The Head of the U.S. agency which oversees the operations of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE-RL), expressed “shock” that Radio Free Europe broadcast an interview with Valerian Trifa, who is accused of atrocities against Jews in Rumania in 1941. He has demanded an explanation from the radio combine’s top management.
Dr. John A. Gronouski, chairman of the Board of International Broadcasting, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview that he has written to the president of the combined radio corporation, Dr. Glenn Ferguson, and is awaiting a reply.
A 45-minute interview was held May I with Trifa, who is archbishop of the Rumanian Orthodox Church in America and who faces deportation hearings in July on charges of fraudulent entry into the U.S. A leader of the Rumanian fascist Iran Guard during World War II, he has been accused of the mass murder of Jews in Bucharest in 1941 and other atrocities.
CALLS INTERVIEW ‘INCONCEIVABLE’
“I had a shocked reaction like a lot of other people did,” Grorouski said when he heard of the broadcast. “It is inconceivable that he should have been given such a prominent role in an important broadcast given all the background of the last four or five years.” He stressed he was “not convicting anybody but there was enough indication of concern that he should be one person the radios should shy away from.”
Gronouski, a former U.S. postmaster general in President Johnson’s Cabinet, and now an economics professor at the University of Texas, is in Washington on a periodic visit in connection with the Board’s activities. The Board is a federal agency that receives funds from Congress which it grants-to the corporation for the two stations, and has responsibilities overseeing its activities that include evaluation of the effectiveness of programs and insuring that the stations do not operate in a manner inconsistent with the broad foreign policy of the U.S.
The corporation itself is not a federal agency. It is a combination of the two companies that had broadcast as separate organizations with Radio Free Europe focusing on Eastern Europe and Liberty on the Soviet Union.
Gronouski, who also has been the U.S. Ambassador to Poland and dean of the Lyndon Johnson School for Public Affairs at the University of Texas, said his letter to Ferguson expresses “my shock why Trifa was used by the radios and wondering about the procedures used to check this sort of thing.” The letter also asks Ferguson, Gronouski said, what action is planned with regard to those who arranged the interview and how to prevent similar matters in the future. “I am asking how it came through,” Gronouski said. “It would not be something top management would be ignorant of,” Saying “I am very much concerned about it,” Gronouski concluded, “I wish the hell it hadn’t happened.”
The House Judiciary Subcommittee concerned with Nazi war criminals living in the U.S. began an investigation of why Trifa was interviewed on the radio station after its chairman, Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman (D.NY) read a JTA story reporting the broadcast. Radio Free Europe officials said the interview was conducted in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Rumanian Orthodox Church in America, headed by Trifa, which represents about 80 percent of church-affiliated ethnic Rumanians in the U.S.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
