Bush Institute staff members recall how Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts impacted their lives and those of people close to them.
Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty for decades spread the universal ideals of freedom and democracy around the world via radio, TV, and digital content. Funded by the U.S. government and reviled by authoritarian regimes, these outlets inspired generations of democracy advocates, particularly in places without a free and independent press. Their legacy lives on in struggles for freedom around the globe.
Together, they communicated core American values – including the Bush Center’s defining principles of freedom, accountability, opportunity, and compassion – directly to regular people around the world in their own languages. The broadcasts allowed American messaging to circumvent censors and media restrictions in regimes from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to Asia and the Middle East, beginning during World War II and the Cold War.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media – which houses Voice of America, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and other services – was shuttered this week by executive order. While these networks may have been silenced, their legacy lives on in struggles for freedom around the globe. A number of Bush Institute staff members recall how the broadcasts impacted their lives and those of people close to them:
Radio Free Europe broadcast hope to post-WWII communist-occupied Hungary
By Andrew Kaufmann, Director of Communications and Marketing
I wouldn’t be here without Radio Free Europe.
When I was 16 years old, my father’s eyes lit up when he saw an album by the band R.E.M. in my room because the first track was titled “Radio Free Europe.” He demanded to listen to it, and I could tell he was a bit disappointed by the jibberishly mumbled lyrics. (I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t appreciate the rocking rhythm.)
But that prompted my dad to tell an important story from his life. He was born in 1940 in Hungary, which was suffering devastating losses in World War II. After the war, Hungary became a Soviet-controlled state, which meant my father grew up under the strict rules of the communist regime.
Radios were outlawed, but my grandparents had a shortwave radio hidden in their home. In my dad’s formative teenage years, the family would hide in the closet and listen to Radio Free Europe broadcasts.
Through Radio Free Europe, my father learned about America – a magical-sounding land where your only limitations were based around your talents and how hard you’re willing to work, and where, most importantly, you were free. When my dad was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he always answered without hesitation: “a capitalist.”
In 1956, the Hungarians fought back against Soviet occupation. After brief jubilation of a successful initial campaign that had the Hungarians optimistic about their freedom, the Soviets struck back with a vengeance and ended the revolution.
While he loved the Hungarian countryside that he had grown up in, my father loved his freedom more. So one evening at 16, he said goodbye to his parents, and the next morning set off with a friend to begin his long journey to America, where he fulfilled Radio Free Europe’s promise: He worked hard, learned English, joined the American military, and eventually started a small business and family of his own, right here in America.
When he passed away in 2022, I wrote “A Hungarian-American Hero” on his grave marker. I fully believe my father was born an American – he just didn’t know it until he heard Radio Free Europe.
Reagan’s USSR radio address calling for personal freedom resonated in Soviet Ukraine
By Igor Khrestin, the Bradford M. Freeman Managing Director of Global Policy
On New Year’s Day 1987, President Ronald Reagan used Voice of America to deliver an address directly to the people of the Soviet Union. The remarks were translated into Russian and other languages spoken in the Soviet Union, including Ukrainian, Georgian, Uzbek, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Latvian, Estonian, and Lithuanian.
My parents, then living in Soviet Ukraine, were among the millions who got the message as the American leader called for “freedom and dignity of individuals” as the foundation for lasting peace. Five years later, on Dec. 25, 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time at the Kremlin, and Ukraine was free again.
My parents weren’t dissidents, but ordinary people for whom the call to freedom from the United States was a powerful one. It resonated with them. Billions of people living in autocracies around the world still need to hear that message – that they’re not alone in striving for freedom and democracy.
Burma Scholars saw democracy in action, got inspired by Voice of America visits
By Michael Bailey, Deputy Director of Leadership Programs
Through our Liberty and Leadership Program, the Bush Institute has had the privilege of engaging diverse young Scholars across Burma who are passionate and visionary leaders for democratic change in their country. During their trips to the United States and Washington, D.C., for programming, the Scholars had the opportunity to visit and engage with Voice of America. This allowed them to see democracy in action. Often, these visits included opportunities for our Scholars to tell their own stories and share their visions for Burma. This gave them the confidence and inspiration to return home and continue being agents for the change they wanted to see in their communities. Even during and after the country’s military coup in February 2021, Voice of America continued to provide access, knowledge, and inspiration to our Scholars and all those on the ground who long to see a return to a more democratic and free nation.
Before the internet, Voice of America brought news and U.S. culture to the Middle East
By Margot Habiby, Deputy Director of Communications
Voice of America’s Arabic-language news broadcast was a fixture in our house every afternoon in the ’70s, ’80s, and beyond. My father, who taught about the Middle East at the university level, would lock himself in his study after lunch every afternoon when he was home and turn on his shortwave radio to learn about what was going on in the region. In the days before the internet, Voice of America was the best way to find out about news from the Middle East as well as to American policy toward the region. I’ll always remember the sounds of that news broadcast beginning.
We were in the States, where Voice of America broadcasts were technically prohibited but still accessible via that shortwave radio. But I also heard it when we visited and briefly lived in the Middle East. I will always remember how Voice of America brought the world closer for me and the people around me, exporting American ideals and culture, like music, as well as the news broadcasts.
