To mark the 83rd anniversary of the formation of the BBC Monitoring Service on 26 August 1939, I've revised and expanded my 2019 article on the events leading up that date.
Radio Atlantico del Sur
An occasional blog, largely on historical subjects, by Chris Greenway. Named after the British station in the 1982 Falklands War.
Saturday 27 August 2022
Friday 15 July 2022
Six covert radio stations of the past 60 years
Radio Spark Set up in 1966 to exploit turmoil in China during the Cultural Revolution, this was one of three CIA-run stations based in Taiwan. They were so pure "black" (falsely attributed) that they ended up confusing other parts of the US intelligence community who assumed they were genuine dissident operations inside China. The stations were closed after Nixon's 1972 visit to China, but Taiwan appears to have revived them and they were running well into the 1980s. >> Read more
First August Radio Named after China's Army Day, this was a Soviet "active measures" and pure "black" operation to encourage dissent in the People's Liberation Army after China invaded Moscow's ally Vietnam in 1979. It is impossible to say whether it achieved this objective to any extent, but it did have nuisance value. It closed in 1986. >> Read more
Radio Atlantico del Sur Known to its operators as Project MOONSHINE, this was a short-lived British station targeting Argentine forces in the 1982 Falklands War. It had purely tactical objectives regarding enemy troops, rather than being an attempt at strategic communications targeting Argentina or Latin America. The FCO seemed to have been unable to grasp this, and rows between the FCO and MOD delayed the start of broadcasts and undermined the station's work and reputation. Pale "grey"/"off-white". >> Read more
Radio Truth One of several covert radio stations run by apartheid South Africa from the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s to undermine neighbouring countries, in this case Zimbabwe. Its presenters had British accents and gave an address in UK, but the station was in Johannesburg. Its operation was a long-running irritation to the Mugabe government. "Grey/black". >> Read more
Al-Quds Palestinian Arab Radio Funded by Libya and run by the PFLP-GC Palestinian faction from southern Syria. It was launched in 1988, shortly after the start of the first Palestinian intifada, quickly gaining a mass audience. It was a tactical success, but closed as a strategic failure more than 20 years later. "Light grey" (vaguely attributed). >> Read more
© 2022. Material may be reproduced if attributed to Chris Greenway and any original source.
Saturday 2 July 2022
When Britain wooed Arab hearts and minds
Note! I've updated my 2018 article on Voice of the Coast (Sawt al-Sahil), the Arabic-language radio station operated by Britain in the 1960s to counteract Egyptian and other hostile propaganda in the Gulf.
Wednesday 8 June 2022
Radio Atlantico del Sur - 40 years on
A strange thing has happened.
Once a barely known episode in the Falklands
War, Radio Atlantico del Sur is now one of the best documented British information
operations since the Second World War.
Even as recently as the 30th anniversary of the war, the few "facts" about the station that could be found in a Google search were generally wrong: all of the BBC's top management opposed it – nobody in the islands heard it – its presenters were civil servants – it used a "well known BBC frequency".
There was a bizarre claim that it broadcast
from a basement in the Foreign Office. Given what we now know the FCO was saying
about the station in Whitehall, and in off-the-record briefings to the press, it would
hardly have been more ridiculous to have said it was based in Buenos Aires.
The predominant impression was that it was, at best, a pointless exercise; and, at worst, counter-productive, even ludicrous. If described in a single word, it might have been "amateurish".
The past 10 years have seen much more
of the truth emerge about Radio Atlantico del Sur. I've tried to document
as much of that as I can in this blog.
Latest disclosures
Now an excellent TV documentary by Stewart
Purvis, broadcast in early April to mark the 40th anniversary of the war and available on YouTube, has added much more to our knowledge.
Purvis knew the station's manager, Neil ffrench-Blake, well, and had access to his large collection of secret papers.
Some of the things revealed publicly for the first time in the documentary:
- The station's military commentator, who was introduced on air as Jaime Montero, was in reality a serving major in the 14th/20th King's Hussars, Terence Scott (he's interviewed in the documentary).
- One of his cousins, Major Tony Valdes-Scott, who was in the same regiment, was the station's chief editor.
- Another cousin was the station's sole female announcer, who used the on-air Mariana Flores. I've described her work on my blog.
- The station's chief engineer was Jim
Warrack, a former RAF technician who in 1982 was an engineer at Hereward
Radio in Peterborough.
- Soon after the launch of the station,
Warrack quickly switched the station's feed from London to the transmitter on Ascension
from a radio link to a phone line. (Something I had looked at in 2017 in my blog
post
The Incident at Crowsley Park on the Night of 20-21 May 1982.)
- One of the news editors was David Addis, who in 2018 wrote an anonymous guest article on my blog.
Monday 2 March 2020
Psychological radio warfare during the Troubles in Northern Ireland
It would be pointless to rehash Bohan's study here, so I've simply compiled the lists below of the stations that he mentions.
Bohan says: "Their [the underground radio stations'] reputed listenership was in excess of 70% and they were often the sole outlet for news. They gave voice to the oppressed, they challenged the Government’s official positions, they provided morale boosts, they rallied their foot soldiers into action."
Republican/Nationalist
Radio Free Belfast (Falls Road) (1969)
Radio Saoirse ("Radio Freedom") a.k.a. Voice of the Second Battalion (Derry) (Provisional IRA) (1969, 1971)
Radio Bogside (Derry) (1969)
Radio 3 Belfast (Falls Road) (October 1970)
Armagh Resistance Radio (1971)
Workers' Radio (Falls Road) (Official IRA) (1972)
Radio Sunshine
Radio Free Newry (1974)
Loyalist/Unionist
Radio Free Ulster a.k.a. Radio Ulster a.k.a. Voice of Ulster (Shankill Road, Belfast) (1969)
Radio Orange (Shankill Road) (1969, 1970)
Radio Shankill a.k.a. Radio Ulster (seems to have been a different "Radio Ulster" from the one above) (1969)
Radio Sundown (Shankill Road) (1969)
Radio Free Nick a.k.a. Voice of the UDA (Ulster Defence Association) (Belfast) (1972)
Radio Northern Ireland
Radio Ajax a.k.a. Radio Big Jim (Belfast)
Radio Woodvale (1974)
Neutral/non-sectarian/"peace" radios
Radio Peace (Springfield Park, West Belfast) (1969)
Gnomes of Ulster a.k.a GNU Radio (South Belfast) (1972)
Harmony Radio
Radio 99 a.k.a. Radio Caroline North (County Fermanagh, County Monaghan) (1971)
Radio Antrim (1973-1975)
Saturday 29 February 2020
From my archive: Radio and the assassination of President Sadat
I wrote the article below
for the October 1981 edition of Communication, the journal of the British DX Club (an association
of radio enthusiasts and hobbyists).
The key point of the article is that, for several hours after Sadat's assassination,
Egyptian state radio was incapable of reacting to (or even reporting) it, while
its Libyan counterpart did its best to exploit that failure. At the time, Libya
was both a source and a target of psychological radio activity.
In 1981, fifteen years before the internet and pan-Arab satellite TV channels began
to become the preferred source of news for Arab audiences, they often heard about
developments in their own countries from foreign radio broadcasts. This included
stations in other Arab countries as well as those outside the region such as the
BBC Arabic service and its Paris-based competitor Radio Monte Carlo.
The article mentions Libyan radio's external Arabic-language service, Voice of the Arab Homeland. In March 1983 this
was renamed Voice of the Greater Arab Homeland. In 1998 it became Voice
of Africa, reflecting Colonel Gaddafi's changed foreign policy priorities.
Also mentioned is Voice of the Egyptian People. This anti-Sadat clandestine
radio station broadcast from Libya.
The 1981 article:
When President Reagan was shot earlier this year [30 March 1981] television pictures
of the assassination attempt were being shown around the world within minutes of
the event. And when a gunman seriously wounded the Pope in St Peter's Square [on
13 May 1981] listeners to Vatican Radio were soon hearing up-to-the-minute reports
on the Pope's condition broadcast for multilingual audiences worldwide on a number
of shortwave channels.
It was a different matter when President Anwar Sadat was shot by a group of Egyptian soldiers at a military parade in Cairo on 6 October. Although this dramatic event was potentially an occasion for the keen shortwave listener to receive first-hand reports direct from the scene, the behaviour of the Egyptian broadcasting system precluded this.
Outside broadcast cut short
It was at 1104 GMT, 1304 Egyptian time [1], that six soldiers leapt from an army
lorry which had stopped in front of the president's reviewing stand, threw grenades
at Sadat and other VIPs and then opened fire, fatally wounding the Egyptian leader
and seven others and causing at least 20 other casualties. [Note in 2020: There
are now various figures available for the number of those killed and injured.]
Egyptian state radio and television, which had been carrying a live outside broadcast
of the ceremony, abruptly cut this short without explanation, leaving listeners
and viewers bewildered. For Egyptians, foreign broadcasters became the only sources
of information about events in their own capital for almost seven hours. Their confusion
must have been compounded as these foreign radio stations, particularly those broadcasting
specifically to Egypt, gave conflicting accounts of events in Cairo.
Meanwhile, within an hour of the shooting, lunch time listeners in Britain were receiving full coverage of what was known at the time, including several eyewitness reports, on Radio 4's The World at One (at 1200 GMT). Sadat died in hospital at around 1215 GMT and his death was unofficially communicated shortly afterwards to the world's press. [2]
Libyan radio changes its
schedule
The state radio in neighbouring Libya had pre-empted this information and was announcing
Sadat's death within an hour of the shooting in Cairo, giving rise to suspicions
that sources in Libya may have had advanced warning of the attack.
At 1253 GMT, Tripoli radio announced that General Shazly, a former Egyptian army
chief of staff now living in Libya as leader of the Egyptian National Front (an
umbrella opposition group), would "be broadcasting an important announcement
to the people shortly". At 1300 GMT it was broadcasting calls to the Egyptian
people, urging them to take over the radio station in Cairo and, in typical polemical
style, announcing that "Sadat's face has disappeared, the ugly face has disappeared
with all its shame, capitulation and defeat. Sadat has died and some of his ministers
have died too. Shame and treason died with him."
In response
to events, Libyan radio discontinued its relay of its domestic service on short
wave at 1415 GMT, replacing it with its Voice of the Arab Homeland external
service for listeners in the Arab world. (This service does not normally start until
1800.) Later this service – using 17930, 15415,
15270 and 6185 kHz – carried a speech on the
assassination by Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.
Meanwhile, the official Libyan news agency JANA was carrying a report claiming that
a local broadcast from an Egyptian radio station had been heard carrying a "revolutionary
statement in the name of the free officers".
Delayed, and limited, reporting
from Cairo
Like the calm at the eye of a storm, the Radio Cairo external service, in
its 1230 GMT scheduled news bulletin in English to Asia, gave no indication that
the assassination had taken place. Only at 1625 GMT did it give any indication of
the trouble by starting to broadcast verses from the Koran. These, uninterrupted
by announcements, were heard on frequencies normally scheduled to relay both Egyptian
radio's General Service and those of its Voice of the Arabs outlet.
Finally, at 1752 GMT, the Koranic recitation was interrupted for an announcement
by a solemn Vice-President Mubarak. This announcement, and the English news bulletin
for Europe at 2130, gave very few details of the manner of Sadat's death but merely
said he had been attacked at the parade to commemorate "the 6th October victory",
the day when "dignity was restored to the entire Arab nation".
Clandestine radio
The anti-Sadat Voice of the Egyptian People clandestine radio station failed to appear on the evening of 6 October for its scheduled 1900-2000 GMT broadcast on 9670 kHz. [I now speculate that this was because the programme was pre-recorded, and the edition scheduled to air that evening had been prepared before the assassination. Rather than air a broadcast that made no mention of the news from Cairo, its Libyan operators decided that the station should remain silent that day. CG, 2020]
Notes
[1] Although the UK was still on summer time on 6 October 1981, Egypt had reverted
to winter time on 1 October and so was GMT+2.
[2] The time of death as 1215 GMT was given in the following day's Times
(of London). The archives of the New
York Times and United
Press International give the time of death as 1240 GMT, 1440 Egyptian time.
© 1981 and 2020. Material may be reproduced if attributed to Chris Greenway and the British DX Club.
Saturday 2 November 2019
Soviet "active measures" against China — the story of Radio Ba Yi
The article below looks at other subversive broadcasts to China, this time from the USSR.
"Active measures"
The Soviets use the term “active measures” (aktivnyye meropriyatiya) to refer to operations intended to provoke a policy effect, as distinct from espionage and counterintelligence. Soviet “active measures” include: written or oral disinformation; efforts to control the media in foreign countries; use of foreign communist parties and front organizations; clandestine radio broadcasting; economic coercion; political influence operations.
Presently the Soviet Union operates two clandestine radio stations: the National Voice of Iran and Radio Ba Yi, which broadcast on a regular basis from the Soviet Union to Iran and China. Soviet sponsorship of these stations has never been publicly acknowledged by Moscow, and the stations represent themselves as organs of authentic local “progressive” forces. The broadcasts of both stations are illustrative of the use of “active measures” activities in support of Soviet foreign policy goals.
The document gave no further details of Radio Ba Yi, so here's my investigation into the station:
Radio Ba Yi — one name, several translations
Radio Ba Yi (八一 电台 Ba Yi Diantai) was active between 1979 and 1986. It was a fully "black" operation, seeking to hide completely its origin in the USSR. Its existence was never mentioned by the Soviet media.
Since April 12, a monitoring station in Seoul has been picking up Mandarin language broadcasts believed to be originating from the Vladivostok area. But the broadcasters have pronounced Southeast Asian accents, leading to speculation that the Vietnamese may be cooperating with Soviets in operating the station, known as Ba Yi (August 1) Radio.
The August First Radio and its companion stations try to sound patriotic, staunchly Communist, anti-Western and sympathetic to army gripes. They charge that Peking insulted the armed forces by giving the military last priority in the four modernizations, after industry, agriculture and science.
Deng Xiaoping, pictured while visiting President Jimmy Carter in January 1979, shortly before Radio Ba Yi was launched. The station made Deng its primary target for criticism |
Deng began the reforms that led to the China we see today. And it was Deng's reforms, which threatened many established officials, that were a particular target of Radio Ba Yi.
The broadcasts also articulate the resentments of hard-liners who have had to yield to Mr Deng's policies. They have accused him of creating a personality cult and letting degenerate Western values into China. The broadcasts have also attacked the party consolidation drive to weed out leftists and criminals from the rank-and-file.
Radio Ba Yi's commentaries have condemned Deng for usurping power, violating the principles of collective leadership, damaging the army by transferring military leaders for his own selfish ends, and selling out China's national interests to the United States and Japan... For example, a January 14, 1980, commentary following US Secretary of Defense Harold Brown's visit to China declared that Sino-US relations had embarked on a path that encroached on Chinese sovereignty, damaged national pride, and threatened national security. It accused Deng of deciding "all by himself" to allow the United States to install and operate, with US intelligence personnel, an electronic "spy network" that would allow the United States to collect "secret intelligence" on China's economy and national defense. The people who agreed to such demands, the commentary concluded, if they did not deliberately wish to turn China into a US military base, were "suffering from senile decay". [5]
The following are extracts from Radio Ba Yi broadcasts in 1982 that illustrate some of the techniques used to convey the station's propaganda:
In the past few months, facts have proved that the principle of reorganising the cadre component, insisted on by Comrade Deng Xiaoping, is incorrect. The principle of consolidating the party and reorganising the cadre component has not only damaged the situation of stability and unity which had emerged, but also dampened the enthusiasm of the broad masses of cadres in carrying out their work. What is worse is that many cadres, who are not veteran senior cadres, have openly expressed their lack of confidence in the party Central Committee. In past years, many cadres worked assiduously and conscientiously without giving a thought to personal gain. However, they have now gone so far as to study the "science of relationship". They have become anxious about making job arrangements for their own children and preparations for their own retirement. This is partly due to the wrong workstyle of these cadres. But on the other hand, isn't it the typical realistic attitude held by cadres towards the party Central Committee and leading comrades of the central authorities? Many veteran cadres, in particular, have become more and more dissatisfied with individual leaders of the central authorities.
Particularly since the end of the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China [held in September 1982], some central leaders have again begun to transfer army leaders and purge army cadres. Moreover, they again treat army cadres with the tricks of those political movements, such as labelling people and using the big stick. They even use various excuses to remove army cadres from military command. What upsets the party cadres the most is that they are accused of being remnants of the Lin Biao clique.
[Marshal Lin Biao died in a plane crash in 1971. The Chinese authorities said he had been attempting to flee the country after mounting an abortive coup against Chairman Mao.]
We can say that the army is second to none in contributing to the founding and construction of New China. However, over the past 30 years and more, many heroes and outstanding generals have been killed because of suspicion and jealousy. This reminds us of the ruthless first emperors of the Song and Ming Dynasties. High-ranking cadres such as Comrades Rao Shushi, Peng Dehuai and Huang Kecheng [see below] were brutally persecuted. Every few years, large numbers of marshals, ministers of national defence and leaders of various departments of the armed forces have been removed and replaced. Instead of improving, the situation actually worsened after the smashing of the Gang of Four [in October 1976].
[Rao Shushi was a senior communist leader, jailed in 1955. Peng Dehuai was a pro-Soviet defence minister, sacked in 1959. Huang Kecheng was an ally of Peng Dehuai.]
Initially, the exact transmission times varied, though later in 1979 they settled down to start on the hour and half-hour.
However, a CIA report in 1986 suggested that the interruption to broadcasts in the summer of 1985 was for political reasons as it coincided with "a period when negative commentary on the PRC in the Soviet media was substantially reduced". [6]
Transmission frequency: Throughout its life, Radio Ba Yi used a single shortwave frequency, 12120 kHz.
Evidence of Soviet origin
On 13 October 1982, presumably because of a switching error, the transmitter on Radio Ba Yi's frequency was heard at the relevant times relaying Soviet domestic radio's entertainment service Mayak.
Another Soviet outlet - Red Flag Broadcasting Station
The Peace and Progress station was itself an example of Soviet "active measures". It was not a clandestine operation, as it routinely announced itself as "the voice of Soviet public opinion", but its broadcasts were often more outspoken than those of the "official" Soviet external radio services.
Notes and sources