This is the story of the critical role played by Radio Free Europe during the Cold War, as recounted by veteran RFE official J. F. Brown, who served as director from 1978 to 1983. Jim Brown had written about Eastern Europe from RFE, but never about RFE―until he wrote this book. He conveys his understanding of how Radio Free Europe functioned as a decentralized organization that empowered exiles, while also conveying what it, and they, could―and could not―offer East European listeners. Jim Brown's explanations of the function of the central news department as an internal news...