The State Department approves with “comments and recommendations” a November 15, 1956, CIA/International Operations Division draft of revised guidelines for the Free Europe Committee (FEC) with handwritten revisions [presumably by a State official].

Cord Meyer forwards to Allen Dulles a State Department assessment dated November 13, 1956, of Radio Free Europe Hungarian and Polish broadcasts. The assessment was requested by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and was prepared by State Department official L. Randolph Higgs, responsible for coordinating RFE issues with CIA, and Meyer, who objected to an initial State Department draft.

CIA/International Operations Division routing slips raise questions about an attached Free Europe Committee (FEC) draft dated November 12 on the FEC’s role in the wake of the Hungarian Revolution and note that the FEC [in New York] did not forward to Radio Free Europe Munich certain CIA guidances on broadcast policy.

An authoritative, cautionary US government guidance, approved by Allen Dulles and Deputy Undersecretary of State Robert Murphy, conveyed to the Free Europe Committee that afternoon.

CIA and Free Europe Committee (FEC) restate policy for Radio Free Europe in the context of the 1956 upheaval in the Communist world.

West German Ambassador Heinz Krekeler shares his government’s concerns about Free Europe Committee (FEC) balloon operations with Deputy Undersecretary of State Robert Murphy and FEC President Whitney Shepardson.

An annex to the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) “169 Study” on U.S. international communications reviews the goals and effectiveness of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

C.D. Jackson, now assistant to President Eisenhower, urges CIA director Allen Dulles to make contingency plans to exploit future unrest in the Communist world during a perceived “Winter of Discontent.”

Contains information on KGB active measures to undermine the activities and credibility of Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America during the mid 1970’s and early 1980’s. In one operation, personally authorized by KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, the Spanish journal “Arriba” and 42 other Spanish journals published articles stating that Radio Liberty broadcasts into the USSR violated the Helsinki Accords because they impinged upon Soviet sovereignty, and were contrary to Spanish national interests. Following this activity, the Spanish leadership decided not to extend its agreement with the US which allowed Radio Liberty to broadcast from Spain. During a 1976 operation, an East German agent who worked as an international lawyer spread disinformation about Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty’s ‘illegal’ activities in 35 foreign embassies in Vienna. In October 1977, the KGB sent letters to a variety of Western news outlets, including the Washington Post, claiming to be from a group of Radio Free Europe employees. These letters were directed specifically at US Senators Edward Kennedy, Charles Percy, and Frank Church, and Representatives Edward Derwinsky, Clement Zablocky, Herman Badillo, and Berkley Bedell. In 1981, with the help of the journal “Pravda,” the KGB exposed the role of Radio Liberty in the ‘events’ in Poland.

Summary of main points from the meeting of the fraternal intelligence services held in Prague on the 13th and the 14th of February 1976.