The agency wanted the wartime prime minister to make a presentation on Radio Liberty, with the aim of undermining political stability in the Soviet Union.
The CIA attempted to recruit British wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill to broadcast propaganda broadcasts on agency-backed Radio Liberty in the 1950s in an effort to undermine the Soviet Union, the Telegraph reported.
At the height of the Cold War, the CIA-funded radio station targeted the Soviet Union with propaganda broadcasts, while its sister organization, Radio Free Europe, focused on Moscow’s allies. Both were covertly controlled and funded by the US intelligence agency until 1972 and merged into RFE/RL four years later.
In 1958, Radio Liberty controllers suggested taking advantage of the wave of “revisionism” which dominated the Soviet Union at the time and took advantage of emerging ideological divisions within Marxism-Leninism to undermine the government, the Telegraph wrote on Saturday, citing declassified CIA documents.
The agency reportedly focused on exploiting “revisionist thinkers” which opposed a united Soviet bloc, in favor of individual divided communist states.
Churchill, then 83 and retired from frontline politics, was one of several prominent figures selected to make these broadcasts, the Telegraph wrote. Although Churchill was a fervent anti-communist, as reflected in his fame “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton in 1946, there is no evidence that he accepted the invitation, the report says.
The programs aimed at “stimulate heretical thought” and “undermine confidence in any form of Marxism by suggesting that its basic assumptions, historical method, and predictions are false.” the newspaper cited a CIA briefing note.
Churchill personally knew the agency’s then director, Alan Dulles. However, in the spring of 1958, “when they designated him for a propaganda program,” He turned down an offer to visit Washington for health reasons, according to the Telegraph.
More recently, RFE/RL continued to be funded by Washington under the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) until President Donald Trump’s budget cuts, part of his broader agenda to cut government spending. Last month, USAGM announced it would cut more than 500 employees, after hundreds of layoffs in previous months.