To be or not to be: Roundtable ponders future of RFE/RL (07/07/96)

To be or not to be: Roundtable ponders future of RFE/RL

by Yaro Bihun

WASHINGTON - Moves in the U.S. Congress to cut federal spending, coupled with a shift towards isolationism especially among its newest members, has alarmed those who are convinced that the United States must play a leading role in the post-Cold War world and that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) still has its role to play as well.

The Center for Security Policy on June 19 held a roundtable discussion about the future of RFE/RL at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, bringing together lawmakers and experts in the field, who, as a group, are alarmed at the continued U.S. budget cuts for these "surrogate" radio stations that broadcast to Central Europe and the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine.

(Unlike the Voice of America, which is the official radio station of the United States, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were created during the Cold War to be "surrogate" stations, providing news about events within the listeners' country that they could not get through their own totalitarian media. RFE broadcasts to Central Europe; RL to the former Soviet Union.)

The overriding opinion of the discussants was that RFE/RL was doing a necessary job, doing it well and cheaply.

Sen. John L. Kyl (R-Ariz.), a staunch supporter of U.S. international broadcasting efforts, said that even though the Cold War has been won, evil has not been eliminated from this part of the world and still manifests itself not only in some nations but also from groups within these nations.

"The Cold War was won by an idea," Sen. Kyl said, but added that "the battle of ideas will never be securely won." Thus, isolationism is "not an option" he underlined.

Another major participant in the discussion was Ambassador Michael Zantovsky of the Czech Republic, whose president, Vaclav Havel, has praised RFE/RL's work on numerous occasions and gave RFE/RL a new home in the old parliament building in Prague. Referring to RFE/RL's current role in the former Yugoslavia as the bearer of the "straight story" to the warring republics, which counters the inter-ethnic propaganda that predominates their media, he pointed out that "it is vastly less expensive and less risky to send a straight story to a country than to send troops there to quash violence that the absence of a straight story made possible."

Millionaire publisher and former presidential candidate Malcolm "Steve" Forbes Jr., who had been the chairman of the Board for International Broadcasting, which oversees the work of RFE/RL as well as the Voice of America, said that in many parts of Eastern Europe and within the former Soviet Union, RFE/RL today remains the sole source of reliable information about what is happening within their countries, and it sets a journalistic standard for the emerging local free press to follow.

"You cannot have democracy without the free flow of information," he stressed. And in Russia, although they try, there is no "truly independent" media. "We should know that our freedom hinges on their success in establishing freedom," Mr. Forbes said.

The importance of "the radios" (as these stations were frequently referred to) in the battle of ideas is that it's cheap, he said - "$50 million won't buy you very much military equipment" - and that they engage and interact with the audience every day. Getting rid of them now would be a "penny wise and pound foolish move," Mr. Forbes added. Rather, the U.S. should shore up the radios, which, in his opinion, "play an underappreciated but absolutely critical role in the critical areas."

Where freedom of the press is taking root and is becoming economically viable, RFE/RL will gradually discontinue its programming, as it has begun doing in the Czech Republic and Hungary, Mr. Forbes said. He is more worried, however, about Russia and Ukraine, "where reversals can have catastrophic consequences."

Freedom House President Adrian Karatnycky said RFE/RL currently has an important role to play in countering Russian propaganda throughout the former Soviet Union aimed against NATO and for the re-establishment of the old union.

Also, the ideas of democracy and press freedom are not always understood the same way in Eastern Europe as they are in the West, Mr. Karatnycsky said, pointing to a statement by the new head of Polish state television who expressed his belief that "democratically elected officials should not be criticized because they represent the will of the people."

Reporting on the state of RFE/RL, its current president, Kevin Klose, said the radio stations are even more effective today than they were before the move from Munich to Prague and the drastic budget and personnel cuts. Since 1993, RFE/RL staff was slashed from 1,100 to 419 as its annual budget shrank from $218 million to $72 million. Nonetheless, he said, the stations have continued to transmit 700 hours of programming weekly in 23 languages.

There is a lot more interactive and cross-border reporting in Prague, "a world capital" that affords RFE/RL more access to the region than did Munich, "a provincial city," he said.

The experienced staff of most RFE/RL services moved from Munich to Prague, he said. There were, however, many new hires in the Central Asian services, Mr. Klose said, because of the introduction of "several requirements to conform our broadcasting to the needs of our listeners in Central Asia." The broadcasters now have to be able to speak "the Sovietized or Russified version of the local language" as well as Russian, to be able to work with the "substantial amount" of available Russian-language source materials.

Vladimir Matusevitch, who headed Radio Liberty's Russian Service from 1987 to 1992, was a sole critical voice heard at the roundtable. He criticized RFE/RL's new hiring policies and its new image.

"Radio Liberty is losing its identity as an American radio station," he said, pointing out that in Russian Service broadcasts 90 percent of the program material "is prepared by Russian citizens, living in Russia, educated in Russia, with Russian natural influences and experiences, obligations, loyalties." As a result, he said, the "voice of this radio station has radically changed."

Paul Goble, a former State Department expert on Soviet nationalities and former RFE/RL research head who has again returned to RFE/RL, pointed that one of RFE/RL's more important contributions has been in breaking down the "intellectual map of the world" created by state radio broadcasting.

"If you were living in Latvia, you knew a lot about Moscow, you might know something about Washington, but you knew nothing about Tallinn and Vilnius," he said. RFE/RL, through its cross-reporting from neighboring capitals, has broken that down, he said, "so that the people in the Czech Republic know what's going on in Poland, in Slovenia, and they don't know just what is going on in Moscow and Washington."

"Moscow and Washington...are not necessarily the most important cities in the world for all of these countries," Mr. Goble said.

Eugene Pell, who had served as director of the Voice of America and later of RFE/RL, was blunt in his assessment of the radio stations' future.

"Anywhere you look on this (Capitol) Hill, somebody is cutting something. And that is not going to stop." Even though he headed both RFE/RL and VOA, he said he is convinced that the United States "should not maintain two international radio stations any longer." One station - VOA - could easily perform both the "official" and "surrogate" role, he said.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.), who is among those in the forefront of the battle to preserve America's international radio broadcasting, said continued funding is and will continue to be an uphill battle in the Congress, which is cutting all programs, most of which are much better known and popular than RFE/RL.

After the last series of compromises between the Senate and House over funding for RFE/RL, he said, "We're still in the game. The real question is going to be what happens after this election," he added.

Sen. Biden said his argument to his colleagues for continued RFE/RL funding is that if it was important 25 years ago, "it's more important today."

He said it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that Central and Eastern Europe will see more dislocation, oppression and other difficulties in the future and that RFE/RL could play a positive role in helping resolve these problems.

But it is "counterintuitive," he added, to suggest maintaining or increasing funding for the radios, when everything else in the international affairs budget is being slashed - by 51 percent from 1984. Consulates in 26 cities have been closed; U.S. Agency for International Development staff was cut from 11,000 to 8,000 and that agency has cut its presence overseas from 70 countries to 30, the senator pointed out.

The United States must remain engaged in the international arena, Sen. Biden said. "To pull back will be disastrous."

Events in Central and Eastern Europe, he said, "unfortunately, will make our case for us in terms of a need for there to be a vehicle to disseminate information in country." But that does not guarantee, he added, that his colleagues will automatically conclude that the radios are the appropriate vehicle to do that. "When they're in the mindset that there's not much we can do anyway, they are not likely to conclude that the radios are the vehicle in which they would want to invest their dollars," he said.

Sen. Biden said that for the time being RFE/RL's budget will survive, albeit in its decimated state. The real problem will arise after the election, which will bring more new members into the Congress, who will have "no institutional memory but a clear understanding that anything that government has a part of funding is probably bad."

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