RL European program director Richard Bertrandias provides AMCOMLIB President Sargeant with a 24 page joint response by RL program managers to AMCOMLIB founder Isaac Don Levine’s critique of RL programming.

A Free Europe Committee memorandum discusses possible Russian-language broadcasts to Soviet military forces in Eastern Europe. Includes attachment titled "Specific Proposals for Fund Russian Language Broadcasts to Soviet Personnel in Eastern European Satellite Countries".

Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart - head of the World War II Political Warfare Executive who later had a highly popular BBC weekly program in Czech - visited RFE with BBC Central European chief Gregory Macdonald between January 29 and February 1, 1952. Reviewing personalities, attitudes, and operations in Munich, Lockhart concluded that RFE had made progress in its first year, that its broadcasters were happy to be separated geographically from émigré politicians in the US, but that RFE faced the challenge of keeping the spark of hope alive in Eastern Europe without instigating revolt. It also faced the challenge of emerging German sovereignty, which Lockhart thought would force RFE to relocate to another country. Accompanying Foreign Office memoranda generally endorsed Lockhart conclusions. Information Research Department official F.C. Stacey cautioned that “the need for sensational stories of RFE activities” for the domestic US audience might result in irresponsible RFE broadcasts.

The IOD officer responsible for RFE informs Cord Meyer of the turmoil in the RFE Czechoslovak Service. He opines that resignation of the RFE Munich leadership [European Director Erik Hazelhoff and his deputies David Penn and Charles J. McNeill] “would be an extremely healthy thing.”

Voice of America (VOA) country policy guidelines for Czechoslovakia, endorsed by the Committee on Radio Broadcasting Policy (CRBP), one of a series of East European country guidelines for VOA complementing country guidelines for Radio Free Europe (RFE).

Staff draft of NSC 5608, concluding that ferment in the Communist world provides new opportunities to challenge Soviet control. A draft annex called for “encouraging evolutionary change” and defined as tasks of RFE and RL (and other USG-funded media) “avoiding any incitement to premature revolt” while “seeking to maintain faith in the eventual restoration of freedom.” Redacted document 76, FRUS, 1955-1957, XXV, unredacted document 12, Csaba Békés, Malcolm Byrne, and János M. Rainer, The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: A History in Documents (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002.)

Frank Wisner in a memorandum to Robert Joyce dissents from State Department criticism that exile participation on Radio Free Europe is minimal and rejects State’s proposal that East European National Councils should themselves organize broadcasts.

George Kennan, State Department official Llewellyn E. Thompson, and Office of Policy Coordination director Frank Wisner agree that influential private citizens organizing the Free Europe Committee (FEC) require approval for the project from Secretary of State Dean Acheson and thereafter responsibility for dealing with East European émigré leaders will shift from State to the FEC.

CIA, State Department, Defense Department, and OPC officials discuss establishing a philanthropic organization to sponsor radio broadcasts and other activities of Eastern European émigrés.