War of the Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the Cold War by Michael Nelson Syracuse University Press, 1997 reviewed by Jon Elliston Dossier Editor pscpdocs@aol.com In an international war of words, ideas are bullets and short-wave transmitters are sniper rifles trained on the minds of foreign listeners. Perhaps the pen is indeed mightier than the sword, but there is a still more powerful propaganda weapon: radio. A recently published history book reveals the inner workings of the stations at the front lines of ideological combat during the Cold War. In War of the Black Heavens, Michael Nelson, a former Reuters news agency executive, documents decades of anti-Communist broadcasting by the United States and its European allies. Nelson concludes that more than any other factor, the strong, steady voice of radio programs targeting the Soviet bloc was responsible for the West's triumph in the Cold War. That's a hard case to make, when so many historians have concluded that the Soviet Union crumbled because of economic rot or Reagan-era geopolitics, or both. But Nelson has assembled a hefty collection of evidence that, at the very least, stations like Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) kept Communist leaders on guard and kept hope alive for millions who strained to hear political opinions from outside the monotonous media of the one-party state. Whether or not you buy into Nelson's thesis, War of the Black Heavens is indispensable reading for Cold War history buffs. Nelson trekked to archives in Washington and Moscow and points in between, and as a result this book draws on a wealth of declassified documents. To tell the full story of RFE/RL, you can't do it any other way, because both stations were born in the shadows, founded in secret by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. When the CIA created RFE in 1950 to broadcast to Eastern Europe and RL in 1953 to broadcast to Russia, the agency constructed elaborate cover mechanisms to claim ownership and solicit funds. The American people, like the rest of the world, were led to believe that the stations were private operations. In 1967, the bubble of secrecy burst, and reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post mapped the money trail that passed from CIA coffers through fronts, foundations, and other agency "cut-outs" to the stations. At that point Congress stepped in with overt funding, and the stations continued their operations. War of the Black Heavens is packed with stories from the cloak and dagger side of propaganda wars. Psychological warfare attracts a unique breed of political strategist, the kind that is one part persuader and one part prankster. Nelson notes several exotic operations. The CIA stocked Hungary-bound trains with toilet paper bearing the likeness of a communist leader. U.S. officials "considered but rejected the use of migratory birds or seals" to deliver propaganda products to enemy territory. (Balloons were used instead, until air safety concerns halted the program.) When U.S. intelligence acquired a copy of Kruschev's secret denunciation of Stalin's crimes, the CIA-backed stations were the first to broadcast the startling words to the Russian people. The Soviets responded by sending spies into the midst of the emigre groups that staffed Western short-wave stations. In a few cases, Communist agents infiltrated the leadership ranks of the CIA front groups. Nelson concludes that their effect on station operations was negligible, however. Also ineffectual were the occasional terrorist attacks against Western stations. In 1981, someone bombed the Munich headquarters of RFE/RL, injuring four station employees but barely interrupting broadcast operations. Nelson reviews the theories about who was behind the bombing; speculation runs from the KGB to East German intelligence to notorious terrorist Carlos the Jackal -- or a collaborative effort between such parties. (For more information see a historical report on the attack featured on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Web site.) Soviet countermeasures didn't stop at espionage and sabotage in foreign countries. Moscow took extraordinary measures to choke off access to the stations on the home front. A partially effective way to disrupt the incoming signals was to activate noise jammers on the same frequencies. "By 1958 the Russians were devoting more resources to jamming than to their own domestic and international broadcasts," Nelson reports. Jamming was sporadic, though. In periods of detente, it receded dramatically. Even when the jamming equipment was at full strength, many of the broadcasts got though, at least according to survey research conducted among refugees from Soviet bloc countries. Aside from the problem of Soviet jamming, the U.S. sponsors struggled with the controversial issue of just what the stations should say. Should they advocate labor strikes or sabotage? How about open rebellion? Should they promise armed support from the West in the event of a Soviet crackdown? Or would it be better to urge patience until the time is right for revolt? These weren't hypotheticals, at least not after 1956, when Hungarian citizens rose up briefly against Communist authorities. Many later said they were prodded on, at least in part, by Radio Free Europe. When the uprising was crushed, RFE and other U.S. stations came under attack for inciting a bloody and futile rebellion. The debate over whether or not RFE went too far lasts to this day. Nelson has done a splendid job of summarizing the twists and turns in the story, and his well-documented chapter on the Hungarian uprising unravels one of the most complicated and contentious episodes in the history of Cold War propaganda. War of the Black Heavens sheds light on numerous other intrigues, and provides a thorough overview of the ambitious and influential information offensive waged by the United States. How influential? It's still hard to say. Mass communication research remains a crude science, and we will never be able to determine precisely just what effect stations like RFE/RL had in bringing down the Iron Curtain. Still, testimony from those who lived under the thumb of the Soviet Union gives us an idea. "Without Western broadcasting, totalitarian regimes would have survived much longer," writes Polish labor and political leader Lech Walesa in an introduction to the book. "The struggle for freedom would have been more arduous and the road to democracy much longer.... From these broadcasting stations we gleaned our lessons of independent thinking and solidarity action." © Copyright 1998. Dossier: Covert Ops & Secret Documents ParaScope: Something Strange is Happening! Message board: Share your views