Founded in the tense, early days of the Cold War, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) played the role of a surrogate free press for the nations behind the iron curtain. For more than five decades, RFE/RL has gathered, analyzed, and disseminated information in a unique way. The RFE/RL broadcast archives and corporate records housed at the Hoover Institution provide tremendous insight into the war of ideas waged between the United States and the Soviet Union. With 10.5 million pages of documents and some 80,000 audiotapes, the collection is a rich trove of information for scholars interested in the Cold War and the beginning of the post-Soviet period. [+]

SUPPORT FROM THE BERNARD OSHER FOUNDATION

The effort to catalog and research the RFE/RL collection is supported in part by a generous grant from the Bernard Osher Foundation of San Francisco. The Osher Foundation has provided funding to bring journalist-scholars from the Radios' various language services to Hoover to assist in the organization of the archival materials and to research the Radios' activity in the histories of the countries they serviced. The Osher program also provides for a student internship program; the student interns assist in the processing of archival materials and contribute to the web site devoted to the collection. Over the course of four years, this grant will bring twenty fellows and interns to the archives. [+]

From left to right, Lijuan Li, Vlado Azinovic, Anatol Shmelev, Noppadol Pringvanich, and Elena Danielson at the Osher Scholars Reception, sponsored by the Bernard Osher Foundation. San Francisco, 24 September 2002.