CIA Churchill bid

Revealed: Agency planned to recruit the former PM for Cold War radio propaganda

- BY ANDY LINES Chief Reporter

WINSTON Churchill was the subject of an attempt by the CIA to get him to broadcast propaganda into the Soviet Union.

Newly released documents show that Radio Liberty, a CIA-backed station that broadcast to the USSR, hoped to use the wartime leader to turn listeners against their Communist leaders in 1958.

Bosses at the station in Germany contacted CIA chiefs to tell them they were preparing a special series of programmes to mark the 75th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx.