Gene Sosin

LAKEVILLE — Gene Sosin, 93, of White Plains, N.Y., the former Director of Broadcasting for Radio Liberty, died peacefully on May 6, 2015, of pneumonia. He is survived by his wife, Gloria (Donen) Sosin; his children, Deborah Sosin of Watertown, Mass., and Donald Sosin and his wife, Joanna Seaton, of Lakeville; and his grandchildren, Nick and Mollie Sosin. 

Gene Sosin was a writer, lecturer and specialist in Russian affairs. His book, “Sparks of Liberty: An Insider’s Memoir of Radio Liberty,” was published in 1999 by Penn State University Press. For more than 30 years, Dr. Sosin was Director of Broadcasting at Radio Liberty, the U.S. government-sponsored shortwave station that penetrated Soviet censorship to reach millions of listeners in the former USSR. 

Dr. Sosin’s work appeared in numerous scholarly books on Russia and in The New York Times, The New Leader, The Jewish Week, Forward, Midstream, and Present Tense. He edited John Gunther’s “Inside Russia Today” and contributed to Hedrick Smith’s bestseller, “The Russians.”

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on July 24, 1921, to Charlotte and Edward Sosin, Dr. Sosin graduated from Columbia College in 1941, Phi Beta Kappa, and served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy during World War II, specializing in Japanese language and cryptography. After the war, he returned to Columbia, earning an M.A. and Ph.D. in Russian language and Soviet studies; his dissertation examined Soviet children’s theater.

Dr. Sosin lectured at the Harvard Davis Center, the Harriman Institute at Columbia, the Air Force Academy, the Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C., and other colleges, and at conferences on Soviet affairs. He appeared on 60 Minutes and National Public Radio. Dr. Sosin made a special study of underground Soviet humor and the protest songs of guitarists/poets Bulat Okudzhava, Aleksandr Galich and Vladimir Vysotsky. 

He wrote op-eds and letters to the editor up until the time of his short illness.

Dr. Sosin and his wife, Gloria, also a writer and lecturer on Russian affairs whom he met at Columbia, visited Jewish refuseniks in Russia, and interviewed hundreds of émigrés in Israel, Europe and the U.S. They were on the board of directors of the New York Association for New Americans (NYANA), which resettled more than half of the Soviet Jewish émigrés who arrived in this country. 

Dr. Sosin served as NYANA’s vice president. He and his wife traveled widely in the former Soviet Union, Europe and Israel.

 A classical music aficionado, Dr. Sosin was also an avid trivia expert who had a winning streak on the game show Tic Tac Dough in the late 1950s, finally losing to a competitor who, it was later revealed in quiz show scandal testimony, had been fed the answers.

Funeral services were held at Community Synagogue in Rye, N.Y. 

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Community Synagogue Music Fund or Columbia University’s Harriman Institute.