Good afternoon, everyone. My name is dr. Jim ginter. I am the supervisory archivist for the Dwight D Eisenhower president ial library. And welcome to. Before we start, i just wanted to take a moment to mention that as it happens, as we gather today for this program, that it is also the. 50th anniversary of the death of president eisenhower. And so i just thought before we get started, take a moment and just take a moment of remembrance for president eisenhower in his work on behalf of our country. Thank you. I want to welcome you all to the eisenhower president ial Library LuncheonLearn Program for march 28th, 2020, for this year, a programing team has been waging peace. And in this series were looking at some of the ways that president eisenhower sought global peace. This month, were looking at Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. President eisenhower believed that, quote, Radio Free Europe and the crusade for freedom are vital to success in the battle for mens minds. With that in mind today, we are pleased to welcome dr. Mark pomar ma, who will speak to the subject broadcasting for freedom. Dr. Poumpouras, currently a senior fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the university of texas, is taught International Media at moody school of journalism at the university of texas and International Politics at the lbj school of public affairs. Before i handed over to dr. Poma, i just will note that there are pads and pencils available on the tables for those here in the audience to jot down questions that you might have productive from her later. And for those of you in the live stream, youll be able to put your questions into the chat at the end of the program, which will address the. And with that, please welcome dr. Mark pomar. Or thank you very much for your kind introduction. And i am very honored and pleased to be with you. I wish i were there in person. I hope sometime in the next couple of months to actually visit the eisenhower president ial library and archive by working. I recently completed a report on Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and the voice of america. And now im embarking on a new book looking at certain aspects of it. And the Eisenhower Library and archives is a very important part. So i look forward to visiting the library and meeting many of you, all of you in person. I would like to sort of cast the talk in the sense that its an incredibly relevant to todays environment that we find ourselves in. President eisenhower in the 1940s and late forties and early fifties, was instrumental in setting up the u. S. To be successful. And in the cold war. And we are now back in many ways, and we can explore this in the question and answer period. Were back to another cold war. And as i will show in the course of our discussion, many of the features that we are that were prevalent in the late forties and early fifties are now back with a very aggressive russia with a dangerous china with a dangerous iran and so forth. So the less of the eisenhower years, i think, are especially, especially relevant today. And i think that the topic that you have chosen is perhaps ideal for discussing the challenges that we face today. As many of you know, general eisenhower, president eisenhower was a critical figure in many aspects in terms of peace, including, obviously, his military powers. But i would like to focus on the theme today on radio. But broadly speaking, information reaching audiences in unfriendly countries, enemy countries in some cases, and president eisenhower knew better than really anyone else that if you were going to wage a cold war and make sure that it is a peaceful cold war, not a hot cold war, but a cold, cold war. Its very important to balance your nato alliance, which he believed in very strongly. Your military, defense and containment, which you felt was very strong with a Program Designed or programs, perhaps plural, designed to reach populations in the case of the cold war in primary early in the ussr, primarily in the soviet union and Eastern Europe, but also in what we then called the third world africa, asia, latin america. And he was an early proponent, as dr. Guenther pointed out, of Radio Free EuropeRadio Liberty and in a sense he understood that. And let me just briefly describe radio for your Radio Liberty, because they are amazingly interesting projects that the u. S. Was in the forefront of creating. They are just just to back down historically a little bit of a background after the end of hostilities, end of World War Two in western europe, you had hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, idps, as they were called back then. People who had fled communist regimes in Eastern Europe, poland, baltic states, Czech Republic, hungary and so forth, or from the soviet union itself during World War Two. They were living in camps in the american zone in germany, and they were very eager to lend their knowledge and expertise to the u. S. In terms of opposing fighting, resisting a communist aggression and advisors to president eisenhower. Cd jackson in particular in his archived at the library, one that i would love to look at in greater detail, was really among the architects of creating what was then called home services. In other words, creating a Radio Station and a Research Operation in munich, which was where the radio were established. And that was where most of the displaced person camps were located. And to operate as if they were in the country to which they were broadcasting. So that lets just take an example. The polish service you would have former polish politicians, professors, journalists, writers, thinkers living in these camps who would put together a program in the polish language that would be broadcast to poland as if it were broadcasting from within poland in warsaw. The same would be true for hungary. The same would be true for the Czech Republic. Back then, czechoslovakia. Q the same would be true for russia, which was very important to the creation of a russia service. And i will add parenthetically that in the early 1980s, i was head of the Russian Service of Radio Liberty. So i actually worked in munich in the building that president eisenhower played such an Important Role in creating. Also ukraine. We now have this vicious war against ukraine. The ukrainians service was created. Radio liberty to serve as a free and independent ukrainian Radio Station. Broadcasting to the ukrainian part of the soviet union. These were fundamental whole tools that were supported on many different levels. Historically, if you are interested in the radios, i certainly would give a plug from my own book, which is called cold war radio. University of nebraska press, 2022 just came out about a year and a half ago. There are also other books, obviously, on on the radios. If you look at youtube, fb, you will see a familiar some of you actually my my age, my generation. And you may recall in the 1950s there would be advertisements, commercials on television that would say crusade for freedom, which is what president eisenhower headed initially saying donate your dollars to the crusade for freedom and the liberty bell would be shown. And i remember them. I mean, speaking personally, i remember them. They were used to come on right before the lone ranger at 530, and that was for for a five, six year old kid who still remembers seeing them in 1955 and 56 on youtube, you can see some personalities like Ronald Reagan speaking on behalf of the radio. So this was a campaign that really was headed by president eisenhower. He supported during his eight years as president and initially, he the most of the funding came from the cia, which is a very interesting part of the story. Some of it was contributed by by america and american corporations. But and we can come back to the question and answer, if you would like to know more detail about about the radios the very they are functioning today. I want to emphasize that the Radio Free EuropeRadio Liberty is alive and well in prague today, and it was successful during the end of the cold war. We were honored, vetted, considered heroes. As a matter of fact, the reason why Radio Free EuropeRadio Liberty is in prague today is because of love. Hubble, the first democratically elected president of the Czech Republic in the early nineties, gave a building in downtown prague as a gift to the American People. A gift to the American People to house Radio Free Europe in Eastern Europe and Central Europe in prague for the work that we had done as americans in supporting democracy and freedom in eastern and all the countries of then under communist rule. So that the radios are now functioning. They are the go to source for what is happening in ukraine today. What is happening in russia, they cover it better than anybody else. And so i think the legacy that was started under president eisenhower back in the very late 1940s, early 1950s, is alive and well. And he would be extremely proud of the work that they have done. And the success that they have had. And the work that theyre continuing to do today. But i would also like to expand a little bit more on what president eisenhower did in terms of peace through information, if you want to call it that, peace through contact. And i think what is oftentimes perhaps well not known as well as it should is that president eisenhower was the force, the person who helped create a very interesting the agency of the United States government called us cia, u. S. Information agency, which was housed in washington and its mandate was to be the spokesman, the conduit through which the rest of the world would know about american values, american culture, american values, american policies. So very ambitious effort. It was very much president eisenhowers creation was created in 1953. Soon after he was elected president , the first director of u. S. Cia was sworn in at the white house by the president himself. The first director attended meetings with the president and as part of the National Security council and under u. S. Cia was the voice of america. And many, many other elements of information, if you wish, information policy. I also happen to have been an employee of usaa for a five years in the mid 1980s as the director of the Russian Service of the voice of america, which was then part of usaa. So i had direct contact with and involvement in the work of the u. S. Cia. So let me just run through some of the programs that usaa was responsible for and why they played such an Important Role in. Well, throughout the entire cold war, i may add, i think very short sighted. The u. S. Closed the agency in the 1990s. Can considering it to be well considering it a piece dividend that we had won the cold war and that we no longer needed. I think it was personally speaking, i think it was extremely short sighted. I think we needed as much, if not more today, than we needed it. In the 1970s and eighties. And i think one of the challenges that is facing the us Going Forward in the 2020s and beyond and is how do we have an effective means of communication with the rest of the world in a very globalized world that we live in . But let me just take you through some of the main kind of points of of usaa, and you will sort of see how that fits in and how that echoes a lot of what Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty did as a separate non governmental grantee of the us government, if you wish, kind of an arms length from u. S. Policy. The biggest part of usaa was the voice of america and i would say that and i would encourage you pathway you can go on the internet, you can look up voice of america, you can watch their tv programs, listen to their radio programs. I think its one of the gems of america that we have it and one that i wish more america is new. And, you know, we talk about bbc. Bbc is and i respect bbc very much, but we are no worse. And voa in many ways its better. And i think we should be aware that we have a and if youre washington, if you go to washington at any time, please visit the voice of america building on independence avenue, 330. Independence avenue is an amazing place where we broadcast in roughly 40 languages around the world, hundreds of millions of people watching or listening to voice of america broadcasts about the very about our politics, about our life, about our culture. And it is a set up by law, signed by president ford in the 1970s, the voice of america reflects all and i express that all points of view in the United States. It is not the Radio Station of any given administration, and that it it covers whatever issues are. There are fairly and honestly and and as a former employee of voa, i think voa takes it very seriously. And again, in my book, if you look at my book on cold war radio, you will see many examples of how the voice of america handles difficult issues, whether they were the irancontra affair or whether they were other problems in the reagan or bush or carter or whatever administration doesnt really matter which administration youre looking at. Youre looking at a source of information. And i think that the voice of america and i may add that president eisenhower was the first president to speak on the voice of america to the entire world. And this is something that he felt very deeply about. He was very supportive of. He knew and understood as a former general that if youre going to be involved and the cold war was frankly a war of information, it was more a war of values and principles and ideas. Luckily, it was not a hot war where we were actually fighting the soviet union, but we were fighting the soviet union by battling for for ideas and values and how best to win than to communicate those to People Living in in countries under communist rule. So voice of america, fundamental part of the u. S. A. , another very important part and one i wish more people knew about. And that is what we in the field, russia field, always called the crucial eisenhower khrushchev agreement on educational and cultural affairs. And just to give you a taste of that, until 1957, there was really no contact between the United States and the soviet union other than embassy employees in each country. There was no and eisenhower understood it probably better than anyone else, that as the soviet as stalin passed away in 53 after khrushchevs famous 1956 speech denouncing stalin, this was the right time to engage soviets in exchanges and the United States proposed to very important, apolitical, if you wish, areas for engagement. One was educate and the other was culture. And if we take culture first, the agreement was the soviet union would send its artists opera, ballet, theater to the United States for concert tours. We, the United States would do equally, sending artists, musicians, writers to the soviet union and it was a very important first step because up until then, there had been no contact. Again, if you think back to the 1950s and many of you probably remember the 1950s fairly well, i hope you will remember that the bolshoi opera came to the United States, the ballet came to new york. These were major cultural events. Equally, america started participating in music competition, missions and concerts in moscow. The first and this is a great story of the first Theater Group that the United States sent to the soviet union was the opera porgy and bess by george gershwin. And what was amazing about it was the american opera, a genre that Russians Associated with europe, not necessarily with the United States, american written american song, and primarily by not for American Star cast, which of course, totally blew away soviet viewers because they had been fed propaganda that our afroamericans blacks in the United States had no rights, had no education, had no opportunities. And here was the metropolitan opera with a virtually all black cast singing porgy and bess. Great success and remembered to this day as one of these, you know, monumental first steps that continued. And i think on a small scale, it was very, very important, not just for showcasing cultural achievements, which is important, but i think for beginning that person to person contact. And as i look through some of president eisenhower, his writings and speeches, ive come across people to people contact him greatly believed that t