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Signal Strength: Lessons from RFE/RL’s Latvian Service

Straining through Soviet frequency jammers, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Latvian service broadcasters waged an ethereal Cold War battle, breaking through information barriers to connect with Baltic dissidents and feed popular independence revolutions across the USSR. In retrospect, these broadcasts would turn out to be some of the most impactful within the Soviet Union, though their existence was hard-fought, and far from guaranteed. Why did it take 25 years for the Latvian service to come into being? How did it affect democratic transition, and what insights does its history provide for resisting Russian disinformation in the Baltics today?

Date & Time

Thursday
Dec. 14, 2017
10:30am – 11:30am ET

Location

6th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center
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Overview

Straining through Soviet frequency jammers, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Latvian service broadcasters waged an ethereal Cold War battle, breaking through information barriers to connect with Baltic dissidents and feed popular independence revolutions across the USSR. In retrospect, these broadcasts would turn out to be some of the most impactful within the Soviet Union, though their existence was hard-fought, and far from guaranteed. Why did it take 25 years for the Latvian service to come into being? How did it affect democratic transition, and what insights does its history provide for resisting Russian disinformation in the Baltics today?

Speaker: Indra Ekmanis, Title VIII Research Scholar, PhD, University of Washington

Discussant: A. Ross Johnson, History and Public Policy Program Fellow, Visiting Scholar, Hoover Institution; Adviser to the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Project, Hoover Archives; former Director, Radio Free Europe

Hosted By

Kennan Institute

The Kennan Institute is the premier US center for advanced research on Russia and Eurasia and the oldest and largest regional program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Kennan Institute is committed to improving American understanding of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the surrounding region though research and exchange.  Read more

History and Public Policy Program

The History and Public Policy Program makes public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, facilitates scholarship based on those records, and uses these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs.  Read more

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