Radio Liberty: 50 Years of Broadcasting

When Radio Liberty’s first broadcasts in Russian went out over the airwaves on March 1, 1953, hardly anyone thought that fifty years later these broadcasts would still be considered a necessary component in the establishment of a free press and democratic system in the former Soviet Union. RFE/RL currently broadcasts in all the languages of the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union and many languages spoken in the Russian Federation. This online exhibit illustrates features and figures of Radio Liberty’s history from its early days into the 21st century, based on the holdings of the Hoover Institution Archives.

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Voices of Hope: The Story of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty
This exhibit, organized on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Radio Free Europe's first full schedule of broadcasting to Czechoslovakia in 1951, covers the history of the radios and some of the broad themes in the Radios' programming over the years. The exhibit first appeared in the Herbert Hoover Memorial Exhibit Pavilion from April 24 to December 28, 2001 and is now available in a web format.

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Read an Article from the Hoover Digest about the Exhibit.