Photograph of President George H.W. Bush and Lech Wałęsa was taken a day before Solidarity leader’s historic speech to the joint session of the United States Congress on November 15, 1989. The historic speech delivered on November 15, 1989 by Solidarity leader Lech Wałęsa to the joint session of the United States Congress was broadcast to Poland in a joint…
In an article for the Winter 1984/1985 issue of Foreign Affairs, “A Divided Europe: The Future of Yalta,” Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote that “Yalta is unfinished business. Forty years after the fateful Crimean meeting of February 4-11, 1945, between the Allied Big Three of World War II, much of our current (1984/1985) preoccupation with Yalta focuses on its myth rather…
“Nie wyobrażalne jest by mogło to mieć miejsce tak szybko i tak skutecznie gdyby nie Głos Ameryki.” — Lech Wałęsa, 2002. “It is not conceivable that it would have happened so quickly and so effectively if not for the Voice of America.” — Lech Wałęsa, 2002. October 5, 2013 will mark the 30th anniversary of the Nobel Committee announcement that…
I found this book several years ago by pure chance in a bookstore in San Francisco selling old and antique books. Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane’s daughter, Peggy, lived in San Francisco, which may explain how the book ended up in a local book shop. She died at a relatively young age from a sudden illness when Bliss Lane and his…
Vice President George H.W. Bush began a four-day visit to Poland on Saturday, September 26, 1987. His visit facilitated talks between Solidarity and the communist regime and eventual peaceful fall of communism in Poland. I interviewed Vice President Bush at the White House before the trip and accompanied him as Voice of America Polish Service correspondent. I filed this report…
In 1982, the United States International Communication Agency (USICA), earlier and later called the United States Information Agency (USIA), published a booklet “Poland: A Season of Light, and of Darkness,” to complement its “Let Poland Be Poland” television film produced by the agency as a response of the Reagan Administration to the imposition of martial law in Poland by General…
Interweaving of Public Diplomacy and U.S. International Broadcasting A Historical Analysis by Ted Lipien Published in American Diplomacy, December 2011 Summary U.S. policy makers have used traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy and government-sponsored journalism to promote America’s interests and to influence public opinion abroad. On the journalistic side, the so-called surrogate radios: Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty – more independent…
As Poland prepares for next year’s 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Rising, I wanted to share Stefan Korboński‘s 1984 letter to The New York Times, in which the last chief of the Polish wartime underground State repeated President Ronald Reagan’s earlier statement that the United States rejects any interpretation of the Yalta agreement that suggests American consent for the division of…
On September 1, 2010, The Washington Times published my article about Zofia Korbońska, an anti-Nazi and anti-Communist resister and a Voice of America Polish Service journalist who had passed away on August 16, 2010.
The Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting (CUSIB) members paid tribute to victims of human rights abuses in China by placing flowers Wednesday, December 7, in Washington, D.C. at the Victims of Communism Memorial. President of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers Reggie Littlejohn, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 1812 Timothy Shamble who represents the Broadcasting Board of…