This is the unique story of a love and hate triangle built around something one cannot see, touch or weigh: radio waves.

I grew up with it. Every evening, in an underground atmosphere, my father listened to Radio Free Europe as anyone else did. It meant more than information. While Ceausescu’s propaganda had less and less to do with reality, Free Europe’s Romanian section provided - apart from news – some hope. We had no idea it is a CIA operation. Simultaneously, in thousands of houses and blocks across the country, millions of people performed this daily ritual. And, the next day, the words of Free Europe were on everybody’s lips.
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“You can lie to somebody for a while, but you cannot lie to everybody all the time, like the communists did.” (Ion Joldu of Jina, Sibiu)

“It was always in my mind – we have absolutely no rights, we are just like slaves. We are a new kind of slaves: we have a TV, a house, but we have absolutely no rights.”
(Vasile Paraschiv)

“Dear Censorship comrades, please let this post card through. We love music and music is innocent.” (Andrei Voiculescu, quoting a letter from a listener)

“I had no power but the microphone. – A great power.” (Monica Lovinescu)

“Radio Free Europe replaced the opposition.” (Şerban Orescu)

“There is nowhere else that I could express myself. If you give me a column in Scânteia, I give up Radio Free Europe and I publish my views in Scânteia.” (Doina Cornea)

“Radio Free Europe was our daily intellectual food.” (Dan Zamfirescu)

“If we had worked as agents, I think it would have been better to work for Saddam or the president of Libya, who had millions, right? The Romanians had nothing!” (Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as Carlos “The Jackal”)

“For me, Radio Free Europe was a way of discovering Romania at a smaller scale.” (Emil Hurezeanu)

“We had a comfortable life, but slightly schizophrenic, because we talked for 10 hours about all the misery in Romania and after that we went out into a free world <…> We were living in the same sauce we had left behind. There was no other way! This was my job, and, one way or the other, it was my life.” (Neculai Constantin Munteanu)

“I grew up with these voices, without seeing their faces. I heard them but I was not interested. Politics was disgusting. There was nothing we could do, anyway. But my father listened every night to Radio Free Europe. If he turned ours off, you could hear the neighbors’ radio.” (Alexandru Solomon)