Historical Dictionary of United States Intelligence

(Martin Jones) #1
Admiral Raborn had the reputation for getting along with people dur-
ing stressful situations and for his management abilities.
President Lyndon B. Johnsonappointed Admiral Raborn to be
DCI because he thought that the admiral’s standing in Congress
would facilitate the mission of the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA). His short tenure as DCI, however, did little to endear the CIA
to President Johnson, who continued to ignore the agency’s analytic
assessments that the Vietnam Warcould not be won. On leaving his
DCI post in June 1966, Admiral Raborn became a senior manager of
Aerojet General in California and later headed his own consulting
firm until his full retirement in 1986.

RADARSAT.Launched on 4 November 1995, RADARSATis a Cana-
dian satellite that is occasionally used by the U.S. Air Force for im-
aging purposes. The satellite has a synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
sensor onboard, which is capable of imaging the earth regardless of
time of day or cloud, haze, or smoke over an area. Because different
applications require different imaging modes, RADARSAT gives
users tremendous flexibility in choosing the type of SAR data most
suitable for their application.

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY (RFE/RL). Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty were covert propaganda programs of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Cold War. Radio
Free Europe went on the air in 1950, beaming a prodemocracy, anti-
communist messages to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania,
and Bulgaria. The CIAalso founded RFE’s sister station, Radio Lib-
erty, which broadcast similar messages to the Soviet Unionin both
Russian and the languages of the non-Russian peoples.
Managers of RFE/RLapproached their propaganda tasks with finesse
and sensitivity. They did not laud American popular culture or the
American way of life, and any comparisons were limited to Western Eu-
rope. The stations focused instead on such issues as the ills of agricul-
tural collectivization, the persecution of religion, the suppression of cul-
ture, party purges, and the like. Indeed, each station, staffed by exiles
from East European countries and the Soviet Union, functioned much
like the press of a democratic opposition movement. In fact, the stations
became so well known and respected, some Polish leaders later asserted
that the stations played an important role in bringing down at least three

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