From Greg Fossedal's appearance on Booknotes in 1989:

"... we have this image of the Voice of America as sort of simply being the counterpart to Soviet propaganda. That it's sort of supposed to repeat democratic slogans and tell people how much superior democracy is ... the interesting thing is that the radios seem to have the most impact when they are concentrating on conditions within those countries. It doesn't do somebody in Hungary much good to hear that Americans are more prosperous. What they need is ideas and facts about how to incrementally reform the communist system ... our radio very aggressively and in some detail and with some thought behind it reported on those [incremental economic reforms in Poland and elsewhere]. And reported on how people were organizing in other countries and within Hungary how alternative parties were forming to the communist party. And this information was critical to the formation of those democratic movements."