During the Cold War, one of America's most powerful weapons
struck a major blow against tyranny every day over the airwaves.
Radio Liberty became a critical source of information for listeners
within the Soviet Union, broadcasting in Russian and more than a
dozen other languages, and covering all aspects of Soviet life.
Sparks of Liberty provides an insider's look at the origins,
development, and operation of Radio Liberty. Gene Sosin, a key
executive with the station for thirty-three years, combines vivid
eyewitness reports with documents from his personal archives to
offer the first complete account of Radio Liberty, tracing its
evolution from Stalin's death to the demise of the USSR, to its
current role in the post-Soviet world.
Sosin describes Radio Liberty's early efforts to cope with KGB
terrorism and Soviet jamming, to minimize interference from the
CIA, and to survive pressure exerted by J. William Fulbright,
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who considered
Radio Liberty a deterrent to detente. The insider's perspective
sheds important light on world affairs as Sosin tells how, over the
years, Radio Liberty took the advice of experts on Soviet politics
to adapt the content and tone of its messages to changing
times.
The book is rich in anecdotes that bring home the realities of
the Cold War. Sosin tells how famous Western political figures,
educators, and writers broadcast messages about workers' rights,
artistic freedom, and unfettered scholarly inquiry--and also how,
beginning in the late 1960s, Radio Liberty beamed the writings of
Soviet dissidents back into the country. During these tumultuous
years, Sosin and his associates saturated the airwaves with the
words of Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn, and others, while many dissidents
who had emigrated from the Soviet Union joined Radio Liberty to
help strengthen its credibility among listeners. Radio Liberty
ultimately became the most popular station from the West, its
influence culminating with the crucial support of Gorbachev and
Yeltsin during the attempted coup against them in August 1991.
As Radio Liberty entered the post-Soviet era, it became a model
for the Russian media. It is now a voice for democratic education
in the post-Soviet nations--broadcasting from Prague, with local
bureaus in several major cities of the former Soviet Union.
Capturing the work and legacy of this enterprise with authority and
exhilaration, Sparks of Liberty is a testament to an enterprise
that saw its message realized and continues to broadcast a message
of hope.
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