James T. Blake 4-30-10 Dr.

Wehrle

Scripted Death: How Irresponsible Broadcasts of Radio Free Europe Helped to Incite the Hungary Revolution of 1956 and Worsen the Number of Civilian Dead

Russian tank treads clanked over cobblestone streets. Inside the armored box four tankers nervously glanced out of armored vision slits. The winding streets of Budapest was not a kind place be at the moment, especially when you were a Russian soldier. Sometimes a person could be seen darting from building to building, and the reports of distant weapons fire could be heard echoing through the streets. When the soldiers listened, they could hear radios broadcasting anti-Communist sentiments to help entice the freedom fighters into action. Without warning, dozens of men and women appeared on roof tops all around the tank. Some threw bricks and other bits of rubble, some fired their rifles at the tank, and more dangerously some threw Molotov cocktails.1 The tank fired its main gun, collapsing a building and sending its occupants tumbling down into the rubble. The crew desperately tried to machine gun down the fighters with the firebombs, the sweeping arcs of machine gun fire ripping into the freedom fighters with many falling into heaps in the street below. As half their number was now screaming in agony from wounds, or laid out dead from Soviet bullets the resistance fighters retreated. The tank rolled on down the street, charred, dented, and trailing twin lines of blood as the treads went through where bodies had fallen. All the while broadcasts of Radio Free Europe continued to play through the streets telling the Hungarian nationalists that relief

1 A popular guerrilla weapon made by putting a highly flammable liquid, usually gasoline, into a glass bottle and sealing the bottles opening with a rag. When ready to be used the rag would be lit and the bottle thrown. The glass would shatter spilling the contents over an area and exposing the contents to the fire creating a very cheap, effective incendiary weapon. 1

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was at hand.2 Today if you asked any survivor of the Hungarian Revolution what was the cause for the Revolution and imply that it was Radio Free Europe, they would be angered and appalled. This paper is not to call into question the cause of the Hungarian Revolution, but seeks to show how the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe helped incite the rebellion and made it worse than it had to have been. The history of Radio Free Europe is one of irresponsibility and trying to do anything to undermine Communist leadership. Like most Americans at the time, they saw Communists as just black and white, good or evil, they did not take in to account that just because someone was Communist, they could not be neutral or even beneficial to the United States. We now go back eleven years prior to the fighting between members of the counter-revolution and Soviet troops to the 1945. Europe is torn to pieces. Not only are many countries infrastructure destroyed, but the collapsing of the Third Reich had left a giant power gap. In the West the United States, France, and Great Britain started working on projects to rebuild and put Western Germany back on its feet again. In the East, the Soviets liberated Eastern Europe only to replace the Germans as the new occupying power. With the Western powers trying to spread democracy and the Soviets trying to gain as much territory under its control as possible the Cold War began. Much like the situation prior to World War I, industrialized countries formed into two great alliances. The democratic countries formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Soviets and its satellite countries formed the Warsaw Pact. Much like the situation prior to World War I all that would be required a spark to set off a war, except instead of a bloody
2 Accounts of how the fighting happened were gained from the The Bridge at Andau.

Michener, James.

The Bridge at Andau. New York: Fawcett, 1985

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stalemate its likely that it would have ended in a nuclear fire scouring the earth. So when it came down to the United States versus Russia, the war of ideals could not be fought with soldiers and tanks, it had to be fought with propaganda and revolutionaries. The American Central Intelligence Agency was formed in 1947 to be the United States new military in a war of words and espionage. In 1949 the first planning for what kind of program would be needed started. Much of the inspiration for this came from the actions of the OSS during World War II. The agency had become particularly good at getting partisans to rise up by reporting information about atrocities that the Nazi regime tried to keep hidden.3 When going against an enemy like the Soviet Union, it was not going to be difficult to find people willing to talk about information banned behind the Iron Curtain. With the Stalinist purges still happening, there were many artists and free thinkers that were liquidated from Russian society. These would be the people to spread the American message of Democracy and Capitalism. With creative minds as its ammunition and the airwaves as its weapon Radio Free Europe went to war. In 1951 Radio Free Europe officially came into existence and began its campaign to liberate the minds of Eastern Europe. The organization was to be unique in that it was not to be cut short by government mandates tying actions up in red tape, instead most of its funding came from the CIA, so its one and only purpose was to undermine and subvert the Soviet powers. Under the direction of the CIA, the program went from being just a outlet to allow exiled artists to share their creativity to the people and open up their minds to being a program that would influence people to try and overthrow their Soviet oppressors. Messages were broadcast touting the wonderful the medical advancements in
3 10. Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (New York: Random House 2007), 6.

Inc.,

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the West, RFE knew that the Kremlin kept such information from the people because with state healthcare such niceties could not be afforded to give to everybody. The general higher standard of living enjoyed by those in democratic countries was also reported often, so that when listeners realized what was available to the rest of the world; though these reports were did not mention that the life style being described only belonged to the upper middle class and not the majority.4 So the people behind the Iron Curtain got to hear about the wonders of modern living while they toiled on mass farms or in factories that sent all their goods to Russia. Radio Free Europe was not always seen as good by the people in the Sovietcontrolled countries due to irresponsibility on occasion, such as one where a leaflet dropping balloon caused a passenger plane to crash killing twenty-two people. In one instance, Johanna Granville records, the people behind Radio Free Europe were even going to drop a number of comically large condoms marked USA: Medium into the Polish countryside. The United States government did come in and stop that from happening. Accompanying this child like sense of how to reach the people of Eastern Europe came an equally nave view of the satellites countries leaders. The CIA viewed all Communist leaders as bad, so Radio Free Europe viewed all Communist leaders a s bad. This proved as bad operational policy when the Hungarian leader Imre Nagy came into power after being appointed there by the Politburo5 in 1951. The program immediately began a campaign of criticizing him and calling him a Soviet puppet. Every week pamphlets would be dropped telling the people not to accept Nagys
4 Granville, Johanna, Caught with Jam on Our Fingers: Radio Free Europe and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Diplomatic History 29, issue 5 (Nov. 2005) http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail? vid=4&hid=7&sid=0e64d5e9-2aed-444a8edd59a4eba7%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=18642244 (accessed March 15, 2010) 5 An organization that was a combination Cabinet and Congress and made the decisions in the Kremlin. 4

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control, in the hopes of convincing the people that they needed to take it for themselves. One series of propaganda papers dropped over Hungary even had message that was abbreviated to NEM, which can mean no in Hungarian. This was originally intended with the purpose of influencing people to say no to Nagys policies. What ended up happening was that Hungarians believed that the radio program wanted them to say no to the Soviet run government in general. The fact that they were getting this message from Radio Free Europe meant that they believed that should they had the support of the program, which indirectly meant that they had the support of the United States. When the people running RFE learned of this they did nothing to dispel that notion, letting the idea that America would support them in saying no rest in peoples minds. All these attempts to convince the people of Hungary had an unexpected effect on people far more important than the Hungarian people. The messages convinced the Soviet leadership in Moscow that Nagy was not going to be able to hold control power in Hungary. After only two years in power the Kremlin pulled him from power. The Russian leadership knew that putting Nagy into power was a risky venture, do to his neutral stance and wanting to seek more Independence from Moscow. Afraid that under his less stern leadership he might be overshadowed or even ousted they replaced him, in 1955, with the far less popular Erno Gero who was still a Stalinist. The Politburo in the Kremlin was also afraid that should he fallout of power a power vacuum could be created and a anti-Russian radical might take his place. Though officially condemned by Khrushchev Stalinism was viewed as necessary. The rigid police state was never popular with the people and when seen from the outside was not exactly a good site to influence countries to embrace Communism, however it was very effective at one thing. When it came to

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controlling a population, there was no better method than through fear, and Stalinism excelled in fear. Gero was just the man for the job, so they believed. Lets spend a moment on Imre Nagy himself, as he was a key figure in everything that happened. Born to a peasant family Nagy rose up to become a high ranking member of the Hungarian government and was known to be a true servant of the people. His predecessor, Matyas Rakosi, was known to be a terrible leader. Rakosi was known to be a man that really took advantage of the Stalinist government to gain power and put down all opposition with brutal efficiency. When Nagy was put in power in 1953 he wanted to reform the entire system. He no longer wanted the draconian forms of purging all those who disagreed with his rulings. To really show that he was serious about reform he released all the political prisoners that had been put away in the Stalinist years. He wanted to decrease and end the massive incorporated farms and put them back on an individual basis. And most importantly he wanted to start a withdraw of Soviet military forces and bring the country closer to neutrality. The Hungarian people have always loved nationalist heroes with a particular passion. Nagy was well on his way to reaching this status when the forces behind Radio Free Europe intervened.6 With the CIAs view of all Communist leaders as bad, it lost a good chance to really help make a difference behind the Iron Curtain. Instead of dogmatic leaders completely subservient to Russian leadership, Nagy would be a beacon of freedom and Capitalism in the Soviet satellites that could be used in something like reverse Containment Policy.7 With the people of Hungary enjoying the benefits of full trading with the West and the increased standard of living the populace of the surrounding
6 Nagy, Ernest A. Crisis Decision Setting and Response: The Hungarian Revolution. Washington D.C.: National Defense University 7 The policy of helping countries fight off Communism so that Soviet influence would not spread. 6

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countries would be more likely to shed the their Communist bonds and become a neutral power at the very least, instead of totally loyal to Russia. Instead of embracing this opportunity for truly helping the people they broadcast to, Radio Free Europe began a smear campaign, trying to convince the Hungarian people the Nagy was hardly better than Rakosi.8 This smear campaign did a far better job of convincing the Soviet Politburo that Nagy was not the right man for the job than it did the Hungarian people. To the men in the Kremlin it seemed as if Nagy was loosing his grip on the situation in Hungary, that he was an unpopular leader, when really the populace was more neutral or approving. In 1955 the Soviet government replaced him with Erno Gero who was as Ernest A. Nagy described as a pale copy of Rakosi, the Hungarian Stalin. After the people had grown used to the reformist ideas of Nagy this was a drastic shift. Once again political dissidents and independent thinkers started to be sent to secret locations to be liquidated or reeducated. It was this that caused people, particularly students, to start rallies. When word of this disruption reached the studios of Radio Free Europe; broadcasts starting asking the protesters why they were not allowed radio broadcasts to send their message. With this started what would become a chain of events around the Budapest radio station that would end up in a bloody, failed revolution. Just seven days before the start of the revolution, October 23rd, students at the university in Szeged finally did what Radio Free Europe had accidentally told them to do, they said no. No to the Communist supported student union and groups at their university. Granville, Johanna, Caught with Jam on Our Fingers: Radio Free Europe and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Diplomatic History 29, issue 5 (Nov. 2005) http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=7&sid=0e64d5e9-2aed-444a8edd59a4eba7%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d %3d#db=aph&AN=18642244 (accessed March 15, 2010)
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They implemented an old democratic student movement that was banned under the Rakosi government. Over the next few days several other prominent universities did the same.9 On October 22nd, the day before the first shots were fired, the Technical University of Budapests students created a list of sixteen demands10 that were necessary for the government to meet. The following day there was a rally at the statue of Jozef Bem, a hero of the Hungarian Revolution of 1849, which many thousands of people attended. Radio Free Europe was broadcast out in the open, patriotic songs, with newly added Soviet lyrics cut out, were sung, and Hungary flags had the Soviet coat of arms cut out of them. By mid evening the crowd had reached over two hundred thousand people. At around eight in the evening head of state Gero made an announcement over the state radio that condemned the rally. Anger spread over the previously peaceful crowd and they tore down a thirty foot tall statue of Stalin11 and stuffed its base with Hungarian flags. The Crowd moved to the radio station to try and get air time themselves to broadcast their ideals. The AVH, Soviet controlled secret police force, took up positions in the Radio Budapest building to prevent the people from taking control. Shortly after the crowd arrived a few representatives of the crowd were allowed in to make their own statements counter to those made by Gero. The crowd became even more agitated when it was reported that no announcements on their behalf would be made; and the fact that the representatives sent inside were not seen again lead many in the rally to believe they were executed or detained. The AVH became wary of the increasingly angry crowd and threw
9 The universities in Pecs, Miskolc, and Sopron. 10 These included demands such as democratic elections, breaking ties with Russian control, government recognition of unions, evacuation of Russian troops, Imre Nagy be put back into power, and Rakosi and members of his regime brought before a tribunal. 11 There was particular resentment of this statue because a church had to be torn down to make room for it. 8

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tear gas into their midst. At this point the rally became a full on riot and the AVH opened fire killing several dozen members of the crowd. At this point the revolution had begun.12 Instead of the soon to be blood soaked streets of Budapest we move to the Moscow, the Kremlin to be more specific. Inside a wood paneled room where seventeen men sit around a table some of the most important decisions in the world are made. Amongst these men is Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, and the other heads of the Soviet state. In the Russian Politburo no official notes are kept, though one member, Vladimir Malin13 keeps short hand records of what is going on. It is these seventeen men that decide in the 23rd of October to deploy Soviet forces to assist the government of Hungary in maintaining its control. The notes indicate that the decision to pull Nagy from power were the result of more and more faith being lost in him to control his country. These same notes indicate that the Politburo made the decision to send military aid on not much thought. As Johanna Granville points out, the Soviet heads of state were under a lot of to make a decision as fast and effectively as possible. The trouble in Suez and looming problems in Poland made a situation where snap decisions were the only viable solution, as too much was happening to adequately plan each issue. The use of military force also had the added bonus of sending a message to Poland about what might happen should it decide to revolt, along with any other countries thinking of getting out from behind the curtain.

12 The AVH tried to re-supply themselves by having an ambulance loaded with weapons sneak into the building, but rioters intercepted the ambulance and used the weapons to fight back. The garrison of Soviet troops in Budapest, all Hungarians, were called in for assistance. When they arrived they refused to fight the protestors and removed the Soviet symbols from their uniforms and began attacking the AVH. 13 Granville, Johanna, Caught with Jam on Our Fingers: Radio Free Europe and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Diplomatic History 29, issue 5 (Nov. 2005) http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail? vid=4&hid=7&sid=0e64d5e9-2aed-444a8edd59a4eba7%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=18642244 (accessed March 15, 2010) 9

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These same notes record meetings in 1955 discussing Imre Nagy. These notes contain mention of reports that during RFEs campaign against Nagy there were riots. There is no more mentioned of these riots, but they were enough to seriously shake the Moscows belief in him. Fearing what might happen should he lose influence he was replaced with the hated Gero. It is this movement of Nagy out of power and his replacement with a Stalinist, who brought back policies the people hated, that caused the revolution. Once the government was overthrown in Budapest by the revolutionaries Nagy was put in charge. He is a pivotal figure of the entire revolt. Had he stayed in power the revolution never would have happened. His policies of democracy, neutrality, and an end to the police state were what the people of Hungary wanted. It did not help that their beloved leader was replaced by Erno Gero, a hated man who reinstituted the policies of the even more hated Rakosi. Had Radio Free Europe supported him, or even remained neutral, the Politburo would not have lost faith in him and replaced him. He might have even been able to accomplish his goals of neutrality given time, but that is all conjecture. On the weekend of November the 4th refuges started coming into Austria. These refugees told stories of how Radio Free Europe had promised that United States military aid was on its way. They told of how many fighter decided not to flee, but to stay and fight because they believed that any day they would look up and see parachutes with American soldiers attached to them to help fight for the newly formed government. The people behind RFEs broadcasts say that they never promised military support and that reports of anything even close to that was just hopefully thinking on the side of the revolutionaries. RFE denied any reports that they tried assist the Hungarians at all, that only news was reported. There were some operators who still claimed that the station had

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never tried to undermine Nagy. On November 20th President Eisenhower ordered a report for Allen Dulles14 on activities of Radio Free Europe. In the report was scripts of broadcasts during the revolution. Sixteen of these scripts contained tactical advice given to the Hungarians on methods of urban warfare and the making of improvised weapons. It is reasonable to say that without such advice elements of the revolution would have given up out of lack on any type of way to fight. And those elements still determined to fight now had a better idea of how to fight the Russians, which increased Russian brutality. The greatest irresponsibility during this debacle falls on the shoulders of a RFE broadcaster named Zoltan Thury. On November 4th the London Observer posted an article saying that American sympathy was very high, but congress could not act until a president had been elected. On Wednesday November7th Congress would be able to take action and We shall be closer to a world war than at any time since 1939. Thury also states that Western sympathy is expected to arrive at any hour. In a situation such as the one the Hungarians found themselves in, sympathy could only mean military support. They were not in need of food or water or any other neutral good, they were in need of military actions to drive off the Soviets. Thury reported this entire article without so much as fact checking to see how correct it was, which was not at all. The United States certainly knew of the situation in Hungary, but the government had to make the decision that Hungary was not important enough. No one ever came out and said that was the reason we did not help, but no thought it would be worth started a war with Russia over, as trooping troops into a Soviet battleground would most certainly caused. Freedom fighters interviewed after the revolution said that message brought
14 One of the creators and at the time head of the Central Intelligence Agency. 11

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immense hope with it. Most agreed that the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe had a strong impact on them throughout the revolution.15 Other Western European radio stations broadcasted at this time, but they only contained dry facts. RFE broadcasted twenty four seven with tips and advice. Many resistance members conceded that had they not had the messages from RFE they would have laid down their arms or fled across the border into Austria. The station was played everywhere the revolutionaries had control of, and everyone listened with hope to the messages that told of imminent Western help and how to hold the Soviets off until then. Without hope many revolutionaries would have fled long before the early November broadcast. They knew that the Russians out numbered, out gunned, and out classed them, yet they fought on with hope. The fact that out of our irresponsible foreign policy gave hope to scared civilians fighting a superpower is astounding, it is just such a shame that hope was unfounded. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was really over on the morning of November 4th. Many members, including Nagy, of the new government stayed at their post Soviet troops reached the parliament building. As the majors centers of resistance fell the defenders fell back to defendable positions and attempted to defend against the Red Army. Those too fell within the next few days. In the end the revolution ended like it logically should have. The well equipped, well trained Soviet force crushed the civilian defenders. The Hungarian military too was crushed easily under the treads of Soviet tanks. Over 2,500 Hungarians lay dead, with thousands more wounded, and hundreds more would be executed in the years to come by the new government in conjunction with Moscow. 722 Soviet troops died to the Hungarian nationals and dozens of armored Nelson, Michael. War of the black heavens : the battles of Western broadcasting in the Cold War. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1997
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fighting vehicles were destroyed.16 Imre Nagy was arrested as he was leaving the Yugoslavian embassy in Budapest and in 1958 was executed after a secret trial.17 In the following years the Hungarian government would start to grow more neutral, but high levels of Soviet troops remained until the 1980s. It would be offensive to say that the Revolution came about just because of Radio Free Europe. It is undeniable though that the events in of October 23rd through November 4th were not influenced by the broadcasts. RFE gave hope to the revolutionaries. This is a case where hope is the worst possible thing to give them, because they kept fighting and many more people than necessary died. Had the program been more responsible there might have even been an opportunity to get a Communist leader on friendly terms with the West. Instead over 2,000 people died chasing a dream they were told America would help them reach. Radio Free Europe had a good track record throughout the Cold war of keeping the minds of Soviet controlled people active and alive with thoughts of what life could be, but the program will always have this one large mark on their record. Their irresponsibility is not marked with black ink, but blood.

16 Nagy, Ernest A. Crisis Decision Setting and Response: The Hungarian Revolution. Washington D.C.: National Defense University 17 Stykalin, Aleksandr. Soviet-Yugoslav Relations and the Case of Imre Nagy Cold War History 5, issue 1 (Feb. 2005) http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=12&hid=7&sid=0e64d5e9-2aed-444a8edd59a4eba7%40sessionmgr12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=15501847 (accessed March 15, 2010) 13