Saturday 27 August 2022

The birth of BBC Monitoring

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.

Friday 15 July 2022

Six covert radio stations of the past 60 years

Here are links to articles on this blog profiling six covert (in one way or another) radio stations of the past 60 years - two British, one American, one Russian, one South African, one Palestinian.

In historical order:

Voice of the Coast A modest, and apparently well managed and competently executed, British effort in the second half of the 1960s. It aimed at countering Egyptian and other hostile propaganda in the Gulf. Posing as a local Arabic-language station for Sharjah and the other Trucial States, Voice of the Coast used a softly-softly approach and various shades of "grey" attribution (not attributed, vaguely attributed) to avoid being seen as a British propaganda operation. >> Read more

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

I want to publicise an excellent study by Eddie Bohan of the underground radio scene in Northern Ireland during the early years of the Troubles

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 Free Derry (Socialist Resistance Group; Official IRA) (1969, 1971)
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)
Raidio na Phoblachta ("Radio of the Republic") (Belfast) (Marxist) 
Armagh Resistance Radio (1971)
Voice of Free Belfast (Andersonstown) (Socialist) 
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

This is a companion article to one I wrote in September 2019 about various clandestine radio stations that targeted communist China between the 1960s and the 1980s and were presumed to have been operated first by the CIA and then by Taiwan. 

The article below looks at other subversive broadcasts to China, this time from the USSR. 

"Active measures"

A US National Security Council document circulated within Nato in 1981 looked at "active measures" carried out by the Soviet Union "to complement its traditional diplomacy and weaken governments which are not subservient to direction from Moscow". [1] 

It said:  
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. 
On clandestine broadcasting, the document said: 
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. 
(In addition to the two stations named, elsewhere in the Soviet bloc East Germany was at that time, 1981, providing facilities for two clandestine radios broadcasting to Turkey. In earlier years there had been other stations engaged in subversive "active measures" targeting various Nato countries and transmitting from East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania.)

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. 

"Ba Yi" literally means "Eight One". It refers to 1st August, the official birthday (in 1927) of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). 

Radio Ba Yi is therefore referred to in various sources by its Chinese name, and as Radio Eight One, Radio 8.1, August First Radio and First August Radio

Start of broadcasts

Radio Ba Yi is an example of a clandestine broadcasting operation that began in reaction to a specific event. This was the Chinese invasion of Vietnam on 17 February 1979. 

The USSR was Vietnam's main political and military ally, and the launch of Radio Ba Yi was part of the Soviet response to the Chinese attack. 

Radio Ba Yi was first heard by radio monitors on 3 March, exactly a fortnight after the invasion. [2] 

The station's launch might have been hastily organised by the USSR after its Vietnamese ally was attacked, or there might already have been plans for such broadcasts just waiting to be implemented if and when the opportunity or necessity arose. 

Coordination with Vietnam?

While Moscow always kept silent about Radio Ba Yi, Hanoi did not. State-run Voice of Vietnam radio reported on 10 March 1979 that Ba Yi had been heard the previous day and that it was operated by the PLA. [3] 

Voice of Vietnam also on subsequent occasions publicised Radio Ba Yi and quoted from it. 

Vietnam and the USSR may have coordinated over the launch. The Far Eastern Economic Review said in its edition of 4 May 1979: 
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. 
Objectives and propaganda themes

Radio Ba Yi was a "black" (that is, falsely attributed) operation. It posed as being run by the PLA as an underground outlet within China. It purported to speak on behalf of dissident members of the PLA. References to "our army" were frequent. 

The objective of the broadcasts was to stimulate dissent among members of the military and encourage ill feeling towards China's senior leadership. 

The New York Times reported in May 1984
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. 
Although it never declared its Soviet origins, Radio Ba Yi never contradicted official Soviet policies. It was strongly anti-American, also criticising US allies Japan and Taiwan. On occasions it called for improved Sino-Soviet relations. 

US analysts noted, however, that Ba Yi tried to avoid the appearance of close tactical coordination with official Soviet media. [4]

Targeting Deng Xiaoping 

A particular focus of the broadcasts was Deng Xiaoping, who emerged after the death of Chairman Mao in 1976 to become China's paramount leader. 

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 New York Times article quoted above noted what it called the radio's "anti-Deng campaign": 
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. 
Similarly, an earlier analysis of the station's output by the US State Department said Deng was "a primary target of criticism": 
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]
Propaganda techniques

The following are extracts from Radio Ba Yi broadcasts in 1982 that illustrate some of the techniques used to convey the station's propaganda: 

Hinting at, and stimulating, grievances among Communist Party officials (broadcast on 2 May 1982): 
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.
Driving a wedge between army commanders and political leaders (broadcast on 1 November 1982): 
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.] 
Praise for the army, encouraging its resentment against the party leadership (broadcast on 4 November 1982): 
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.] 
Transmission techniques

Radio Ba Yi made a series of brief transmissions (sometimes as short as four minutes) each evening from 8 p.m. (Chinese time). The same tape was repeated several times in each evening's transmission. The number and duration of the transmissions varied from day to day. 

Initially, the exact transmission times varied, though later in 1979 they settled down to start on the hour and half-hour. 

From April 1981 the transmissions were made at 27 and 57 minutes past every hour during the evening. 

The brevity of the transmissions lent credibility to the idea that this was an underground station forced to keep its transmissions short to avoid detection by the Chinese authorities.

The station had two announcers. It seems that they sometimes took their annual leave at the same time, as the station was absent from the airwaves for a month or more in the summers of 1981, 1982 and 1985. Thus the Soviet habit, which persists in Russia today, of government activity coming to a halt in August, may also have affected its "active measures". 

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

Direction-finding indicated that the transmitter was located in the Soviet Far East, possibly the Vladivostok area.

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.

End of broadcasts 

Radio Ba Yi was last heard in December 1986, a time when Moscow-Beijing relations were improving.

Another Soviet outlet - Red Flag Broadcasting Station

Another Soviet-operated station, Red Flag Broadcasting Station (红旗 广播电台  Hongqi Guangbo Diantai), was first heard in September 1971 and then rather intermittently over the next 15 years. It was inactive for much of 1974, for a time in 1977-78, and again in mid-1981, after which it returned with a stronger signal. 

Like Radio Ba Yi, it disappeared for good in late 1986. 

Red Flag was notable for broadcasting on the mediumwave (AM) band (on 995 kHz) rather than shortwave, which was the waveband used by nearly all other clandestine broadcasts to China. 

Like Ba Yi, it aired short transmissions (around 10 minutes) during the evening. 

Its transmissions were confirmed by direction-finding to originate from the Soviet Far East, possibly the Khabarovsk area. In 1988, a Japanese radio enthusiast recognised one of the presenters of the Chinese service of the Moscow-based Radio Station Peace and Progress as having previously been an announcer on the 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

[1] US National Security Council, September 1981: Soviet "Active Measures" in the West and the Developing World

[2] The date of first reception is given in a detailed report on clandestine broadcasting to China by the Japan-based Asian Broadcasting Institute (ABI). Other information from that report has been used in this article. 

[3] As reported at the time by BBC Monitoring (whose archives have also supplied other details for this article). 

[4] and [5] Foreign Affairs Note (Communist Clandestine Broadcasting) issued by the US State Department in December 1982.

[6] Research Paper, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA, April 1986: The Soviet Propaganda Apparatus (page 7) 

© 2019 and 2022. Material may be reproduced if attributed to Chris Greenway and any original source.