Moving from the concept of a clandestine radio to the actual beginning of broadcasting to Ukraine was a relatively long and drawn-out affair.
The CIA was frustrated for two years in reaching its goal of broadcasting clandestinely to Ukraine. One of the problems facing the CIA in 1953 was that even though approval was received to begin clandestine radio broadcasting under the cryptonym AERODYNAMIC / RANTER, there was no professional staff of radio journalists, scriptwriters, and announcers, etc.
In Feb. 1954, the CIA falsely believed that the radio scripts, then being written up. and the first tapes for broadcasting would be ready within a month. On March 21, 1954, the S.R. division requested the Safehouse Procurement Office for a Safe House in New York City that would be: six rooms, detached, with a basement, in a middle-class neighborhood in Jackson Heights, Queens, Astoria, or Brooklyn.
The first broadcast of Radio Nova Ukraina was made on Sep. 25, 1955, with one 15-minute transmission daily.
That was later increased to two schedules daily, which used two transmitter hours per day, or 60 hours per month, with more transmitter hours and preferable times available in the ensuing years.
The CIA was unhappy with the first programs. In New York on Oct. 5, 1955, there was a meeting with Lebed, the Psychological Warfare Panel, and CIA to discuss the necessity of improving the contents of the radio scripts prepared by the group. According to CIA’s review.
Getting down to the business of actual scriptwriting, which would reflect the Ukrainian national interest without being the merchants of hate to everything Russian, we had considerable difficulty reconciling the group’s Ukrainian interests with the policy, which precludes the extreme chauvinism. The produced scripts six and seven were devoid of the former undertones of hatred against everything Russian, and they were deemed acceptable from this point of view.
The scripts produced were recorded at our suggestion in a fashion designed to revitalize the presentation of material by the introduction of two additional voices, by cutting down the monologues, and by the dramatization of the entire production. The previous tapes were recorded by a single voice end the resulting monotony in audio effect rendered the broadcasts dull and uninteresting.
Because of the involved and detailed script editing process, it has been decided that their final rendering will be accomplished with our immediate participation and that the croup will do the preparatory assembling of material.
Examples of Radio Nova Ukraina programs
The project outline for AERODYNAMIC for fiscal year1959 contained this comment: “Broadcast two 15-minute programs daily, totaling over 1200 broadcasts beamed at Soviet Ukraine from Radio PYREX in Athens. During 1957 the total number of transmittal hours was increased from 15 to 70 per month including repeat broadcasts and random times.”
From a June 1958 review:
- Tape No. 37 transmitted 11-17 May. Throughout Kyiv hang Ukrainian street and commercial signs, but Russian power and Russian culture rule under these Ukrainian signs. The review finished with this comment; “The foregoing are only a few examples of how AERODYNAMIC propaganda points up that the “sovereign Ukraine” is only a Soviet myth.”
- Tape No. 40 transmitted 18-24 May. Sovereign Ukraine does not have its own army. Nobody knows where the ministry of military affairs of the USSR is located. What is the national language in Soviet Ukraine? What language does the Communist party in Ukraine use?
- Tape No. 43 transmitted 1-7 June. Moscow continues to force the Russification of Ukraine.
- PYREX Tape No. 44 transmitted during week 1-7 June mentioned the following. Every Ukrainian knows what kind of rights Moscow gives Ukraine. If the Ukrainian language is the national language, why isn’t this mentioned in the constitution of the USSR as it is in the Constitutions of the other republics? Why do all the letters in Ukraine carry Russian stamps? Why doesn’t Ukraine have its own postal stamps? Why must the Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic priests come under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church? Why?
