The role of Radio Free Europe in the political transformations in Poland and the collapse of communism was the subject of a conference in Warsaw under the honorary patronage of the Speaker of the Polish Senate and the US Ambassador to Poland.
Former Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki said that the Munich-based station served for decades as the only source of uncensorsed information available to the Poles. He also stressed the station’s sense of responsibility for a peaceful course of political transformations in Poland. The speakers at the conference also included secretary of state in the prime minister’s office, former foreign minister Wladys?aw Bartoszewski.
Radio Free Europe started its broadcasts to Poland in May 1952, in the darkest days of the Cold War and [the Polish service] functioned until 1994. For several decades its broadcasts were jammed by the communist authorities and the spreading of information based on them was punishable by law.
(Source: Polskie Radio/R Netherlands Media Network Weblog)