By Ted Lipien Voice of America Polish Service Program “All About America” (Ameryka w Przekroju), July 9, 1983 Irena Radwańska Broni: Returning to the U.S. citizenship oath ceremony at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson would certainly approve of using his home for this purpose. … Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws…
Official documents declassified and released by the National Archives since 2012 show that during World War II and for years afterwards, the U.S. Government-run Voice of America external radio station broadcast Soviet propaganda and disinformation to Poland and to other countries throughout the world with the intention of covering up Stalin’s crimes. This was done primarily in the interest of supporting immediate U.S. military and foreign policy wartime goals set by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and other high-ranking U.S. officials. It was a far cry from the promise enunciated in what was later presented as VOA’s first broadcast on February 25, 1942 or about that time. The Voice of America did not adopt its full official name until a few years later but it was the same broadcasting organization, first within the Office of War Information (OWI) and after 1945 within the U.S. State Department (VOA staff was reduced in 1945, but many former OWI broadcasters continued to be employed by the State Department. Sometime in early 1942, a broadcaster announced in the first German U.S. shortwave radio broadcast to Germany: “The news may be good. The news may be bad. But we shall tell you the truth.”
WWII diplomatic dispatches and other accounts prove beyond any doubt that following the wishes of the Roosevelt White House, its own parent agency, the Office of War Information–but largely on their own initiative and through the work of some of its staffers who later joined communist regimes in Eastern Europe–the Voice of America, although it was not yet its official name at the time, was guilty of hiding, censoring, distorting and minimizing news about Stalin’s order to kill Polish military officers and other POWs, estimated to number over 20,000, in in what became known as the 1940 Katyń Forest Massacre near Smolensk and at other locations in the Soviet Union.
“It is difficult to imagine what would have happened if it were not for the Voice of America and other sources with the help of which the true information squeezed through, which showed a different point of view, which said that we are not alone and that something is happening in the country — because our mass media did not…
In an article for the Winter 1984/1985 issue of Foreign Affairs, “A Divided Europe: The Future of Yalta,” Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that “Yalta is unfinished business. Forty years after the fateful Crimean meeting of February 4-11, 1945, between the Allied Big Three of World War II, much of our current (1984/1985) preoccupation with Yalta focuses on its myth rather…
Poland’s communist regime organized a referendum on political and economic reforms, which was held on 29 November 1987. Around a third of eligible voters did not participate, defying the regime. It was the first time that Communist authorities in Eastern Europe had lost a vote. I covered the referendum for the Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service. After the vote,…
“Nie wyobrażalne jest by mogło to mieć miejsce tak szybko i tak skutecznie gdyby nie Głos Ameryki.” — Lech Wałęsa, 2002. “It is not conceivable that it would have happened so quickly and so effectively if not for the Voice of America.” — Lech Wałęsa, 2002. October 5, 2013 will mark the 30th anniversary of the Nobel Committee announcement that…
In a March 1989 Voice of America-Worldnet-Polish Television program moderated by Ted Lipien, then director of the Voice of America (VOA) Polish Service, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski discussed historic political changes, which were taking place at that time in Poland and throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Dr. Brzezinski was being interviewed by journalists in Poland which was still under communist rule…
Link to audio. The interview (in Polish – po polsku) with Czesław Miłosz was recorded in Oxford on September 19, 1984 at a conference on Polish-Jewish relations. Miłosz talks about Poland’s multicultural traditions, Polish-Jewish relations in the 19th century, during the interwar period, and under communism. He discusses anti-Semitism, Polish-Jewish relations in his home city of Wilno (Vilnius – now…
“There’s great affection from the American people for the people of Poland.” – Vice President George H.W. Bush, September 24, 1987 Voice of America correspondent Wayne Corey and VOA Polish Service director Ted Lipien recorded the interview at the White House on September 24, 1987 shortly before Vice President George H.W. Bush left on his trip to Poland. The…
Vice President George H.W. Bush began a four-day visit to Poland on Saturday, September 26, 1987. His visit facilitated talks between Solidarity and the communist regime and eventual peaceful fall of communism in Poland. I interviewed Vice President Bush at the White House before the trip and accompanied him as Voice of America Polish Service correspondent. I filed this report…