Nixon Secures $36 Million to Save Cold War Radios

By Theo Marchetti · August 10, 2026

Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty nearly went dark in 1972 as a legislative deadlock forced the Nixon administration to replace clandestine funding with a direct $36 million grant.

On December 30, 1971, Under Secretary of State U. Alexis Johnson sent a memorandum to the Chairman of the 40 Committee. The timing was precarious. Congress had just adjourned, and they had done so without passing the authorizing legislation required to keep Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) in the air.

According to an editorial note in the Foreign Relations of the United States (State Dept), Volume XXIX, the legislative machinery had stalled. While both the House and the Senate had passed their own respective bills, the Joint Conference Committee—the body tasked with smoothing the differences between the two chambers—had never met to reconcile them. The radios were operating on a Continuing Resolution, a temporary financial bridge that was set to expire on February 22, 1972.

"Product of the Cold War"

The friction in Congress was not merely a matter of parliamentary scheduling. Under Secretary Johnson noted that Senator J. William Fulbright had remained vocal in his opposition. On December 15, Fulbright had described the broadcasting operations as a "product of the cold war" and argued that they "should be terminated."

Fulbright’s stance reflected a growing tension within the American government regarding the utility and the legality of the radios. For years, RFE and RL had functioned as a primary instrument of psychological warfare, beaming Western news and ideological counter-programming into the Eastern Bloc. While they presented themselves as independent entities, the 40 Committee—the high-level interagency group responsible for overseeing covert actions—maintained a close eye on their operations. The funding for these stations had long been a subject of opacity, often routed through clandestine channels to maintain a facade of non-governmental origin.

By the end of 1971, the administration was hoping that the Joint Committee would find its footing shortly after Congress reconvened on January 18. But as the February deadline approached, the silence from the Hill became a liability.

March 1972

By early March, the situation had shifted from a bureaucratic delay to a crisis of survival. On March 2, 1972, Theodore L. Eliot, the Executive Secretary of the Department of State, wrote a memorandum to National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. Eliot was blunt: the problem of securing the authorizing legislation for the grants was "at a crucial point."

Eliot suggested that the State Department could no longer handle the impasse through standard diplomatic or legislative channels. He informed Kissinger that "some involvement by the President, in the form of a discussion with or a letter to key Congressional leaders may be required in order to achieve this."

Nixon did not opt for a private letter. Instead, he went public. On March 11, the White House issued a press release in which the President expressed himself as "deeply concerned at the imminent prospect that Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty may be compelled to shut down." Nixon framed the legislative deadlock not as a policy debate, but as a failure of process, stating that it would be a "tragedy" if the light of the stations should be "extinguished because of a parliamentary impasse between the two Houses."

This public pivot placed the pressure back on the legislators. By characterizing the potential shutdown as a tragedy rather than a strategic pivot, Nixon effectively shifted the narrative from the merits of the Cold War broadcasting project to the embarrassment of a government unable to manage its own budget.

S. 18

The pressure worked. On March 24, the Senate passed a revised version of S. 18 (P.L. 92–264). The bill became law one week later, ensuring that the stations would not go dark.

The legislation authorized a grant of $36 million for fiscal year 1972 for Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Critically, the law stipulated that these funds were "to be provided directly to the radios by the Department of State."

This direct funding mechanism was a notable shift. For much of their history, the funding of the radios had been shrouded in layers of separation to avoid the appearance of direct government control. By moving the $36 million grant directly through the State Department, the Nixon administration codified the stations' status as an official tool of American foreign policy, even as it fought to keep them funded against the wishes of critics like Fulbright.

While this specific budgetary fight ended in a victory for the administration, the broader question of how these stations should be funded and managed remained a point of contention. Related records on the subject exist in the US National Archives, specifically the "Subject Files on Free Europe, Inc." (NAID 498171414) and the "Records Relating to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty" (NAID 1746756), which may hold further detail on the internal frictions of that era.

For the 1972 fiscal year, the records are clear: the impasse was broken, the $36 million was secured, and the grants were issued directly by the Department of State.