The Radio Signal That Saved a CIA Legend from Stalin's Reach
A single radio sentence in 1965 from Tashkent reached a son he had not seen in over twenty years and told him to "go on living happily," a phrase that was the only signal in twenty-five years - but who was the man it saved, and how did one mother's words travel across Cold War danger to him? Hear how that brief broadcast intersected with a life that survived execution squads, wartime wounds, forged identities, and a career inside the CIA.
In this episode, we tell the story of a man born on January 1, 1917, who endured Soviet repression, a sibling's execution, service and wounds on the Eastern Front, hiding under a false identity, and later work for the Union Intelligence Agency; we follow the moments that led his mother to ignore a state script and send one private message that reached him. What did that message mean for his survival and for the arc of his life?
Person: Ruzi Nazar
Date: January 1, 1917
Location: Margilan, Fergana Valley
Event: Tashkent Radio broadcast, 1965
Family: Mother Tacinissa; brother Yoldash Kari
- He was born on January 1, 1917, in Margilan in the Fergana Valley.
- His brother Yoldash Kari was executed around 1927 for nationalist resistance.
- He was twenty-four when World War II reached the Soviet Union in summer 1941 and served in the Red Army.
- In 1945 the Yalta repatriation clause threatened Soviet citizens in Western-controlled territory with tribunals, execution, or labor camps.
- In 1965 a woman on Tashkent Radio (his mother, Tacinissa) set aside the state's script and told a son she had not seen in over twenty years to "go on living happily."
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21 min