Comment by former acting associate director of the Voice of America Ted Lipien on the launch VOA's Russian Service in 2/17/1947

Lipien image from

[Lipien [see], via email]: My comment on the anniversary of the launch of VOA Russian broadcasts [see]:

The Voice of America launched its Russian-language radio broadcast in 1947, but very few people know why VOA, which went on the air for the first time in 1942, did not broadcast in Russian during WWII? It was because Stalin did not want it and the U.S. government complied, even though during the war, VOA broadcasts were filled with Soviet propaganda, including denials of Soviet crimes, such as the Katyn massacre of more than 20,000 Polish officers POWs (The Katyn Forest near Smolensk and at other locations in the Soviet Union.) A number of pro-Soviet agents worked at VOA during the war and later returned to Eastern Europe to work as anti-American propagandists for Soviet-dominated Communist regimes, including Polish communist Stefan Arski. This is part of VOA's early history that is not widely known. Only later did VOA start to broadcast the truth about the Soviet Union.