Oggi in Italia — the Cold War radio station with a mass audience

Accounts of clandestine political radio activity in the second half of the 20th century tend to focus on Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. But in the 1950s and 1960s, such stations based east of the Iron Curtain targeted several European countries, including Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and West Germany.

This article looks at one of the longest-running of these European operations: Oggi in Italia (Today in Italy).

All the major published accounts of Oggi in Italia's operations are in Italian. I wanted to tell at least a small part of its interesting story in English, including some confirmed details of its transmission schedules over the years. 

Summary and background

Oggi in Italia was the name used by the Italian Communist Party, the PCI, for its extensive radio broadcasts between 1950 and 1971. Throughout that time, the programmes were prepared by a team of PCI members in Prague, and broadcast from studios there. They were aired over transmitters in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The station also had an East German connection.

The political background to the station was the dominance of the Christian Democratic (DC) party, for decades after the parliamentary election of 1948. For most of that time, the communists were the DC's main opponents, and complained that Italy's national broadcaster RAI, which held a legal monopoly on the airwaves, favoured the DC. This motivated the PCI to run their own broadcasts.

Oggi in Italia was a substantial affair, on the air for several hours a day, and appears to have had a large listenership. Its operations can be seen as mirroring those of Radio Free Europe in that it was not a conventional international broadcaster but one that sought to act as a surrogate domestic service for its audience.

Its downfall came when the PCI's policy diverged from that of its hosts in the repressive atmosphere in Czechoslovakia after 1968. 

 

Broadcasting from Prague to Italy

Based in Prague, Oggi in Italia was staffed by exiled members of the PCI. Its production team was entirely separate from Radio Prague, the multilingual external service of the state broadcaster Československý Rozhlas (CR), which also broadcast in Italian.

Initially, however, Oggi in Italia did not have its own studios or offices and so used those of CR. Its first broadcasts reportedly came from a studio on the fifth floor of the CR building.

Except for seeing each other in the CR canteen, the separate teams of Oggi in Italia and Radio Prague's Italian service apparently had little to do with each other. The Oggi in Italia staff were keen to maintain their editorial independence from their Czechoslovak hosts, answering only to PCI HQ in Rome, albeit only being able to operate with the agreement of the Prague authorities.

They produced their own programmes and had their own sources of information. Every afternoon, they called the Rome offices of the PCI newspaper l'Unità for the latest news.

Later, Oggi in Italia moved into its own premises in Prague, a villa at 7, Nad Nuslemi Street in the residential district of Nusle.

In 2025, historian Claudio Caprara posted then-and-now photos of the site of the villa. 

Start of the broadcasts

Oggi in Italia made its first experimental broadcast on 28 December 1950. 

The following month, the PCI newspaper l’Unità began advertising Oggi in Italia, saying it was on the air every day at 2230-2300 on 243.5 metres mediumwave (1232 kHz). 

(All times in this article are Italian local time. Italy did not observe summer time until 1966 while Czechoslovakia did not use summer time throughout the lifetime of Oggi in Italia.)

The broadcasts were quickly spotted by the Italian secret services. In a report on 16 January 1951, they said the station's purpose was "coordinating in code the movements of communist saboteurs in Italy". 

A second evening broadcast and a regular schedule of programmes were introduced in March 1951. Initially, there were two daily evening broadcasts, at 2030 and 2200, and an extra broadcast at 1245 on Sundays, dedicated to farmers and a sports review. The Sunday broadcast was carried on 11900 kHz shortwave. Another shortwave frequency, 9500 kHz, was used for one of the evening programmes. Both of the evening broadcasts were carried on 1232 kHz mediumwave. 

At the launch of this regular schedule, Oggi in Italia advertised its news output along with programmes dedicated to the arts, literature, women listeners and "the glorious history of the PCI", along with reviews of the Italian press, and denunciations of the Yugoslav leader Tito and the "lies" of the Italian national radio RAI. [1] 

Over the following months, additional frequencies were added from transmitters in Hungary and Poland. In August 1951, BBC Monitoring reported the transmission schedule of Oggi in Italia's two evening transmissions as:

• 2030-2100 on 1232 mediumwave and 11875 shortwave (both from Czechoslovak transmitters), on 1187 mediumwave (from Hungary) and on 7205 and 9525 shortwave (from Poland)

• 2205-2230 on 1232 mediumwave from a Czechoslovak transmitter

Row between Italy and Czechoslovakia

Also in August 1951, the Italian government made an official complaint to the authorities in Prague about Oggi in Italia, making clear that it held Czechoslovakia, rather than the PCI, responsible for the content of the broadcasts.

RAI reported on 14 August that "the Italian government protests against the offensive tone and language of these broadcasts and the fact that certain programmes of Czechoslovak state radio are broadcast in such a way as to make listeners believe that the transmissions come from Italy".

Commenting on the Italian complaint, the Rome newspaper Il Messagero said on 15 August that the government's protest to Czechoslovakia was "justified and necessary" as the broadcasts from Prague "go beyond the extreme permissible limit"

"They do not stop at falsifying the truth, hurling abuse and threatening civil commotion," the paper said. 

Oggi in Italia responded to the Italian complaints on 17 August, saying: "Italian listeners have chosen our broadcasts because we show them every day how RAI has lied, reveal secret treaties, and prevent the Italian government from conceding further territories to the Americans and dragging Italy into another war."

This war of words between RAI and Oggi in Italia continued. The latter had a regular slot, Questa è la RAI (This is RAI), which usually aired twice a week. Sometimes, it would respond directly to a news item broadcast in RAI's main evening radio news bulletin, which went out at 2000, just before Oggi in Italia's main evening programme at 2030. 

In turn, RAI responded by countering accusations made by Oggi in Italia and reporting in detail on the row between Rome and Prague provoked by the PCI's broadcasts.

This diplomatic dispute was prolonged. In December 1954, the Italian government even threatened to break off diplomatic relations with Czechoslovakia over the broadcasts. There was another unsuccessful attempt to stop Oggi in Italia's transmissions through diplomatic channels in 1958.

Further expansion of the broadcasts

In September 1951, a third evening transmission was added, at 2315-2345, under the title Questa sera in Italia ("This evening in Italy"), using a Polish mediumwave frequency, 1079 kHz. 

Also in September 1951, Oggi in Italia rebranded the Thursday and Sunday editions of its 2030 programme as La Voce di Trieste (Voice of Trieste). (Between 1947 and 1954, the Free Territory of Trieste existed as a notionally independent territory under the UN. In practice, it was run by British, American and Yugoslav military governors. In 1954, the territory was divided between Italy and Yugoslavia.)

There were further expansions of the schedule, including the addition of broadcasts at breakfast time.

By May 1953, the communist poster below showed Oggi in Italia as having nine broadcasts a day, mostly 30 minutes each, with transmissions at breakfast and lunchtimes, and for much of the evening. Two mediumwave channels (1232 and 1286) were now being used from Czechoslovakia, along with 1187 from Hungary, 1079 from Poland, and various shortwave frequencies.

 

Image credit: 
https://www.huffingtonpost.it/cultura/2024/01/01/news/la_radio_pirata_comunista_contro_il_battesimo_della_rai-tv-14735173/

The poster says:

STOP THE LIE

RAI uses your money for Christian Democrat propaganda

Listen to OGGI IN ITALIA, the voice of truth

The 1960s

A BBC Monitoring schedule for the winter of 1962-63 shows Oggi in Italia as broadcasting nine 30-minute programmes a day. Much of the schedule had remained unchanged over the previous decade, but a significant addition was the use of a mediumwave transmitter in Romania (on 755 kHz) for one of the evening broadcasts. Mediumwave transmissions from Hungary now used 1250 rather than 1187 kHz, while those from Czechoslovakia used only 1286 kHz, with 1232 having been dropped. (See the Appendix for some sample schedules for Oggi in Italia in the 1950s and 60s.)

The mid-1960s seems to have been the peak of Oggi in Italia's operations and influence.

In 1966, it was reported that a joint survey by the BBC and RAI had found 2.7 million people in Italy listening to it daily, with a total audience of up to five million. 

Listeners' letters: the mysterious "Guido Verdi" and the postal address in Berlin

There were also listeners among the hundreds of thousands of Italians who had gone to other countries in Western Europe to seek work. In March 1965, the station introduced a mailbag programme, reading out listeners' letters. The following month, it read out a letter from an Italian worker in England who complained of loneliness and doing poorly-paid jobs scorned by Englishmen. 

Letters also came from Italians working in West Germany and Switzerland. 

Listeners were invited to write to the station via a certain "Guido Verdi" at PO Box 429, Berlin 102.

"Guido Verdi" was also the name used by a commentator on the station in 1967.

Lorenzo Berardi, who has written extensively on Oggi in Italia, says the address was in West Berlin, and that letters sent to it were collected by an agent based in East Berlin, who forwarded them to Prague. He says that at one point about a thousand letters a month were received, half for Oggi in Italia and the rest for Radio Prague's Italian service. 

However, Berlin 102 is given in an unrelated BBC Monitoring report in 1969 as being the address of the SED (the East German communist party) – so, in East Berlin, rather than the Western sector. Confusing!

Wherever his post office box was, the activities of "Guido Verdi" came to the attention of the West German authorities. The West German Interior Ministry reported in 1968 that it was the pseudonym of Fulvio Sanna, Oggi in Italia's editor, who was said to have engaged in subversive activity among Italian workers in West Germany alongside "Anna Ferrari" (also a pseudonym), the head of Radio Berlin International's Italian service. 

The ministry noted that, in December 1967, "Verdi" had started posting letters in West Germany, giving German names as those of the sender. Perhaps this accounts for the confusion.

It is also not clear why letters for Radio Prague were also being sent to a Berlin address, rather than directly to the Czechoslovak capital. Whatever the reason, it seems to have been a source of irritation for the staff of Oggi in Italia. BBC Monitoring reported the following remarks by an Oggi in Italia presenter in November 1965: "A letter has reached our post box from San Remo, containing a reproof for a commentary broadcast by Radio Prague in connection with the press conference given by Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi in Peking. This letter was incorrectly addressed to our editorial office since Oggi in Italia is not Radio Prague. It is well known that letters to Oggi in Italia should be addressed to Guido Verdi, PO Box 429, Berlin 102."

Schedule cutbacks in 1967

The daily broadcast schedule remained stable until 1967, when there were major cutbacks to Oggi in Italia's operations as events turned against the station.

At some point in 1967, there was a fire at the villa and Oggi in Italia was forced to move its operations back to the studios of Radio Prague for a while.

 

In June 1967, Oggi in Italia stopped being broadcast from transmitters in Czechoslovakia, with its time slots being taken over by Radio Prague in Italian and German. 

This forced Oggi in Italia to introduce a new schedule. It put a brave face on the change, ignoring the loss of the valuable Czechoslovak mediumwave frequency of 1268 for its two long-running primetime evening slots, and instead highlighting an extension of the late evening broadcast over the Hungarian MW channel of 1250 to last for 90 minutes. However, by this time Italy was on summer time, but Oggi in Italia had to fit in with the local time in Czechoslovakia (which had not introduced DST). 

That meant that this late broadcast now went out at 2330-0100 Italian time – hardly a convenient hour for many listeners.

Further cutbacks in 1968

In turn, the transmissions via Hungary stopped in July 1968, while those via Romania ended early the following month. 

That just left the broadcasts via shortwave transmitters in Poland. 

Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia

The Soviet-led invasion on the night of 20-21 August 1968 forced the immediate suspension of all of Oggi in Italia's broadcasts. 

BBC Monitoring reported the broadcasts resuming on 16 September 1968, but only from the transmitter in Romania (which had opposed the invasion). 

The station's operations were never the same, given that the PCI had strongly opposed the Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia. 

After the Czechoslovak leader, Alexander Dubček, was forced by Moscow to resign in April 1969, the country entered a period of repression known as the "normalisation". This included greater control by the country's authorities over Oggi in Italia. The whole purpose of the station, as an independent voice of the PCI – hosted but not controlled by Czechoslovakia – was therefore lost.

Close down

The exact circumstances of the end of Oggi in Italia are unclear.

It closed on 31 March 1971. One of the final straws was reportedly an interview it aired with Enrico Berlinguer, a future leader of the PCI, in which he denounced the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia. 

NOTES AND SOURCES

[1] Oggi in Italia made this announcement about its programme schedule on 26 March 1951:

"Dear listeners, after speaking to you these days as best we could, starting tomorrow, Oggi in Italia will be coming to you twice every evening, at 8pm and 10pm, on mediumwave 243.5 metres [1232 kHz] to tell you how people in Italy and around the world have fought for peace, well-being and freedom.

"And it will come to you with new columns, a review of events and a more up-to-date and broader overview of the day, in Italy and around the world. By car or on foot, by bicycle or by phone, the radio commentator will come to you almost every day.

"Each week we will recommend a book for your library. For women, Oggi in Italia will tell how they must fight to build a happy family, and we will talk to you about life, the arts, and literature.

"Giovanni and Piero will return twice a week, on Saturdays and Wednesdays, to tell you the glorious history of the PCI.

"Every Thursday at 8.30 on mediumwave 243.5 metres, you'll hear the trumpet of Libera Uscita. An hour later, at 10pm on the same wavelength, you'll be able to hear a political note and our column dedicated to the democratic movement around the world in the fight for peace.

"Every Friday at 8.30pm, Oggi in Italia will comb through the Italian yellow press. And at 10pm, it will document and denounce Tito and Titoism as the worst enemies of peace and socialism.

"For listeners who want to keep up with the international situation, simply listen to our dial every Saturday at 10pm.

"Every Sunday, Oggi in Italia will speak to you three times a day. At 12.45pm on shortwave 25.21 metres [11900 kHz] it will feature a programme dedicated to farmers and a sports review. At 8.30pm, it will feature the wanderings of the Oggi in Italia caravan, which will visit a different region of Italy each Sunday. At 10pm, for the third and final time on Sunday, you'll hear us again with "Seven Days in Parliament and in the Country." And after taking you to the land of socialism, we'll treat you to a beautiful song and finally bid you goodnight.

"During the week in the 8.30pm broadcast, you'll be able to listen to recordings and radio commentaries of events in Italy and around the world. You'll also hear anecdotes. We'll open the shop for you on Christian Democrat scandals. We'll tell you what you need to believe to be, according to [Italian Prime Minister Alcide] De Gasperi, a good citizen. We'll introduce you to newspapers and magazines.

"We'll list the lies – alas, too numerous – told by Radio Roma. We'll answer your questions, read you the thoughts of illustrious figures, and finally, we'll tell you who the biggest idiot of the week is.

"And now, dear listeners, see you tomorrow evening at 8:30pm on mediumwave 243.5 metres and shortwave 31.57 metres [9500 kHz]. And at 10pm on mediumwave 243.5 metres."

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

- BBC Monitoring's archive.

- May 2025 podcast by Claudio Caprara: La guerra fredda delle radio (Radio's Cold War), which starts with a reconstruction of the start of an Oggi in Italia broadcast. 

- 2019 article by Lorenzo Berardi: La radio cecoslovacca del Pci (The Czechoslovak radio of the PCI), which includes a link to a 1993 radio documentary on Oggi in Italia.

- Lengthy 2025 article by Simone Nepi: Onde rosse – Gli esuli italiani in Cecoslovacchia e le trasmissioni radio da Praga verso l’Italia durante la guerra fredda 1948-1976 (Red Waves – Italian exiles in Czechoslovakia and the radio broadcasts from Prague to Italy during the Cold War 1948-1976)

- 2007 article by Philip Cooke: 'Oggi in Italia’: The Voice of Truth and Peace in Cold War Italy.

- January 2024 article by Michele Bovi: La radio pirata comunista contro il battesimo della Rai-Tv" (The communist pirate radio against the baptism of Rai-TV)

- March 2009 article: "Praga 1950-1968: il racconto di Radio Oggi in Italia" (Prague 1950-1968: the story of Radio Oggi in Italia)

APPENDIX: Sample schedules over the years

All times are Italian local time.

May 1953 (from a PCI poster):

0800-0830 on shortwave: 31.57 metres (9500 kHz)

1245-1315 on shortwave: 25.34 metres (11840 kHz)

1315-1330 on shortwave: 31 metre band and 42.11 metres (7125 kHz)

1730-1800 on shortwave: 41 and 49 metre bands

1930-2000 on shortwave: 30.88 metres (9715 kHz)

2000-2030 on three SW frequencies and 1187 mediumwave (from Hungary) 

2030-2100 on 1232 MW (from Czechoslovakia), 1187 MW (Hungary) and three SW frequencies

2200-2230 on 1232 MW (from Czechoslovakia)

2330-2400 on 1286 MW (from Czechoslovakia) and 1079 (from Poland)

Winter 1962-63 (from a BBC Monitoring schedule of March 1963, with times converted from GMT to Italian local times):
0700-0725 on 7217 & 6235 SW
1245-1315 on 11955, 11840, 11800, 9540 & 9525 SW
1700-1730 on 1250 MW (Hungary) and 9675, 7145 & 6235 SW 

1930-2000 on 755 MW (Romania)
2030-2100 on 1286 MW (Czechoslovakia) and 9675 & 7145 SW 

2200-2230 on 1286 MW (Czechoslovakia)
2230-2300 on 7145 & 6005 SW
2300-2330 on 1250 MW (Hungary)
2330 to midnight on 1286 MW (Czechoslovakia) and 1250 MW (Hungary)

January 1968 (as announced by the station itself; note the effect of the loss of the use of Czechoslovak transmitters the previous year):
0700-0745 on 9833, 7220, 7100 & 6234 SW
1245-1315 on 11840, 9675 & 7285 SW
1700-1730 on 1250 MW (Hungary) and 11840 & 9675 SW
1930-2000 on 755 (Romania)
2030-2100 on 11840 & 9675 SW
2230-2300 on 11840 & 9675 SW
2230 to midnight on 1250 MW (Hungary)

IF YOU ENJOYED READING THIS ARTICLE...

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Radio Spark: A fully "black" (that is, falsely attributed) CIA-run station that sought to exploit the turmoil in China during the Cultural Revolution of the second half of the 1960s.

Radio Vltava: This clandestine station was run by East Germany in support of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Its inept output failed to win over listeners to accept the invasion.

First August Radio: Another pure "black" station, this one was part of Soviet "active measures" targeting the Chinese army between 1979 and 1986.

Radio Atlantico del Sur: Britain’s Spanish-language station for Argentine troops during the 1982 Falklands War, known within the MOD as Project Moonshine. It had as many enemies in Whitehall as in Argentina.

Radio Truth: A look at this and other covert stations – such as Voice of the Resistance of the Black Cockerel – run by apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s to undermine neighbouring countries.

Al-Quds Palestinian Arab Radio: The "intifada station" – funded by Libya and broadcasting from southern Syria between 1988 and the early 21st century.