Radio Free Europe/Free Europe Committee - Encrypted Telexes

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Peck Radio Free Europe Publicity Photo, 1953.

radio transmission, jamming, and other issues.[5]
Once processed, these historical records will shed more light on the US’s Cold War initiative to combat Soviet influence and distortion of information in Eastern Europe. OSA hopes that the public access to the new FEC digital collection will contribute to the better understanding of the trans-Atlantic connections, émigré aspirations, the operation of Radio Free Europe and finally the FEC institution per se as valuable resources for further scholarly research on the Cold War era.

Structure of the Encrypted Telex Messages

The encrypted telexes consist of two main parts. The message header contain the message number - for the given month, and the location from where it originated. Very frequently we find MUN - for Munich, and NYC - for New York two RFE headquarters (rarely Lisbon). The message header also contains family names (without Christian names) of those who send and those who receive the telex. Very often there are more than 2 or three senders while those who received it could be up to 10 or even more people. All telexes have above mentioned parameters that also created our metadata. The second part of the message contained message text that could be of various nature, prom cooperate employment information to technical issues concerning building of the radio infrastructure. Also, circa 45 percent of the telexes contained the information on the historical events and distinguished politicians from the

communist Eastern Europe.[6] As some messages were encrypted it was difficult to decode them without supplement message or hand written note on the real meaning of the encrypted text.[7]

Some of the encrypted messages hold special information with “CONFIDENTIAL”, “STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL”, “URGENT” or “EYES ONLY” stamps. With this status the creator wanted to prioritize the messages according to their importance and exclusivity for the RFE/FEC management. The urgency/secrecy status of the document reflects on the given historical moment or can also indicate the level of secrecy of the content distributed.[8][7]

The label “Associated People” contains information about the senders, recipients and copied recipients. Defining the participants in the communication is crucial in description of each message. Because all the participants in the communication are identified usually only by their last name, it is sometimes difficult to clearly distinguish between people who share the same last name, or are spouses..[7]

Content of the Telexes

The content of the telexes could be separated into several groups. The first one contain information relating to daily operational and functional of the

Eastern Europe and other Communist world, such as strikes, unrests, revolutions, Soviet invasion to Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia in 1968, but also Cuban missiles crisis, or Sino - Soviet dispute. Special attention was focused on Soviet and other communist leaders, their speeches, activities, etc. However, many messages contain information on dissidents, political opponents and opposition in the communist countries.[8][5]

References

  1. ISBN 9780804773560.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  2. ^ Martin, Nikola. "Free Europe Committee".
  3. ^ "Radio Free Europe/Free Europe Committee - Encrypted Telex Communication". Blinken OSA.
  4. ^ "Blog - Free Europe Committee - New Digital Collection Online". Blinken OSA.
  5. ^ a b Georgiev, Georgi. (2015). Cold War Engineering: Technical Infrastructure, Noise, and Geography in Radio Free Europe’s Operation in the 1950s and the 1960s. Budapest: Central European University
  6. ^ Ross, Johnson A. and Parta, Eugene R. (2010). Cold War Broadcasting, Impact on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, A Collection of Studies and Documents. New York.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  7. ^ a b c "Message Guide". Blinken OSA.
  8. ^ a b "Basic Structure of A Cipher (Encrypted) Message". Blinken OSA.
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