Give Freedom to the Captive Nations! Fight Communism!
A donor stamp from the Crusade for Freedom sets a sunlit skyline of church spires, a synagogue's Star of David, a minaret, onion domes and a pagoda above a red scene of soldiers attacking civilians. The religious imagery transfers the moral weight of faith to the anti-communist broadcasting campaign the stamp was sold to fund.
A 1951 donor stamp issued by the Crusade for Freedom, a campaign of the National Committee for a Free Europe that the record says was covertly funded by the CIA. A sunlit skyline of church spires, a synagogue's Star of David, a minaret, onion domes and a pagoda sits above a red scene of soldiers attacking civilians, with the words "Give freedom to the captive nations!" and "Fight communism!". The U.S. public was asked to fund broadcasting. Transfer lends the moral weight of faith to the campaign.
Propaganda techniques used in this stamp
- Date
- 1951
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- Crusade for Freedom / National Committee for a Free Europe (covertly funded by the CIA)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Stamp
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Truman Administration
- Leader
- Harry S. Truman
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Fundraise
- Themes
- Religion, Media and information
- Event
- Crusade for Freedom
- Source
- Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Crusade for Freedom (1951); via Cold War Radios / Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked
GIVE FREEDOM TO THE CAPTIVE NATIONS! FIGHT COMMUNISM! Crusade For Freedom
'GIVE FREEDOM TO THE CAPTIVE NATIONS!' runs around three sides of the stamp's border (TO THE / CAPTIVE NATIONS! along the top and right, GIVE FREEDOM down the left) and 'FIGHT COMMUNISM!' along the bottom border; 'Crusade For Freedom' is a small script caption inside the lower (red) panel.
