The Foreign Office's last stand

Disclaimer: I was employed by the BBC at the time of the 1982 war, and continue to be so.
However, this is an entirely personal blog post, reflecting only my views. 

Acknowledgements: I’ve only been able to write this post because of the work of Argentine psychological warfare specialist Alejo Miguel Díaz, who uncovered the final version of the proposal to set up Radio Atlantico del Sur that was presented to the British War Cabinet in May 1982. Many thanks also to Lee Richards of PsyWar.Org for unearthing earlier, draft, versions of the proposal and accompanying memos from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Foreign Office (FCO). Together, their work has allowed me to undertake a textual analysis of the differences between these documents.

A battle in Whitehall

In my post "The War Cabinet is invited to agree" I described the battles the MoD fought with the FCO in late April and early May 1982 to get agreement for Radio Atlantico del Sur to be launched.

The FCO was firmly opposed to the project from the start, and lobbied other government departments and the BBC in a bid to get it blocked.

As the arguments continued between the FCO and the MoD it became clear that the dispute would only be ended by taking the matter to the War Cabinet – known formally as the Overseas and Defence Committee, South Atlantic or OD(SA) – for a final decision.

The MoD therefore drafted a proposal to launch Radio Atlantico del Sur for the War Cabinet to consider.

This proposal went through several drafts, and some of these can be found in the declassified MoD and FCO files from the time. In my previous post I provided the text of what I believed to be the latest available version, which was attached to a covering letter dated 12 May from the MoD to the Cabinet Office.

The FCO's amendments

I noted that the following day (13 May) Keith MacInnes of the FCO's Information Department requested several amendments to be made to the draft before it was seen by the War Cabinet. These played on difficulties (real or imagined) with the project and were no doubt intended to persuade the War Cabinet to veto it.

I said it was not known whether any of MacInnes's amendments were incorporated in the final version of the paper presented to OD(SA).

Now we know the answer. A photocopy of a later version of the proposal, dated 13 May, is to be found in the 2016 thesis by Alejo Miguel Díaz on the South Atlantic conflict. The date of the document, and its layout, indicate that it is the final version of the proposal, as seen by members of the War Cabinet.

The final proposal to the War Cabinet

Below, I have transcribed the text of the 13 May document, providing explanations where it differs from the version of the previous day following the insertion of the FCO's amendments.

SECRET

RADIO ATLANTICO DEL SUR
Note by Ministry of Defence officials

1. This project envisages the use of a BBC transmitter on Ascension Island to broadcast to the Argentine forces on the Falkland Islands and, to a lesser extent, on their mainland coastal bases. The aim will be military and designed to maximise the use of radio to demoralise Argentine troops (particularly conscripted troops) currently occupying the Falklands, reinforcing its [sic] sense of isolation, and so reducing the willingness of the Argentine garrison to resist any landing. Responsibility would rest with the Ministry of Defence. [The previous sentence was an addition – part of the FCO's effort to distance itself from the project and ensure that if it went wrong all the blame would fall on the MoD.]

2. Programmes would mainly consist of popular music likely to appeal to Argentine conscripts – many of whom have short-wave radios – interspersed with news items carefully selected from the world's media. No lies would be told. Presenters, experienced in radio and fluent in the Spanish spoken in Argentina, would adopt a relaxed and informal approach. Programmes would be put together in London. A note about possible approaches is at Annex A. [1]

3. The BBC cannot be expected to provide this sort of programme since their worldwide reputation depends on a less obviously targeted and selective approach. Their current broadcasts to Latin America are effective enough to have prompted Argentine jamming but are directed at a wider and rather higher level audience. [The previous two sentences are an expansion of a single original one which read: "The BBC are unwilling to provide this sort of programme within their current broadcasts to Latin America which are directed at a higher level audience." The aim of the FCO's revised wording was to stress the success of the BBC's existing broadcasts and to highlight the risk of damage to the BBC's international reputation.] If, therefore, programmes aimed at an audience of Argentine conscripts are to be broadcast, HMG will need to make the programmes and use the only suitable transmitter, which is one of the BBC's on Ascension Island. This would not cause the loss of any BBC programme, but it would limit the options open to the BBC in circumventing Argentine jamming of its current broadcasts and it would cause some loss in the quality of reception. To minimise the effects on the BBC's Latin American and West African services (both broadcast from Ascension Island), it would only broadcast between 0530 and 0730 and 2000 and 2300. [2] The evening broadcast is the more important because less of the audience is then likely to be involved in their military duties. But transmissions then would somewhat weaken reception for listeners of the BBC World Service in English broadcasts to South America and the Falklands. [The previous sentence was an addition by the FCO, intended to stress the damage to BBC listeners.] One suitable frequency, allocated to the UK but currently unused, is available. Since Argentina seems bound to try jamming [hardening the original wording: "If Argentine jamming needed to be countered"], further frequencies might need to be found from [originally: "might need to be 'poached' from"] other countries which could cause problems in future international broadcasting negotiations. [The passage "which could cause problems in future international broadcasting negotiations" was an addition – an FCO ploy to suggest future diplomatic difficulties.]

4. Costs, including staff costs, are estimated at £15K per week, assuming 5 hours broadcasting [per day].

5. The service would have to operate openly: to attempt to do otherwise would quickly be spotted (eg by electronic location of the transmitter).

6. One obvious concern is that we should not undermine the high reputation of the BBC world-wide. The [BBC] Director-General has said that they would understand if the Government decided to set up such a service. Their primary concern would be to be "sanitised" from it publicly (eg by their transmitter being requisitioned rather than volunteered, and there being no visible links to BBC External Services). This should be entirely feasible but the BBC might have to issue a public statement and the radio station itself could become news – a press line would be needed. [The previous sentence originally just said "This should be entirely feasible." The additional wording was the FCO's attempt to suggest a potential public relations problem for the BBC and/or the government. However, the FCO didn't entirely get its way on this passage, as it had wanted to have even stronger wording, including the sentence: "There could be criticism of the Government's apparent 'takeover' of a function the BBC does well."]

7. There would no doubt be allegations of "black propaganda" in some quarters but it would become apparent from the nature of the broadcasts that this was not true. A good deal of criticism would in any case be avoided by taking an open approach to the project in public from the outset.

8. The potential gains from a radio station of this kind – weakening Argentine resistance to a landing of the Falkland Islands and saving lives – are important. No other programmes being broadcast to Latin America have this aim. On balance, the criticism we might face is justified by the potential saving of lives (on both sides).

10.[sic] OD(SA) is invited to agree that Radio Atlantico del Sur should proceed as outlined above. Broadcasts can start within 2 days.

Ministry of Defence
13 May 1982

Outcome

The FCO's efforts came to naught. OD(SA) gave its approval on 18 May and Radio Atlantico del Sur began broadcasting the following day.

Notes

[1] Annex A is the document "Programming - Interim Assessment" written by RAdS's civilian manager, Neil ffrench-Blake, and discussed in my post Setting the Record Straight. The text of the "Interim Assessment" can be read on the PsyWar.Org website.

[2] The times given were Falkland local times – three hours behind GMT and four hours behind British Summer Time. The proposed time and duration for the morning broadcasts were subject to considerable discussion and revision during the planning phase, and when they eventually began on 28 May they were at 0530-0630 local time.

© 2018. Material may be reproduced if attributed to Chris Greenway and any original source.

The Requisitioning of Sender 302 — a detailed look at the controversy

Disclaimer: I was employed by the BBC at the time of the 1982 war, and continue to be so. However, this is an entirely personal blog post, reflecting only my views.

This article is about the use by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) of a requisitioned transmitter at the BBC Atlantic Relay Station on Ascension Island to beam Radio Atlantico del Sur's signal to its target audience. I took a first look at this controversy in a previous post. 

For background to this article, new readers of this blog may wish to read the post MOONSHINE - A story of psychological warfare. (MOONSHINE was the MoD's codename for Radio Atlantico del Sur.) 

The key transmitter 

In theory, RAdS could have used shortwave transmitters in the UK. Their signals could reach the Falklands. But it was essential that RAdS had the strongest possible signal, to have the best chance of being heard with reasonable quality on the simple sets that Argentine troops might have packed in their kit bags.
And as it was expected that RAdS would be jammed (as indeed turned out to be the case), only the best possible signal would do.

So, from the very start of the planning for RAdS it was assumed that one of the Ascension transmitters would have to be used.

The criticism

RAdS's critics – in 1982 and since, not least in the Foreign Office (FCO) – have claimed that the MoD's operation therefore deprived the BBC of a valuable transmitter for its own broadcasts to Latin America and Africa at a time when it was particularly important for Britain that the BBC External Services were heard as well as possible. [1]

Sender 302

In BBC-speak, shortwave transmitters are "senders", and each one has a unique "S" number. For example, at the time of the Falklands War the 12 senders at the BBC's transmitting station at Daventry, Northamptonshire, were numbered between S8 and S21 (S10 and S15 were no longer in service). Today, the sole remaining shortwave broadcast station in the UK is at Woofferton (straddling the Shropshire/Herefordshire border) where the 10 transmitters are numbered S81 to S84, and S91 to S96.

In 1982, there were four shortwave senders at the Ascension Island station: S301, S302, S303 and S304. They were identical and had 250 kilowatts of output power each. This made them among the most powerful of all the BBC's shortwave transmitters at the time, whether at the five transmitting stations it used in the UK or at its other overseas relay sites in Antigua, Cyprus, Lesotho, Oman and Singapore.

The government would have to requisition a specific transmitter to carry Radio Atlantico del Sur. After consulting the BBC, it was decided that it should be S302.

The evening scheduling problem

Although Radio Atlantico del Sur was on the air in both the morning and evening, it was the latter broadcasts that were seen as the more important "because less of the audience is then likely to be involved in their military duties" as RAdS's planners put it.

The initial plan (circulated within government on 28 April 1982) was that the evening programmes would go out for four hours from 2000 GMT – i.e. at 1700 to 2100 Falklands time. [2]

This posed a considerable challenge, as evenings in May 1982 were busy times for the Ascension relay station. Each day the station had been beaming BBC World Service in English to Africa on at least one transmitter (and at times on all four of them) since early morning, and continued to do so on one frequency until 2245 GMT. From 2000 it was also airing WS English to Latin America. Then there were the evening foreign-language broadcasts to Africa: French at 1815-1915, Hausa at 1915-1945 and Portuguese at 2030-2115 GMT (all carried on two Ascension frequencies). There was the "Calling the Falklands" programme, the BBC's lifeline service for the islanders, at 2115-2200. And from 2200 there was the BBC Portuguese service to Brazil, followed at 2315 by Spanish for Latin America (both languages being aired on two Ascension frequencies).

Accommodating Radio Atlantico del Sur in this busy schedule would therefore have been very difficult before 2245 GMT. (The MoD had made it clear from the start of its planning that the sender would only need to be requisitioned for the hours that RAdS would be on the air. It would be free during the rest of the day for its regular service for the BBC.)

Possibly because of that difficulty, the planned timing of the evening broadcast was quickly changed, and within a week of the initial plan the MoD had modified its proposal by pushing back the start time by three hours to 2300 GMT.

This made things simpler for the BBC's frequency managers. By 2300 GMT, all BBC transmissions to Africa had ended for the day, and the vital "Calling the Falklands" programme was also safely out of the way.

What was left to occupy Ascension for the hours immediately after 2300 was using two transmitters to carry the BBC Spanish service and the remaining two to carry World Service in English to the Americas.

To accommodate Radio Atlantico del Sur, WS English lost one of its frequencies from Ascension. The channel that was dropped was instead carried by a transmitter in the UK. The BBC estimated that this would result in a "50 per cent loss in quality" in the target area on that particular frequency. It should be noted that WS English continued to be beamed to South America after 2300 GMT on a total of eight frequencies (one from Ascension, one from the BBC Caribbean Relay Station in Antigua and six from the UK).

Possible overnight schedule for each transmitter

Using my admittedly incomplete notes from 1982, my best estimation is that each transmitter at Ascension was scheduled as follows overnight:

Before 19 May:

• S301 carries BBC World Service to the Americas at 2000-0230 GMT (on 15260 kHz).
• S302 carries "Calling the Falklands" at 2115-2200 (on 15400), Portuguese to Brazil at 2200-2315 (on 15390) and then Spanish to Latin America at 2315-0315 (on 15390).
• S303 carries "Calling the Falklands" at 2115-2200 (on 11820), Portuguese at 2200-2315 (on 11820), Spanish at 2315-0215 (on 11820) and English to South America at 0230-0330 (on 11750).
• S304 ends carrying BBC World Service to Africa (on 6005 kHz) at 2245, then makes a frequency and aerial change (from east to west) to carry BBC World Service to the Americas at 2300-0230 (on 11750). 

After S302 was requisitioned on 19 May:

• S301 ends carrying BBC World Service to the Americas at 2200 (on 15260 kHz), does a quick frequency change to 15390 kHz and carries Portuguese at 2200-2315 and Spanish at 2315-0315. Meanwhile, a transmitter in the UK takes over carrying WS English on 15260 from 2200 onwards.
• The requisitioned S302 ends "Calling the Falklands" (on 15400) at 2200 and shuts down. It switches frequency to 9710 kHz (but stays on the same aerial) and comes on the air again at 2255 with RAdS's interval signal, prior to the start of programming at 2300.
• S303 no change - schedule as above.
• S304 no change - schedule as above.

The morning scheduling problem looked easier...

Accommodating the morning broadcast was simpler than the evening one, though again this was only after the original plan for the timing was changed.

In the early morning, after the overnight transmissions to the Americas had ended, all of Ascension's efforts were focused on Africa. As well as World Service in English (from 0300 GMT), there were the dawn transmissions in French (0430-0445, 0515-0545 and 0630-0700) and Hausa (0545-0600). By 0730 all four Ascension senders were carrying the WS in English to Africa: one on 11860 kHz, one on 21660 and two transmitters doubled-up to give 500 kW on 15400.

For an RAdS transmission starting at 0815 (as was the orginal plan) it was simply necessary to take Sender 302 off 15400 kHz (still leaving another transmitter radiating on that frequency).

Some listeners in Africa might notice a reduction of power on 15400, but they still had the alternative frequencies of 11860 and 21660 from Acension and four other frequencies (two from the UK and one each from the BBC relay stations in Cyprus and Lesotho).

... but for the Voice of America problem

So far, so simple. But there would be a problem if the RAdS transmission continued beyond 1000 GMT. For this would mean a clash with the Voice of America's (VOA) morning transmission in Portuguese to Brazil, which was carried on two Ascension transmitters between 1000 and 1100.

The relay of the VOA by Ascension was part of a swap arrangement under which some BBC broadcasts to Latin America were relayed by VOA transmitters in the USA.

Upsetting the arrangement with the VOA would therefore cause embarrassment to the BBC, and possible irritation in Washington.

The planned timings for the morning RAdS broadcasts went through several changes. At one point a two-and-a-half hour broadcast at 0815-1045 GMT was envisaged. By the time the proposal for Project MOONSHINE was put to the War Cabinet this had been reduced slightly to 0830-1030, and when the MoD issued its 19 May press release announcing the start of broadcasts there had been a further reduction to 0815-0945.

When the morning broadcasts eventually began on 28 May they were at 0830-0930. So, there was no clash with the VOA.

The requisitioning

Someone in government had to write to the BBC to give formal notice that one of its Ascension transmitters was being requisitioned. There was an argument in Whitehall about which ministry should do this. Up to that time it was assumed that in the case of the BBC's domestic service transmitters it would normally be the job of the Home Office. For the BBC External Services the expectation was that the Foreign Office would take responsibility for the task.

But the FCO, which had opposed the setting up of the RAdS ever since Project MOONSHINE was first mooted, rejected the suggestion that it should requisition the Ascension transmitter and wanted the MoD to do the deed instead.

(For more about the arguments between the FCO and the MOD over Radio Atlantico del Sur, see my post "The War Cabinet is invited to agree".)

By 13 May the FCO had been working for over a fortnight to stop RAdS from taking to the air, but seems to have realised that it was likely to lose this particular Whitehall battle. That day, Keith MacInnes, head of the FCO Information Department and a key player in the Foreign Office's agitation against RAdS, wrote to the MoD to say:

[...] this is a special case and it is our view that entire responsibility for the operation should rest with the Ministry of Defence.

In other words, the FCO wanted to cover itself should RAdS prove to be a fiasco, and so the MoD would have to requisition the transmitter itself. This was although a Mr Chamberlain, an FCO legal adviser, had said in an internal memo on 6 May that "it would be better for the letter [to the BBC] to go from the FCO".

So, on 19 May, the day after the War Cabinet had agreed that Project MOONSHINE should go ahead, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the MoD, Sir Frank Cooper, wrote to Sir Ian Trethowan, Director-General of the BBC:

Dear Ian, 

In the circumstances of the present Falkland Islands operations, I am writing on behalf of the Secretary of State for Defence to say that Her Majesty's Government require the use of a transmitter number 302 at the BBC Atlantic Relay Station, between the hours of 0815 to 0945 and 2300 and 0200 GMT, from 2300 GMT on 19 May 1982 until further notice. [3]

2. In accordance with Article 19 of the Licence and Agreement of 2 April 1981 between Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Home Department and the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Corporation are hereby directed to permit the use of the said transmitter by Her Majesty's Government for the periods stated in the preceding paragraph.

3. I should be grateful if you would acknowledge receipt of this letter.

Yours sincerely,

Frank Cooper

Sir Ian replied:

Dear Frank,

I am in receipt of your letter of today's date informing me that Her Majesty's Government require the use of transmitter number 302 at the BBC Atlantic Relay Station at the specified times of day until further notice.

We will, of course, comply.

Yours,

Ian

And when it was all over, after Argentine forces surrendered late on 14 June, Sir Frank wrote again to the BBC on 16 June:

Dear Ian,

Further to my letter of 19 May, I am writing again on behalf of the Secretary of State for Defence to inform you that following the surrender of the Argentine forces on the Falkland Islands, Her Majesty's Government will no longer require the use of Transmitter Number 302 at the BBC Atlantic Relay Station from 1800 GMT on 16 June 1982.

2. I should like to take this opportunity to express my thanks for the BBC's prompt action in making the transmitter available in the exceptional circumstances of the Falkland Islands operation.

Yours sincerely,

Frank Cooper

Conclusions

The BBC coped remarkably well with the loss if one of its Ascension transmitters for four hours a day. No BBC transmissions from Ascension in foreign languages were lost, nor was there any interruption to the important "Calling the Falklands" programme or the relaying of the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) programme for the Task Force. The relaying of the Voice of America was also unaffected.

The small price of a loss of power on one (of three) Ascension frequencies carrying BBC World Service for Africa outside prime listening hours, and on one frequency (of many) carrying WS English to South America, seems one well worth paying to get Radio Atlantico del Sur on the air. 

Notes

[1] What is now known as the BBC World Service (operating in English and many other languages) was in 1982 still referred to as the BBC External Services – and in internal BBC bureaucracy as External Broadcasting (XB). At that time, the "World Service" name was reserved solely for the service in English. This distinction was abandoned in 1988 when the "External Services" name was dropped and all international broadcasting by the BBC came under the World Service brand.

[2] When Argentine forces invaded the Falklands they announced that local time in the islands would be the same as that in Argentina, which was 3 hours behind GMT. Meanwhile, local time on Ascension is the same as GMT.

[3] The wording ("a transmitter number 302") suggests that whoever drafted this letter assumed that "302" was a type of transmitter, rather than the designation of one individual sender.

© 2017. Material may be reproduced if attributed to Chris Greenway and any original source.

"The War Cabinet is invited to agree"

Acknowledgement: I continue to be happy to express my gratitude to professional researcher Lee Richards for making available a number of declassified files from the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Cabinet Office relating to British information and psychological operations in the Falklands War, including MOONSHINE, the codename for Radio Atlantico del Sur. Material from these files forms the basis for this blog post.

Whitehall wrangling

Argentina invaded the Falklands on 2 April 1982. Within four weeks the Ministry of Defence's Special Projects Group (SPG) had conceived the idea of Radio Atlantico del Sur, developed a comprehensive plan to get it on the air, chosen its premises and identified some members of a team to run it.

An outline of the SPG's plan – known as "Annex A to SPG 020" – was circulated within government on 28 April. A covering note from the officer in charge of the SPG, Colonel S., struck an upbeat and confident tone:

Annex A is circulated for your comment or agreement by 1000 hrs 29 April. SPG believes that once full agreement is given, installation of GPO lines will be the only limiting factor in putting the proposed radio station on the air.

But it wouldn't be that easy.

Just two days later Colonel S. was writing a gloomier memo. He noted that the head of the BBC's External Services, Douglas Muggeridge, "has persuaded FCO to oppose the proposal" – even though this contradicted an earlier and much more helpful response to the MoD from the BBC's Assistant Director-General, Alan Protheroe. [1]

FCO opposition

The dispute between the MoD and the FCO went on for more than a fortnight. 

The Special Projects Group sought to answer specific FCO objections to Radio Atlantico del Sur in its "SPG Paper No 6", issued on 3 May. This said the BBC would be "adequately distanced" from RAdS in order to protect the corporation's credibility, and gave assurances that RAdS would be a "fully professional" operation that could attract an audience to its "topical and entertaining service". Overall, the SPG said, RAdS would be "a comparatively low-cost operation carrying negligible risk to the BBC, which could, in view of the Argentine temperament, and the predicament of the garrison, contribute to the success of HMG policy".

But the FCO remained unconvinced. Lord Belstead, a junior Foreign Office minister, was "most apprehensive" and suggested using delaying tactics with the MoD in the hope that the Falklands crisis would come to a peaceful end before there was a chance to put RAdS on the air. He hoped "that we would be able to procrastinate". 

"It would help if we could buy time into next week," the noble lord suggested.

An exchange of letters on 6 May between the top civil servants in the MoD and the FCO, Sir Frank Cooper and Sir Antony Acland respectively, also failed to resolve the matter.

Lobbying

The FCO engaged in lobbying. Sir Antony Acland had lunch with Douglas Muggeridge, the BBC's hater-in-chief when it came to RAdS, on 6 May (the same day that Sir Antony replied to Sir Frank, and Lord Belstead advocated procrastination).

Unhelpfully for the FCO, Muggeridge's boss, BBC Director-General Sir Ian Trethowan, had no objection to the project, as long as the BBC was distanced from it. 

The FCO sought the support of other government departments in its efforts to scupper the MoD's plans. This included the Radio Regulatory Department (RRD) of the Home Office. The RRD were worried by a BBC suggestion that RAdS transmit on a shortwave frequency outside a band allocated to international broadcasting. At that time, the BBC itself regularly used such "out-of band" channels (e.g. 9410, 12095 and 15070 kHz).

But the RRD said the particular frequency the BBC had suggested might interfere with a Brazilian aeronautical network. Such an objection was music to the FCO's ears.

The RRD proposed instead that RAdS simply take over an "in-band" frequency used by Argentina, and offered two possible such channels. This, the RRD said, would "resolve the situation satisfactorily".

But the FCO did not like that idea either. [2]

Bernard Ingham's letter

As the to-ing and fro-ing continued across Whitehall an unexpected intervention came from Bernard Ingham, Mrs Thatcher's press secretary. Radio Atlantico del Sur had a purely military objective and so lay well outside the remit of Ingham's job. But on 10 May – with the arguments between the MoD and the FCO still unresolved – he wrote a letter, with wide circulation, denouncing Project MOONSHINE in strong terms. (I discussed Ingham's letter, and other opposition to MOONSHINE, in my blog post The Wrong Sort of Spanish?)

Update on 13 July 2019: A blog post dedicated to Bernard Ingham's letter has now been published.

Ingham's letter has gained notoriety among RAdS watchers, bu while it was colourful, its impact should not be exaggerated. Many of the letter's recipients may not have taken it seriously. The day after Ingham wrote it, a senior MoD civil servant, summarising in a memo how the arguments over MOONSHINE had gone back and forth within government, described the letter as "emotive" and "ill-informed". In the copy of the memo that has survived in the files, one of its recipients has added a handwritten note:

Who is this smug fellow Ingham? I could write in similar vein about some of his ventures. (Not that I am pro-MOONSHINE.)

It was clear that the dispute would only be ended by taking the matter to the War Cabinet – known formally as the Overseas and Defence Committee, South Atlantic or OD(SA) – for a final decision.

What the War Cabinet saw

A draft text of the document seeking OD(SA)'s approval is given below. There are several versions of this paper in the declassified MoD and FCO files. I have transcribed this text from what I believe to be the latest available version in MoD file DEFE 25/502. This version was attached to a covering letter dated 12 May from the MoD to the Cabinet Office.

The following day, Keith MacInnes of the FCO Information Department suggested four amendments to the draft. These played on difficulties (real or imagined) with the project and were no doubt intended to persuade the War Cabinet to veto MOONSHINE. It is not known whether any of MacInnes's suggested amendments were incorporated in the final version of the paper presented to OD(SA).

Update on 30 September 2018: I've now seen the final version of the proposal put to OD(SA), dated 13 May 1982. See my post The Foreign Office's last stand.

[Explanations that I have inserted into the text below are in italics and between square brackets.]

SECRET

DRAFT OD(SA) PAPER

RADIO ATLANTICO DEL SUR

This project envisages the use of a BBC transmitter on Ascension Island to broadcast to the Argentine forces on the Falkland Islands and, to a lesser extent, on their mainland coastal bases. The aim will be military and designed to maximise the use of radio to demoralise Argentine troops (particularly conscripted troops) currently occupying the Falklands, reinforcing its sense of isolation, and so reducing the willingness of the Argentine garrison to resist any landing.

Programmes would mainly consist of popular music likely to appeal to Argentine conscripts - many of whom have short-wave radios – interspersed with news items carefully selected from the world's media. No lies would be told. Presenters, experienced in radio and fluent in the Spanish spoken in Argentina, would adopt a relaxed and informal approach. Programmes would be put together in London. A note about possible approaches is at Annex A. [Annex A is the document "Programming - Interim Assessment" written by Neil ffrench-Blake and discussed in my post Setting the Record Straight. The text of this "Interim Assessment" can be read on the psywar.org website.]

The BBC are unwilling to provide this sort of programme within their current broadcasts to Latin America which are directed at a higher level audience. If, therefore, programmes aimed at an audience of Argentine conscripts are to be broadcast, HMG will need to make the programmes and use the only suitable transmitter, which is one of the BBC's on Ascension Island. This would not cause the loss of any BBC programme, but it would limit the options open to the BBC in circumventing Argentine jamming of its current broadcasts and it would cause some loss in the quality of reception. To minimise the effects on the BBC's Latin American and West African services (both broadcast from Ascension Island), it would only broadcast between 0530 and 0730 and 2000 and 2300. The evening broadcast is the more important because less of the audience is then likely to be involved in their military duties. [The times given were Falkland local times – three hours behind GMT and four hours behind British Summer Time. The proposed time and duration for the morning broadcasts were subject to considerable discussion and revision, and when they eventually began on 28 May they were at 0530-0630 local time.]

One suitable frequency, allocated to the UK but currently unused, is available. If Argentine jamming needed to be countered, further frequencies might need to be "poached" from other countries.

Costs, including staff costs, are estimated at £15K per week, assuming 5 hours broadcasting [per day].

The service would have to operate openly: to attempt to do otherwise would quickly be spotted (eg by electronic location of the transmitter).

One obvious concern is that we should not undermine the high reputation of the BBC world-wide. The Director-General has said that they would understand if the Government decided to set up such a service. Their primary concern would be to be "sanitised" from it publicly (eg by their transmitter being requisitioned rather than volunteered, and there being no visible links to BBC External Services). This should be entirely feasible.

There would no doubt be allegations of "black propaganda" in some quarters but it would become apparent from the nature of the broadcasts that this was not true. A good deal of criticism would in any case be avoided by taking an open approach to the project in public from the outset.

The potential gains from a radio station of this kind – weakening Argentine resistance to a landing of the Falkland Islands and saving lives – are important. No other programmes being broadcast to Latin America have this aim. On balance, the criticism we might face is justified by the potential saving of lives (on both sides).

OD(SA) is invited to agree that Radio Atlantico del Sur should proceed as outlined above. Broadcasts can start within 2 days.

Outcome

OD(SA) gave its approval to Project MOONSHINE on 18 May and Radio Atlantico del Sur began broadcasting the following day.

Notes

[1] What is now known as the BBC World Service (operating in English and many other languages) was in 1982 still referred to as the BBC External Services – and in internal BBC bureaucracy as External Broadcasting (XB). At that time, the "World Service" name was reserved solely for the service in English. This distinction was abandoned in 1988 when the "External Services" name was dropped and all international broadcasting by the BBC came under the World Service brand.

[2] In the end, Radio Atlantico del Sur used 9710 kHz for its evening broadcast and 9700 kHz for the morning one, "in-band" channels in the 31-metre shortwave band. Both were close to 9690 kHz, which was used during the 1982 war by various stations in Argentina.


Disclaimer: I was employed by the BBC at the time of the 1982 war, and continue to be so. However, this is an entirely personal blog post, reflecting only my views.

© 2017. Material may be reproduced if attributed to Chris Greenway and any original source.