Russian propaganda influence in the United States is not new.
“I established contact at the Soviet embassy with people who spoke English and were willing to feed me important bits and pieces from their side of the wire”*
*Howard Fast. Being Red (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), p. 18.
Howard Fast was Voice of America (VOA) chief radio news writer and editor in the U.S. Office of War Information (early 1943-January 1944), Communist Party USA member and news reporter (approx. 1944-1957), Stalin International Peace Prize winner (1953), and best-selling American author. He was one of many pro-Soviet communist activists and journalists recruited by the first VOA Director John Houseman. Easily deceived, they helped to spread the Kremlin’s propaganda abroad in Voice of America wartime broadcasts and domestically to Americans through OWI press releases, radio programs, mass mailings, posters and exhibits. Stalin was America’s important war partner against Hitler in 1943, but he was earlier Nazi Germany’s ally in launching World War II and in annexing neighboring states. Howard Fast’s trusted Soviet news sources used in VOA broadcasts represented the regime responsible for the genocide of millions of people.
