Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Crusade for Freedom was an American propaganda campaign that operated from 1950 to 1960. Its public purpose was to raise funds for Radio Free Europe, but it also served to conceal CIA funding of Radio Free Europe and to build domestic support for Cold War policies.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower inaugurated the Crusade for Freedom on the 4th of September 1950 with a Labor Day speech broadcast over all major radio networks. The first chairman was General Lucius D. Clay, who had previously served as military governor of occupied Germany and was recognized for his role in the Berlin Airlift.
The CIA spent five million dollars funding the Crusade for Freedom over five years, a sum equivalent to upwards of fifty-five million dollars in 2023. According to Christopher Simpson's book Blowback, this made the CIA the largest political advertiser in the United States during that period.
The Freedom Bell was designed by Walter Dorwin Teague in New York, modeled after the American Liberty Bell, and manufactured in England. It bore words from Abraham Lincoln and traveled by truck across the United States before arriving in West Berlin, where Lucius D. Clay dedicated it on the 24th of October 1950.
Over sixteen million Americans signed the Freedom Scroll over the course of the campaign. The scroll declared the signer's participation in the Crusade for Freedom and support for Radio Free Europe.
Ronald Reagan was a major spokesperson for the Crusade for Freedom and starred in a pro-Crusade film called The Big Truth, released in 1951, which depicted Radio Free Europe broadcasts into Czechoslovakia. Clips from the film were used as advertisements during the 1951-52 fundraising campaign, produced by the Hearst Corporation and the Advertising Council.