STEPH EN MIL LE R
75
a ny way.. .. It does heighten th e sophi stica ti on a nd the leve l o f kn owl–
edge of their po pula ti o n ."
In ma ny res pects RFE /RL was a hi ghbrow sta ti on-mo re like
Na ti o na l Public Radi o tha n a commercia l broadcasting sta ti on .
It
often
had ro undta ble di scuss io ns a bo ut cultura l and politica l questi o ns, a nd
it frequentl y held readings o f books th a t were unava il a ble to li steners–
the mos t no ta bl e being Solzhenitsyn 's
Th e Gulag Archipelago .
M a ny
di stingui shed writers wo rked fo r the Radi os o r were regul a r free la ncers.
Sergei Dov la tov, the Ru ss ia n nove list, wo rked fo r the Ru ss ia n Se rvice,
as did th e Yugos lav di ss ident Mih a jlo Mih a jl ov, who was a n ethni c
Ru ss ia n . Severa l ma jo r Ru ss ia n w rite rs- Andrei Sin yavs ky, Vl adimir
Vo in ov ich , a nd Va ss il y Ak syonov-were fr equent free la nce rs. [n the
Was hington offi ce I often ra n in to two well -kn own Sov iet di ss idents:
Ludmill a Alexeyeva a nd Yelena Bo nn er (the wife o f Andrei Sa kh a rov) .
Rr-:E/ RL was a loose ly ma naged cong lomerate o f la nguage se rvices,
a nd some se rvices were mo rc pro fess io na l tha n o thers. The Po li sh Ser–
vice genera ll y got hi gh marks fr om o utside o bse rvers. Contributors to
its p rogramming included virtua ll y eve ry ma jo r Po li sh w riter, among
th em Czes law Mil osz, J a n Ko tt, a nd Leszek Ko la kowski. When I jo ined
RFEI RL, the Po li sh Se rvice was hea ded by Z d zislaw a jder, the a uth o r
of a n ou tsta nding bi ogra ph y of Conrad. Oth er se rvi ces a lso had di stin –
guis hed nove li sts, aca demics, a nd jo urn a lists o n th eir sta ff o r wo rking
as free la nce rs. Th e Ro ma ni a n Se rvice was hea ded by VI ad Geo rgescu , a
hi ghl y rega rded hi stori a n o f Roma ni a . But th e Ra di os a lso attracted a
wo rking-cl ass a udi ence. Desc ribing Po la nd during the So lida rity strikes
in
1980,
T imoth y Ga rto n As h says th a t the " wo rkers a nd th eir intell ec–
tu a l ad vise rs sit dra ftin g texts, li stening to th e la tes t news from Radi o
Free Europe on a sho rt-wave tra nsisto r radi o .... "
RFE/ RL a lso ho used a w idely admired resea rch institute. It had th e
la rges t co ll ecti o n o f Soviet sami zd a t in the wo rld a nd prov ided by far
th e best info rma ti o n o n Eastern Euro pe a nd the Sov iet Uni on. The in sti –
tute p ut o ut mo nthl y resea rch repo rts tha t we re considered in va lu a ble
by th e aca demi cs a nd jo urn a li sts wh o subscribed to th em, th o ugh their
mai n purpose was to prov ide RfE/RL's broa dcasting se rvices with so lid
info rma ti o n on a ll as pects o f life in Eas tern Euro pe a nd th e Soviet
Uni o n . Acco rding to o ne o bse rve r, RFE/ RL had " the best resea rch fac il–
iti es in th e world fo r cove ring th e demi se o f the [Soviet
I
empire."
In
1983
the hea d o f RFE was J ames Brown, o ne o f the lea ding scho l–
ars of Eas te rn Euro pe. On hi s staff we re a number o f ve ry bri ght young
East Euro pea n a nd Soviet a na lysts who would go o n to success ful
careers in aca demi a o r jo urna li sm a fter the in stitute was elimina ted in
