increased spending on U.S. international broadcasting to the Soviet Union and to other communist-ruled nations. Broadcasts to nations behind the Iron Curtain were carried out by the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL). President Reagan…

Glos Ameryki, OWI, Poland, VOA

‘What is true of the parts is true of the whole’ fallacy in journalism and propaganda

By Ted Lipien May 2, 2020

Today’s Voice of America (VOA) reporters might benefit from seeing a historical example of how a former VOA journalist who during the Cold War became an anti-American propagandist for the communist regime in Poland wrote one-sided narratives using a few news facts and some true information about the United States and Canada to create an almost entirely false picture of…

Cold War, Featured, History, Poland

American Friends of Poland

By Ted Lipien February 21, 2020

Amerykanie w Polsce – Americans in Poland, 1919-1947 is a visually stunning bilingual catalogue for the exhibition which was held last summer in Warsaw at the History Meeting House (Dom Spotkań z Historią) in partnership with the US Embassy and American Center Warsaw. The catalogue can now be purchased online (follow instructions listed below) to help cover the expenses involved…

Voice of America at 80 – Howard Fast OWI Personnel Record Card

OWI, Radio, Russia, VOA

Russian propaganda at WWII Voice of America

By Ted Lipien January 18, 2020

Russian propaganda influence in the United States is not new. “I established contact at the Soviet embassy with people who spoke English and were willing to feed me important bits and pieces from their side of the wire”* *Howard Fast. Being Red (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), p. 18. Howard Fast was Voice of America (VOA) chief radio news writer…