Cold War radio treasure trove: The CIA Freedom of Information Act Reading room

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Alexander (DL4NO), who writes:

I just found a German reference to the CIA Freedom of Information Act Reading room

https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/

As a first test I searched for “radio design”. A few of the documents found:

  • ACTIVITIES OF AMATEUR RADIO DESIGNERS
  • JPRS ID: 8744 TRANSLATION ELECTROMAGNETIC SHIELDING DESIGN FOR RADIO-ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
  • DOSO INSTRUCTION FOR AMATEUR RADIO OPERATORS; BULGARIAN RADIO EQUIPMENT PRODUCTION
  • AIRCRAFT RADIO COMMUNICATIONS IN THE USSR

This could be an amazing source, especially of historical information from the Eastern Block. But expect any search to be real work: Only the title and some classification of the documents are searchable. The rest is scanned documents.

Very cool–thanks for sharing, Alexander. I spent a little time this morning browsing the results using various radio-related search strings. It is a very deep archive.

Click here to search the CIA reading room.

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2 thoughts on “Cold War radio treasure trove: The CIA Freedom of Information Act Reading room

  1. 13dka

    Could you please stop posting links that have potential to keep me busy for the next 25 years? I have radios to tune and antennas to build, I don’t have time for that! 🙂

    Reply
  2. Dan Robinson

    This is a treasure trove of information — likely many of these documents have been gone through already by the few people who have written books about the history of U.S. international broadcasting. On the other hand, there is fasincating information here about, for example, communication between the CIA and officials of Voice of America. One document details a phone call in which the then deputy director of VOA suggested that the CIA director “take advantage” of a VOA news program to “get some things straightened out on the record.”

    Reply

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