James F. Brown, Radio Free Europe Chief, Dies at 81
James F. Brown, who as the director of Radio Free Europe in the early 1980s played a seminal behind-the-scenes role in the rise of the Solidarity movement, which eventually toppled the Communist Party in Poland, died in Oxford, England, on Nov. 16. He was 81 and lived in Oxford.
The cause was an infection after a broken leg, his wife, Margaret, said.
Although he was a British citizen, Mr. Brown was named director of Radio Free Europe, a network financed by the American government, in 1978, bringing a deep knowledge of Eastern European history to the job. He was director until 1984, when he resigned because of disagreements with the Reagan administration.
Based in a white stucco building on the edge of the fashionable English Gardens section of Munich, Radio Free Europe was started in 1951 with the intent of undermining Communist regimes in five Soviet-bloc countries: Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Its broadcasters were mostly exiles from those countries.
Until 1972, Radio Free Europe and its sister network, Radio Liberty, were covertly financed by the Central Intelligence Agency. Radio Liberty, which Mr. Brown did not lead, broadcast into the Soviet Union. When the C.I.A.’s role was exposed, Congress made the networks quasi-governmental agencies with an independent board of directors.
In their early years Radio Free Europe’s broadcasts were hard-edged, emphasizing the likelihood of Communism’s impending demise. That changed after Russian tanks rolled into Budapest in November 1956, crushing the Hungarian revolution.
“Just prior to and during the revolution, R.F.E. did broadcasts that were incendiary, very polemical,” Arch Puddington, the author of “Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty” (University of Kentucky, 2000), said Thursday. “After the revolution collapsed, there were investigations, leading to a change in the tone of the broadcasts.”
Mr. Brown and the tonal change proved a good fit. He joined the network as a research analyst soon after the Hungarian revolution. By 1969 he was director of research. In 1976 he was named deputy director; two years later he took over as network director...
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The cause was an infection after a broken leg, his wife, Margaret, said.
Although he was a British citizen, Mr. Brown was named director of Radio Free Europe, a network financed by the American government, in 1978, bringing a deep knowledge of Eastern European history to the job. He was director until 1984, when he resigned because of disagreements with the Reagan administration.
Based in a white stucco building on the edge of the fashionable English Gardens section of Munich, Radio Free Europe was started in 1951 with the intent of undermining Communist regimes in five Soviet-bloc countries: Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Its broadcasters were mostly exiles from those countries.
Until 1972, Radio Free Europe and its sister network, Radio Liberty, were covertly financed by the Central Intelligence Agency. Radio Liberty, which Mr. Brown did not lead, broadcast into the Soviet Union. When the C.I.A.’s role was exposed, Congress made the networks quasi-governmental agencies with an independent board of directors.
In their early years Radio Free Europe’s broadcasts were hard-edged, emphasizing the likelihood of Communism’s impending demise. That changed after Russian tanks rolled into Budapest in November 1956, crushing the Hungarian revolution.
“Just prior to and during the revolution, R.F.E. did broadcasts that were incendiary, very polemical,” Arch Puddington, the author of “Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty” (University of Kentucky, 2000), said Thursday. “After the revolution collapsed, there were investigations, leading to a change in the tone of the broadcasts.”
Mr. Brown and the tonal change proved a good fit. He joined the network as a research analyst soon after the Hungarian revolution. By 1969 he was director of research. In 1976 he was named deputy director; two years later he took over as network director...