Richard Condon, Radio Free Europe (RFE) European Director reports the release of RFE staff from detention in Gyor, Hungary.

Richard Condon, Radio Free Europe (RFE) European Director reports on the border situation in late October and RFE staff who entered Hungary to report on the developing revolt there.

Richard Condon, the European Director of Radio Free Europe in Munich, messages with information about RFE personnel still inside Hungary.

Frederick ("Fritz") Hier was an American employee of Radio Free Europe. He led a team which entered Hungary on October 31 to report on the events of the Hungarian Revolution. Hier was joined by RFE journalists Gabor Tormay from the Hungarian Service, Jerzy Ponikiewicz from the Polish Service, and a journalist from South German Radio, who helped tape RFE interviews in return for transportation. They reported the Revolution from Győr and nearby cities and interviewed heads of local revolutionary councils.

Observations of BBC managers two months after the start of RFE broadcasting from Munich on May 1, 1951. It includes their analysis of the Czechoslovak Service broadcasts on May 26th, 1951, and of the network of field bureaus to gather information from refugees. They lauded the enthusiasm of RFE broadcasters but criticized their programs for mixing opinion with fact in newscast.

The Interior Ministry directive from which this document is excerpted ordered an investigation into how a confidential regime survey of attitudes toward the Catholic Church could have been leaked to RFE. In a follow-up report almost two years later, the Interior Ministry conceded on June 25, 1987 that many people had access to the report and it was impossible to determine who had provided RFE with the material.

RFE Polish Service Director Zdzisław Najder was, like Col. Ryszard Kuklinski and Polish ambassadors who defected after the imposition of martial law, sentenced to death in absentia for treason. This document is an “expert opinion” to the effect that Najder required CIA support to become Polish Service Director.

Pavel Minarik worked at RFE from 1968 to 1976 as an agent of the Czechoslovak Intelligence Service. During these years he provided many documents and analyses to the Service. This document contains Interior Minister Obzina’s approval of an Intelligence Service plan to recall and publicize Minarik’s activities. Minarik was recalled to Prague and surfaced at a staged press conference in 1976.

A Bulgarian Interior Ministry paper details coordinated actions against Western radio in the aftermath of the May 1977 Budapest meeting of Bloc security services. The paper identifies RFE, and notably several of its broadcasters who recently defected from Bulgaria, as a major threat. It accuses Western media of sensationalizing the murder of Georgi Markov (who was killed by the Zhivkov regime).

Various counter-measures against RFE and RL were discussed in this meeting, including a possible international trial of the “committee” supporting RFE and RL.