A storied legacy and continued challenges: Reflections on RFE/RL and commemorating A. Ross Johnson

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A storied legacy and continued challenges: Reflections on RFE/RL and commemorating A. Ross Johnson

May 17, 2021

For 70 years, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has played a critical role in working to advance freedom of information and the press in Europe, Eurasia, and the Middle East. Now, as authoritarian governments ramp up efforts to undermine democracy, human rights, and media freedom, RFE/RL is again on the front lines. Join us for a conversation with Jamie Fly, President and Chief Executive Officer of RFE/RL, and Daisy Sindelar, Vice President and Editor in Chief of RFE/RL, on the history, impact, and current challenges faced by RFE/RL in today’s evolving media environment.

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May 17, 2021, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

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Send questions to our panelists by email to kennan@wilsoncenter.org, tweet @KennanInstitute, or write on our Facebook page.

Speakers

Jamie Fly resumed his leadership of RFE/RL as President and Chief Executive Officer on February 16, 2021, following his reappointment by the RFE/RL Board of Directors. Fly was first named RFE/RL President and Chief Executive Officer on July 10, 2019, effective August 1, 2019. Prior to his appointment, Fly served as a senior fellow, co-director of the Alliance for Security Democracy, and director of the Future of Geopolitics and Asia programs at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. He served as counselor for Foreign and National Security Affairs to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) from 2013-17, serving as his foreign policy advisor during his presidential campaign. Prior to joining Senator Rubio’s staff in February 2013, he served as the executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) from its founding in early 2009. Prior to joining FPI, Fly served in the Bush administration at the National Security Council (2008-09) and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005-08). His articles and reviews have been published in a wide variety of outlets in the United States and Europe. For his work in the Department of Defense, he was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Fly received a B.A. in international studies and political science from American University and an M.A. in German and European studies from Georgetown University.
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Daisy Sindelar was named Vice President and Editor in Chief of RFE/RL in August 2019, and served as Acting President in January 2021, June to December 2020 and from December 2018 to July 2019. Prior to these appointments, Sindelar served as Director of the Current Time digital network, a 24/7 Russian-language global network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with Voice of America. Sindelar has been with RFE/RL since February 2001 and contributed in various journalistic and editorial roles within our Central Newsroom. She advanced from Senior Correspondent to a management role as Regional Director, European Desk. Previous to joining RFE/RL she was managing editor of The Moscow Times and editor-in-chief of The St. Petersburg Times. Sindelar holds a B.A. in Russian studies from Bryn Mawr College, in addition to completing post-graduate journalism studies at the University of Florida and advanced Russian language studies at the Herzen Pedagogical Institute in St. Petersburg.
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Robert S. Litwak is senior vice president and director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Litwak is also a consultant to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He served on the National Security Council staff as director for nonproliferation in the first Clinton administration. He was an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and has held visiting fellowships at Harvard University’s Center for International Affairs, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Oxford University. Dr. Litwak is author of Rogue States and U.S Foreign Policy, Outlier States, and most recently, Managing Nuclear Risks and Nuclear Crises with North Korea and Iran. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Christian F. Ostermann is director of the History and Public Policy Program (HAPP) which seeks to bring historical context to public policy issues. Dr. Ostermann also oversees the Center’s renown Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) and co-directs (with Professor Leopoldo Nuti, Roma Tre University, Rome) the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP) and its Nuclear History Boot Camp. He created and leads the North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP) which documents North Korean politics and foreign policy. Ostermann envisioned and established the program’s award-winning Digital Archive—International History Declassified, winner of the American Historical Association’s Roy Rosenzweig Prize. Under his leadership since 1998, the program has become a globally-active and widely-acclaimed resource for new and policy-relevant historical findings and insights. Together with W. Roger Louis (National History Center) Ostermann launched and co-chairs the weekly Washington History Seminar. Dr. Ostermann also envisioned and founded the Center’s Global Europe Program (2007-2017) and chaired the Ion Ratiu Democracy Award (2006-2017), which seeks to recognize and strengthen the efforts of engaged thinkers and thoughtful practitioners working on behalf of democracy. Ostermann chaired and launched several fellowship programs (Finnish Scholar Program; Romanian Cultural Institute Program Scholar Program; Korea Foundation Junior Scholars Program, Erfurt University Junior Scholar Program; Swiss Scholar and Swiss Day Program) and designed the Ahtisaari Symposium series on European Security in a Global Context. A prolific fundraiser, he has won more than $10 million in foundation grants and private sponsorships. A historian of contemporary US foreign policy and Germany, Ostermann is the author of numerous articles and document editions. His 1996 article on the 1953 East German Uprising won the German Studies Association’s Best Article Prize, his Uprising in East Germany 1953: The Cold War, The German Question, and the First Major Upheaval Behind the Iron Curtain (2001) won an Honorable Mention of the Kuehl Prize for Documentary Editing by the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations. His book Between Containment and Rollback: he United States and the Cold War in Germany, 1945-1953 will be published by Stanford University Press in 2019. He is currently completing a biography of East German chief of foreign intelligence Markus Wolf, the longest-serving spymaster of the Cold War. Other publications include “The United States and German Unification,” in Michael Gehler u. Maximilian Graf, eds, Europa und die deutsche Einheit: Beobachtungen, Entscheidungen und Folgen (Vandenhoeck, 2017); "The Global Cold War: Using the Resources of the Cold War International History Project," in: Understanding and Teaching the Cold War, ed. by John Day Tully, Matthew Masur and Brad Austin (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 2017); “Trust, but Verify” The Politics of Uncertainty & the Transformation of the Cold War Order, 1969-1991, ed. with Martin Klimke, Reinhild Kreis (Stanford University Press, 2016); Extended Deterrence in Europe and East Asia during the Cold War - A reappraisal, a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies 39 (2016), ed. with Leopoldo Nuti; Sino-European Relations during the Cold War and the Rise of a Multipolar World: A Critical Oral History, ed. with Enrico Fardella and Charles Kraus (Washington, 2015); Moles, Defectors, and Deceptions: James Angleton and His Influence on US Counterintelligence,” ed. with Bruce Hoffman (Washington, D.C.: 2014); The Rise and Fall of Détente on the Korean Peninsula, 1970-1974 (2011), ed. with James Person; Crisis and Confrontation on the Korean Peninsula: 1968-1969 (2010), ed. with James Person; Connecting Histories: Decolonization and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, 1945-1962 (2009), ed. with Christopher Goscha. In 2018 Ostermann was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Fellowships include a Senior Research Fellowship at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, the Harry S. Truman Library Dissertation Fellowship and SHAFR’s W. Stull Holt Fellowship. He worked as a research fellow at The George Washington University’s National Security Archive, with which he remains affiliated as a Senior Research Fellow. He has taught at Georgetown University and George Washington University and studied in Germany and the United States.
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A storied legacy and continued challenges: Reflections on RFE/RL and commemorating A. Ross Johnson

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