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Title: Cuban Freedom Committee records
Dates: 1947-1993
Collection Number: 97004
Creator: Cuban Freedom Committee.
Collection Size:
70 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box
(28.4 linear feet)
Repository:
Hoover Institution Archives
Stanford, California 94305-6010
Abstract: Correspondence, speeches, reports, radio broadcast transcripts, financial records, press releases, sound recordings, clippings,
and other printed matter, relating to communism, political conditions and civil rights in Cuba, Cuban influence elsewhere
in Latin America, and Cubans in exile in the United States, and especially to broadcasting activities of Free Cuba Radio from
the United States to Cuba. Includes a few later papers of Mariada C. Arensberg (later Bourgin), executive secretary of the
Cuban Freedom Committee.
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives
Languages: In
English
Spanish
Collection is open for research.
The Hoover Institution Archives only allows access to
copies of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your visit, please contact the Archives
at least two working days before your arrival. We will then advise you of the accessibility of the material you wish to see
or hear. Please note that not all audiovisual material is immediately accessible.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives.
[Identification of item], Cuban Freedom Committee records, [Box number], Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 1997.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number
of boxes listed in this finding aid.
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) set up the Cuban Freedom Committee in late 1960 to sponsor anti-Castro
radio broadcasts similar to those of Radio Free Europe. The committee appeared as a private activist group that solicited
donations for the operation, later identified as a funding conduit for CIA domestic operations.
The Cuban Freedom Committee produced Free Radio Cuba, a stridently anti-Castro program that was broadcast before, during,
and after the Bay of Pigs invasion on licensed stations in the United States and overseas including WKWF, Key West; WGBS,
Miami; and Radio Swan from the Swan Islands off the coast of Honduras.
Sources:
Historical Dictionary of American Propaganda, Martin J. Manning and Herbert Romerstein, Greenwood Press, Westport Ct., 2004
"Ex-Pittsburger Heads Cuban Freedom Group: Mrs. Arensberg Named Executive Secretary; Financing Broadcasts Aim,"
Pittsburg Post-Gazzette, April 4, 1961
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection is comprised of records from Mariada C. Arensberg (later Mariada Bourgin), the executive secretary of the Cuban
Freedom Committee and later the special assistant to the U.S. assistant secretary of state for education and cultural affairs.
Materials include correspondence, speeches, reports, radio broadcast recordings and transcripts from Radio Free Cuba, financial
records, press releases, clippings, notes, and other printed matter.
The records of the Cuban Freedom Committee and Radio Free Cuba document research efforts and the creation of and reaction
to radio broadcasts to Cuba. Material includes research files on topics such as Fidel Castro, political conditions and civil
rights in Cuba, the Cuban economy, Cuban propaganda, Latin American groups, Cuban society after Castro, Cuban exiles, Cuban
inmates, Cuban intellectuals, Cuban schools, Cuban subversive activities in Latin America, and Cuban-Russian relations, as
well as material relating to the CIA's involvement in Radio Free Cuba.
As a special assistant in the Department of State, Arensberg was in charge of its programs for women and minorities. Particularly,
there is information relating to increasing the participation in international cultural exchange programs documented through
correspondence, university publications, and print materials.
English and Spanish names of events and organizations were used interchangeably throughout the Cuban Freedom Committee records.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Free Cuba Radio
Radio broadcasting--Cuba.
Anti-communist movements.
Civil rights--Cuba.
Cubans--United States.
Cuba--Politics and government--1959-
Cuba--Foreign relations--United States.
United States--Foreign relations--Cuba.
Cuba--Foreign relations--Latin America.
Latin America--Foreign relations--Cuba.
Bourgin, Mariada C.