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—————————————————— IOANNIS D. STEFANIDIS —————————————————— AMERICA’S PROJECTION AND PROMOTION OF DEMOCRACY: THE VOICE OF AMERICA, THE GREEK DICTATORSHIP, AND CEAUŞESCU’S ROMANIA ————————— OFFPRINT MODERN GREEK STUDIES YEARBOOK A PUBLICATION OF MEDITERRANEAN, SLAVIC AND EASTERN ORTHODOX STUDIES Minneapolis, Minnesota Volume 32/33, 2016/2017 AMERICA’S PROJECTION AND PROMOTION OF DEMOCRACY: THE VOICE OF AMERICA, THE GREEK DICTATORSHIP, AND CEAUŞESCU’S ROMANIA by Ioannis D. Stefanidis Aristotle University of Thessaloniki THIS study purports to examine a hitherto little-researched aspect of U.S. foreign policy toward European dictatorships during the Cold War, namely, the use of worldwide broadcasting, a significant component of public diplomacy,1 with focus on the promotion of democratic change across the division between the communist East and the capitalist West. This latter parameter excludes Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL), the U.S.-sponsored Cold Warrior stations par excellence, as they broadcast to Soviet bloc countries only. The official international radio station of the U.S. government, the Voice of America (VOA), has been selected for this study in order to facilitate a comparison of U.S. policies toward Greece and Romania, which represented different types of authoritarian regimes: one pro-Western and right-wing, the other Soviet-dominated and communist. This combination could also shed light on the inevitable interplay between principle and expediency in the conduct of foreign policy. It might even test the assumption that, within the limits of more immediate U.S. priorities, VOA broadcasting was a contributing factor in the process that culminated in the demise of authoritarian regimes in Europe. In addition to the more or less conscious projection of democratic alternatives to authoritarian rule, these broadcasts could serve as relatively unrestricted sources of information and ideas, the subversive potential of which neither Washington nor foreign dictators could afford to ignore. The selected period is defined by the seven-year military rule of Greece which coincided with the last two years of the Johnson administration, the entire Nixon presidency, and the transition of Romania from a deceptively promising early phase to the oppression and stagnation of the later Ceauşescu years. 167 168 Ioannis D. Stefanidis The Voice of America in Mid-Cold War Possibly first and foremost, the Cold War was “a serious struggle for the mind of mankind,”2 and radio was expected to help win this struggle. This could be done by projecting a positive image of one’s country and allies and discrediting that of the adversary. In the case of the United States, the projection of the country’s image abroad was principally the task of the United States Information Agency (USIA). Established as an independent branch of government in 1953, its mission was to counter hostile attempts to distort U.S. policies and objectives, submit evidence that our policies and objectives were in harmony with the legitimate aspirations of other peoples, and project abroad those aspects of life and culture of the American people which facilitated understanding of U.S. policies and objectives. —or, as the motto of the new agency put it plainly, to “tell America’s story to the world.”3 In order to do this quickly, accurately, and globally, USIA could rely on a comprehensive communications system, which was already in place and under government control. Founded in February 1942, VOA formally came under—but virtually coincided with—the USIA Broadcasting Service. A directive issued by USIA director George Allen—in effect, the agency’s unofficial charter between 1960 and 1976—described VOA as “an official radio” with the task to serve the longterm interests of the United States “by communicating directly with the peoples of the world.” It ought to represent America as a whole, present U.S. policies and “responsible discussion and opinion on those policies,” and establish itself as “a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news.”4 Policy guidance was provided by the Office of Policy and Plans (code-named IOP) of USIA. VOA, IOP, the offices of VOA area directors, and field posts (mostly diplomatic missions abroad) were expected to engage in frequent consultation with each other.5 In theory, VOA was responsible for determining the content of its news and other features. It could handle its material according to a journalistic culture or ethos which prescribed respect for accuracy, objectivity, and comprehensiveness. It was also instructed to “exercise maximum flexibility to create timely, imaginative, and effective programs.”6 Under USIA director Frank Shakespeare (1969–73), the submission of VOA items for clearance with the State Department was no longer standard practice.7 Broadcasts were being monitored, but prior content control was exercised only in times of crisis or whenever important foreign policy objectives were at stake. For instance, USIA imposed tight editorial control during the Cuban missile crisis.8 As the U.S. involvement in Vietnam escalated, increasing pressure was put on VOA to avoid material critical of the administration and its allies. Its digests (“roundups,” according to journalistic jargon) of the U.S. press were occasionally subjected to “subtle edits” and other interference from a higher level.9 As will be shown, this practice would be repeated in the case of Greece under military The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 169 rule. Of course, troubled news, whether from Saigon or Athens, could not always be avoided. It was an intermittent battle between VOA people, jealous of their professional integrity, and administration officials, often alerted by U.S. diplomats in the field or representatives of foreign governments. As evidence of outside interference mounted, U.S. media expressed skepticism regarding the station’s freedom of maneuver. While admitting that, unlike its Red rivals, VOA offered a plurality of views, The Wall Street Journal remarked in 1969: People in the radio propaganda business . . . are servants of governments with isms to peddle, taxes to raise, soldiers to conscript, orthodoxy to enforce. They may be fun to listen to, but their world of artful words is an artificial world, after all.10 During the period under study, VOA was broadcasting in thirty-five languages as well as in English.11 National languages were classified into five categories, according to a number of criteria, ranging from the “political importance of the language target country or area” to the “competition of major international broadcasters.” Romanian was listed as a Category II language, “essential for effective political communication with critical areas not reached by Category I languages,” in this case “Russian-West.” Greek was a Category III national language “of sub-continental or regional importance which are politically and linguistically necessary to supplement the coverage provided by Categories I and II.”12 Reflecting its different status, the Romanian Service was allotted three times the broadcasting hours of its Greek counterpart.13 A more important consequence concerned monitoring of the broadcasts. Each language service was reviewed once a year, and diplomatic posts undertook field evaluation.14 In view of its Category II status, VOA Romanian broadcasts were being monitored by specially assigned personnel of the U.S. embassy in Bucharest who compiled monthly and other, occasional, reports. This did not seem to be the case with the Greek Service, on whose broadcasts embassy comments were sporadic, usually provoked by the reactions of the host government. The vast majority of VOA listeners tuned in on the shortwave band. USIA manuals and studies consistently praised the advantages of shortwave broadcasting, which could “freely cross frontiers, span continents, and bridge oceans to reach listeners immediately and directly.”15 The major drawback was reception quality. In addition to overlapping with other stations, direct shortwave broadcasting from VOA’s home site at Greenville, North Carolina, was subject to the deterioration caused in northern latitudes by the so-called auroral zones. In order to overcome such problems, VOA depended on overseas relay stations.16 Still, in terms of global reach and privacy of listening—an allimportant condition in closed societies—shortwave was deemed far superior to other options. A 1972 USIA Broadcasting Service study proclaimed a bright future in the expanding “political communications universe.”17 In order to ensure that future, VOA’s worldwide technical monitoring system was constantly scanning the airwaves for both signs of interference and clear frequencies.18 It should be noted that by 1967, VOA had achieved “a dominant shortwave signal” in Latin America, West Africa, and Vietnam.19 In contrast, the station was poorly received in much of Eastern Europe. This fact, perhaps, 170 Ioannis D. Stefanidis revealed something about the priorities of U.S. policy during the Johnson administration. This unfavorable airwave balance was finally redressed in 1973, when the powerful relay complex near the northern Greek port of Kavala entered service. Radio was the only regular means of communicating America’s story to large audiences in countries on the other side of the Cold War divide.20 The risk was that the regimes affected could try and limit the effectiveness of VOA and other Western stations through counter-measures, particularly jamming, namely, “the deliberate broadcasting of noise on the same frequency” as a station’s programs. Developed by the Axis powers during World War II, the expensive technique of jamming was widely adopted by Communist bloc states in 1948, even though it violated the International Telecommunications Convention, which had come into force in 1932.21 To measure its impact on listeners, VOA used various methods to collect data, particularly from Eastern Europe, such as reports by USIS personnel stationed abroad, returned travelers’ accounts, interviews with refugees and defectors, traveler surveys, and listener mail—much of which was in response to the listeners’ transistor contests regularly held by VOA. Research concentrated on audience size and composition, “frequency of listenership, and listeners’ motives, thematic interests, and general attitude to Western radio broadcasting.”22 The number of listeners, in particular, was computed on the basis of surveys conducted by commercial research firms. Where this was not possible, estimates were based on the number of entries in VOA transistor radio contests.23 It seems that, in common with most Eastern bloc countries, the more highly educated, urban, and relatively young strata constituted the dominant segment of the station’s listeners. According to its researchers, VOA’s following far exceeded its actual listeners, since information from Western media, even if barred from reproduction in the local press, tended to spread by word of mouth.24 In the case of countries with no free press, competition for the listener’s attention came not so much from domestic radio as from other major Western media with a global reach. The BBC claimed the most long-standing audience and enjoyed a reputation for trustworthiness, especially among Eastern Europeans. Its dedication to objectivity, a post-Cold War study acknowledged, did not prevent it from projecting the values of “a free, pluralistic, and democratic society” to audiences living under oppressive regimes.25 In addition to their vigorous anti-communism and much longer broadcasting time, the two U.S.-sponsored cold-warrior stations, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), owed their greater popularity to a further factor: unlike VOA, which closely identified with the U.S. government, RFE/RL preserved their dissident identity. Their programs were directly produced by nationals, “in the language of the intended audience,” and were about the countries concerned, “not the American way of life.”26 Even as a reliable source of foreign news, VOA was rated well below RFE and BBC.27 To a certain extent, VOA sought to emulate its major Western competitors.28 Like the BBC, it introduced roundups of editorials by U.S. media on major subjects and interviews with public figures. It engaged in crossreporting, providing “news and information about one region to another, as The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 171 well as ‘in country’ reporting to specific audiences, particularly in times of crisis.”29 Like RFE/RL, it increasingly provided news from within the “target countries.”30 As a safeguard of objectivity, VOA separated news items from analyses, press digests, and correspondents’ reports. In an effort to build its audience, VOA complemented its news coverage with pure entertainment, i.e., sports, film reviews, and, above all, music.31 According to an official history of the service, “Music USA,” a regular feature including jazz and pop that was introduced in 1954, had “attracted a tremendous audience around the world,” especially in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.32 By focusing on the pluralist, democratic politics, open society, and, to a certain extent, market economy of the United States, VOA broadcasts enabled their audience to draw comparisons with their own, very different experience. In this indirect way, these broadcasts were supposed to promote democratic values and undermine a dictatorship’s monopoly of ideas. The station only indirectly touched upon the flaws of the regimes under which its audience toiled. “Keeping the hope of liberation alive” was largely the job of RFE and Radio Liberty.33 VOA was expected to advance Lyndon Johnson’s building bridges scheme and, subsequently, Richard Nixon’s policy of détente. It was in this context that its Russian Service was prevented from overemphasizing the Soviet nationalities issue, reporting on the endemic corruption in the Soviet bloc, or broadcasting excerpts from Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, as it would antagonize Moscow.34 The period from 1967 to 1974 gravely tested America’s image as “a shining city on a hill.” The Vietnam quagmire and the antiwar movement it generated, the assassinations or attempted murders of leading public figures, such as Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, and George Wallace, endemic racial strife, the Watergate affair, and the Angela Davis trial rendered the projection of the United States as a benevolent, democratic superpower an unenviable task. VOA apparently made an effort to offer its audience comprehensive news and editorial roundups of such controversial, long-drawn-out issues. Whether or not the station was making a virtue of necessity, its administrators agreed at the time that full coverage could enhance its credibility while serving as a testimony to the inherent strengths of the American democracy.35 The Watergate affair proved to be the “greatest credibility challenge” for VOA during the Nixon administration. As the unfolding scandal touched the core of presidential power, it was easy to foresee great pitfalls ahead for the station’s claim to accuracy, objectivity, and comprehensiveness. However, contemporary allegations of White House interference with the way VOA handled the affair were not proved at the time. A team of Wall Street Journal reporters who monitored VOA’s coverage of Watergate, in May 1974, concluded that there was no cover-up of news.36 Matters, however, were more complicated beneath the surface. After a botched attempt to manipulate the content of congressional reports through a White House appointee at USIA, all agency media, including radio, were directed to play the story straight. Before long, however, VOA director Kenneth R. Giddens found himself at loggerheads with the new USIA director, James Keogh, on the station’s coverage of Watergate all the way to its conclusion, in August 1974.37 172 Ioannis D. Stefanidis The RFE/RL controversy, which had raged since funding of both stations by the CIA was revealed in spring 1967, also threatened to engulf VOA. State-funded foreign broadcasting became a target in the trench warfare which raged between the U.S. president and congressional foreign policy committees during the early 1970s. In March 1972, Senator J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, famously dismissed the two stations as “cold-war relics” and supported their termination. In the case of VOA, Fulbright supported a 30 percent reduction of its budget and a drastic curtailment of its broadcast languages from thirty-six to eleven. Eventually, the committee gave both branches of U.S. Cold War propaganda the benefit of doubt and a new lease on life.38 Although it was not explicitly stated in the mandate of either USIA or VOA, the promotion of democracy had been an avowed objective of U.S. foreign policy during much of the twentieth century. Starting with Harry Truman,39 a succession of U.S. presidents considered this an important element of the U.S. strategy of containment both in Europe and the newly independent Third World countries. This study focuses on the last two years of the Johnson administration and the entire term of his successor. Johnson’s image and that of his country after the mid-1960s suffered on account of the war in Indochina, which, in addition to military humiliation, was a public relations disaster for the United States and its president. However, according to a recent study, Johnson sincerely believed that “by extending democracy at home the United States would have greater moral authority and political leverage” in conducting the Cold War. His “Great Society” project (i.e., the struggle against poverty and racial discrimination, and for better education and healthcare) entailed “a significant foreign policy dividend”: it could help counter those who disputed the sincerity of the U.S. commitment to democracy abroad on account of its record of tolerance of racial segregation and extreme social inequality at home.40 But due to its continuing partnership with repressive military rulers in Latin America, South Vietnam, and Greece, the United States was unable to fully exploit this potential advantage over its non-democratic Cold War rivals. Enjoying a reputation as a Cold Warrior, Nixon eventually phased out the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War under less than glorious circumstances. This, however, did not make his administration any more able or willing to gain higher moral ground by promoting democracy abroad. Nixon and his principal foreign policy associate, Henry Kissinger, apparently had no time for such an approach while pursuing their power politics on a global scale. As has been noted, they shared “neither Kennedy’s liberal outlook nor his sympathy for the political aspirations of the Third World.” What has been widely interpreted as their “almost nineteenth-century worldview” put a premium on might over right. “Even the idea of human rights,” it has been noted, “received short shrift from Kissinger.”41 In general, Nixon administration officials spent much more time defending various pro-American dictatorships from attacks in Congress than trying to impress upon these regimes the benefits of democratic rule for both their citizens and their own standing on the world stage. This The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 173 seems to be confirmed by the two cases under study, Greece under the colonels and Ceauşescu’s Romania. U.S. Policy toward Greece under the Colonels On the basis of available evidence, various scholars agree that the U.S. government had no prior knowledge of the so-called colonels’ coup on 21 April 1967, when a group of mostly middle-ranking officers overthrew a caretaker government and seized power in Greece. Although U.S. agencies had been aware of the conspirators’ ring for some time, the plotters managed to keep their preparations for the coup secret during the crucial final stage. It was the idea of a royal coup that Washington was invited to consider during the same period. The Americans did not endorse it but, significantly, let the king know that their eventual reaction would depend on the “circumstances at [the] time” of his proposed move,42 This was a reference to an attempt, however unlikely, by the radical wing of the Center Union party under its informal leader Andreas Papandreou, possibly in collusion with the communist Left, to force a showdown with King Constantine, before or after the national elections scheduled for 28 May 1967. In short, U.S. officials, including the head of the CIA station, were taken by surprise. It was a time when, as one historian notes, “the Johnson administration, obsessed with Vietnam, normally ignored Greece.”43 As Cyrus L. Sulzberger, the New York Times foreign editor, observed at the time, the Greek coup violated “all the U.S.A. stands for.” It was equally true, however, that no obvious damage was done to U.S. strategic interests.44 After the alarm caused by the prospect of a victorious Center-Left under the Papandreous, father and son, in the aborted elections, Washington soon concluded that it had better adjust itself to the new situation. Its primary objective was to safeguard U.S. interests in Greece, including the use of extensive military facilities. At the same time, however, the administration ought to preserve America’s image as Free World leader. A week after the coup, Secretary of State Dean Rusk indicated that Washington expected Greece’s new rulers to restore democratic institutions as soon as possible. More significantly, on 16 May 1967, a selective embargo was announced, suspending the delivery of heavy weapons at a time when the Greek armed forces depended almost exclusively on U.S. military assistance for their hardware. Reconciling support for restoration of Greek democracy with the need for strong Greek cooperation with U.S. regional policies was not an easy task.45 After some hesitation, the Johnson administration adopted a policy of engagement which fell short of making further U.S. assistance conditional on an early transition to constitutional politics. The U.S. embassy undertook to try a “policy of suasion.” However, the U.S. ambassador, Phillips Talbot, was compromised when the colonels realized that he had been privy to King Constantine’s plans to oust them. The royal coup of 13 December 1967 failed, and the king fled. This raised the issue of the military regime’s international recognition. After five weeks in suspense, Washington resumed full diplomatic relations with the government of Georgios Papadopoulos, the junta’s strong man.46 174 Ioannis D. Stefanidis By the time Nixon succeeded Johnson as president, U.S. policy-makers had adjusted to the idea that the dictatorship was no brief interlude. Perhaps Nixon’s future ambassador to Greece was not alone in misreading the country’s constitutional past when, in a 1970 report, he underscored “dictatorship as a normal feature of [Greek] public life.”47 Despite some critical self-reflection among State Department officials,48 the Nixon administration opted for a hands-off policy on Greek internal affairs and full cooperation on other matters, a typical example of Realpolitik by the Nixon-Kissinger duet.49 Nixon himself came to form a favorable opinion of the loyal Greek regime.50 Vice President Spiro Agnew, publicly credited the colonels with bringing “a measure of stability” to Greece. Speaking for the president, he urged an audience of academics and students not to expect that their allies “necessarily follow our form of government.”51 This was exactly what Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser and, from September 1973, secretary of state, believed. The United States could cooperate with unsavory regimes, provided they retained their pro-American orientation. In the case of the Greek military rulers, Kissinger had no qualms whatsoever and admitted that diplomatic references to an early return to democracy were “essentially pro forma.”52 The post of ambassador to Greece, which had remained vacant for nearly a year after Talbot’s departure in January 1969, was given to Henry Tasca, a career diplomat with a back channel to the White House.53 Tasca could be trusted both to engage Greece’s military rulers in the friendliest way possible and to help counter inquiries from members of Congress and other critics of U.S. policy in Greece. In relative contrast to Romania, human rights never became a central issue of U.S. diplomacy toward the regime. “Under Tasca,” a U.S. historian notes, “the embassy soft-peddled [sic] violations of human rights and free speech.”54 At the same time, Tasca felt obliged to remind Greece’s rulers of the public relations benefits of any step toward constitutional rule. Despite his occasional frustration with the lack of response from his hosts, Tasca was unable to see any reliable alternative to a regime increasingly degenerating into Papadopoulos’s personal rule. With a view to preventing the emergence of rival centers of power from within the junta, Papadopoulos practiced rotation of cadres, regularly reshuffling the cabinet and other senior officials, while assuming more and more portfolios himself. It was a time-honored method followed by autocrats, including Romania’s Nicolae Ceauşescu.55 The colonels, for their part, appeared anxious to retain American good will and military aid. From the outset, they sought to reassure U.S. representatives about their firm commitment to the close cooperation fostered since the 1940s. “We are with you whether you want us or not,” Stylianos Pattakos, one of the coup leaders, told a U.S. military officer while discussing the prospect of restoring full military aid.56 Less than two months after the coup, Greece’s military rulers proved their value when they allowed the use of Greek air space and territorial waters by U.S. units supplying Israel during the Six-Day War. As a sign of approval, high-level contacts with the Greek regime, virtually absent during Johnson’s term, multiplied under Nixon. On the occasion of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s funeral, in late March 1969, the U.S. president privately received Pattakos and not King Constantine, who was also present in The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 175 Washington. In April, Foreign Minister Panagiotis Pipinelis and the chief of the Greek General Staff, General Odysseus Angelis, came to Washington in an effort to solicit the restoration of full military assistance. Aided by GreekAmerican businessman and Nixon personal friend Tom Pappas, Pipinelis was able to meet with Agnew, himself the son of a Greek immigrant.57 In the wake of the resumption of full military aid, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird paid an official visit to Athens in early October 1970.58 General Angelis returned to Washington in March 1971. Nixon took the opportunity to let it be known that criticism leveled against the Greek regime from American sources did not reflect his own true feelings: “Other countries give us regiments of words. Greece gives us regiments of troops,” was the praising phrase that the U.S. president relayed to the Greek general.59 In late April 1971, it was Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans’s turn to visit Athens. He was full of praise for his hosts and handed Papadopoulos a friendly letter from Nixon.60 The high point in Washington’s relationship with the military regime was Vice President Agnew’s visit to the land of his paternal ancestors, on 16–18 October 1971. Agnew twice met with Papadopoulos. Although he did express interest in the prospects of parliamentary rule, his visit was a tremendous boon for the regime’s propaganda.61 On U.S. Independence Day, 4 July 1972, Secretary of State William Rogers visited Athens. In a meeting, both Papadopoulos and his American guest referred to common traditions of liberty and democracy “without any detectable trace of irony.”62 There was a downside to these contacts. Resistance groups could seize the opportunity to embarrass both sides. While Laird was being received by Papadopoulos, in October 1970, a bomb exploded near the dictator’s office. The most serious incident happened on 3 August 1972, when the U.S. embassy in Athens became the target of a “guerilla-style attack.”63 Although the guards had little difficulty repelling the assailants, the incident was indicative of a resurging undercurrent of anti-Americanism. Such incidents were a reminder of the pitfalls inherent in the association of the United States with unpopular dictatorships within the Free World. To be sure, the Greek regime tried to take on a veneer of legitimacy. To that end, it submitted a new constitution to a manifestly rigged referendum, in late September 1968. Once approved, its articles dealing with civil rights and political representation were immediately suspended. Whatever was left of the U.S. stick-and-carrot formula was being gradually dismantled. Deeming the partial suspension of the military assistance program unproductive, the Johnson administration took advantage of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and, in October 1968, released to the Greek armed forces 40 percent of the heavy equipment withheld since the coup. A year later, the Nixon administration decided to lift the partial embargo altogether, but it had to wait until September 1970, due to opposition in the U.S. Congress. The irony, of course, was that, for purposes of domestic security, the dictatorship could still rely on an uninterrupted supply of small arms and other, not heavy, equipment.64 Meanwhile, the more secure they felt in power, the colonels ostentatiously adopted a more independent posture vis-à-vis the United States, especially over the issue of democratization. On one hand, Papadopoulos, the junta leader until 1973, sought to placate his American backers “by a display of 176 Ioannis D. Stefanidis progress, and his colleagues by making sure that it was only a display.”65 A case in point was the termination of preventive censorship in November 1969, coupled with a draconian press legislation, which listed an inordinate number of press offenses. The subsequent imposition of severe penalties against a number of newspapers and editors acted as a powerful deterrent on the rest.66 Papadopoulos often stressed that it was up to him to decide the pace of political evolution. On occasion, he chose to play the nationalist card. At the height of congressional hearings on aid to Greece in the summer of 1971, for instance, the regime had the visit of an American admiral cancelled and obstructed the completion of a rest center for the 6th Fleet on Crete.67 In the aftermath of the hearings, Papadopoulos took Tasca to task, comparing the role of the United States in Greece to that of the Soviet Union in Czechoslovakia. The U.S. ambassador concluded that such outbursts were designed to demonstrate to the junta’s inner circle that Papadopoulos was taking a “firm stand with the US against any outside intervention in Greek affairs.”68 More important was the friction between Athens and Washington over the Cyprus issue. In late 1967, the junta blundered into provoking a Turkish ultimatum, and Washington had to mediate in order to prevent a clash between its two NATO allies. The outcome was humiliating for the junta, which was forced to recall the substantial Greek forces from the island. Later, in early 1972, Washington remained unhelpful, as Papadopoulos tried and failed to have Archbishop Makarios, the president of Cyprus, removed from office. While the colonels expressed displeasure with occasional U.S. prodding to restore constitutional rule, relations with the communist world markedly improved. It was a development that perplexed a domestic public accustomed to perceive the American factor behind all important policy decisions in Greece.69 The Romanian foreign minister came to Athens in July 1971, and his Bulgarian counterpart followed in October 1972. The Greek deputy foreign minister visited Bucharest in November 1971, and Ceauşescu twice extended an official invitation to Papadopoulos. In the event, the Romanian dictator’s visit to Athens took precedence, only to be cancelled following the events at the Athens Technical University in November 1973.70 Greece extended diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China and the German Democratic Republic, in 1972 and 1973, respectively. A high-level Greek delegation visited Beijing in May 1973. As a display of independent or even neutralist spirit, Papadopoulos’s Ostpolitik was more apparent than real: the regime’s moves were in line with the policy of détente of the Nixon administration and other Western governments; Athens continued to basically serve U.S. security requirements in the region. Even when Athens declared neutrality during the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, Greek commanders permitted the traffic of American aircraft—other than heavy transport—and the unrestricted movement of naval units through Greek military airports and Suda Bay harbor.71 U.S. officials also had to cope with the discomfort which the suspension of parliamentary rule and human rights violations was causing among Greece’s partners in the West. The dictatorship was criticized by European parliamentarians sitting at the North Atlantic Assembly, a rather cosmetic body of the NATO alliance whose motions the North Atlantic Council of ministers could The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 177 afford to ignore.72 Of more consequence was the Council of Europe, widely acknowledged as a champion of democracy and human rights in Europe. During 1968 and the first half of 1969, the council’s ministerial committee, in which all European NATO members except Portugal were represented, discussed proposals for the suspension of Greece’s membership. At first, the regime appeared willing to placate its Western critics. In August 1969, Foreign Minister Pipinelis announced a timetable for the return to representative government under the 1968 Constitution.73 Soon, it became apparent that this was merely window-dressing. When the council convened to decide on Greece’s membership in December 1969, the regime chose to avoid the ignominy of expulsion and unilaterally withdrew from the organization. Still, the ministerial committee passed a resolution declaring Greece in breach of the charter.74 Before long, the U.S. Congress proved a considerable constraint on the Nixon administration’s efforts to forge a close working relationship with the Greek regime. For one thing, Congress held the strings to the purse of foreign economic and military aid. Already in summer 1969, fifty-one congressmen had sent a letter to the State Department criticizing current policy toward Greece. Criticism was voiced during the hearings on Tasca’s appointment as ambassador to Greece in November 1969. In December, an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Authorization Bill banning aid to Greece was approved at committee level but was defeated in plenum.75 In June 1970, State and Defense Department officials were grilled on the administration’s pro-junta record at the Subcommittee on Security Arrangements and Commitments Abroad of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Another amendment banning military supplies to Greece was again, narrowly, defeated in plenum.76 On 22 September 1970, invoking the need for cohesion in NATO and the importance of Greece for Western security interests in the eastern Mediterranean, the State Department announced the resumption of full military aid to Greece. While hoping for a speedier tempo, it felt confident enough that “the trend toward a constitutional order” was set.77 This initiative prompted the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to send a staff study team to Athens in early February 1971. The visit proved a public relations disaster for both the junta and the U.S. embassy. In its report the team concluded that, whereas Greek cooperation in military matters was satisfactory, no real progress had been made toward the restoration of parliamentary rule.78 As a result, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Benjamin Rosenthal, announced that there would be public hearings. These lasted from July until September. Ambassador Tasca tried hard to defend U.S. policy against criticism from Greek dissidents and Greek-American opponents of the junta.79 Rodger Davies, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, reiterated the seemingly two-pronged U.S. policy toward Greece since 1967: to protect our important security interests there and in the broader area of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East while preserving a working relationship with the regime through which we can exert our influence to encourage a return to representative government.80 178 Ioannis D. Stefanidis Rodgers and other officials also invoked the Soviet naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean to substantiate the security imperative behind U.S. policy to Greece. Such formulations did not prevent a negative report from the subcommittee. On 4 August 1971, the House adopted an amendment introduced by Representative Wayne L. Hays (Democrat, Ohio) suspending aid to Greece (and Pakistan) unless the president signed a waiver certifying “overriding requirements” of U.S. national security. Nixon duly did this after a revised foreign assistance bill incorporating the amendment passed both houses in February 1972.81 Shortly afterward, Washington announced the sale to Greece of two squadrons of sophisticated long-range fighter-bomber F-4E “Phantoms.” Supported by the Pentagon, the Nixon administration played up the argument of Israeli security that was calculated to appeal to a large section of Congress. As Nixon declared during his presidential campaign in July 1972, “without aid to Greece and aid to Turkey you have no viable policy to save Israel.”82 Yet, when the president made the same point in a message to the Senate a week later, Christos Xanthopoulos-Palamas, Papadopoulos’s deputy in the Foreign Ministry, publicly ruled out the prospect of Greece becoming a springboard of operations against Arab states.83 From 1971 onward, Washington had an additional reason to court the Greek regime, i.e., Admiral Elmo Zumwalt’s pet project to home-port an aircarrier group at Elefsis Bay near Athens. The plan envisaged docks for vessels and temporary housing for crews and their dependents. Its aims were several: to induce troop enlistment, improve morale, and consolidate U.S. naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean. At first, Kissinger and the State Department expressed objections to a plan likely to increase U.S. dependence on the junta’s good will. However, this was at a time when the Americans and their British allies were being evicted from important Mediterranean bases in Libya and Malta, and alternatives were in short supply. Negotiations lasted for fifteen months and spurred further congressional hearings at which expatriate Greek dissidents were invited to testify. The prospect of thousands more American servicemen disembarking in Greece disquieted those concerned with the rise of anti-American sentiment there. Manifested as early as the mid1950s,84 this trend was obvious to anyone who cared to observe the impact of U.S. support for the colonels on Greek public opinion.85 Tasca, however, chose to overlook the evidence, which included graffiti, leaflets, and clandestine press, as well as sporadic acts of violence against U.S. targets in Greece. As late as March 1972, Tasca saw “no indication of any change from traditional warm Greek hospitality towards [the] 6th Fleet.”86 Although it had given its consent in principle since early 1972, the junta tried to make the most of Zumwalt’s home-porting scheme as “a display of American backing,” while posing as a tough negotiator. A five-year agreement was eventually concluded on 8 January 1973.87 Within a week of its signing, the Greek regime publicly renounced further U.S. military grant aid which for 1973 had been reduced to only $15 million. It was a display of independence primarily aimed at the junta’s critics in the U.S. Congress.88 On 25 June 1973, the Senate adopted the Pell Amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act which linked military aid to Greece with the fulfillment of “its obligations under the North Atlantic Treaty,” including respect for “the The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 179 principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.” A split Congress delayed the adoption of a final version until 27 November 1973, when both houses approved the first piece of legislation that explicitly predicated foreign aid on respect for human rights. According to Section 32 of the Foreign Assistance Act, “the President should deny any economic or military assistance to the government of any foreign country which practices the internment or imprisonment of that country’s citizens for political purposes.”89 In the meantime, Papadopoulos’s rule had entered its final stage. In late May 1973, an officers’ plot, centered on the Greek Royal Navy, was uncovered, and a Greek destroyer crew fled to Italy. Papadopoulos abolished the monarchy and appointed himself president of the republic. A cautious effort among State Department officials to distance the United States from the regime failed. In the administration’s view, no question of withholding recognition had arisen.90 Tasca welcomed Papadopoulos’s attempt to achieve legitimacy through a new, also rigged, referendum and the subsequent appointment of a civilian cabinet. Under Spyros Markezinis, leader of a miniscule pre-1967 party, the new government totally depended on Papadopoulos’s support. It was supposed to pave the way for elections in the course of 1974. During Markezinis’s brief term of office, the Yom Kippur War appeared to test Greek-American relations. Athens, in line with Ankara and other NATO partners, declared neutrality and denied the use of national airspace for the purpose of supplying the belligerents, including Israel. As has been noted, this did not prevent the uninterrupted traffic of U.S. aircraft and naval units, thanks partly to the cooperation of Greek military commanders. When asked to consider exercising pressure on Athens (and Ankara), the State Department Office for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs concluded that the balance had already tipped, and the Americans were “getting more from the Greeks in the way of practical support than [they were] giving”; thus, any pressure was likely to backfire on U.S. interests.91 It was the bloody suppression of the protest movement centered on Athens Technical University that spelled the end of the controlled democratization experiment. Martial law was reimposed, and on 25 November Papadopoulos and his government were overthrown by forces loyal to Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannidis, chief of the Military Police. Kissinger consistently overruled repeated recommendations from both Tasca and State Department officials for a stiffer attitude toward the newer, harsher version of the dictatorship. He equally ignored warnings on Ioannidis’s impending move against President Makarios in Cyprus. “We work with whoever is in power as long as they are not anti-American,” the secretary of state confirmed in late March 1974.92 Congressional interest in the fate of Greek democracy did not subside. On 20 December 1973, Senator Claiborne Pell reintroduced his amendment of the previous June as a bill prohibiting “all military assistance to Greece” until it conformed to the political as well as the military aims of NATO. The House Foreign Affairs Committee commissioned a study mission to Greece which resulted in “a severely critical report” in late February 1974. Two months later, a bill similar to Senator Pell’s was introduced in the House of Representatives. Even at the North Atlantic Council, the foreign ministers of the Netherlands 180 Ioannis D. Stefanidis and newly democratic Portugal joined their colleagues from Denmark and Norway in questioning the Greek authoritarian aberration.93 As had been the case in 1967, the dictatorship again sought to win popularity by playing the nationalist card of Enosis (the union of Cyprus with Greece). Whereas the events of 1967 had resulted in Greek diplomatic humiliation and tactical retreat, the overthrow of President Makarios, in July 1974, provoked the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Utterly discredited by its failure to defend the island, the junta disintegrated. The Greek military chiefs mustered the courage to sidestep Ioannidis, and the country reverted to civilian rule. By then, Greek opinion across party lines held U.S. policy accountable for both the seven-year dictatorship and the Cyprus tragedy. AntiAmericanism solidified into a permanent feature of Greek political culture. The “Voice of America” and Greece under the Colonels Broadcasting has been part of the American presence in Greece since the Civil War years. The Radio Facilities Agreement signed on 12 April 1949 permitted the U.S. government to construct and use extensive facilities on Greek territory in order to relay VOA programs to target areas during the Cold War. Major VOA transmitters beamed from Thessaloniki and Rhodes to the Eastern bloc and Arab countries, respectively. The Thessaloniki relay station fielded five transmitters—four 35kw shortwave and one 50kw medium-wave— which targeted the Balkan states. The Rhodes station comprised three transmitters—two 50kw shortwave and one 150kw medium-wave. It covered the eastern Mediterranean and also hosted a program center of the VOA Arabic Branch. Smaller installations existed on the islands of Lemnos and Corfu.94 Shortly before the military coup of April 1967, USIA selected two sites of some two thousand acres for the construction of a high-power relay station, the so-called Kavala project.95 It was a $33 million investment,96 which provided for the erection of twenty-two diplexed curtain antennas, capable of receiving the VOA signal from Greenville, North Carolina. Then, ten 250kw shortwave transmitters would relay that signal to one-fifth of the globe, including Eastern Europe, central Soviet Union, the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa. An additional 150kw medium-wave transmitter would boost signal strength to the Balkans and southern Ukraine. Not only the local economy but also the Greek government stood to benefit from the project, which included a power station, housing and recreation facilities, and a new road network. Once the new station became operational, the U.S. government agreed to turn the old Thessaloniki facility over to the Greek state.97 Although an appreciative Greek Foreign Ministry appeared eager to facilitate the construction of the station,98 the completion of the Kavala project took almost twice as long as originally envisaged. This was largely due to standard Greek bureaucratic hurdles: three ministries were involved, plus civil and military officials in northern Greece.99 Eventually, what a Foreign Service radio engineer described as “one of the world’s largest and most impressive international broadcasting facilities”100 entered service in January 1973. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 181 Established on 1 November 1942, the VOA Greek Service initially targeted Greek seamen traveling across the Atlantic and Greek communities in Egypt and Palestine.101 The decision of the Truman administration to assume the burden of keeping the country within the Western orbit was followed by extensive U.S. propaganda operations, of which radio was an important component.102 Once it installed its own transmitters on Greek soil, VOA was able to vastly expand its potential Greek audience. In 1966, it was estimated that 1.25 million were listening to the VOA Greek Service, mainly on mediumwave.103 There was an important quid pro quo for the Greek side as well. The Greek national radio (EIR) was allowed to use the VOA transmitters at Thessaloniki and on Rhodes to broadcast medium-wave and shortwave programs to its domestic audience and to listeners in Europe and Cyprus, respectively.104 In the wake of the military coup, a junta representative protested to Norbert Anschuetz, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy, over the content of a VOA Greek broadcast. For the first but not the last time, the Colonels sought to have a say in the content of the official U.S. radio programs. Anschuetz rejected this but proposed to Washington the temporary suspension of the local relay of the VOA Greek program.105 Without the amplification provided by the transmitters at Rhodes and Thessaloniki, these broadcasts could hardly be audible to Greek listeners. The rationale behind this measure reveals the fundamental dilemma of U.S. information policy toward Greece: how to preserve the VOA Greek Service as a “consistently reliable and authoritative source of news” without risking the expanding VOA investment in the host country. There was no doubt that VOA newscasts, to the extent they were bound to reflect the views of U.S. media, would contain material critical of Greece’s new rulers.106 Yet, Washington realized that such ostrichism did not offer a real, long-term solution. Ironically, it was the chief censor of the Army Corps at Thessaloniki, whose service was apparently monitoring foreign radio as well as the local media, who suggested to a U.S. diplomat that VOA Greek broadcasts be resumed. “Greece,” he declared, “will never stop any VOA or American broadcasts.”107 The resumption of the VOA Greek relays on 13 May would put the Greek officer’s assertion to the test. Anticipating this move, the State Department had sounded out the Athens embassy.108 The latter’s top officials viewed the relays as a potential source of unwelcome friction with the colonels. Only Robert V. Keeley, then first secretary at the embassy, offered an alternative approach. While admitting U.S. dependence on Greek good will for the unfettered use of VOA and other facilities, Keeley suggested a judicious mix of expediency and principle in VOA Greek broadcasts with a view to preserving the credibility of the service as a source of information. In Keeley’s view, VOA ought to report Greek developments fully and objectively. He later admitted USIA never used such advice.109 When it was decided to resume the Greek Service relays, USIA and the State Department persuaded VOA director John Chancellor to accept a number of restrictions: “under no circumstances” could the service use any item— including editorial roundups—which had not previously been broadcast on VOA’s English program; there would be no commentaries; all news on the Greek situation should be “straightaway, official texts, announcements, hard, 182 Ioannis D. Stefanidis well sourced facts.”110 It was an obvious retreat from the full autonomy which both the president and the USIA director had promised Chancellor upon his appointment two years earlier.111 Roundups of U.S. editorial opinion presented the greatest risk for those anxious not to rock the boat of relations with the Greek regime. To eliminate them would have been against the VOA directive. It was rather a question of striking the right balance between positive and negative items about Greece. This was what the Athens embassy repeatedly advised, though it was easier said than done.112 Despite the best efforts of VOA staff, editorials favorable to developments in Greece after 21 April 1967 were quite hard to find. As a USIA official admitted, “a so-called ‘balanced’ roundup [was] not, therefore, possible.”113 Within two weeks of the relays resumption, the junta complained about the broadcasting of editorial opinion which cast doubt on Greece’s role as a NATO ally.114 The U.S. embassy in Athens reported a letter to a pro-regime newspaper castigating VOA for picking up and broadcasting “whatever slanderous items have been published by anybody against our national government.”115 The embassy added its own criticism of the way the VOA reported the situation in Greece. It particularly objected to reproducing anti-regime statements of exiled Greek dissidents. On one occasion, it felt it necessary to warn that, unless VOA exercised “careful judgment,” the embassy would “have to recommend suspension of the relay again.” Eventually, it requested to review the daily transcripts of the Greek Service which would enable the post to prepare “material for filing to VOA.”116 At that point, the junta toyed with the idea of using the VOA installations for jamming “hostile” foreign stations. The issue was raised at a local level, by both the commander and the censor officer of the Army Corps at Thessaloniki. It was framed in terms of a future deal. Assuming that the projected relay station near Kavala would be completed in two or three years’ time,117 the army officers pondered over the possibility of using the Thessaloniki transmitters, which were to be given to the Greek state, for jamming irksome foreign stations. The State Department instructed its officials in Greece to discourage any further discussion. Jamming was considered a “disreputable communist device.” Moreover, a VOA official told a Greek colonel, it was “prohibitively expensive but, more importantly, ineffective.” Even the Soviets, the U.S. official added, had abandoned that technique.118 A year and a half later, the regime reiterated its interest in the shortwave transmitters at Thessaloniki, this time in order to broadcast its own programs to the growing numbers of Greek Gastarbeiter (guest workers) in West Germany. In order to justify its request, Athens presented it as a counter measure to the alleged popularity of the Greek programs of East German radio. Such popularity, it was explained, was due to a “heavy emphasis on Greek music and culture”—perhaps, music by popular composers banned by the military regime. The regime even referred to the Kavala project, which, once completed, would release the Thessaloniki station for use by the Greek government in an effort to upgrade its own broadcasting to neighboring countries, such as Bulgaria and Turkey. Although the Greek government was already using time on VOA transmitters for its own broadcasts to Cyprus and Europe, the The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 183 U.S. embassy recommended a further concession for Greek national radio broadcasts to West Germany. This was intended as compensation for the Greek regime’s dissatisfaction over the content of the VOA Greek broadcasts, a situation which, the embassy admitted, was unlikely to improve in the future.119 The Kavala project also displayed a potential for upsetting GreekBulgarian relations. In February 1969, an article in the daily newspaper of the Bulgarian Army criticized Greece and the United States for the construction of the station. Its proximity to the Bulgarian border was interpreted as foreshadowing the “anti-Bulgarian, anti-Socialist, and anti-Communist” thrust of its operation. This was followed up by a second piece in the official Bulgarian Communist Party organ, titled “Nest of Snakes near Bulgarian Border.” Their “evil hissing,” it was alleged, aimed at softening up the socialist society in order to prepare the ground for the “counter-revolution.” According to both articles, the Kavala project called into question the Greek government’s adherence to a good neighbor policy. The Americans were gratified to see the Greek foreign minister publicly dismiss these accusations. In Pipinelis’s view, the Bulgarian complaints were lacking in good faith, in view of the attacks of Radio Sofia on the Greek regime over the preceding two years.120 Greek officials, especially military officers, were irritated whenever VOA aired statements by U.S. officials regretting the lack of progress in Greece’s return to representative government. They could point to the fact that such statements, or other critical material concerning the country’s domestic affairs, were being relayed from a foreign station based on Greek soil. The problem was more acute in northern Greece where, as a result of using the same VOA transmitter, the Greek national radio was received on the same frequency as the relayed half-hour VOA Greek program. In fact, the latter followed on the heels of the Greek radio evening news and commentary. The result, as the Athens embassy noted, was that VOA reports “containing critical elements booms out in taverns and other public places in northern Greece sometimes in direct contradiction to what went immediately before.”121 A relatively early example of Greek discomfort was the diplomatic exchange that followed VOA’s reporting of President Johnson’s remarks on the occasion of the presentation of a new Greek ambassador’s credentials at the White House, in late September 1967. According to the English translation of the VOA transcript, when Ambassador Xanthopoulos-Palamas broached the subject of the resumption of full military aid to Greece, the U.S. president took the opportunity to reiterate the view that the efforts of the American Government to help Greece remain a strong member of the NATO Alliance would be facilitated greatly by the speedy return to parliamentary government. Mr. Johnson added that this is the desire of the Administration, Congress, and the American public.122 The Greek government protested over the content and tone of this particular broadcast, and the Athens embassy had its relay on the local transmitters cancelled.123 On the other hand, the U.S. consul at Thessaloniki became the recipient of a former Greek MP’s enthusiasm with what he and his friends had heard on shortwave. As the consul noted, the same politician had complained 184 Ioannis D. Stefanidis earlier about VOA’s silence at a time when Western and Eastern bloc stations were criticizing the junta.124 The embassy was well aware of the limits of VOA as an alternative source of information to the junta-controlled Greek media. According to a memorandum drafted in March 1968, Greeks in search of reliable, uncensored news were tuning in to the BBC and Paris Radio. The author of the report noted that his Greek friends interrupted conversations with him in order to go home and listen to the BBC.125 The latter’s Greek Service was an old acquaintance of the Greek audience from the war years. A relative newcomer, the Greek program of the Deutsche Welle, which was openly critical of the colonels’ regime, was also becoming increasingly popular among listeners in Greece as well as the immigrant community in West Germany. Still, VOA did provide news which the censored Greek media either downplayed or suppressed altogether. This was the case with Johnson’s remarks to the Greek ambassador on the issue of military aid, which were considered so strong that “no newspaper dared to publish.”126 Another case in point were the difficulties which the regime was facing in its relations with European organizations, especially the Council of Europe. In late September 1967, for instance, the VOA Greek Service reported a warning from the council’s Consultative Assembly that, unless Greece returned to parliamentary democracy, it could face expulsion from the eighteen-member organization. The service complemented this news item with more details later in its program.127 Such long exposés on the travails of Greece in the Council of Europe were certain to exercise the colonels.128 The way news was presented could also imply a measure of disapproval, even though reporting followed customary lines. For example, when the intention of the Greek regime to hold a plebiscite on a new constitution was reported, the VOA newscaster added that, in making his announcement, the minister of the interior “did not specify the date when such a plebiscite will be held.”129 Significant events, such as the referendum itself, meetings of U.S. and Greek officials, and anniversaries, including that of the colonels’ coup, further tested the reflexes of the Greek regime until congressional hearings provided the major publicity irritant from early 1971 on. As the Athens embassy proved rather susceptible to the sensitivities of the Greek regime,130 and the State Department tended to concur, it was up to USIA and VOA to defend the journalistic ethos of the station. The suspension of the Greek Service relays in the aftermath of the colonels’ coup was regarded as an unfortunate aberration.131 Even when accepting restrictions as a condition for the resumption of the relays, USIA had supported VOA on the question of editorial roundups. “It would be anomalous,” a USIA official cabled Athens, were the Greek Service not allowed to broadcast them.132 Following the cancellation of the 27 September relay containing Johnson’s remarks, USIA protested in strong terms and asked that in the future, such decisions be made in Washington. The embassy, it remarked, could communicate concern or guidelines, but USIA reserved the right to make the final judgment. The agency, it declared, could not “submit to actual censorship or potential threat of censorship.”133 It must be noted that at no point did the colonels’ regime seriously attempt to disrupt VOA or other USIA operations on Greek territory, as the The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 185 Athens embassy feared. It did, however, attempt to interfere with what the station broadcast on its Greek program. As has been observed, the issue was raised in the wake of the military coup. It was reiterated, in May 1968, by the officers of Army Corps who were busy monitoring the output of the Thessaloniki medium-wave VOA transmitter. They took exception to a broadcast which contained parts of a statement by former conservative minister Georgios Rallis criticizing the regime. On military orders, the Greek Foreign Ministry summoned deputy chief of mission Roswell McClelland and enquired whether, under the U.S.-Greek agreements governing VOA operations in the country, the Greek authorities could exercise some control on the content of its broadcasts. The U.S. diplomat was also reminded that the Greek government had a few years earlier withdrawn French and British rights of rebroadcasting radio programs, and that it was thanks to “the special relationship to the United States” that VOA had continued to enjoy such privileges. Speaking privately, however, a Greek Foreign Ministry official appeared to adopt a more conciliatory mood. He suggested that the issue might be dropped if the embassy was able to “exercise some moderating influence” over VOA broadcast content.134 The first reaction of the U.S. deputy chief of mission to the Greek request was unambiguously negative. In addition to technical questions, any effort to “edit” VOA news items was bound to undermine its credibility vis-à-vis other foreign stations. He also pointed at the “considerable benefits” which the Greek national radio derived from the Thessaloniki transmitters.135 Aware of provisions in the 1949 Radio Facilities Agreement calling for joint GreekAmerican policy on the use of VOA stations on Greek soil and a contentcontrol committee, Washington fully endorsed McClelland’s reaction and suggested polite foot-dragging for the future.136 USIA, in particular, professed understanding for the delicate problem which VOA broadcasts represented for the embassy and reaffirmed its adherence to “established guidelines”— presumably those laid down in May 1967. At the same time, however, it clearly objected to any talks with the Greek government over VOA programming.137 With some delay,138 the Greek Foreign Ministry located the relevant agreements and forwarded them to its military overlords.139 Dissatisfied with the diplomats’ handling of the matter,140 the General Staff secured the approval of Papadopoulos for an official demarche to Washington. Claiming that he was acting “on personal and friendly basis,” a Foreign Ministry official gave a foretaste of the demarche to the U.S. embassy. The demarche took place on 3 July 1968. The Greek government cited the report of the Rallis statement on 1 May and of a British press account, eight days later, which quoted a State Department official urging the colonels to “return to the democratic process as quickly as possible.” Although the regime itself had repeatedly declared its intention to restore parliamentary rule in the unspecified future, it did not wish Greek listeners, especially in rural areas, to become aware of U.S. prodding, which the people could interpret as a sign of discord between Greece and its powerful ally. Such incidents, Athens protested, were violating the spirit of the U.S.Greek agreements on VOA operations. Unless they stopped, the regime warned that it would have to take unspecified “measures.”141 While Washington was inclined to temporize, the Athens embassy foresaw further trouble, as Greece was preparing for the referendum on the junta’s 186 Ioannis D. Stefanidis draft constitution. The embassy was well aware of the regime’s unpopularity. This is how an embassy official described the general mood in March 1968: We believe the Greek public following April 21 at best was apathetic about the “Revolution,” and was willing to give the junta time to do what it promised, not because they supported the junta, but because they recognized the previous system had its faults and the new government just might correct some of them. Also, many seemed to enjoy the initial relief from public disorder, at least they said they did, but the relief seems to be turning to boredom and criticism. . . . people are beginning to express their dissatisfaction with the government, more strongly in private and trusted groups, not yet openly in public. The junta, the official concluded, lacked both broad popular support and “a leader with the charisma necessary to counter the disaffection.”142 As a result, its insecure leaders were ever sensitive to any sign of disapproval from allied sources. The embassy urged “brief and dispassionate” coverage of criticism by “persons of stature,” whose statements VOA could not ignore.143 Washington gave in, and, a month before the referendum was due to be held, VOA discontinued its medium-wave relay from the Thessaloniki station.144 The regime, however, continued to express displeasure. It was not the rigged referendum that caused uneasiness so much as the funeral of former prime minister Georgios Papandreou on 3 November 1968. The occasion attracted possibly the largest crowd since the liberation of Athens in 1944 and turned into a huge display of anti-junta feeling. Two days later, McClelland was again summoned to the Foreign Ministry. The new representation combined the personal complaints of General Staff chief Angelis about two editorial roundups on the referendum a month earlier with more recent quotations from Andreas Papandreou on the significance of popular demonstrations during his father’s funeral. Indicative of the military authorities’ confusion was the allegation that these broadcasts originated on Greek soil, at a time when the VOA Greek Service program no longer relayed from Thessaloniki. Concluding the representation, the Greek Foreign Ministry official expressed his government’s hope that the “special relationship of the US and Greece would dictate a more friendly tone in VOA broadcasts.” McClelland apparently stood his ground, responding that the VOA was “obliged to carry the news as it occurs, even if it is sometimes displeasing to some of its listeners.” Still, in his report to Washington, the deputy chief of mission complained that VOA broadcasts made the U.S. position “unnecessarily vulnerable” when they failed to balance material critical of the regime with Greek government releases, which the Athens embassy took care to send to VOA headquarters in Washington.145 It should be noted that, at the same time, VOA broadcasts were criticized for being too soft on the junta even by Americans residing in Greece. At a cocktail party in Athens, Louise Keeley, wife of the U.S. embassy first secretary, took local VOA correspondent Walter Kohl to task for the brief and poor coverage which, in her view, the station had accorded to Papandreou’s funeral.146 On the other hand, Greek Service chief Theocharis Stavrides was in The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 187 touch with dissidents in the United States, and at least one of them referred to him as being “solidly against the regime.”147 The second anniversary of the 21 April coup led to McClelland’s being summoned to the Greek Foreign Ministry for the third time in less than a year on account of VOA broadcasts. Greek officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Pattakos, had immediately communicated their concern to the embassy regarding a VOA commentary on 24 April. Its opening paragraphs had spoken of the army-backed government’s record of “unfulfilled promises” and lagging “economic reform.” Early in President Nixon’s first term, regime officials appeared to wonder whether this particular broadcast implied a departure in U.S. policy toward the dictatorship.148 After sounding out Washington for guidance, the acting chief of mission was able to reassure a “sorrowful” Pipinelis that such concern was unfounded. There was no change in the U.S. position, he stated, “which remained to hope for steady progress toward genuine constitutional government.” As instructed, McClelland also told the Greek foreign minister that the embassy shared his unhappiness with the “unwarranted tenor” of the opening paragraphs of the VOA broadcast.149 Ironically, as the Nixon administration’s Realpolitik was supposed to make life easier for the several less-than-democratic partners of the United States worldwide, public criticism in the United States and the Greek regime’s discomfort thereof substantially increased as Congress upgraded its interest in the fate of Greek democracy, primarily on account of its role in the annual approval of U.S. foreign aid appropriations.150 Just as the administration was preparing to resume full military aid to Greece, forty-seven members of the House of Representatives and three senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Rogers urging the administration to make clear its disapproval of the dictatorship and further curtail aid. The response came on 7 August 1969 from Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations William B. Macomber. It was a restatement of the official dilemma of U.S. policy, i.e., “how to deal with an ally with whose internal order we disagree yet who is a loyal NATO partner.”151 VOA broadcasted Macomber’s statement fully but devoted only a note to the letter that had provoked it, saying that the congressmen had urged a stiff stand against the regime. In fact, the original script contained more critical comment by Congressman Don Edwards who, among other matters, questioned the effectiveness of the Greek contribution to NATO on account of extensive officer purges. This part was sanitized at the request of the State Department Office for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs which also added a reassuring sentence on Greece’s loyalty to NATO.152 The final text was approved by USIA acting director and former VOA director Henry Loomis. Such extensive censorship did not escape congressional attention, and, before long, it was reported in the press. Richard G. Cushing, acting director of VOA, undertook to explain matters in an interview from which the spirit of defending VOA’s journalistic ethos, visible in earlier, classified, interdepartmental exchanges, was all but absent. Cushing blatantly admitted that the service was obliged to “get along with the [Greek] regime” because it had “a lot of expensive real estate in Greece.” VOA, he confessed, had had “several brushes” with the Greek junta. Rather than comply, it had chosen to take its Greek broadcasts off the air, in both spring 1967 and autumn 1968. According to Cushing, 188 Ioannis D. Stefanidis the junta considered that situation embarrassing and had requested the resumption of the relays. He stressed that the service was being careful not to “put anything out that hasn’t been pretty well checked.”153 Cushing’s interview drew unfavorable comment in the U.S. press. VOA “commentaries and some other programs,” one newspaper commented, were “admittedly tailored to suit US policy, but its newscasts are ostensibly objective.” Now, this no longer seemed to be the case when U.S. interests, in this case transmitters on foreign soil, were at stake.154 “If for security reasons,” another edition wondered, “we must play military footsy with the unsavory Greek junta, would it not be better to go off the air entirely in Greece rather than compromise our Voice by making it a timorous whisper”?155 The Greek regime did not seem to appreciate the lengths to which the supervisors of VOA were prepared to go in order to respect its sensitivities. On 15 October 1969, the Greek Foreign Ministry handed the embassy a note verbale requesting the establishment of a joint Greek-American committee, as stipulated in the 1949 Radio Facilities Agreement. Its tasks would be to determine policy for the operation of the Thessaloniki relay station and to control the contents of Greek and American programs originating in Greece. The embassy was taken by surprise, having received no complaints since Pipinelis’s representation six months earlier.156 A second note verbale was presented three weeks later, requesting the embassy to nominate three Americans for the proposed joint committee.157 The embassy again attributed these moves to continuing pressure from top military officers on the Foreign Ministry, particularly General Angelis, who was fed with partial reports of VOA broadcasts relayed from Thessaloniki by “tough” military elements in the Army Corps area. These elements, the embassy suspected, were unable to distinguish between Greek language broadcasts heard on shortwave frequencies from outside Greece and material in other languages relayed over the VOA Thessaloniki medium and shortwave transmitters. Yet even Pipinelis, whom McClelland visited in late November, appeared unable to appreciate this distinction. The embassy concluded that the Greek side had “obviously not thought through” its ploy to inhibit VOA broadcasts, in terms of either its legal basis in the bilateral agreements or of practicality. The only legitimate object of a joint committee, it observed, would be the programs of EIR carried over the Thessaloniki VOA transmitter, and the resuscitation of the 1949 agreement provisions could include a Greek contribution to the station’s operating costs.158 Endorsing the reasoning of successive cables from Athens, the State Department authorized the embassy to stress the following points: (a) the United States acknowledged the Greek “concern over some of the content of past broadcasts and would like to do whatever appropriate to deal with any further concerns”; (b) in defending its credibility, VOA undertook to carry “responsible news” and guard against “news from irresponsible sources” and “gratuitous” broadcasts; (c) the Greek authorities were welcome to approach informally the embassy public affairs official and discuss any future complaint; and (d) further insistence on the establishment of a joint committee in order to control VOA content could only result in a public relations disaster for both governments. American opinion would not tolerate any control over a U.S. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 189 public medium by a foreign government. In common with its line on the Greek representations of the previous year, the State Department instructed the embassy to delay its response “as long as [it] deemed wise.”159 The fact that the ambassador’s post had not yet been filled could offer a convenient excuse for doing so. It seems that the issue of a joint control committee was put to rest after the newly arrived Tasca met Angelis, in early February 1970. The general raised the question of VOA broadcasts, saying that it was not acceptable to use an installation on Greek soil to relay items attacking the host government. According to his own account, Tasca put up a spirited defense of the station and its mission. U.S. public opinion, he explained, would be adversely affected if the impression was given that the Greek government was seeking to censor VOA broadcasts. Angelis apparently found it difficult to argue with Tasca’s presentation of VOA’s potential as a Cold War weapon. Its credibility, the ambassador explained, was essential in promoting the supposed “common objective of Greece and its Allies in seeking to show peoples of [the] communist world [the] disadvantages of communism.” Finally, Tasca invited Angelis to communicate with him whenever he felt VOA broadcasts were lacking in objectivity, and undertook to transmit his complaints to Washington “for consideration.”160 Although Greek official complaints continued, there was no further reference to the joint committee idea. Perhaps the junta leaders had concluded that they could live with the occasional unfavorable item from VOA, as long as they could count on an increasingly sympathetic administration. Athens must have been gratified to receive Nixon’s views on the regime’s poor image in the U.S. media from its new ambassador to Washington. In November 1969, during the presentation of Basil Vitsaxis’s credentials, Nixon expressed sympathetic understanding for the colonels, noting that, after three visits to Greece, he “was aware of the antecedents of the present situation.” He also commended the ambassador for his effective presentation of Greece’s case before the Council of Europe. Nixon assured Vitsaxis of his intention not to get involved in Greek internal affairs, though he added that the solution of “some of its internal problems” would help the administration to establish “more complete relations” with Greece. This was probably an allusion to the resumption of full military assistance, which the White House had already decided but not yet announced, anticipating reactions in Congress. Then, Nixon advised Vitsaxis to press with the U.S. media the timetable which Pipinelis had announced in August for Greece’s “inevitable” return to representative government. Perhaps in an attempt to further comfort his guest, the president deplored the alleged double standards of the U.S. press. “Had a Leftist regime taken over in Greece,” he submitted, “any suspension of civil liberties would have been defended by most of the press on the grounds that they were essential to stabilize the regime.”161 The public hearings, which the Subcommittee on Europe of the House Foreign Affairs Committee initiated on U.S. policy to Greece, on 12 July 1971, were certain to generate a spate of negative publicity for the colonels’ regime. VOA was entitled to broadcast anything included in the Congressional Record or published by at least two major newspapers.162 In this case, Greek dissidents as well as administration officials were invited to testify. Subsequently, the 190 Ioannis D. Stefanidis House debated an amendment, which could spell the end of military aid to Greece. The administration saw to it that VOA broadcasts remained as innocuous as possible. According to their critics, they barely mentioned the “voluminous testimony” against U.S. assistance to the colonels’ regime. When self-restraint did not suffice, outright censorship was practiced. That was the case with the routine VOA roundup of U.S. editorial opinion on the Hays amendment prohibiting aid to Greece and Pakistan, on 15 July. The item was killed on the pretext that it had not been prepared soon enough after the event. On 3 August, two further roundups on the same subject were cancelled, allegedly because the subject had been sufficiently covered but, essentially, because the broadcasting of editorials favorable to the suspension of aid might antagonize the affected governments.163 Such censoring once again drew press attention. The well-informed Washington Post columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak revealed that VOA director Giddens had repeated to them the same rationale as Assistant Director Cushing two years earlier: the administration did not wish to give the impression that it approved an action of the House of Representatives which might endanger U.S. rights to use the “vital VOA transmitters in Greece.” The two columnists underlined the tragic irony of the fact that those VOA transmitters existed in order to bring to communist bloc audiences “the full, uncensored truth, which is denied to the Greek audience.” They also reported the increasing uneasiness of VOA employees with the attitudes of Giddens and USIA director Shakespeare, namely, that they were both “allowing their hardline conservative foreign policy views to interfere with the objective reporting of the news.”164 Transmitting the Washington Post piece to Athens, USIA did not deny the censoring but countered that VOA news coverage of the Hays amendment had been “adequate”: apparently, “three news items and two reports by the White House correspondent” could make up for the lack of editorial roundups.165 In public, a State Department spokesman passed the buck to the VOA chief—policy guidance came from the State Department through USIA; the State Department did not review “each day and every item of output”; officers in charge of different USIA media, such as the VOA director, acted “within their own judgment.”166 The claim that it was a decision made by the VOA management on account of adequate coverage was Shakespeare’s line of defense, when he was summoned to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in September 1971. He admitted, however, that “he personally would have broadcast the critical editorials.” The committee took no further action, though this incident possibly contributed to its chairman’s subsequent assault on USIA.167 Clearly, by going out of its way to placate the junta, the Nixon administration risked giving its own officials bad press. Such helpfulness, however, did not make Papadopoulos any more forthcoming on the vexed issue of democratization. Shortly after his return from Washington, where he had tried to appease Congress, Tasca warned the dictator that the regime’s image in the United States was eroding. This, in turn, threatened the administration’s ability to maintain its benevolence toward Greece, including the “high level of military assistance.” The ambassador felt compelled to urge measures, which The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 191 would substantiate the rosy picture he had tried to paint before Congress, especially lifting martial law and fixing a date for elections. Papadopoulos, on his part, sought to show that such U.S. prodding and the domestic criticism behind it was counterproductive. Greece, he said, would not accept “interference in its affairs.” He then went on to wonder about the difference between the U.S. attitude toward Greece and that of the Soviet Union toward its satellites. Tasca drew some consolation from his interpretation of Papadopoulos’s reaction as little more than posturing, intended to impress the junta’s inner circle.168 It seems that for some time, VOA adhered to the inoffensive style that led Greek-American critics of U.S. policy toward the Greek regime to nickname the station “voiceless America” and its Greek program “Greek noise.”169 However, shortly after Shakespeare’s departure from USIA in early 1973, the Greek embassy protested over the way VOA covered a new round of congressional hearings on foreign military assistance. The presentation was triggered by testimony from Ioannis Zigdis, a former Centrist minister, who questioned the regime’s value as a NATO ally. This was echoed in an article by Evans and Novak which focused on Papadopoulos’s recent rejection of grant military aid from the United States. The Greek embassy counselor suggested that the State Department ought to prevent VOA from “including controversial reports of this kind in its Greek language broadcasts.” The Greek desk official retorted that the matter was given “only routine coverage.” Despite his department’s best efforts to keep Greek-American relations “stable and normal,” he confided, the situation in Greece was making this task “more and more difficult.”170 A few days later, a mutiny and the uncovering of a major conspiracy among Greek naval officers finally compelled Papadopoulos to attempt the ill-fated democratization of his regime. In late March 1974, four months into the final, hard-line phase of the regime under Brigadier Ioannidis, the VOA broadcast long excerpts from another damning testimony by Zigdis to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee. Evans and Novak interpreted this “as a conscious Nixon administration decision put into effect with gusto” by Keogh, the USIA director.171 By then, however, the regime seemed impervious to such pinpricks, while Tasca and his State Department colleagues no longer wished to defend the latest, even more unsavory, version of the dictatorship. Soon, U.S. policy-makers found themselves confronted with the multifaceted crisis precipitated by Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus, the collapse of the colonels’ regime, and the efforts to establish a viable democracy in Greece. Somewhat ironically, the end of the colonels’ regime coincided with the no less dramatic exit of their sympathetic U.S. president. VOA installations in Greece became part of “the largest line-up of transmitter power in its history” in order to carry Nixon’s sixteen-minute resignation address live to a world audience.172 U.S. Policy toward Ceauşescu’s Romania History and geography had conspired to render Romania a reluctant member of the Soviet bloc. Bucharest had a record of territorial disputes with 192 Ioannis D. Stefanidis Bulgaria and Hungary and a long-standing fear and suspicion of Russia, which more than once invaded Romanian territory and annexed regions with a Romanian-speaking population. Proletarian internationalism stood little chance against a bedrock of nationalism, all the more as the former was imposed in the wake of defeat and occupation at the hands of the Red Army. Although their advent to power was the result of foreign intervention and their rule was every bit as oppressive as its Stalinist model, Romania’s communist leaders would increasingly play the nationalist card and test Moscow’s tolerance to the limit. Such an attitude could not pass unnoticed by Western powers, especially the United States. By the early 1960s, Romania was distancing itself from Soviet choices on a number of issues. It was convenient that Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej’s regime had successfully negotiated the departure of the Red Army in the summer of 1958. This quest for emancipation from foreign tutelage was combined with Stalinist terror at home and an all-out effort toward industrialization and self-reliance. It was this latter aspect of Romanian communism that led to a “declaration of independence” by April 1964. Bucharest objected to Moscow’s schemes to give Comecon planning powers over the economies of member states or push for economic integration of the Lower Danube region which promoted a division of labor at the expense of national priorities. The Central Committee of the Romanian Workers’ (Communist) Party justified its rejection of these plans in a statement on “the problems of the world Communist and working class movement.” This document echoed the Chinese formula of the “equality of all Socialist states.” It stressed national sovereignty, noninterference in internal affairs, and equal rights. It also declared the intention to promote trade with both East and West. As a British historian noted, this statement would constitute “the fundamental premise upon which Romanian autonomy within the Warsaw Pact and Comecon was based.”173 With regard to foreign affairs, Bucharest remained conspicuously neutral in the Sino-Soviet conflict and even sought to mediate between the two Communist giants—to no avail. Following Nikita Khrushchev’s removal from office in October 1964, Dej successfully requested the withdrawal of all KGB “advisors” from the country and discontinued Warsaw Pact military maneuvers on Romanian territory. Other signs of Soviet influence, such as the compulsory teaching of Russian in schools or Soviet names of streets and buildings, were also removed.174 Such steps were meant to capitalize on the population’s deeply ingrained russophobia. At the same time, the regime felt confident enough to relax its campaign of terror. Most political prisoners were released between 1962 and 1964. Until the early 1970s, repression was relatively mild by communist standards, in the sense that annual arrests for political offenses numbered “only” between two and three hundred, out of a population of some twenty million.175 Dej died in March 1965 after a brief illness. His successor as first party secretary was Nicolae Ceauşescu. He was to follow and expand the “national communism” initiated by his predecessor, emphasizing industrialization and increased exports and conspicuous autonomy from the Soviet line in foreign affairs. Both objectives dictated openings to the West and, in particular, the The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 193 United States. Romania would become the first Eastern bloc country to establish diplomatic relations with West Germany and the only member of the Warsaw Pact not to condemn or break relations with Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967.176 In autumn 1966, Bucharest offered to act as mediator between Hanoi and Washington. In May 1967, Ceauşescu met with a group of American businessmen in Bucharest. Shortly afterwards, he warmly welcomed former vice president Nixon. In late June, Romanian prime minister Ion Gheorghe Maurer visited Washington and was received by President Johnson.177 Already during Dej’s time, Washington signaled its appreciation of Romania’s divergence from the Soviet orbit. In January 1964, the New York Times optimistically referred to the country as a “former satellite.” Secretary of State Rusk considered Romania’s “more independent attitude” worthy of a positive response.178 Romania and Poland were chosen as test cases for negotiating with Soviet satellites in the framework of Johnson’s policy of building bridges across the Iron Curtain. The essence of this policy was that increased independence from Moscow could be rewarded with increased trade with the United States. This was exactly what Bucharest eagerly sought.179 In fact, over the following twelve years, U.S.-Romanian relations would largely revolve around trade issues. A pattern was set as early as March 1964, with administration officials arguing in favor of expanding commercial links180 before a reticent Congress, which tended to treat the Romanian case as part of the broader question of East-West trade. Concern over Romania’s relations with North Vietnam, fear of dumping practices, and issues of human rights, particularly the emigration policies of the Romanian regime, informed most counterarguments throughout the Johnson and Nixon eras. Members of Congress had cause to believe that U.S. products exported to Eastern bloc countries ended up in North Vietnamese hands. In August 1967, Bucharest publicly admitted that it was giving military aid to Hanoi. Moreover, Romanian propaganda had never ceased to denounce the U.S. involvement in Vietnam as a typical example of imperialist aggression. As a result, the legislature arrested the development of bilateral trade relations until the end of the Johnson presidency. In March 1968, Congress also blocked Export-Import Bank credits to Eastern bloc countries, including Romania. This caused bitter disappointment to Ceauşescu at a time when Romanian diplomacy was availing itself to Washington as a go-between with Hanoi. Romania’s attempt at mediation was interrupted in February 1968, a victim of the North Vietnamese Tet offensive. Some in the United States concluded that Hanoi had simply treated the Romanian mediation as part of its deception strategy. At the same time, Republican presidential candidate Nixon was fulminating against Johnson’s bridge-building with communist regimes as bound to benefit U.S. enemies in Vietnam.181 Developments in Czechoslovakia, where the attempt to liberalize the communist regime provoked the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops in August 1968, helped foster Ceauşescu’s reputation as Soviet bloc maverick. It was a misleading assessment. The Romanian dictator remained a Stalinist to the core and never intended the relative relaxation of repression at home as a precursor to genuine reforms in the model of the Prague Spring.182 Ever an opportunist, 194 Ioannis D. Stefanidis Ceauşescu perceived in the Czechoslovak experiment a useful analogy with his country’s search for emancipation from Soviet tutelage. As a result, both he and Czechoslovak Communist Party secretary-general Alexander Dubček were excluded from the crucial Warsaw Pact summit in the Crimea which approved the invasion plan. Its implementation only served to heighten the Romanian perception of the Soviet threat. Ceauşescu condemned the invasion and sought to mobilize the masses in defense of the fatherland. These moves met with widespread approval at home and sympathy in the West. Washington warned Moscow that it might not acquiesce to a move against Romania.183 The Romanian leader, however, was careful not to overplay his hand with the Soviets. In an act of reassurance, in July 1969 Bucharest signed a twenty-year pact of friendship with Moscow.184 Following his election, Nixon soon forgot his electoral rhetoric and revived the U.S.-Romanian courtship. To be sure, opposition in Congress, the result of a peculiar liberal-conservative alignment, persisted. Nonetheless, between 1963 and 1967 the volume of trade between Romania and the United States increased nine-fold.185 As was the case with the Greek colonels, Washington projected its policy toward the Romanian dictatorship as one of “constructive engagement” or positive differentiation. It aimed at promoting change through economic interdependence, supplemented by increased cultural penetration. Such change was expected to lead to freer political institutions and “freedom from Moscow domination.”186 This formulation underestimated Ceauşescu’s ability to exploit the American-Soviet rivalry for his own benefit. Or, conversely, in their anxiousness to score points in the Cold War, U.S. leaders could inadvertently facilitate the dictator’s effort to perpetuate his despotic rule.187 In February 1969, Ceauşescu invited Nixon to visit Romania. At first, the U.S. president chose to ignore this gesture. For some time, he also opposed calls from members of Congress, business leaders, and even Kissinger’s National Security Council in favor of expanding trade with the Eastern bloc. Only after Nixon realized that the Soviets did not intend to help him out of the impasse in Vietnam, did he accept Ceauşescu’s invitation. Over the objections of the State Department, the president had decided to “tweak the nose of the Russians.”188 The Romanian leader obliged. In order to facilitate the visit, he had the Tenth Party Congress—and the arrival of top Soviet guests— postponed for a few days. Nixon came in early August 1969. The symbolism of the first state visit by an American president to a communist country was not missed by the United States and international media. On his way back to Washington, Nixon described the event as “the most moving experience I have had in traveling to over 60 countries.”189 More important for the U.S. president was his intention to use Romania and Pakistan, which he had just visited, as channels for approaching communist China. Bucharest seized the opportunity to offer its diplomatic services to the United States and pressed for material reward. However, owing to Beijing’s mistrust for members of the Soviet bloc, it would be a while before the Romanian channel had a chance to work.190 A year later, and in the absence of an official invitation, Ceauşescu seized the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the United Nations to The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 195 spend two weeks in the United States. He was keen to meet business leaders, whom he invited to establish joint ventures with Romanian industries. He also called for most-favored nation (MFN) treatment for Romanian products as the best way to ensure trade expansion between the two countries. He reiterated these views to Nixon, whom he met at the White House on 26 October 1970. Nixon, for his part, once again asked Ceauşescu to facilitate his overtures to Beijing. This time, the Chinese response was positive and included an invitation for direct talks in China.191 There followed steps that seemed to herald Romania’s increasing integration with the global, essentially market-orientated, economy. By 1970, the country had achieved an even trade balance between East and West.192 The Five-Year Plan for 1971–75 gave priority to trade expansion “with all states regardless of their social system.” Trade with the United States was regarded as a crucial factor of success.193 Far from endorsing the principles of a free market economy for his own country, Ceauşescu saw in greater interaction with Western economies the opportunity to secure capital, technology, and expertise for his Stalinist vision of an industrialized autarkic economy. Thus, Romania joined the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in November 1971 and December 1972, respectively. These steps corresponded with important goals of U.S. trade policy, i.e., to discourage certain trading habits of communist states, such as dumping, and bring them into line with normal world trade practices.194 They also entitled Romania to seek MFN status from the United States. As early as 1966 the Johnson administration had considered but failed to push through the idea of MFN treatment for Romania, owing to reactions in Congress.195 The prospect revived after Nixon’s visit to Romania. Much depended, however, on the administration’s ability to formulate a comprehensive trade policy with the communist East and then sell it to Congress and the trade unions196—an effort that would outlast Nixon’s term in office. This delay adversely affected the terms of trade for Romania at a time when the Nixon administration was struggling with a deteriorating balance of payments. The Romanians did their best to keep the matter of MFN alive, resorting even to the services of Robert B. Anderson, former secretary of the Treasury and eminent lobbyist.197 Meanwhile, trade expanded, as did Romanian access to U.S. technology, especially computers and petroleum cracking. Nixon’s science adviser, Lee DuBridge, proved an enthusiastic supporter of scientific cooperation with Bucharest. A textile agreement was signed in January 1971. In May, Secretary of Commerce Stans visited Romania and promised his hosts that, Congress willing, Romania would be the first Eastern bloc state to receive MFN status. Washington assisted Romania in its bid for GATT membership and agreed not to oppose its accession to the IMF.198 In August 1971, a new law enabled the U.S. president to decide on the extension of credits to communist states. Accordingly, Nixon authorized the Export-Import Bank to negotiate transactions with Romania in excess of $11 million.199 During 1973, U.S. firms invested considerable sums and technology in computer hardware and tire manufacturing in Romania.200 196 Ioannis D. Stefanidis The late 1960s marked the high point of Ceauşescu’s popularity at home and abroad. His regime seemed a benign version of real existing socialism, relatively responsive to the material needs of the population, tolerant of individual creativity, soft on dissent, and, above all, prepared to defy Soviet orthodoxy and build bridges with the West. This image, however, quickly disintegrated on the domestic front, while Romania’s value as an Eastern bloc maverick to the United States diminished in direct proportion to Washington’s rapprochement with Beijing and growing détente with Moscow.201 In order to mitigate this gloomy outlook, in July 1972 Nixon dispatched Secretary of State Rogers to Bucharest.202 Ceauşescu, for his part, seized every opportunity to project himself on to the world scene. He attached great importance to the success of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) which entered its preparatory stage at Helsinki, in November 1972. Through it, Bucharest hoped to enhance its role and status vis-à-vis both super powers.203 Ceauşescu also continued to score points with the West. Alone among Warsaw Pact countries, Romania ignored Moscow’s lead and declared neutrality during the Yom Kippur War. This earned its leader an invitation in early December 1973 to the White House. Finally, in a further gesture of reassurance, Kissinger visited Bucharest in early November 1974.204 As has been noted, the issue of human rights was one of the important stumbling blocks on the way to increased U.S.-Romanian trade, especially in Congress. During Ceauşescu’s early years in power, there were hopes of greater respect for civil liberties. Ceauşescu often spoke of the need to respect “socialist legality.” In the spring of 1968 he not only expressed sympathy with the reform movement in neighboring Czechoslovakia but also went so far as to denounce the abuses of Romania’s Securitate (security police). However, Ceauşescu’s reformism was mostly directed against his rivals within the party who had been identified with Dej’s regime of terror. Although the muchfeared interior minister, Alexandru Drăghici, was removed and disgraced, the dreaded Securitate “remained intact, unreformed, and ubiquitous.”205 By the early 1970s, most prominent figures of the Dej old guard had been either dismissed or retired. On 28 March 1974, Ceauşescu assumed the newly created post of president of the republic. It was a symptom of his insatiable quest for power. Romania was lapsing into an era of neo-Stalinism. Indeed, the Romanian leader rivaled Stalin in paranoid lack of trust and intolerance of anyone but the most servile among his subordinates. His suspiciousness permeated Romanian society through the tightening grip of the Securitate. In line with its totalitarian models, the regime built up a personality cult of the dictator and his ambitious wife, Elena.206 Significantly, just after his state visits to Beijing,207 Pyongyang, and a stopover in Moscow, in June 1971 Ceauşescu chose to revisit the totalitarian roots of his regime. The so-called July Theses, which he submitted to the Party Executive Committee for approval, echoed slogans employed during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Ceauşescu urged the party to enhance its leading role in all spheres of national life, especially in education and culture, which ought to conform to the Romanian brand of Socialist Realism.208 His virulent condemnation of alien “bourgeois” influences came as a shock to a society which, dur- The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 197 ing the later 1960s, had become accustomed to the products of Western mass culture, especially films and television serials.209 It also drew unfavorable publicity in the media across the Atlantic.210 The matter was considered worthy of an Intelligence Note by the State Department. In the absence of a breakthrough in the question of MFN and credit guarantees, cultural exchanges were expected to afford “substantial leverage in promoting evolutionary trends within Romanian society.” U.S. diplomats interpreted Ceauşescu’s July theses as part of an effort to project Romanian communism as being worthy of Chinese trust and support and Soviet confidence. They also linked them to the dictator’s efforts to consolidate his position by cultivating his own personality cult. The State Department, however, did not unduly worry about the effect of Ceauşescu’s pretensions of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy on Western and, particularly, American, cultural programs and influence.211 The course of bilateral cultural relations proved the State Department’s assessment correct. During Johnson’s last six months in office, the U.S. and Romanian governments had signed two bilateral cultural conventions. These were regularly renewed and expanded during Nixon’s term.212 A Romanian library was inaugurated in New York in December 1971, and in January 1972 its American equivalent was opened in Bucharest—the only facility of its kind in the Soviet bloc. USIA director Shakespeare visited Romania as part of his familiarization tour of the “less-visited” posts. His special interest in Eastern bloc countries led to the appointment of a full-time information officer post at the Bucharest embassy.213 During 1970–72, USIA organized three major scientific exhibitions and set up a pavilion at the Bucharest trade fair. An exhibition on “Progress and the Environment” was staged in spring 1974. The two-year exchange agreement of 15 December 1972 was hailed as an important breakthrough in public diplomacy.214 During the first year of the agreement, forty Americans and fifty Romanians visited each others’ countries, among them a U.S. professor who was invited to teach at the prestigious Lenin Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest.215 At the level of popular culture, the regime did little to stem “the flood of Western entertainment materials used by Romanian radio, TV, film and theatre.” The U.S. embassy repeatedly stressed the widespread influence of Western trends in art, music, and fashion, including mini-skirts and long hair.216 During this period, the State Department was prepared to downplay the issue of human rights as a sign of appreciation for Ceauşescu’s autonomous course vis-à-vis Moscow. This attitude was not necessarily shared by pressure groups and Congress. Romanian expatriate organizations and the Romanian Orthodox Church drew attention to violations of human rights in their country of origin. The plight of dual nationals who wished to emigrate or of Romanian citizens seeking to join their families in the United States served to highlight the restrictions, which the communist regime imposed on the free movement of people.217 In February 1970, the U.S. embassy came out in favor of linking the extension of MFN treatment and an Export-Import Bank credit with a “satisfactory Romanian performance regarding exit visas.”218 Two years later, however, it still complained of the imposition of “a highly restrictive general 198 Ioannis D. Stefanidis emigration policy.”219 The regime also tightened restrictions on travel abroad, in an attempt to check Romania’s high defection rate. Foreigners could visit the country easily, but local citizens who met them risked being harassed by the security services.220 Other groups or even foreign governments could raise the subject of the numerous minorities living in Romania. The Hungarians were the largest ethnic group, followed by the Transylvanian Saxons and other Germanspeaking groups. It was only to be expected that the interest of Budapest in the fate of the Hungarian minority would increase in direct proportion to the distancing of Bucharest from the Soviet line. In order to preempt local friction, Ceauşescu sought to court both the Hungarian and the German minorities. This period also witnessed a revival of Romanian interest in Bessarabia, the province which the Soviets, with German consent, had forced Bucharest to cede in June 1940. Since then, much of that territory had formed part of the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic.221 Officially, Bucharest was opposed to large-scale emigration by any group, minority or otherwise. According to the U.S. embassy, the Romanians feared that any concessions would generate greater pressure for yet more emigration.222 At the same time, however, the authorities exploited emigration for immediate profit at both the individual and state level. In 1967, a secret agreement was reached with Bonn which provided for substantial credits in Deutsche Marks to Romania in exchange for more exit visas for individual minority Germans who wished to emigrate to West Germany.223 Such a deal was simply unthinkable in the case of “fraternal socialist” Hungary. It was the once-numerous Jewish community, decimated during World War II, that attracted most attention abroad. The issue of Jewish emigration from the Eastern bloc to Israel and the West loomed large in the American media when the question of according MFN status to Romania was debated in Congress in March 1971. Senator Walter Mondale (Democrat, MN) supported the extension of MFN as a means of facilitating Jewish emigration from Romania. Although the numbers involved were much lower than those of dual nationals seeking to depart for the United States, and Romanian visa policy was less restrictive than Soviet, the issue struck a responsive chord with Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (Democrat, WA), who generally opposed Nixon’s East-West policies. By linking Jewish emigration to trade with the Eastern bloc as a whole, Jackson and his many supporters in Congress enmeshed the Romanian quest for MFN in the fraught question of U.S.-Soviet relations.224 The adoption of the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 precluded tariff and credit concessions to countries which denied or excessively restricted their citizens’ right to emigrate. Bucharest chose to facilitate the flow of Romanian Jews to Israel but continued to restrict the emigration of divided family members.225 When it was revealed that emigration practices on the latter count bordered on extortion, the chances of singling out Bucharest for MFN treatment and credits evaporated.226 It would take Moscow’s rejection of its trade agreement with the United States and the amelioration of emigration practices in Romania to revive the discussion of MFN status, which was finally accorded in August 1975. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 199 This period also witnessed the decline of the Romanian dissident movement in the United States. Since 1948, the Washington-based Romanian National Committee (RNC) of dissidents had been disseminating information on conditions in the country to U.S. officials and members of Congress. It also lobbied for sanctions against the regime on account of human rights abuses. As a result of the Nixon-Ceauşescu rapprochement and the bad press given to CIA sponsorship of East European dissident organizations, funding for the RNC dried up, and the organization came to an end in 1972.227 This left the field open to another group, the League of Free Romanians, which proved much more sympathetic to the Romanian regime. It publicly praised Ceauşescu’s autonomous course and even testified in Congress in favor of according Romania MFN treatment as a means of stimulating liberal reforms.228 The considerable credits which Ceauşescu’s regime attracted from the United States and, primarily, from Western Europe in the late 1960s and early 1970s proved a mixed blessing. Already in 1970, Romania’s foreign debt totaled $1 billion. The regime’s effort to repay it primarily through export earnings did not succeed, as the poor quality of Romania’s industrial products soon became apparent. According to the U.S. embassy, the whole economy was “suffering from shortage of managerial talent and technically trained supervisors and workmen.”229 Before long, the country’s economy was facing the combined rigors of trade deficit and rising external debt.230 In 1972, the regime introduced austerity measures, restricting imports and renewing efforts to expand exports. Ironically, after two decades of labor-intensive and resourceconsuming industrial expansion, agricultural and oil exports remained the principal earners of the country’s chronically short foreign exchange, as they had been before the war. Agricultural surpluses could only be extracted at the cost of rationing, while oil exports further depleted Romania’s dwindling reserves. Intra-party criticism of economic failures proved of little consequence, as the dictator surrounded himself with pliable apparatchiks.231 The result was stagnation and decline which accelerated during Ceauşescu’s last decade in power. Even worse was the domestic effect of mismanagement of Romania’s economy. For a short while, the industrialization drive had helped create “a middle class of technicians, scientists, and economic managers,”232 who benefited from the economic growth of the late 1960s. But the hopes which these strata entertained for ever-improving living standards as well as further relaxation of political repression were brutally dashed. As was the case with the police state, the Stalinist model of command economy remained in place, and Romania failed to develop the “market socialism” of the type pioneered in Hungary.233 In the absence of tangible rewards, the attempt to raise production and productivity failed. In 1972–73, the U.S. embassy was reporting that too much austerity, too many controls, and the absence of freedom to travel abroad were producing growing cynicism and disenchantment with the regime. No one was feeling “proud of Romania’s forced-draft industrialization,” and there was a heightened urge to emigrate. Perhaps, the regime could still capitalize on Romanian nationalism, which, however, was essentially defensive, inspired by fear and hostility to the Soviet Union. After years of “national communism,” most people realized that Romania was “unlikely to get an 200 Ioannis D. Stefanidis opportunity to shake off Russian domination.” At the time of Ceauşescu’s third visit to the United States, the embassy was reporting that “more Romanians seem ready to complain about the gap between expectations and results and to push blame toward the top.”234 The “Voice of America” and Ceauşescu’s Romania The Romanian Service of VOA was established on 2 November 1942,235 at a time when allied propaganda was primarily aimed at undermining the country’s association with the Axis powers. By 1966, its audience was estimated at 1.6 million listeners, who mostly tuned in on shortwave.236 Yet, such numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. USIA surveys of Romanian opinion detected few regular VOA listeners. Most tended to switch to the service and other Western stations, mainly in times of crisis.237 Cross-listening of different foreign broadcasts was extensive. Whatever regular listeners existed, they were to be found mostly among the more educated, urban, and of higher professional status strata of society. They were evenly distributed among age groups, the main exception being young people under thirty-five who, as will be explained below, did not particularly find VOA broadcasting to their taste.238 Reception quality was a problem. Until 1973, embassy reports consistently noted the generally poor reception of the shortwave broadcasts, a factor that put the VOA Romanian Service “at a major disadvantage with competitors,” such as the BBC, RFE, and even the station’s English program.239 There were instances of overlapping frequencies, especially with RFE. Listening conditions were better in the southern parts of the country, where the 791 medium-wave frequency from Thessaloniki was available until 10:00 p.m.240 The timing of broadcasts had to take into account not only conditions on the airwaves conducive to clear reception, but also transmissions by other, popular Western stations, as well as the habits of the target audience. As a rule, Washington tried hard to avoid both BBC and domestic media conflicts with VOA timetables.241 Embassy reports considered the night zone least desirable, because it coincided with particularly popular American serials and film classics—mostly old westerns—on Romanian television.242 Only a small fraction of Romanian VOA listeners tuned in on the station’s Worldwide English (WWE), as Romania’s English-speaking audience was relatively small, even by East European standards. Interviews, in particular, were deemed too difficult for a non-native speaker of English to understand. In order to make the WWE program more effective, embassy reports suggested “to cut down somewhat on the commentaries and to substitute more music, cultural, or science features,” with an eye to the younger generation.243 As has been noted, U.S. embassy personnel monitored broadcasts of the VOA Romanian Service daily and submitted reports to USIS with observations and suggestions on reception, as well as the structure and content of broadcasts. Following Nixon’s visit in August 1969, these reports were submitted on a monthly basis. After a number of complaints from the embassy to the The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 201 effect that its suggestions and even material it issued locally went unheeded, the service began to respond, usually with a few months’ delay.244 The Bucharest embassy repeatedly expressed its satisfaction with the structure of the Romanian Service broadcasts. Its reports praised the mix of domestic and international news, political commentary, science and cultural reports, sports articles, and musical selections. They described its format “attractive and entertaining.”245 News digests, such as “The Week in Review,” were considered useful, especially for the many occasional listeners.246 The embassy also appeared satisfied that the service improved its voice quality and adopted a “livelier approach” in the presentation of its program.247 Complaints, however, mostly from younger listeners that the VOA program, especially its news, was “too rigid,” “stale,” or “dull and stodgy” and compared unfavorably with the decidedly more attractive RFE, persisted into 1970.248 Questions of terminology were also raised from time to time. The use of the term “communist” in the context of the war in Indochina is discussed below. The USIA official monitoring the VOA broadcasts in Bucharest also objected that the Romanian translation of the agency’s name should not include “the sometimes objectionable word ‘information.’” The station concurred and adopted the more innocuous equivalent of “United States Agency for Press and Culture.”249 Embassy reports praised the VOA Romanian Service as “one of the most effective USIA activities in Romania.”250 A USIA report from late 1970 enumerated the objectives of such activities in rather ambitious terms. Among other considerations, broadcasts, exhibitions, and contacts were expected to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Western free-market economy not only in promoting rapid economic growth but also in “adequately distributing the benefits of economic progress to all members of society”; to “encourage broader economic and cultural contacts with the US”; to “increase the desire for systemic reform to allow more intellectual freedom and spiritual and technical self-development”—or, as an embassy report put it, to “broaden the horizons” of the Romanian regime and society; to “clarify misconceptions spread by the Romanian media about the US and a number of international events”; and to “promote understanding and respect for the aims, principles, policies, and actions of the US.”251 In promoting these aims, U.S. public diplomacy should not fail to underline the shortcomings of “real-existing socialism.” Thus, VOA was charged with projecting U.S. institutions and “the American way of life” as a means of encouraging liberal tendencies among the Romanian audience. Embassy reports suggested more real “Americana,” i.e., features on supposedly “unique” American institutions and practices.252 VOA was invited to perform a delicate balancing act: “to simplify the issues of our day so that the ubiquitous ‘average listener’ can understand them” and, at the same time, “to portray this immensely complicated and complex country of ours in all its diversity and multiple dimensions.”253 In addition to national anniversaries, such as Independence Day, U.S. congressional and presidential elections presented a seemingly ideal occasion to educate a foreign public in the workings of democratic pluralism. Thus, during the 1972 presidential campaign, VOA was urged—and apparently undertook—to concentrate on the “alternative choice so obviously available to the 202 Ioannis D. Stefanidis American voter” and, by inference, totally absent from the Romanian system of government. To that end, it sought to explore the differences in political and personal philosophy between Nixon and Democratic candidate George McGovern, the emergence of George Wallace as a third force, and other topics “illustrative of our diversity and complexity,” including the attitudes of organized labor. All this information, it was hoped, should enable the Romanian listener to draw the desired conclusions.254 Other, seemingly non-political features, e.g., on electronic media in the United States or the contribution of private corporations to social welfare, could underline the contrast between a pluralist and a state-controlled society, “without belaboring the obvious.”255 Even controversial issues, it was deemed, could be projected in a way that stressed the openness of American society and the strength of its democratic institutions. One case in point was the trial in spring 1972 of radical activist Angela Davis. The embassy suggested that it should be given priority for as long as the trial lasted, partly in order to counter Davis’s portrayal by Romanian media as a “victim of political persecution.”256 The embassy subsequently commended VOA for its U.S. news digest of Davis’s eventual acquittal.257 VOA pieces on “Blacks in America,” the abortion debate, and prisoners’ rehabilitation were also considered useful. In all these cases, there was a built-in message for the need to respect human rights which Romanian listeners were expected to grasp.258 The embassy even considered that the controversy over the CIA funding of RFE/RL could turn to VOA’s advantage. Thus, it welcomed the reiteration of its history and role as the only overt yet principled broadcaster of the U.S. administration.259 No other domestic controversy had the potential to damage the credibility of VOA as much as the Watergate affair. The embassy reports from Bucharest tend to corroborate the view that the station lived up to its mandate for “a balanced and comprehensive projection” of significant American issues. Starting in April 1973, the affair was amply covered by the station, at a time when it was being virtually ignored by the Romanian media. The embassy commended VOA analyses and press editorial digests as both enlightening and demonstrative of the role of the press in an open society. The desired message was that the handling of the Watergate affair vindicated the American political system and its constitutional underpinnings. The field post asked for more background material, if listeners living in a closed society, such as the Romanian one, were “to appreciate the impact a constitution can have on a government’s behavior.” Only on one score, the airing of opinion poll data, did the post at first object, arguing that these were speculative and incomprehensible to the Romanian audience. Yet, it was subsequently persuaded that, given adequate explanatory detail, opinion polling could reveal much about U.S. society, “including the fact that individual citizens can freely criticize their government with no risk of punishment.”260 There were, however, aspects of life in the United States that embassy reports considered less than edifying or even irrelevant to a Romanian audience. For instance, it urged VOA to avoid stressing practices, such as the “squealer system,” i.e., toll-free numbers to call police for the purpose of informing on drug addicts and pushers and other unlawful activities. This, it was reasoned, could trigger erroneous comparisons between the United States and The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 203 a “totalitarian society.”261 VOA was also advised to avoid anything that fed into negative stereotypes of the United States as a violent262 or materialistic society. Features about rising demand for country houses or cars, it was pointed out, risked alienating a public still coping with very low standards of living.263 Using female access to the labor market as a yardstick, the embassy considered feminism and women’s liberation as non-starters in Romania.264 Equally redundant were deemed features about NASA activities. The Romanian media, it was pointed out, seemed “endlessly fascinated” by U.S. space adventures and covered them fully.265 The cracks in the façade of communism had to be discussed subtly, with as little direct reference to the situation in Romania as possible. Embassy reports warned against smug self-righteousness or a “sledge-hammer approach.” Features with inherently heavy political content were also to be avoided.266 VOA was encouraged rather to adopt an indirect approach and use subjects dealing with the Soviet bloc and world communism in general in order to bring home the desired points to the Romanian audience.267 Overtly antiSoviet stories, the embassy submitted, were better left to RFE, “particularly since Romanians scarcely need to be convinced on matters Soviet.”268 VOA concurred. It also pledged to keep coverage of issues likely to provoke Moscow, such as the situation in the Moldavian SSR, within bounds.269 In this context, reviews of topics with a clear anti-Soviet thrust, such as the publication of Khrushchev’s memoirs, the Solzhenitsyn affair, and stories about Soviet dissidents, were appreciated for their “propaganda mileage,” provided they were handled “in a low-key way.”270 Other items on unflattering aspects of Soviet reality, such as consumer goods scarcity, agriculture failures, the nationalities problem, and the lack of religious freedom, were considered applicable to some degree to Romania, and listeners were expected to draw the appropriate parallels.271 Suggestive features which earned praise in embassy reports included: an exposition of the tendency for the working class in industrialized nations to become not an agent of revolution but an element of stability;272 the distancing of West European communist parties from certain Soviet policies;273 and a somewhat trivial account of two young American “Maoists” who went to a conference in Minsk and came away disillusioned, particularly with internal travel restrictions for foreigners.274 Stories about Romania’s socialist neighbors which the embassy considered much in demand could also serve to reinforce the desire for greater autonomy from Moscow.275 During 1968, the embassy was satisfied that VOA covered the events of the Prague Spring as well as unrest in Poland to an extent unparalleled by the Romanian media.276 The station would continue to capitalize on the memory and implications of the Czechoslovak invasion for years to come. As a reminder of the fundamental clash between Soviet hegemony and the legitimate aspirations of East European countries for “national independence and individuality,” the legacy of 1968 was expected to reinforce Romania’s trend toward greater autonomy from Moscow. These aims, however, had to take into consideration the regime’s delicate balancing act within the Soviet orbit.277 At the same time, VOA should take care to avoid anything implying subservience to the Soviet Union. Thus, during 1973, it was advised to drop 204 Ioannis D. Stefanidis the term “soviet bloc” from its Romanian broadcasts,278 and to pay deference to Ceauşescu’s interest in a special relationship with the United States.279 VOA gave extensive coverage to the CSCE and Mutually Balanced Force Reductions process soon after it took off in November 1972. It expected to capitalize on Ceauşescu’s strong interest in the talks and play up the theme of national sovereignty and, to a lesser extent, human rights.280 By way of contrast, VOA was advised to downplay the vexed question of MFN treatment and credit guarantees from the United States that Bucharest failed to obtain until 1975. As second best, VOA concentrated on “good detailed stories” of international economic rapprochement or of U.S.-Romanian economic cooperation.281 At a time when Nixon’s policy for increased trade with the Soviet bloc was facing stiff resistance from the legislature, VOA sought to stress the administration’s commitment to that policy and its desire to disassociate it from the question of Jewish emigration, in contrast to Congress. The embassy, for its part, advised VOA to elaborate on the congressional “power of the purse” in order to elucidate both the U.S. checks and balances system and the delay in according Romania its coveted MFN status.282 Above all, VOA was expected to promote the goals of U.S. foreign policy. During the Johnson administration, the station was required to consistently report evidence of bridge-building with any East European country.283 As with other aims of Johnson’s presidency, however, this was quickly overshadowed by the growing U.S. involvement in the war in Indochina. Indeed, until at least the Paris peace accords of January 1973, Vietnam was a staple of VOA Romanian broadcasts. On occasion, the embassy considered the station’s extensive reports a useful counter to the one-sided, essentially anti-American line of the Romanian media.284 By late 1969, however, it had concluded that the issue was not of “major interest to most Romanians” and suggested that the Romanian Service accord it less prominence.285 The response of the State Department revealed that extensive coverage of core U.S. foreign policy issues was a non-negotiable priority. “VOA,” it was pointed out, “cannot and should not tailor its own news coverage of any issue as important as U.S. policy in Vietnam by the scope of local coverage of that question in a given country.”286 Embassy reports, however, would keep filing complaints about “too much nutsand-bolts coverage” of the war,287 or even too blatant propaganda.288 In addition to straight, factual news, they asked for more emphasis on U.S. willingness to end its involvement in the conflict.289 Moreover, by identifying the enemy as “communist,” VOA broadcasts risked alienating Romanian listeners who considered themselves both “good communists” and friendly toward the United States. The field post persistently suggested the use of “North Vietnamese” or “Viet Cong” as the proper terms.290 In contrast to events in Southeast Asia, the embassy perceived a greater local interest in the situation in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict.291 VOA was praised for its handling of the Yom Kippur War, the ensuing oil crisis, and the divergences between the United States and certain of its allies.292 It also welcomed the coverage of Nixon’s trip to China in February 1972, noting that the event received an unusually good press in the local media.293 On the The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 205 other hand, it deprecated comments on issues, such as Northern Ireland, in which the United States had no obvious stake.294 As was the case with the exposure of the ills of Soviet hegemony, VOA was urged to promote U.S. foreign policy objectives in a way that heeded the “special sensitivities” of the Romanian government regarding sovereignty and independence. Thus, summit meetings between the U.S. president and Soviet and Chinese leaders, the cause of détente, and other instances of U.S.-Soviet rapprochement ought to be presented in a way that would not feed into the socalled “Yalta complex,” i.e., the allegedly deep-seated Romanian tendency to suspect great power collusion at the expense of small nations.295 Even differences between the United States and its West European allies or Japan, as during the Arab-Israeli conflict and the energy crisis of 1973–74, could serve to elicit the conclusion that, unlike Moscow, Washington did not impose its policies on its allies.296 Nixon’s visit to Bucharest in early August 1969 was an opportunity which, thanks to the calculated noblesse oblige of the Romanian authorities, VOA was able to exploit in order to reach out to a broader public. The fact that the visit took place in the wake of the first lunar landing by American astronauts—“the high point” of U.S. public diplomacy during the Nixon era297— further boosted local interest in the event. For two weeks, VOA Romanian Service deputy director Mircea Carp and European correspondent David Lent covered both the presidential visit and the subsequent Romanian Communist Party Congress. It was quite unprecedented that Carp was able to broadcast in Romanian live from Bucharest. The embassy interpreted the friendly reactions of individual citizens to his presence as “additional testimony of the significant listenership which VOA now enjoys in Romania.” Lent, for his part, was even offered “inside information on a single closed session” of the party congress. However, the seasoned journalist refused to be taken in. “It was, superficially seen,” he recorded, “almost as if the past twenty-five years had never happened. Everybody was play-acting, of course, but the stage directions clearly said: ‘Be good hosts to the VOA.’”298 Be that as it may, the embassy concluded that the ground was fertile for regular correspondent visits.299 Much of VOA’s potential rested on the worldwide appeal of American popular culture, especially to the younger generation. In early 1970, the U.S. embassy noted that “receptivity to American culture [was] widespread among students and intellectuals and present in parts of the Romanian culture ‘establishment.’”300 This assumption made entertainment an essential component of VOA broadcasts. The station was urged to “capitalize to a greater degree on the nearly insatiable curiosity of youth about the interests and life styles of its Western cousins.” Contemporary American music, in particular, was considered “probably the single most important inducement” for younger listeners to tune in to VOA and RFE.301 Embassy reports noted the large and enthusiastic turnout whenever American artists and groups, including celebrities such as Dave Brubeck and Duke Ellington, appeared on stage.302 Romanian bands imitated American jazz, pop, and rock styles, and American music records were much in demand. As a result, VOA Romanian broadcasts devoted more time to music, theater, films, and fashion trends. However, poor reception often undermined the effect of VOA music sessions.303 206 Ioannis D. Stefanidis Occasionally, the embassy asked for more coverage of events involving Romania and Romanians. The latter, it was assumed, were very sensitive about what they felt to be “a gross imbalance in the ‘cultural penetration’ of the two countries.”304 Romanian celebrities in the arts and sports rather than politics were considered ideal cases for positive publicity. This was the era of Ilie Nastase’s meteoric rise in tennis. Much to the satisfaction of Romanian listeners, VOA took care to cover his appearances in the U.S. Open and other championships.305 There were also reports about the activities of and, whenever possible, interviews with Romanian artists either living in or visiting the United States.306 Romanian immigrant communities in the United States rarely featured in embassy monitoring reports.307 The risk, particularly with expatriates, was that they might say or do things embarrassing for the Romanian regime. Thus, the embassy was relieved to note that an interview with a Romanian-born opera singer contained “nothing critical about Romania” and her recent visit there.308 In contrast, the embassy felt unhappy when VOA reported the case of Romanian poet Vasile Posteuca with its apparent humanitarian angle. The initial reluctance and eventual granting of permission to his daughter to visit the terminally ill poet in the United States drew unfavorable attention to Romanian exit visa practices. In the embassy’s view, this could jeopardize the chances of a favorable decision on similar future cases.309 VOA, for its part, countered that it could not afford to ignore the Posteuca story, which had made headline news in the United States for about two weeks.310 There is evidence to suggest that the U.S. embassy and its monitoring officers, in particular, were increasingly going native in their efforts on broadcasts likely to embarrass Ceauşescu’s regime. To be sure, in August 1969, the post urged VOA to “indicate that we are not uncritically promoting closer relations for their own sake and that we have not forgotten the nature of the regime.”311 When the station appeared to follow this advice, however, the field post sent warnings to pursue the opposite direction. It did so in the Posteuca case and whenever VOA referred to Romanian restrictive emigration policies.312 Such inhibition explained in part the persistent objection to excessive prominence of Vietnam stories; in the embassy’s view, this risked inviting unwanted rebuttals by the party-controlled media.313 It also took exception to a VOA WWE breakfast show commentary, which presented a recent Romanian Writers Union conference as an effort by Ceauşescu to impose his July Theses and tighten controls over literary output. VOA was warned against adopting an anti-Ceauşescu line or acting as “a forum for essentially speculative commentary” on domestic Romanian issues. Ever sensitive about questions of foreign interference, the embassy warned, the regime could take offense at such an “unwarranted intrusion.”314 In this case, Washington conceded the post’s point of view.315 Romania, it seems, was a notable exception in USIA director Shakespeare predilection for toughness when dealing with Communist regimes.316 The tendency to avoid provoking the Romanian regime apparently had some effect on the VOA audience. Already in 1970, a report on contacts between USIA personnel and visitors to one of its exhibits claimed that distrust of the official media spilled over into attitudes toward VOA, which most seemed The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 207 to regard as the mouthpiece of the U.S. administration. Regarding international news, in particular, listeners observed that the station merely repeated information available on Romanian or other foreign media.317 Coincidentally, a post-Cold War study remarked that, from 1963 to 1977, even the RFE Romanian Service news was “hardly dissimilar to Romanian national news.”318 There was also a reverse side to the perceived softness of VOA broadcasts on Romanian domestic issues. After ending jamming of all foreign broadcasters in July 1963,319 the regime appeared prepared to tolerate the reception of Western broadcasts as a nuisance. Of course, information reaching the public from uncontrollable sources could sustain or generate ideas which the regime considered incompatible with state ideology, if not outright subversive. As the U.S. embassy observed, Bucharest adopted a “policy of not dignifying” the existence of stations such as RFE; rather, it relied on its security apparatus “to wall off contagious desires for consumer affluence as well as ideals of political democracy and civil liberties.”320 This was an apt observation, borne out by a closer look at the interplay of tolerance and repression that were typical of Ceauşescu’s first decade in power.321 Yet, a complete indifference about foreign broadcasts would have been quite extraordinary for a regime which did not conceal its totalitarian provenance. Moreover, like its listeners, the Romanian authorities were bound to interpret anything that VOA said as official U.S. views.322 The embassy, for its part, was willing to go some length toward reassuring Bucharest. In early 1968, the Romanian Foreign Ministry protested over the allegedly provocative and unfriendly content of certain broadcasts. When the embassy denied the allegations, the authorities requested the scripts and tapes in question. The State Department considered this an unacceptable security risk, because VOA scripts contained edited parts and information about staff which ought to be protected. The embassy, however, could use scripts and even play tapes to refute Romanian points.323 On another occasion, the Romanian authorities requested that the embassy postpone the distribution of the USIS Science and Technology Bulletin, although the due procedure of submitting two copies to the Romanian Foreign Ministry two days in advance had been observed. The move was interpreted as a reaction to the fact that, for the first time, the bulletin had the VOA Romanian Service schedule printed on its inside back cover.324 Perhaps the most serious incident concerned a VOA item on the sale of three Boeing 707 jets to Romania which the regime had asked both the U.S. administration and Boeing to keep confidential for a time. However, the Christian Science Monitor broached the subject, revealing that one of these aircraft was intended as an executive jet for Ceauşescu. VOA carried the story, provoking strong diplomatic representations325 that were indicative of the increasing personalization of the Romanian dictatorship. A word is due on the qualitative analysis of the Romanian audience conducted by the USIA during the period under study. In order to compile country-specific data, the agency used contacts with Romanians visiting the West as well as events within Romania. These were organized or sponsored by the USIA in the framework of U.S.-Romanian cultural conventions. They ranged from scientific exhibitions, the U.S. pavilions at the annual Bucharest 208 Ioannis D. Stefanidis International Trade Fair, and a goodwill visit by Apollo XI astronauts to performances by American singers and bands. USIA staff exploited these activities in order to contact Romanian citizens and gauge the appeal of VOA and other major worldwide broadcasters.326 These reports and opinion surveys concurred that, in terms of both reception and reliability, the VOA Romanian Service came a poor third or fourth in comparison to RFE, the BBC, and even domestic radio.327 A survey conducted by RFE among Romanian travelers to the West from May 1969 to January 1970328 gave the following results: Most Reliable Station Radio Free Europe Domestic Radio BBC VOA Home Events 53 percent 32 percent 9 percent 5 percent Foreign Events 54 percent 14 percent 16 percent 12 percent Subsequent research among Romanians visiting the West put overall VOA listening to 18-19 percent of those surveyed. The numbers for the BBC and RFE were 29 percent and 25 percent, respectively.329 VOA was, of course, taken for what it was, the official global broadcaster of the U.S. government. Yet, a 1970 survey based on interviews with four hundred Romanian visitors to Vienna found the station far less “propagandistic” than RFE.330 With regard to the reasons for tuning in to VOA, the same survey gave the following results: Hear world news Maintain ties with the West Satisfy curiosity about American life Get moral support Hear political commentary Hear official U.S. viewpoints Hear news about events in Romania 71 percent 69 percent 65 percent 42 percent 40 percent 19 percent 19 percent By the end of the period under study, U.S. observers of Romanian listening habits appeared unexpectedly sanguine. Taking advantage of a USIA exhibition in Bucharest in fall 1974, agency officers reported that visitors were generally familiar with VOA; they knew its broadcasting hours and could identify its programs. The station seemed to be growing in popularity and was wellpositioned to challenge the BBC as the leading foreign station.331 This was an uncanny claim, since, by all counts, RFE remained the foreign station most widely listened to throughout the Ceauşescu period.332 Concluding Remarks The primary task of VOA was the projection of the United States in a way that served its foreign policy interests. Catering to the assumed tastes of listeners in various countries and regions, its language services determined the The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 209 specific mix of news and other ingredients, such as culture, sports, and music, in order to retain and expand their audiences. The perennial dilemma was how to serve the specific policy objectives of the administration while remaining “accurate, objective and comprehensive.” On the one hand, its highly ideological mandate and style, let alone its journalistic ethos, predisposed VOA toward projecting liberal democracy as a universal cause. On the other, it was a government tool, deployed in a field marked by the pragmatism or cynicism of power politics. According to a directive signed by John F. Kennedy in January 1963, the mission of the USIA, of which VOA was a part, was to “help achieve US foreign policy objectives by . . . influencing public attitudes in other nations.” One particular objective was formulated in terms remarkably close to the Kantian notion of democratic peace: the agency undertook to promote the goal of a “peaceful world community of free and independent states, free to choose their own future and their own system so long as it does not threaten the freedom of others.”333 In the case of Eastern European nations, this task also entailed the fostering of “free political institutions” which, in turn, was expected to facilitate their eventual emancipation from Soviet domination.334 With regard to a Western bloc country such as Greece, the preservation and, after 1967, the restoration of free democratic institutions was an oft-stated aim of U.S. policy. In both cases, ruling elites were certain to resent this as interference in their domestic matters. The parallels between the Greek dictatorship and Ceauşescu’s regime do not end here. The Greek colonels played the nationalist card, improved relations with the communist East but essentially strove to preserve and, occasionally, flaunted their “special relationship” with the United States. Ceauşescu’s regime promoted its nationalist version of real existing socialism, sought to improve relations and expand trade with the West, while remaining a member, however restless, of the Soviet bloc. At no point did either regime question its basic foreign orientation, though there were differences of degree in their respective commitments. Ceauşescu took more seriously his policy of rapprochement with the West, especially the United States, than did the colonels when they received Eastern bloc dignitaries or traveled to China; and, arguably, the Romanian leader risked—and expected to gain—considerably more when he “tweaked the nose” of the Soviets than did his Greek counterparts when they appeared not to toe the U.S. line. It could even be argued that, unlike the Greek rulers, Ceauşescu envisaged a future for his country outside its existing alliance. From a domestic point of view, both regimes were repressive to varying degrees, but the Romanian one was by definition the negation of liberal “bourgeois” democracy, whereas the Greek colonels, however insincerely, proclaimed that to be the ultimate stage of their “revolution.” In this connection, it was the policy of the United States to promote democratization, implicitly in the case of Romania, explicitly in that of Greece. In both cases, the promotion of democracy was subordinated to other objectives, defined in terms of the unfolding Cold War. These objectives were the preservation of Greece’s cooperation within the North Atlantic Alliance and the unimpeded use of the U.S. facilities there, and the encouragement of 210 Ioannis D. Stefanidis Romania’s autonomous course vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and its increased association with the West. These essential priorities were reflected in VOA broadcasting to the two countries. In both cases, the station was repeatedly required to take into account their rulers’ susceptibilities regarding various issues of domestic and foreign policy. There were, of course, differences in the degree to which these requirements fudged the promotion of democracy. Insofar as this goal was inherent to U.S. information policy toward communist states, it was rare that VOA was asked to downplay or ignore stories likely to embarrass Bucharest, as in the case of the Posteuca affair. Even then, VOA proved able to invoke its journalistic integrity. Moreover, the documented instances of Romanian representations on account of VOA broadcasts are remarkably few. The reverse was the case with the Greek dictators, who, unlike Ceauşescu, faced an acute public image problem worldwide. Although it was more vocal in its support for the restoration of Greek democracy, the Johnson administration twice switched off U.S. transmitters in order to prevent the VOA Greek program from complicating matters with the colonels. Demonstrably less interested in prodding America’s authoritarian allies to liberalize, the Nixon administration was unlikely to care much about the journalistic standards of its official global broadcaster when these clashed with its foreign policy priorities. As criticism of the Greek dictatorship mounted in Congress and the U.S. media, the USIA and the State Department resorted to practices perilously close to censorship. Although only one transcript and no monitoring reports were located, it seems that this approach considerably emaciated the VOA Greek Service as a “reliable and authoritative source of news.”335 Both the Greek and the Romanian Services were expected to represent America and to serve the aims of U.S. foreign policy. Both posited an interest on their listeners’ part in things American. The problem is that, in the absence of monitoring reports from Athens, no comparison can be made between Greek and Romanian reactions to the issues that afflicted America’s image, such as Vietnam and Watergate. More importantly from our point of view, both services provided a de facto alternative source of information to what was available in the two target countries. What made a clear difference between the two was the degree to which, unlike its Greek counterpart, the Romanian Service was meant to serve as an alternative channel of news and ideas to a “captive audience.” “As usual,” the U.S. embassy in Bucharest commented in early 1973, “VOA filled much of the vacuum of non-information and misinformation which surrounds the Romanian listener on many of the substantial problems of the world.”336 Its counterpart in Athens would have considered such an undertaking not only redundant but also a threat to its “policy of suasion.” We now know, of course, that U.S. policy failed to promote the liberalization of either the Greek or the Romanian regime by encouraging internal reform. The Greek junta collapsed quite precipitously as a result of a selfinflicted crisis, and the country reverted to democracy. Romania, on the other hand, descended into the most brutal phase of communist dictatorship. A word is due on what might be called the unintended consequences of VOA broadcasting. Even with the aid of extensive oral history research, it The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 211 would have been extremely difficult to determine whether the VOA helped to erode the image of regimes which used coercion as their primary means for securing the loyalty of their citizens. There is evidence that a number of Romanian listeners considered the station’s broadcasts as a source of moral support and even a way to preserve their ties with the West, symbolic or otherwise. No comparable evidence has been traced about Greek listeners. Listening to foreign radio stations in the relative intimacy of one’s home could be interpreted as an act of low-risk defiance which, however, might also help to defuse some of the resentment against the regime.337 Even on this score, the VOA was, possibly by definition, not the obvious choice. Unlike the BBC, RFE, or even the Deutsche Welle, the VOA was widely regarded as the mouthpiece of the U.S. government, which most Greeks blamed for the prolongation, if not the imposition, of the dictatorship. And most Romanians found the VOA less inspiring than either the BBC or RFE. Whatever VOA said could hardly offset the damage of what was perceived as a policy of double standards: tolerating dictatorship in some cases, castigating it in others. It was this antinomy that seriously limited the VOA’s potential as a factor conducive to democratic change. NOTES 1. For the provenance and definition of “public diplomacy,” as an alternative to and inclusive of “propaganda,” see Nicholas J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), xiv-xvi. 2. Quoted in L. Alan Heil, The Voice of America: A History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 32. 3. The President’s Directive, quoted in National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 59: State Department Files (henceforth cited as RG 59), lot file 59D36, Office memorandum, “Greece: A Sentinel of Freedom in a Strategic Area,” 1956; RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 112, VOA History, 1972– 1973, USIA, “Fact Sheet,” February 1973; RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953– 1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962–1974, VOA, History, 1970–1971, “The History of the Voice of America,” September 1969; ibid., Box 86, Studies and Reports, 1953– 1978, Radio, Studies and Reports, 1966, USIA, Broadcasting Service, “VOA Languages and Technical Facilities: An Analysis of Broadcasting Requirements,” 1972. 4. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 178; and Heil, The Voice of America, 65. 5. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 99, General News Articles, 1967–1969, Radio, General, 1968, Frank Shakespeare, “Instructions to the VOA, IOP, Area Directors,” 9 June 1970. Cf. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 300-301. 6. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 99, General News Articles, 1967–1969, Radio, General, 1968, Frank Shakespeare, “Instructions to the VOA, IOP, Area Directors,” 9 June 1970. 7. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 301. Having played a significant part in Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign, Shakespeare was able 212 Ioannis D. Stefanidis to win “a measure of independence from both the State Department and the Senate,” an independence he was able to pass on to VOA (ibid., 320). 8. Ibid., 214-17. 9. The evidence is mostly from the Johnson era (Gregory Mitrovich et al., “Cold War Broadcasting Impact,” report on a conference organized by the Hoover Institution and the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at Stanford University, 13–16 October 2004, 9; Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 267-68; and L. Alan Heil, “The Voice of America: A Brief Cold War History,” in Cold War Broadcasting: Impact on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: A Collection of Studies and Documents, ed. A. Ross Johnson and R. Eugene Parta [Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010], 34-35). Under the Nixon administration VOA was better poised to stand its journalistic ground in difficult cases such as the My Lai massacre (ibid., 308-9). Yet it was not until July 1976 that VOA’s charter, listing editorial independence among its guiding principles, would be signed into law (http://www.insidevoa.com/info/voa-charter/2322.html). 10. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 99, General News Articles, 1967–1969, Radio, General, 1969, The Wall Street Journal, “On Short Waves, Propagandists Woo Converts,” 29 September 1969. 11. It was estimated that one fourth of VOA’s entire audience was listening to the Worldwide English (WWE) broadcasts (RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 86, Studies and Reports, 1953–1978, Radio, Studies and Reports, 1966, USIA, Office of Policy and Research, Research Service, “VOA Audience Estimate 1966,” E-166, December 1966). 12. Category I comprised “languages of continental or sub-continental reach, which are politically and linguistically indispensable for minimum coverage of major world areas” (RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 86, Studies and Reports, 1953–1978, Radio, Studies and Reports, 1966, USIA, Broadcasting Service, “VOA Languages and Technical Facilities: an Analysis of Broadcasting Requirements,” 1972). 13. During the period under discussion, the Romanian Service weekly broadcasts totaled 10 hours and 30 minutes (two daily broadcasts, one of sixty minutes, the other of thirty minutes), while the Greek were only 3 hours and 30 minutes (one daily thirty minute broadcast) (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 12/1/70 State to various missions, CA-6039, Recording VOA Broadcasts,” 3 December 1970; RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 112, VOA History, 1972–1973, Weekly Broadcasting Hours, December 1971–December 1972; ibid., Box 71, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1946–1997, Radio, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1971–1973, Office of the Engineering Manager, Frequency Division, Broadcasting Service, USIA, European Target Area Reception Report, Fall 1973). 14. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 8/1/70 State to Bucharest, CA-4164, “IBS Program Review Board,” 6 August 1970. 15. George Jacobs, broadcast engineer and VOA Frequency Division chief in the 1960s and 1970s, quoted in Heil, The Voice of America, 107. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 213 16. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA, History, 1967–1969, “The Radio Broadcasting System of the U.S.I.A.,” June 1969. Cf. Heil, The Voice of America, 110. 17. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 86, Studies and Reports, 1953–1978, Radio, Studies and Reports, 1966, USIA, Broadcasting Service, “VOA Languages and Technical Facilities: An Analysis of Broadcasting Requirements,” 1972. 18. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA, History, 1967–1969, “The Radio Broadcasting System of the U.S.I.A.,” June 1969. 19. Heil, The Voice of America, 77. 20. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA, History, 1970–1971, “The History of the Voice of America,” September 1969. 21. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 75, Jamming, 1952–1968, Ranjan Borra, “The Problem of Jamming in International Broadcasting,” Journal of Broadcasting, XI.4 (Fall 1967), 355-68; ibid., Box 111, VOA History, 1962–1974, VOA, History, 1967–1969, “The Radio Broadcasting System of the U.S.I.A.,” June 1969; ibid., Box 112, VOA History, 1972–1973, USIA, “Background on Radio Jamming,” February 1973. 22. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA, History, 1967, “History of the Voice of America,” February 1967, Fact Sheet, January 1967; and Mitrovich et al., “Cold War Broadcasting Impact,” 17. 23. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 86, Studies and Reports, 1953–1978, Radio, Studies and Reports, 1966, USIA, Office of Policy and Research, Research Service, “VOA Audience Estimate 1966,” E-1-66, December 1966. 24. RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970. 25. Mitrovich et al., “Cold War Broadcasting Impact,” 11. Similarly, RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 38, R-28-71, USIA, Office of Research and Assessment, Research Service, “VOA Listening in Romania, 1970,” 6 December 1971. 26. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 91, (Radio) Free Europe, 1951–1998, Radio, Free Europe, 1971, The Economist, “CIA-Free Radio?,” 5 June 1971; and Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 314 n. 85. 27. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 91, (Radio) Free Europe, 1951–1998, RFE, Audience and Public Opinion Research Department, “The Reliability of RFE,” December 1970. 28. Mitrovich et al., “Cold War Broadcasting Impact,” 2. 29. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA, History, 1970–1971, “The History of the Voice of America,” September 1969; RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 99, General News Articles, 1967–1969, Radio, General, 1969, The Wall Street Journal, “On Short Waves, Propagandists Woo Converts,” 29 September 1969; and Mitrovich et al., “Cold War Broadcasting Impact,” 8, 16. 30. Heil, “The Voice of America,” 26. 214 Ioannis D. Stefanidis 31. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 State to Bucharest, A-6276, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Reports,” 22 June 1972. 32. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA, History, 1970–1971, “The History of the Voice of America,” September 1969. 33. Arch Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 18, and appendix A, 316. 34. Mitrovich et al., “Cold War Broadcasting Impact,” 9; Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 317, 318, 329-30; Heil, “The Voice of America,” 36; and Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom, 203-5. 35. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 285-91, 319; and Heil, “The Voice of America,” 35. 36. The usually critical Washington Post concurred (Wilson P. Dizard, Jr., The Story of the U.S. Information Agency [Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004], 108-9). 37. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 321-29. 38. For an extensive account of the congressional investigations in the operation and funding of RFE/RL and VOA, see Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom, 196-98, 205-9. See, also, Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 295, 314-16; Heil, The Voice of America, note 5, 475-76; and Ralph A. Uttaro, “The Voices of America in International Radio Propaganda,” Law and Contemporary Problems 45, no. 4 (1982): 106-7. 39. “Greece must have assistance if it is to become a self-supporting and selfrespecting democracy,” Roosevelt’s successor declared before a joint session of Congress in what was then termed the “Truman Doctrine.” 40. Roper, in Michael Cox, Timothy J. Lynch, and Nicolas Bouchet, eds., US Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion: From Theodore Roosevelt to Barack Obama (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 112-18. On the role of VOA in projecting Johnson’s domestic reforms, see Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 278-79. 41. Cox, Lynch, and Bouchet, eds., US Foreign Policy and Democracy Promotion, 7-8. 42. Rusk to Talbot, 3 April 1967, FRUS 1964–68, vol. XVI, doc. 267, pp. 567-67. 43. Quoted in James Edward Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece: History and Power, 1950–1974 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 135. See, also, Robert V. Keeley, H amerikanikhv presbeiva kai h katavrreush thı dhmokrativaı sthn Ellavda, 1966–1969Ú H marturiva enovı diplwmavth (Athens: Patakis, 2010); published in English as The Colonels’ Coup and the American Embassy, 1966–1969: A Diplomat’s View of the Breakdown of Democracy in Cold War Greece (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 152-56, 171-88; and Louis Klarevas, “Were the Eagle and the Phoenix Birds of a Feather? The United States and the Greek Coup of 1967,” Diplomatic History 30, no. 3 (June 2006): 498-508. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 215 44. Sulzberger, quoted in Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 147. 45. See various formulations of this dilemma in RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1970–1973, box 2328, POL 13-2 GREECE 6–14–73, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Research Study, “US Policy Statements and Chronology on Greece, April 1967–July 1973,” 12 September 1973. 46. Solon Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı (A history of the dictatorship) (Athens: K. Kapopoulos, 1975), 1, 202. 47. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 163, 263-64 n. 22. 48. Reviewing U.S. policy in March 1971, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Joseph Sisco remarked: “Our present, essentially passive, policy has assured access to facilities in Greece but has not proved effective in either satisfying our critics or moving the Greek regime.” Quoted in Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 265 n. 31. 49. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 147, 152. 50. Ibid., 159, 161, 167. 51. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1970–1973, box 2328, POL 13-2 GREECE 6–14–73, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Research Study, “US Policy Statements and Chronology on Greece, April 1967–July 1973,” 12 September 1973. 52. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 160, 162. 53. Ibid., 161. As Tasca told his dissenting first secretary at the embassy in early 1970, he was in Athens to follow the policy formulated by President Nixon, Vice President Agnew, and National Security Adviser Kissinger (Keeley, H amerikanikhv presbeiva kai h katavrreush thı dhmokrativaı sthn Ellavda, 1966–1969, 44). 54. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 263 n. 20. 55. Dennis Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule (Portland, Ore.: Center for Romanian Studies, 1998), 119; and Vladimir Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 222. 56. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 135, 145. 57. Ibid., 160. 58. Christopher Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels (London: Granada, 1985), 84. 59. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 166, 265 n. 32. 60. Ibid., 167; and Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 89. 61. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 168. 62. Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 106. 63. Ibid., 109. 64. According to a staff report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Greece received more aid in non-heavy types of equipment during the embargo period than it did in the three years before its imposition (Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 64). 65. Ibid., 86. 66. Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 71-75. 67. Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 94. 216 Ioannis D. Stefanidis 68. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1970–1973, box 2334, POL GREECE-US 6–26–70, Athens to State, 4368, “[Tasca’s] Meeting with Prime Minister on Greek-American relations and Constitutional Progress,” 21 August 1971. 69. Keeley, H amerikanikhv presbeiva kai h katavrreush thı dhmokrativaı sthn Ellavda, 1966–1969, 93, 342. 70. Ion Brad, Mustikevı sunanthvseiı sthn Ellavda (Secret meetings in Greece) (Thessaloniki: Epikentro, 2012); published in Romanian as Ȋntǎlniri de tainǎ ȋn Grecia (Bucharest: Fundația Europeanǎ Titulescu, 2009), 23-25; Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 211, idem, 3, 72; and Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 142-43. 71. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 2335, POL GREECE-US 1–1–73, Sisco to Secretary, Briefing Memorandum, “Possible Pressure Points on Greece and Turkey,” 30 October 1973. Cf. Sotiris Rizas, Oi Hnwmevneı politeiveı, h diktatoriva twn suntagmatarcwvn kai to Kupriakov zhvthma, 1967– 1974 (The United States, the colonels’ dictatorship and the Cyprus Question) (Athens: Patakis, 2002), 161-62; and Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 91, 124. 72. The usually proactive Danish, Dutch, and Norwegian ministers were consistently confronted with the disinclination of the major allied powers and the NATO secretary general to put pressure on the Greek regime (Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 40, 69, 78, 92, 109). 73. Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 49-52, 58-59. 74. Ibid., 2, 58-59; and Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 72. 75. Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 67-71. This author noted that both major opponents and sympathizers of the Greek regime came from the Democratic majority in both houses of Congress (ibid., 71). 76. Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 340-69; and Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 80. 77. Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 83-84. 78. Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 1, 339-42; and Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 88. 79. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 167; Theodore A Couloumbis, ...71...74Ú Shmeiwvseiı enovı panepisthmiakouv (Athens: Patakis, 2002); published in English as The Greek Junta Phenomenon: A Professor’s Notes (New York: Pella Publishing, 2004), 57-59; Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 369-80; and Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 92-94. 80. Quoted in Stephen G. Xydis, “Coups and Countercoups in Greece, 1967– 1973,” Political Science Quarterly 89, no. 3 (fall 1974): 522-23; see, also, Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 93. 81. Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 94. 82. Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 191, 363; and Keeley, H amerikanikhv presbeiva kai h katavrreush thı dhmokrativaı sthn Ellavda, 1966– 1969, 243-44. 83. Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 108. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 217 84. Ioannis D. Stefanidis, Stirring the Greek Nation: Political Culture, Irredentism and Anti-Americanism in Post-War Greece, 1945–67 (Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2007), 173ff. 85. Already in March 1968, an embassy official was reporting “a growing and expressed anti-Americanism” (RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 2146, POL 2 GREECE 1/1/68, Athens to State, A-492, 14 March 1968, attachment: memorandum for the record, “Impressions of Greek Public Opinion”). 86. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1970–1973, Box 2334, POL GREECE-US 1–1–72, Athens to State, 1270, “Anti-Americanism in Greece,” 6 March 1972. 87. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 168-69; Couloumbis, ...71...74, 298-300; Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 191; and Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 74, 96, 100, 105-6, 111-12. 88. Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 210; and Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 112. In October 1973, the State Department recognized that foreign military sales credits, estimated at ca. $60 million, were “rapidly becoming less crucial to Greece’s defense needs.” “The FMS program,” it pointed out, “works almost as much to our own advantage, assuring that Greece will adhere to its pattern of military procurement from the US” (RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967– 1969, Box 2335, POL GREECE-US 1–1–73, Sisco to Secretary, Briefing Memorandum, “Possible Pressure Points on Greece and Turkey,” 30 October 1973). This trend would be reversed as the Greek-Turkish arms race intensified, following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, in summer 1974. 89. Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 118-19, 146; and Joseph F. Harrington and Bruce J. Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians: Fifty Years of American-Romanian Relations, 1940–1990 (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs; New York: distr. by Columbia University Press, 1991), 354. 90. Couloumbis, ...71...74, 268, 272. 91. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 2335, POL GREECE-US 1–1–73, Sisco to Secretary, Briefing Memorandum, “Possible Pressure Points on Greece and Turkey,” 30 October 1973. 92. Miller, The United States and the Making of Modern Greece, 173-75. 93. Woodhouse, The Rise and Fall of the Greek Colonels, 146-47. 94. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA History, 1962–1974, VOA, History, 1967, “History of the Voice of America,” February 1967, Fact Sheet, January 1967; ibid., VOA, History, 1967–1969, “The Radio Broadcasting System of the U.S.I.A.,” June 1969. Cf. Heil, The Voice of America, 77; Ioannis D. Stefanidis, Asuvmmetroi etaivroiÚ H Ellavda kai oi Hnwmevneı Politeiveı ston Yucrov Povlemo, 1953–1961 (Asymmetrical partners: Greece and the United States in the Cold War) (Athens: Patakis, 2002), 229; and Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 363-64. 95. The receiver site (RX) was near the village of Agiasma, in the Kavala region, and the transmitter site (TX) was located near a small rural settlement, Dassochori, in the Xanthi region. 218 Ioannis D. Stefanidis 96. This amount exceeded the annual budget for overseas activities of the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs for 1969 (Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 267). 97. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA, History, 1967–1969, “The Radio Broadcasting System of the U.S.I.A.,” June 1969; RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 12/1/68 Thessaloniki to State, A-96, attached memo by W. J. Hamilton, “Visit to VOA’s New Relay Station Site,” 23 December 1968; Heil, The Voice of America, 77. 98. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 3/1/69 Athens to State, 965, 7 March 1969. 99. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/68 Athens to State, 4975, 27 May 1968. 100. http://sv7apq.blogspot.gr/2013/10/the-voa-station-in-northern-greece.html. 101. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 114, VOA, Language Services, 1944–1992, Stathy Pandiri to Lawrence Blochman, “History of American Broadcasting in Greek,” 26 May 1944. 102. See Ioannis D. Stefanidis, “Telling America’s Story: US Propaganda Operations and Greek Public Reactions,” Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 30, no. 1 (2004): 39-95. 103. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 86, Studies and Reports, 1953–1978, Radio, Studies and Reports, 1966, USIA, Office of Policy and Research, Research Service, “VOA Audience Estimate 1966,” E-1-66, December 1966. 104. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 3/1/69 Athens to State, 965, 7 March 1969. 105. Alexis Papahelas, O Biasmovı thı ellhnikhvı dhmokrativaıÚ O amerikanikovı paravgwn, 1947–1967 (The rape of Greek democracy: The American factor) (Athens: Estia, 1997), 338-39. 106. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 4/1/67 Athens to State, 4926, 25 April 1967; ibid., Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/67 State to Athens, 902, 2 May 1967. 107. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/67 Thessaloniki to State, 157, 12 May 1967. 108. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/67 State to Athens, 902, 2 May 1967. 109. Keeley, H amerikanikhv presbeiva kai h katavrreush thı dhmokrativaı sthn Ellavda, 1966–1969, 254-55. 110. RG 59, Entry 5641, Records Relating to Greece, 1963–1974, Box 3, EDU 124 to E5, RAD 2, Reports and State (VOA GAMMA), Greece 1967, Stier, USIA, to Taylor, Athens, 2 June 1967. 111. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 261. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 219 112. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/67 Athens to State, 5286, 15 May 1967; ibid., RAD 6/1/67 Athens to State, A-706, 17 June 1967; ibid., RAD 1/1/68 Athens to State, 3396, 1 February 1968. 113. RG 59, Entry 5641, Records Relating to Greece, 1963–1974, Box 3, EDU 124 to E5, RAD 2, Reports and State (VOA GAMMA), Greece 1967, Stier, USIA, to Taylor, Athens, 2 June 1967. 114. Ibid. 115. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 6/1/67 Athens to State, A-706, 17 June 1967. 116. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/67 Athens to State, 5286, 15 May 1967; ibid., RAD 6/1/67 Athens to State, 5884, 17 June 1967. No such input from the Athens embassy was traced in the VOA files. No evidence was either found to corroborate Senator Fulbright’s claim in Congress that, at the time of his counter-coup against the colonels, on 13 December 1967, King Constantine attempted to send a message to the Greek people through a VOA transmitter, but his request was not granted (Grigoriadis, Istoriva thı diktatorivaı, 2, 364). 117. As noted, the station did not become operational until 1973. 118. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 6/1/67 State to Thessaloniki, 931, 28 July 1967; ibid., RAD 6/1/67 Thessaloniki to State, 10, 28 July 1967; ibid., RAD 8/1/67 Thessaloniki to State, 12, 1 August 1967. The Soviets resumed jamming of VOA and Radio Liberty in the wake of the Czechoslovak invasion. The annual cost for jamming VOA alone in 1969 was estimated at $150 million (Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 299). 119. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 2/1/69 Athens to State, 750, “VOA Station at Kavala,” 20 February 1969; ibid., RAD 3/1/69 Athens to State, 965, 7 March 1969. 120. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 2/1/69 Sofia to State, 88, 10 February 1969; ibid., Athens to State, 750, 20 February 1969. 121. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 7/1/68 Athens to State, 5910, 17 July 1968. 122. RG 59, Entry 5641, Records Relating to Greece, 1963–1974, Box 3, EDU 124 to E5, VOA Greek Air Show (English translation), 26 September 1967. No other transcript was found in the files researched. 123. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 9/1/67 USIA to Athens, 3072, 28 September 1967. 124. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 9/1/67 Thessaloniki to State, 61, 27 September 1967. 220 Ioannis D. Stefanidis 125. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 2146, POL 2 GREECE 1/1/68, Athens to State, A-492, 14 March 1968, attachment: memorandum for the record, “Impressions of Greek Public Opinion.” 126. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 9/1/67 Thessaloniki to State, 61, 27 September 1967. 127. RG 59, Entry 5641, Records Relating to Greece, 1963–1974, Box 3, EDU 124 to E5, “VOA Greek Air Show” (Greek broadcast transcript, English translation), 26 September 1967. 128. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 1/1/68 Athens to State, 3396, 1 February 1968. 129. RG 59, Entry 5641, Records Relating to Greece, 1963–1974, Box 3, EDU 124 to E5, “VOA Greek Air Show,” 26 September 1967. 130. At one point, the embassy asked for “attention” to be paid to the contents of VOA news on Greece broadcast in English (RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 1/1/68 Athens to State, 3396, 1 February 1968). 131. “We do not consider [the] April incident a precedent” USIA cabled Athens in September 1967 (RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 9/1/67 USIA to Athens, 3072, 28 September 1967). 132. RG 59, Entry 5641, Records Relating to Greece, 1963–1974, Box 3, EDU 124 to E5, RAD 2, Reports and State (VOA GAMMA), Greece 1967, Stier, USIA, to Taylor, Athens, 2 June 1967. 133. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 9/1/67 USIA to Athens, 3072, 28 September 1967. 134. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/68 Athens to State, 4888, 22 May 1968. 135. Ibid.; RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/68 Athens to State, A-623, memorandum of conversation, 23 May 1968. 136. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/68, Joint State-USIA message to Athens, 23 May 1968. 137. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 6/1/68 USIA to Athens, “VOA Operations and Facilities in Greece,” 12 June 1968. 138. At first, the Ministry had requested the “details” of the VOA agreements from the U.S. embassy (RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/68 Athens to State, 4888, 22 May 1968). The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 221 139. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 5/1/68 Athens to State, 4975, 27 May 1968. 140. Perhaps, resentment over the handling of the VOA issue was behind the replacement in autumn 1968 of Lysandros Kaftantzoglou by John Sossides as head of the Third Political Directorate of the Foreign Ministry which dealt with the western hemisphere. 141. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 7/1/68 Athens to State, 5628, 2 July 1968. 142. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 2146, POL 2 GREECE 1/1/68, Athens to State, A-492, 14 March 1968, attachment: memorandum for the record, “Impressions of Greek Public Opinion.” 143. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 7/1/68 Athens to State, 5910, 17 July 1968. 144. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 11/1/68 Athens to State, 7699, 5 November 1968. 145. Ibid. 146. Keeley, H amerikanikhv presbeiva kai h katavrreush thı dhmokrativaı sthn Ellavda, 1966–1969, 328. 147. Orestis E. Vidalis, Confronting the Greek Dictatorship in the U.S. (New York: Pella, 2009), 19. Cf. Couloumbis, ...71...74, 255, 261, 266. 148. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 3/1/69 Athens to State, 1657, 25 April 1969. 149. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 3/1/69 Athens to State, 1707, 28 April 1969. 150. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1970–1973, box 2328, POL 13-2 GREECE 6–14–73, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Research Study, “US Policy Statements and Chronology on Greece, April 1967–July 1973,” 12 September 1973. 151. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1970–1973, box 2328, POL 13-2 GREECE 6–14–73, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Research Study, “US Policy Statements and Chronology on Greece, April 1967–July 1973,” 12 September 1973. 152. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 71, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1946–1997, Radio, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1968–1969, The Sunday Bulletin, Philadelphia, “VOA Censors News; Transmitters at Stake; Greek News Censored on VOA,” 17 August 1969; ibid., Allan E. Baker, IBS, to Marion L. Ball, IGC, “Congress and Greece,” 22 August 1969. 153. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 71, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1946–1997, Radio, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1968–1969, The Sunday Bulletin, Philadelphia, 17 August 1969. 154. Ibid. 222 Ioannis D. Stefanidis 155. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 71, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1946–1997, Radio, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1968–1969, Philadelphia, PA, Bulletin, “The Voice of Greece?” 23 August 1969. 156. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 8/1/69 Athens to State, 4627, 16 October 1969. 157. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 11/1/69 Athens to State, 5063, 14 November 1969. 158. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 8/1/69 Athens to State, 4627, 16 October 1969; ibid., Athens to State, 5252, 26 November 1969. 159. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 11/1/69 State to Athens, 12 December 1969. 160. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 2/1/70 Athens to State, 487, “General Angelis and VOA Problem,” 4 February 1970. 161. FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. 29, Eastern Europe; Eastern Mediterranean, 1969– 1972, Doc. 263, memorandum of conversation, Washington, 18 November 1969. 162. Vidalis, Confronting the Greek Dictatorship in the U.S., 19. 163. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 122, USIA Broadcasting Service, Comment and Criticism, 1967–1981, Evans-Novak, “VOA’s Broadcasts to Greece,” Washington Post, 11 August 1971; and Donald R. Browne, The Voice of America: Policies and Problems, Journalism Monographs, no. 43 (Lexington, Ky.: Association for Education in Journalism, 1976), 34. 164. Evans and Novak commented that Giddens’ excuses for the censoring of the VOA roundups “accurately reflect[ed] the kid-gloves American policy on the Greek dictatorship” (RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 122, USIA Broadcasting Service, Comment and Criticism, 1967–1981, Evans-Novak column, Washington Post, 11 August 1971). 165. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 8/1/71 State to Athens, tel., “Washington Post Evans-Novak Article,” 11 August 1971; ibid., Central Policy Files, 1970–1973, Box 2334, POL GREECE-US 7–14–71, State to Athens, 11 August 1971. 166. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 8/1/71 State to Athens, 11 August 1971. 167. Browne, The Voice of America, 62, note 98; and Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 313. 168. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1970–1973, Box 2334, POL GREECE-US 6–26–70, Athens to State, 4368, 21 August 1971. 169. Couloumbis, ...71...74, 261. 170. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Memorandum of Conversation, Anthony Nomikos, Greek Counselor-George T. Churchill, NEA, Greek Desk, 17 April 1973. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 223 171. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 122, USIA Broadcasting Service, Comment and Criticism, 1967–1981, Evans-Novak column, Washington Post, 7 April 1974. After succeeding Shakespeare as USIA director, Keogh, formerly a Time magazine executive, set up a panel of USIA officials “to check all VOA scripts and agency newsfile stories for balance and accuracy” (Dizard, The Story of the U.S. Information Agency, 109). 172. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 332. 173. On the Romanian leaders’ attachment to the Stalinist political and economic blueprint and their aversion to Khrushchev’s iconoclasm, see Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 168-87. Cf. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 117; and Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 231-32. 174. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 101-3; and Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 231, 258. 175. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 103 and note 30. 176. Ibid., 106; and Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 266-67. 177. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 265, 267. 178. Ibid., 230-31. 179. Ibid., 232, 234. 180. As a committee appointed by Johnson to study East-West trade put it in mid1965, “trade is one of the few channels available to us for constructive contacts with nations with whom we find frequent hostility. In the long run, selected trade, intelligently negotiated and wisely administered, may turn out to have been one of our most powerful tools of national policy.” Quoted in Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 256. 181. Ibid., 253, 260-70. 182. Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 187-89, 201-3. 183. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 114-15; Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 273-74; and Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 202-3. The latter author dismisses Ceauşescu’s reactions as “nothing but a masquerade,” which, however, succeeded in misleading both foreign observers and the Romanian public. 184. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 299. Within a month of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Romania returned to Warsaw Pact ministerial meetings and maneuvers (ibid., 275). 185. Ibid., 275. 186. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-27, “US Policy Assessment for Romania,” 7 February 1970. 187. In early 1970, the Bucharest embassy was warning Washington to be “careful not to accept and fall in with all the regime’s designs” (ibid.). 188. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 285-88. 189. Quoted in ibid., 293. 190. Ibid., 290-93, 296. 191. Ibid., 300-301, 312-13. 224 Ioannis D. Stefanidis 192. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-27, “US Policy Assessment for Romania,” 7 February 1970. 193. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 294. 194. Ibid., 255, 382, 393, 395; and Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 198. 195. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 261-62. 196. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the largest trade union federation in the US, feared that imports from low-wage, statecontrolled economies would unfairly compete with home industries (Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 348). 197. Ibid., 315-16, 319-20, 323. 198. Ibid., 295-300, 312-15, 321-22. The issue of defaulted prewar bonds owed to U.S. investors precluded support for the IMF membership (ibid., 330). 199. Ibid., 320. 200. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-152, 21 June 1973; and Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 349-50. It was later reported that, under Ceauşescu, Romania served as a channel for the transfer of Western technology to the Soviet Union (Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 221). 201. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 117-18; and Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 323-28. 202. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 329. 203. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-22, “Policy Assessment for Romania,” 22 January 1973. 204. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 356-59, 369. 205. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 104, 112, 118-19; and Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 192-94, 196-97. In early 1970, the U.S. embassy considered the pace of Romanian internal reform “unreasonably slow” (RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROM-US 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-27, “US Policy Assessment for Romania,” 7 February 1970). 206. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 117-19, 123-24; and Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 203-6. 207. A visit that alarmed Moscow and drew “a flood of criticism” from his East European partners (Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 31719). 208. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 119-20; and Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 318. 209. “The Saint,” a 1960s British series, writes a British authority on Romanian affairs, “caused Bucharest streets to be deserted between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturday evenings” (Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 113). 210. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 321. 211. The Romanian dictator, it was noted, was “fully aware of the superficial ideological training of most of his Party cadres” (RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2567, POL 15-1 ROM 1/1/71, Department of State, Bureau of Intelli- The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 225 gence and Research, Intelligence Note, “Romania: Party Tightens Grip over Ideology, Politics, and Culture,” 13 July 1971). This interpretation of the July Theses was later corroborated by the U.S. embassy in Bucharest (ibid., Box 2568, POL ROM-US 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-64, “Annual Assessment for Romania,” 10 March 1972; and ibid., Bucharest to State, A-22, “Policy Assessment for Romania,” 22 January 1973). Cf. Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 206. 212. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Acting Secretary to Meeker, Bucharest, 12 February 1971. 213. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 296. 214. RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970; RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-262, “VOA Monitoring Report for September,” 1 November 1971; ibid., Box 2568, POL ROM-US 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-64, “Annual Assessment for Romania,” 10 March 1972. Cf. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 330, 342-43, 365. 215. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2565, POL 2 ROM 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-299, “Romania’s Record in East-West Contacts,” 23 October 1973. 216. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 2/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-59, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 24 February 1971; ibid., RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2565, POL 2 ROM 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-299, “Romania’s Record in East-West Contacts,” 23 October 1973. 217. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 236, 314, 36768. 218. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-27, “US Policy Assessment for Romania,” 7 February 1970. 219. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-64, “Annual Assessment for Romania,” 10 March 1972. Cf. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 330, 342-43, 365. 220. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2565, POL 2 ROM 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-299, “Romania’s Record in East-West Contacts,” 23 October 1973. 221. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 107-10. 222. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2565, POL 2 ROM 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-299, “Romania’s Record in East-West Contacts,” 23 October 1973. 223. The Romanian authorities extracted equivalent amounts from the families of those wishing to emigrate. Between 1950 and 1989 some 282,000 Germans left the country (Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 110). 226 Ioannis D. Stefanidis 224. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 314, 330-32, 344-72. 225. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2565, POL 2 ROM 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-299, “Romania’s Record in East-West Contacts,” 23 October 1973. 226. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 354-63, 365-69. During his 1973 visit to Washington, the Romanian dictator publicly disapproved of linking foreign relations with “internal problems” (ibid., 359). 227. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_National_Committee. 228. Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 352, 366. 229. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-27, “US Policy Assessment for Romania,” 7 February 1970. 230. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 125; and Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 388. 231. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-22, “Policy Assessment for Romania,” 22 January 1973. Cf. Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 207, 209. 232. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 114; and Harrington and Courtney, Tweaking the Nose of the Russians, 268. 233. Deletant, Romania under Communist Rule, 114, 124; and Tismaneanu, Stalinism for All Seasons, 198-99, 202. 234. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2565, POL 2 ROM 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-347, “sampling of Romanian Opinion,” 6 December 1973. See similar observations in ibid., Box 2568, POL ROM-US 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-22, “Policy Assessment for Romania,” 22 January 1973; RG 306, Entry P 118, Foreign Opinion Notes, 1973–1989, Box 1, N-16-74, USIA, Research Service, Research Note, “Popular Attitudes in Romania through the Eyes of American Exhibit Guides,” 2 October 1974. 235. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 114, VOA, Language Services, 1944–1992, C. W. Wertler to L. G. Blockman (sic), “History of Rumanian Broadcasts,” 31 May 1944. 236. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 86, Studies and Reports, 1953–1978, Radio, Studies and Reports, 1966, USIA, Office of Policy and Research, Research Service, “VOA Audience Estimate 1966,” E-1-66, December 1966. 237. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA, History, 1970–1971, “The History of the Voice of America,” September 1969; RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970. 238. RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970; ibid., Box 38, R-28-71, USIA, Office of Research and Assessment, Research Service, “VOA Listening in Romania, 1970,” 6 December 1971. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 227 239. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 1/1/69 Bucharest to State, 38, 9 January 1969; ibid., RAD 8/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-272, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring,” 16 August 1969. 240. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 3/1/67 Bucharest, to State, A-281, “VOA Monitoring Reports,” December 1966, January-February 1967, 29 March 1967; ibid., Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 9/1/68 State to various East/Central European posts, CA-11568, “VOA Airtime for East European Languages,” 16 October 1968; ibid., RAD 11/1/69 Bucharest to State, 2945, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring,” 8 November 1969; ibid., 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 3/1/70 Bucharest to State, A-97, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service, February 13, 1970,” 25 March 1970; ibid., RAD 12/1/70 Bucharest to State, A-342, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 11 December 1970. According to a November 1969 report, “the strong, pervasive fading and interference across all frequencies suggests that the difficulty lies in transmitting from continental US to European relays rather than in [the] last leg of transmitting.” 241. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 9/1/68 State to various East/Central European posts, CA-11568, “VOA Airtime for East European Languages,” 16 October 1968. 242. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 9/1/68 Bucharest to State, A-427, “Romanian Radio and TV Listening Habits,” 10 September 1968; ibid., RAD 11/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-355, “Monitoring of VOA Romanian Service,” 3 December 1969. It was impossible to “avoid the last half hour of Romanian conflicting with the late movies,” VOA admitted, but took consolation in the fact that the first hour of its ninetyminute evening program was “free of conflict” (ibid., State to various East/Central European posts, CA-11568, “VOA Airtime for East European Languages,” 16 October 1968). 243. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 2/1/67, Bucharest, to State, A-211, IBS Program Review Board, 2 February 1967; RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 38, R-28-71, USIA, Office of Research and Assessment, Research Service, “VOA Listening in Romania, 1970,” 6 December 1971. According to the latter report, Romanian WWE listeners were estimated at 6 percent of the VOA total. 244. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 8/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-272, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring,” 16 August 1969; ibid., RAD 11/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-355, “Monitoring of VOA Romanian Service,” 3 December 1969. 245. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 4/1/68 Bucharest to State, A-266, “VOA Romanian Broadcasts of April 3,” 12 April 1968; ibid., Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 8/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-272, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring,” 16 August 1969; ibid., Subject Numeric Files, 1970– 1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 12/1/70 Bucharest 228 Ioannis D. Stefanidis to State, A-342, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 11 December 1970; ibid., RAD 4/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-99, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 30 April 1971. 246. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 3/1/67 Bucharest, to State, A-281, “VOA Monitoring Reports,” December 1966, January-February 1967, 29 March 1967. 247. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 11/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-355, “Monitoring of VOA Romanian Service,” 3 December 1969; ibid., Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 3/1/70 Bucharest to State, A-97, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service, February 13, 1970,” 25 March 1970. 248. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 11/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-355, “Monitoring of VOA Romanian Service,” 3 December 1969; ibid., Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 3/1/70 Bucharest to State, A-97, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service, February 13, 1970,” 25 March 1970; RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970; RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 38, R-28-71, USIA, Office of Research and Assessment, Research Service, “VOA Listening in Romania, 1970,” 6 December 1971. Cf. Nestor Ratesh, “Radio Free Europe’s Impact in Romania During the Cold War,” in Cold War Broadcasting: Impact on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: A Collection of Studies and Documents, ed. A. Ross Johnson and R. Eugene Parta (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010), 206. 249. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-138, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for April,” 18 May 1972; ibid., RAD 3/1/72 State to Bucharest, A-6276, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Reports,” 22 June 1972. 250. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 8/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-272, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring,” 16 August 1969. 251. RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970; RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROM-US 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-22, “Policy Assessment for Romania,” 22 January 1973. 252. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-53, “Evaluation of VOA Romania Output, January 26, as requested,” 18 February 1972. 253. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, Bucharest to State, A-267, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for November,” 18 December 1972. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 229 254. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-185, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June,” 27 July 1972. The embassy monitoring officer singled out VOA’s “US Election: The Clearest Choice in the Century” for praise (ibid., RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-202, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 21 September 1972). 255. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-52, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for January,” 22 February 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-261, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 20 September 1973. 256. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-112, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for March,” 20 April 1972. 257. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-185, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June,” 27 July 1972. 258. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-192, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for July,” 17 August 1972; ibid., RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-66, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for February,” 22 March 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-330, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for October,” 29 November 1973. 259. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-112, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for March,” 20 April 1972. 260. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-152, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for April and May,” 21 June 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-232, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June and July,” 30 August 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-261, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 20 September 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 State to Bucharest, A-8015, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report, April-May 1973,” 21 September 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-310, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for September,” 8 November 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-330, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for October,” 29 November 1973. 261. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-185, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June,” 27 July 1972. 262. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-330, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for October,” 29 November 1973. 263. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-185, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June,” 27 July 1972; ibid., RAD 230 Ioannis D. Stefanidis 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-202, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 21 September 1972. 264. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-202, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 21 September 1972. 265. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-267, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for November,” 18 December 1972; ibid., RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-25, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for December,” 1 February 1973. 266. Such an example was a commentary titled “Eastern European Youth Reject Communist Ideology” (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-185, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June,” 27 July 1972). 267. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 3/1/67 Bucharest, to State, A-281, “VOA Monitoring Reports,” December 1966, January-February 1967, 29 March 1967. 268. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-25, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for December,” 1 February 1973. 269. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 State to Bucharest, A-2896, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report, December 1972,” 3 April 1973. 270. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 12/1/70 Bucharest to State, A-342, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 11 December 1970. The embassy reproached VOA for failing to give Khrushchev’s death “more time and better treatment” (ibid., Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-262, “VOA Monitoring Report for September,” 1 November 1971; ibid., RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-138, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for April,” 18 May 1972; ibid., RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-202, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 21 September 1972; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-310, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for September,” 8 November 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-330, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for October,” 29 November 1973). 271. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-232, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for September,” 2 November 1972; ibid., RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-66, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for February,” 22 March 1973; ibid, RAD 4/1/73 State to Bucharest, A-2896, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report, December 1972,” 3 April 1973. 272. The feature in question was titled “Few philosophers or political theoreticians have been proved as wrong as Marx in the predictions he made” (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 231 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-202, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 21 September 1972). 273. In this case, the treatment of dissidents, such as Solzhenitsyn or Andrei Sakharov (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-310, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for September,” 8 November 1973). 274. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-192, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for July,” 17 August 1972. 275. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 4/1/68 Bucharest to State, A-266, “VOA Romanian Broadcasts of April 3,” 12 April 1968; Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 State to Bucharest, A-2896, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report, December 1972,” 3 April 1973. 276. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 4/1/68 Bucharest to State, A-266, “VOA Romanian Broadcasts of April 3,” 12 April 1968. 277. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-244, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for October,” 16 November 1972; ibid., RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-267, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for November,” 18 December 1972; ibid., RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A25, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for December,” 1 February 1973. 278. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-366, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for November,” 27 December 1973. 279. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROM-US 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-22, “Policy Assessment for Romania,” 22 January 1973. 280. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-25, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for December,” 1 February 1973; RAD 11/1/72 State to Bucharest, A-1626, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report, November 1972,” 22 February 1973. 281. Thus, during 1973, VOA features included the Rom Control Data joint venture, the General Tire deal, the Export-Import Bank loan for the purchase of three Boeing passenger aircraft (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-52, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for January,” 22 February 1973; and ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-152, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for April and May,” 21 June 1973). 282. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, 232 Ioannis D. Stefanidis A-95, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for March,” 26 April 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-232, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June and July,” 30 August 1973. 283. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 3/1/67 Bucharest, to State, A-281, “VOA Monitoring Reports,” December 1966, January-February 1967, 29 March 1967. Cf. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 291. 284. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 3/1/67 Bucharest, to State, A-281, “VOA Monitoring Reports,” December 1966, January-February 1967, 29 March 1967. On at least two occasions, the embassy asked for more extensive coverage of events related to the war. These were Nixon’s address on a plan for peace in Vietnam, on 25 January 1972, and the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive, in the spring of that year. In both cases, the embassy invoked the “gross distortion of events in the local press” (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-53, “Evaluation of VOA Romania Output, January 26, as requested,” 18 February 1972; ibid., RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, 1119, “VOA Treatment of Vietnam Events,” 7 April 1972; ibid., RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-185, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June,” 27 July 1972). 285. This view would be increasingly shared by several field posts which concluded that Vietnam was “no longer a major attitudinal factor” (Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 309). 286. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 2/1/70 State to Bucharest, A-16, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Broadcasts,” 6 February 1970. 287. Or, as it was alternatively put, “an awful lot of bombing and an awful lot of bombs” (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-202, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 21 September 1972). See similar criticism in ibid., Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 12/1/70 Bucharest to State, A-342, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 11 December 1970; ibid., RAD 2/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-59, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 24 February 1971; ibid., Box 451, Culture and Information, RADVOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-262, “VOA Monitoring Report for September,” 1 November 1971; ibid., RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-185, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June,” 27 July 1972. 288. For instance, the post considered as “unbalanced” a commentary stressing the amount of aid from communist states to the North. The South, it was pointed out, had received many times as much from the United States (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-67, “VOA Monitoring Report for February,” 10 March 1972). On another occasion, an item on falling North Vietnamese morale was dismissed as pure propaganda (ibid., RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-161, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for May,” 19 June 1972). The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 233 289. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-262, “VOA Monitoring Report for September,” 1 November 1971; ibid., RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-53, “Evaluation of VOA Romania Output, January 26, as requested,” 18 February 1972; RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, 1119, “VOA Treatment of Vietnam Events,” 7 April 1972. VOA was commended for its “rapid and adequate coverage” of the Paris peace accords (ibid., RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-52, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for January,” 22 February 1973). 290. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-67, “VOA Monitoring Report for February,” 10 March 1972; ibid., Bucharest to State, 1119, “VOA Treatment of Vietnam Events,” 7 April 1972; ibid., Bucharest to State, A-112, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for March,” 20 April 1972; ibid., RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-185, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June,” 27 July 1972; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-95, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for March,” 26 April 1973. 291. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 4/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-99, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 30 April 1971. 292. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-330, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for October,” 29 November 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-366, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for November,” 27 December 1973. 293. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-67, “VOA Monitoring Report for February,” 10 March 1972. 294. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-262, “VOA Monitoring Report for September,” 1 November 1971; ibid., RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-67, “VOA Monitoring Report for February,” 10 March 1972. 295. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-161, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for May,” 19 June 1972; ibid., RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-185, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June,” 27 July 1972; ibid., RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-202, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 21 September 1972; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-232, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for June and July,” 30 August 1973; ibid., RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-310, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for September,” 8 November 1973. 296. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-366, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for November,” 27 December 1973. 297. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 305. 234 Ioannis D. Stefanidis 298. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 8/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-206, 16 August 1969, attached memorandum by Lent, VOA correspondent. 299. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 8/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-206, 16 August 1969; ibid., Bucharest to State, A-272, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring,” 16 August 1969. 300. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-27, “US Policy Assessment for Romania,” 7 February 1970. 301. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 2/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-59, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 24 February 1971. VOA Romanian did not play exclusively American music by American performers. This led the embassy monitoring officer to suggest a more ethnocentric approach (ibid., Box 451, Culture and Information, RADVOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-295, “VOA Monitoring Report for October,” 10 December 1971; cf. Ratesh, “Radio Free Europe’s Impact in Romania,” 206). 302. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 12/1/70 Bucharest to State, A-342, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 11 December 1970; ibid., Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A295, “VOA Monitoring Report for October,” 10 December 1971; ibid., RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-295, “VOA Monitoring Report for October,” 10 December 1971. 303. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 408, Culture and Information, RAD VOA to RAD 16 FBIS, RAD 8/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-272, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring,” 16 August 1969; ibid., RAD 11/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-355, “Monitoring of VOA Romanian Service,” 3 December 1969. In February 1973, the VOA Romanian Service introduced VOA a weekly feature series on American films (ibid., Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 State to Bucharest, A1626, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report, November 1972,” 22 February 1973). At least one report casts doubt on the appeal of VOA record playing. Young Romanians surveyed in autumn 1970 described this and other programs as “mediocre compared to what is available on other stations” (RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” twoweek exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970). 304. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-67, “VOA Monitoring Report for February,” 10 March 1972; ibid., Bucharest to State, A-138, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for April,” 18 May 1972; ibid., RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-202, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 21 September 1972. 305. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 4/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-99, “Monitoring The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 235 VOA Romanian Service,” 30 April 1971; Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-262, “VOA Monitoring Report for September,” 1 November 1971. 306. These included Stella Roman, a renowned soprano, and the Romanian Jewish Theater, which toured the United States in September 1972 (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-53, “Evaluation of VOA Romania Output, January 26, as requested,” 18 February 1972; ibid., RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-232, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for September,” 2 November 1972). 307. In one instance, the post noted with approval an item on the preservation of Romanian Christmas traditions in the US (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-25, “VOA Monitoring Romanian Service Report for December,” 1 February 1973). On another occasion, a VOA interview with the president of the Union and League of Romanian Societies of America led the post to express ignorance of its existence (ibid., RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-52, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for January,” 22 February 1973). 308. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-53, “Evaluation of VOA Romania Output, January 26, as requested,” 18 February 1972. 309. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, 4383, 27 November 1972. 310. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 State to Bucharest, A-1626, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report, November 1972,” 22 February 1973. 311. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 8/1/69 Bucharest to State, A-272, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring,” 16 August 1969. 312. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-310, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for September,” 8 November 1973. 313. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, 1119, “VOA Treatment of Vietnam Events,” 7 April 1972; ibid., RAD 8/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-202, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for August,” 21 September 1972. 314. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 Bucharest to State, 1731, “VOA Comment on Romanian Internal Matter,” 23 May 1972. 315. This story was quite revealing about the (re)production of commentaries in VOA broadcasts. The item on the Romanian Writers Union conference had come from the VOA Munich Bureau and was based on a New York Times report of an 236 Ioannis D. Stefanidis Associated Press story (RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 3/1/72 State to Bucharest, 26 May 1972). 316. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 294, 300. 317. RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970; RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 38, R-28-71, USIA, Office of Research and Assessment, Research Service, “VOA Listening in Romania, 1970,” 6 December 1971. 318. Mitrovich et al., “Cold War Broadcasting Impact,” 31. This image was drastically altered as the regime became more oppressive during the last ten to fifteen years of its existence, when, according to Nestor Ratesh, its former director, the RFE Romanian Service was acknowledged as “a surrogate free national medium” (Ratesh, “Radio Free Europe’s Impact in Romania,” 207, 213-16). 319. Dana Mustata, “Geographies of Power: The Case of Foreign Broadcasting in Dictatorial Romania,” in Airy Curtains in the European Ether: Broadcasting and the Cold War, ed. Alexander Badenoch, Andreas Fickers, and Christian Henrich-Franke (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2013), 155. This study draws upon evidence of Securitate surveillance of both foreign stations and their Romanian audience during the 1980s. 320. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2565, POL 2 ROM 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-299, “Romania’s Record in East-West Contacts,” 23 October 1973. Cf. Ratesh, “Radio Free Europe’s Impact in Romania,” 208-9, 21116. 321. Mustata, “Geographies of Power,” 150. 322. A view apparently shared by many VOA listeners (RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970). 323. RG 59, Entry 1613, Central Policy Files, 1967–1969, Box 407, Culture and Information, RAD FBIS to RAD VOA, RAD 1/1/68 State to Bucharest, 4 January 1968. 324. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 10/1/70 Bucharest to State, 3062, 24 October 1970. 325. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 4/1/73 Bucharest to State, A-95, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for March,” 26 April 1973. 326. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 450, Culture and Information, to RAD-VOA 8/1/73, RAD 3/1/70 Bucharest to State, A-97, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service, February 13, 1970,” 25 March 1970; ibid., RAD 12/1/70 Bucharest to State, A-342, “Monitoring VOA Romanian Service,” 11 December 1970; ibid., Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/71 Bucharest to State, A-262, “VOA Monitoring Report for September,” 1 November 1971. The VOA, the Greek Dictatorship, and Ceauşescu’s Romania 237 327. RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970; RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2565, POL 2 ROM 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-347, “sampling of Romanian Opinion,” 6 December 1973. 328. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 91, (Radio) Free Europe, 1951–1998, Radio, Free Europe, 1970–1971, RFE, Audience and Public Opinion Research Department, “The Reliability of RFE,” December 1970. 329. RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 37, R-21-1971, IOR/RS Reports Officer, report on Romanian popular attitudes and audience response to “Research and Development: USA,” two-week exhibit, Bucharest, October 1970. 330. RG 306, Entry P 142, Research Reports, 1960–1989, Box 38, R-28-71, USIA, Office of Research and Assessment, Research Service, “VOA Listening in Romania, 1970,” 6 December 1971. 331. RG 306, Entry P 118, Foreign Opinion Notes, 1973–1989, Box 1, N-16-74, USIA, Research Service, Research Note, “Popular Attitudes in Romania through the Eyes of American Exhibit Guides,” 2 October 1974. 332. Mustata, “Geographies of Power,” 165. Cf. Ratesh, “Radio Free Europe’s Impact in Romania,” 206-7. 333. RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 111, VOA History, 1962– 1974, VOA, History, 1970–1971, “The History of the Voice of America,” September 1969. 334. RG 59 Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 2568, POL ROMUS 1/1/70, Bucharest to State, A-27, “US Policy Assessment for Romania,” 7 February 1970. Cf. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, 220. 335. Couloumbis, ...71...74, 261; cf. the instances of criticism in the U.S. press (RG 306, Entry 1066, Subject Files 1953–1999, Box 71, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1946–1997, Radio, Broadcasting to USSR and Eastern Europe, 1968–1969, Philadelphia, PA, Bulletin, “The Voice of Greece?,” 23 August 1969; Box 122, USIA Broadcasting Service, Comment and Criticism, 1967–1981, Rowland Evans-Robert Novak, “VOA’s Broadcasts to Greece,” Washington Post, 11 August 1971). 336. RG 59, Entry 1613, Subject Numeric Files, 1970–1973, Box 451, Culture and Information, RAD-VOA 9/1/71 to RAD-VOA 4/1/73, RAD 11/1/72 Bucharest to State, A-66, “VOA Romanian Service Monitoring Report for February,” 22 March 1973. 337. Mitrovich et al., “Cold War Broadcasting Impact,” 30. The Modern Greek Studies Yearbook is published by the Modern Greek Studies Program at the University of Minnesota. The price for this offprint is $5.00. The price for volume 32/33 is $60.00. Checks should be made payable to Modern Greek Studies and sent to: Modern Greek Studies 325 Social Sciences Building University of Minnesota 267–19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55455 Telephone: (612) 624-4526 FAX: (612) 626-2242 E-mail: mgsp@umn.edu Copyright © 2017, Modern Greek Studies, University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.