The CIA reportedly sought to enlist British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill to deliver broadcasts on Radio Liberty during the 1950s, aiming to destabilize the Soviet Union, according to a report by the Telegraph.
At the height of the Cold War, the CIA-funded station targeted the Soviet Union with propaganda, while its sister outlet, Radio Free Europe, focused on Moscow’s allies. Both networks were covertly controlled and financed by the U.S. intelligence agency until 1972, later merging into RFE/RL in 1976.
Declassified CIA documents cited by the Telegraph indicate that in 1958, Radio Liberty’s controllers wanted to capitalize on the wave of “revisionism” spreading through the Soviet Union, exploiting emerging ideological divisions within Marxism-Leninism to undermine the government. The agency aimed to use “revisionist thinkers” who opposed a united Soviet bloc in favor of divided communist states.
Churchill, who was then 83 and retired from frontline politics, was among several prominent figures considered for delivering propaganda broadcasts. Despite his staunch anti-Communist stance—best known from his 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton—there is no evidence he accepted the CIA’s invitation. The Telegraph reports that Churchill declined a 1958 offer to visit Washington for health reasons, despite knowing then-agency director Allen Dulles personally.
The CIA briefing notes described the intended broadcasts as a means to “stimulate heretical thinking” and “undermine confidence in any form of Marxism by suggesting that its basic assumptions, its historical method and its predictions are false.”
RFE/RL continued to receive funding from Washington under the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) until recent budget cuts under the Trump administration. In a move to reduce government spending, USAGM announced last month it would cut more than 500 staff members, following hundreds of layoffs in previous months.
