New documents posted on RFE during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Ross
Fourteen Radio Free Europe journalists reported from western Hungary during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, as documented in records from the Hoover Library and Archives, the Blinken Open Society Archives, and NARA now posted in the Wilson Center Digital Archive:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/eyewitness-to-the-1956-hungarian-revolution
Frederick (Fritz) Hier and two other RFE journalists were detained by the Soviet military on November 4 and held for over a week before the US Department of State intervened to ask for their release. Hier kept a diary of his experiences; the full text is now available in the Digital Archive:
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/134608
Online publication of all RFE Hungarian broadcasts from October 22 to November 12, 1956, thanks to the dedicated efforts of the staff of the Oral History Collection of the
The web site carries both audio recordings and transcriptions of the RFE Hungarian broadcasts. The RFE audio files were retrieved from low-quality, slow speed transmitter “log” recordings – the so-called “Koblenz” files. The provenance and retrieval of these unique recordings is described in http://www.rferl.org/a/off_mic_ross_johnson_hungarian_revolution/2209996.html and in A Ross Johnson,
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty; the CIA Years and Beyond, “Appendix, A Note on the History of the 1956 RFE Hungarian Broadcast Archives,” pp. 129-130.
They are the sole authentic record of all RFE Hungarian broadcasts during the Hungarian Revolution.