Veterans’ Stories: ‘Cold War Warrior’ worked as Voice of America broadcaster

By Ludvik Cizinsky / as told to Abby Weingarten, heraldtribune.com

Cizinsky image from article

Czech Republic-born Ludvik Cizinsky grew up under communist leadership before escaping to the United States as an adult. A longtime radio listener, he found a successful career as a broadcaster with Voice of America (VOA) in Washington, D.C. He considers himself a “Cold War warrior” as he helped illuminate many issues people were facing abroad while living under terrifying rule. He is multilingual (Czech, English, Slovak, German and Russian) as well as an avid art collector and traveler. Now 76, Cizinsky is retired and lives in Venice with his wife, Carolyn, of 43 years.

“Although I never participated in any military conflict, I consider myself a veteran of the Cold War. For 25 years, I fought with words behind a microphone as a VOA broadcaster, bringing the hope of freedom to millions of oppressed listeners in former Czechoslovakia. When this mission was successfully accomplished in the late 1980s, the VOA was recognized as one of the major contributors. This year, the VOA celebrates 75 years of being on the air, still bringing the hope of freedom to millions of oppressed people around the globe. It remains the most effective weapon of U.S. public diplomacy in promoting personal freedom, democratic institutions and American life and values.

I started to listen to VOA broadcasts in Czech and Slovak languages in the 1950s, during the Cold War, in a small town in northern Bohemia. I was about 10 years old. It was shortly after the communist government came to power (February 1948). Free speech and democratic institutions were banned, and misinformation took over. It was illegal to listen to Western radio stations. If you were caught by a communist informer, you would face jail time. Still, we were taking chances because it was our only trustworthy source of information. It also gave us hope that, one day, Americans might come again (Americans liberated the western part of Bohemia from Nazi occupation in May 1945).

When I gave up on waiting for liberation from the communist dictatorship, I escaped and made it to America. My intention was to continue my teaching career, so I enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. I befriended a librarian of Polish origin who was a regular contributor to the VOA’s Polish broadcasts. He suggested I contact the Czechoslovak service and offer to be a California stringer. A full-time position came about six months later, and I started on July 2, 1970, as a writer/announcer.

There were so many memorable moments. I witnessed the fall of communism and the return of freedom in former Czechoslovakia in November 1999. I witnessed free elections in Czechoslovakia after 42 years of communist dictatorship. During my assignment at the Cultural Forum in Budapest, western delegations criticized Czechoslovak authorities for suppressing human rights, freedom of speech and publishing. They criticized the treatment of Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature Jaroslav Seifert (whose works were banned) and a dissident group called The Jazz Section that secretly published samizdat literature. In my broadcasts, I dedicated several features to their plight.

Notable people I have interviewed: Christopher Dodd, John McCain, Madeleine Albright, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Walter Stoessel, Edward Albee, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jager, Martina Navratilova, Paul Anka, The Fifth Dimension, Johnny Cash and Michael York. I retired from the VOA in 1994 as the editor-in-chief and director of Czech language broadcasting. What years before had seemed like an impossible dream became a reality and 25 years of an extremely rewarding career.”