Historical Dictionary of United States Intelligence

Polish Communist Party leaders and were instrumental in sustaining the

Solidarity trade union in Poland when it was forced underground by

martial law in 1981. During Romanian strongman Nicolae Ceausescu’s

time, RFE was Romania’s most popular source of news.

American isolationists in the 1970s tried to shut down the radio

stations, claiming that they were relics of the Cold War and served no

useful purpose other than to goad the Soviet Union and its puppet

regimes in Eastern Europe. This attempt at closing the stations failed,

but the management of RFE/RLeventually was transferred from the

CIAto an independent agency. When communism collapsed in 1991

and the exiled RFE/RL journalists visited their native lands—some

for the first time in 40 years—they were greeted as conquering he-

roes. RFE/RLwere officially closed down on 28 November 2003 as

a cost-saving measure.

RADIO MARTI.On 23 September 1981, President Ronald Reagan

announced plans to establish a radio station to transmit news reports

to Cuba. Despite controversy and occasional attempts to disband the

station, Radio Marti continues its broadcasts as part of the Voice of

America (VOA). See alsoTELEVISION MARTI.

RADIO SAWA.After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the

administration of President George W. Bushcreated the position of

undersecretary of state for public diplomacy in the Department of

State. This office launched Radio Sawa on 23 March 2002, which is

currently broadcasting on FM transmitters in Amman, Jordan; Kuwait

City, Kuwait; and in the United Arab Emirates cities of Abu Dhabi and

Dubai. It also transmits from Cyprus to Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria.

According to various polls, however, listeners consider the radio to be

American propagandaand reject its political messages outright.

RAINBOW (OPERATION). Operation Rainbow was a purported

covert deception campaign during the 1956 Suez Crisis to convince

oil-producing Arab states that the United States was on the verge of

overcoming its dependence on their oil and thereby affecting the fu-

ture expectations of producing countries. According to former Cen-

tral Intelligence Agency(CIA) operative Miles Copeland, the de-

ception was supposed to involve a fake experimental facility secluded

in the western United States as well as fake operations to support the

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