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	HU OSA 300-50-6
Fonds 300:	Records of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute
Subfonds 50:	Polish Unit
Series 6:	Interviews with Józef Swiatlo

Date(s) 1954-1955

Extent and medium 8 Archival boxes, 1 linear meters

Scope and content

Józef Światło was born in Poland in 1915. He joined the Communist movement in 1933, and became a Polish Security Service officer in 1945. He rose to the rank of Deputy Chief of Department X, which was responsible for protecting the Communist Party from non-Party subversive forces and for protecting "the purity of the Party from within the Party".
After his escape into the United States, Jozef Swiatlo made his first public statements in Milwaukee, in carefully controlled testimony given before a Congressional Committee on 21 and 22 October 1954, and again a few weeks later in Washington. His testimony was recorded and broadcast over RFE on 28 September. Until 31 December he was a constant figure on RFE's Polish Service broadcasts: one hundred taped programs and almost 150 news items. These programs were called, "a brilliant tactical decision that brought unforseeable strategic gains," and "one of the most successful pieces of radio propaganda ever’.
The series includes original texts, background reports, Information Items and press clippings on the Światło case.

Accruals Not expected

System of arrangement

• Arranged by types and thereunder chronologically

Language/scripts of material English, Polish

Finding aids

• 8 containers

Related units of description

• HU OSA 300-50-13 RFE Confidential Reports on Poland, 1971-1975
• HU OSA 300-50-9 Interviews with Andrzej Czechovicz, Mieczyslaw Lach and Andrzej Smolinski, 1971-1975
• HU OSA 300-50-11 Information Items, 1970-1971

Date(s) of descriptions

Arranged and described by Miklós Tamási, September 30, 2002
Online version updated 6 January 2012