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The Intelligence Underpinnings of American Covert Radio Broadcasting in Germany During the Cold War
by RICHARD CUMMINGS -- abstract

By the late 1940's, the Iron Curtain that Winston Churchill forsaw was firmly in place. Electrified barbed wire, armed patrols, land mines, and guard towers physically divided and separated Eastern and Central Europe from Western Europe. Communist Party monopoly and censorship of media had cut off the free flow of information, not only from the outside, but also within these countries as well.
This article adds to Cold War histiography by partially lifting the veil of 50 years of secrecy surrounding the origins of the American covert psychological war waged in Germany. Radio Free Europe was set up as a private organization with the political support of United States Department of State and leading American foreign policy experts, and with the covert financial support of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency -- "a benign fraud perpretrated on the United States public that would last over 25 years." 
This article also details one successful American covert psychological operation that took place from October 1951 to November 1956, when the skies of Central Europe were filled with more than 350,000 balloons carrying over 300,000,000 leaflets, posters, books, and other printed matter that were launched in Germany and dropped behind the Iron Curtain.