A. Ross Johnson, former research fellow and director of Radio Free Europe, who played a leading role in developing and preserving the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty collection at the Hoover Institution, passed away on February 6. He was 82.
Johnson spent most of his career at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and was a senior executive of the organization from 1988 to 2002, serving as director of RFE, director of the RFE/RL Research Institute, and acting president and counselor of RFE/RL. From 2003 to 2016, he was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2008 until his passing, Johnson was a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, where he primarily studied the role and impact of Radio Free Europe during the Cold War, the future for United States international broadcasting, and the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.
Johnson was an adviser to Hoover’s Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Archive Project and supported the Library & Archives’ successful acquisition of the RFE/RL records from Washington, DC, and headquarters in Prague. The entire collection includes more than 10.5 million pages and 10,000 sound recordings from the 1950s to 2006.
In October 2004, Johnson organized a major conference copresented by the Hoover Institution and the Wilson Center that convened scholars and government officials around the world for conversations on the impact of Western broadcasting during the Cold War. The conference was opened by the late secretary of state George P. Shultz and Václav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, and featured analyses of papers based on research of previously inaccessible primary materials from Eastern European and Soviet archives. The conference papers were published, along with translated documents from these archives, in a volume coedited by Johnson, Cold War Broadcasting; Impact on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Central European University Press, 2010).
Shultz said that the research presented during the conference “would contribute to a better understanding of an important period of world history and contribute to our ability to structure communications in the new global political arena.”
In recent years, Johnson had been working earnestly on the declassification of the RFE/RL records at the Central Intelligence Agency and arranging for their deposit at the Hoover Library & Archives. In 2011, Johnson authored Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Liberty: The CIA Years and Beyond, based on extensive research across Europe as well as on declassified CIA materials.
In 2017, Johnson authored the paper “Optimizing Governance of US International Media in Historical and International Context,” which assessed the restructuring of international broadcasting. He also envisioned ways in which the US government could apply the lessons of the very successful international broadcasting during the Cold War to current geopolitical, media, and technological landscapes.
Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Johnson graduated from Stanford University and, later, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and Columbia University. It was during an experience studying abroad while an undergraduate at Stanford that he changed his major from engineering to follow a passion in foreign affairs. Prior to Johnson’s career at RFE/RL, he was a research fellow both at the RAND Corporation and the Foundation for Science and Politics in Germany.
Johnson spoke German and Serbian fluently. He was also an expert in Balkan history and politics, and an advocate for democratic reform and press freedoms in Eastern Europe. In 1996, Johnson received a citation for Meritorious Service to Polish Culture from the government of Poland in 1996, and the Laurel Award from that country’s prime minister in 2001.
“For the past twenty-five years, Ross was a devoted guardian and champion of the history of the RFE/RL and its archives. All those who were a part of its history and who have cared for its archives will always honor his memory,” said Charles Palm, the former director of Hoover’s Library & Archives.
Johnson is survived by his wife, Diana; his children, Karin and Eric; and his brother, Reid.
