Radio Free Europe and Cold War Truth Games: Trustworthy Messages Beyond the Great Divide

Abstract

This article examines the crucial relationship between truth, trust and information in the context of the Cold War. In particular, it analyses the work of Radio Free Europe (RFE) and its various networks with the Polish underground. First, using a concept of Michel Foucault, it’s focus lies on Cold War ‘truth games’ and the circulation of underground inscriptions beyond the Iron Curtain. Second, defining mobility and superimposed inscriptions as main axioms of power, it analyses how ‘immutable mobiles’, as defined by Bruno Latour, allowed RFE to become not only a broadcaster but also a ‘centre of calculation’. Starting from the micro level and RFE’s paperwork, it elaborates on the mediation of information beyond the ‘great divide’, and the heterogeneous ‘allies’ and networks that had to be mobilised to guarantee the stability of knowledge during the Cold War. Finally, in accordance with Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT), it shall be shown how RFE and the quest for ‘trustworthy agents’ supported the Polish underground behind the Iron Curtain. The flat ontology of the ANT and its focus on the networking capacity of humans and technology are particularly suitable for the analysis of transnational and (infra-)structural developments.