| Summary: | This short filmreel originally accompanied the famous radio Free Europe fundraising/awareness campaign "The Crusade for Freedom" (1950). It tells the story of the Radio and the NCFE efforts to expand the network of broadacsting stations in Europe in order to fight communist propaganda and, in the words of Dwight Eisenhower to ‘tell the truth.’" The film shows the by now classical images of the Balloon Warfare -baloons captioned "SVOBODA" carried boxes containing leaflets that listed the wavelengths of major free world stations transmitting to Czechoslovakia. The Crusade for Freedom took as its symbol a bell resembling the American liberty bell. The bell traveled to West Berlin, where it was permanently installed on United Nations Day, October 24, 1950. More than 400,000 Berliners—100,000 of them having risked crossing the border from East Berlin—filled City Hall Square to witness the dedication ceremonies. Although the Crusade for Freedom never raised enough money to fund more than a small part of the RFE budget, its ubiquitous advertising, along with parades, public forums, and slogans such as "Fight the Big Lie with the Big Truth" and "Help Truth Fight Communism," served to mobilize American support for the Cold War. (excerpts only)
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