Table Of Content

London Calling The projection of Britain abroad was an important part of BBC programmes overseas during the Cold War. In June 1950, a BBC Yugoslav Section reporter introduces listeners to the sounds of London, and the chimes of Big Ben. For Willow London Calling Britain, the BBC World Service and the Cold War Alban Webb Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction Part 1 From Total War to Cold War 1 Planning for Peace 2 The Home Front 3 The Cold War Challenge Part 2 Through the Iron Curtain 4 The Imagined Audience 5 The Radio Arms Race Part 3 Global Reach 6 A World Service 7 Austerity Part 4 Battlefields 8 The Soviet Challenge 9 Hungary 10 Suez Reflections Notes Select Bibliography Index List of Illustrations Frontispiece The projection of Britain Figure 1 William Haley, BBC Director-General, February 1952 Figure 2 Ian Jacob, Controller, BBC European Services, July 1946 Figure 3 Ralph Murray, BBC Governor, July 1968 Figure 4 Listener Research, BBC European Service, Bush House, April 1948 Figure 5 Hugh Carleton Greene, BBC German Service Director, January 1946 Figure 6 Christopher Cviic of the BBC’s Yugoslav Section, September 1955 Figure 7 Bush House canteen, November 1960 Figure 8 BBC European Service News Room, Bush House, February 1945 Figure 9 Ivone Kirkpatrick, Controller, BBC European Services, February 1943 Figure 10 Bush House, The Aldwych, London, April 1948 It is with gratitude that I would like to acknowledge the kind permission given by the BBC for the reproduction of these photographs. Acknowledgements The enjoyment I have derived from writing this book is as much about the people it has brought me into contact with as the treasure trove of sources and fascinating stories that have come to life during the course of its research. To these people I owe a debt of gratitude for their help, guidance and invaluable insight. Chief among these is Peter Hennessy, my doctoral supervisor and the person who showed me what joy and excitement there was to be had in explaining history. This is also true of Jean Seaton, the official historian of the BBC and great chronicler of modern media, whose infectious appetite for understanding is a constant source of stimulation. Much of the primary research for the book was conducted as part of a PhD funded by a scholarship from the BBC and administered by the University of London through Queen Mary College. I am grateful to the family of Austen Kark (former Managing Director of BBC External Services) and his wife Nina Bawden for the honour the title of Austen Kark Memorial Scholar bestowed on me. Although facilitated by the BBC in its funding of the PhD, this work is academically independent and at no point have I, or the work, been subject to any external editorial influences. It was at Queen Mary that I came alive to the possibilities of researching history and I would particularly like to thank James Ellison for his support and guidance in this, as well as John Smele, John Ramsden, Gary Magee, Philip Ogden, Virginia Davis, Matthew Grant, Catherine Haddon, and Gabriella Gera. My subsequent work at the Open University in the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change has greatly benefited from collaboration and friendship with colleagues such as Marie Gillespie, Francis Dodsworth, Kath Woodward and Sophie Watson. A number of others in academic and related fields require special mention for the significant part they have played in supporting and enhancing my work. I am particularly grateful to Asa Briggs, David Cannadine, Nicholas Cull, Daniel Day, Anne Deighton, Michael (M.R.D.) Foot, Robert Fox, Suzanne Franks, David Hendy, Keith Kyle, Anthony McNicholas, Martin Moore, Michael Nelson, Barbara Parry, Lowell Schwartz, Tony Shaw, Heather Sutherland, and Bela Szombati. In addition, I am obliged to those whose tireless work behind the scenes in vital archives has made my research possible. In this regard, I would especially like to thank Jacquie Kavanagh, James Codd and Erin O’Neil at the BBC Written Archive Centre, and Sarah Tyacke and Stephen Twigge at the Public Record Office of The National Archives of the United Kingdom. I also want to thank Robert Seatter, Robin Reynolds, Katherine Schopflin, and John Escolme of the BBC Heritage department for their considerable assistance in facilitating the research project and supporting it through to publication. In the course of researching this book it has been the greatest pleasure to encounter a wide range of programme and policy makers who made the BBC World Service what it is today. Their generosity of time and spirit has been invaluable, offering insight, understanding, and vital context. In particular, I would like to express my gratitude to, Marie Anthony, David Wedgwood Benn, Noel Clark, Christopher Cviic, Dimiter Dimitrov, Leonid Finklestein, Christopher Graham, John Gray, Brian Hanrahan, Viola Huggins, Peter Johnson, Laszlo Jotischky, Tania Kelim, Dora Lavrencic, Hugh Lunghi, Jessica Macfarlane, Malcolm Mackintosh, Zdenka Mastnik, Graham Mytton, Antoni Pospieszalski, Hugh Saxby, Efim Slavinsky, Vania Smith, Dianko Sotirov, Andrew Taussig, Peter Udell, John (J.G.) Weightman, Wilf Weston, Charles Wheeler. They, among others, have illuminated and enriched my research. Any errors or mistakes in the book, however, are my own. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank Willow Grylls for her support at all stages in the preparation of this book. Her penetrating eye for detail, sharp wit and companionship have made its completion possible. Introduction The Overseas Services of the BBC provide one of the most effective instruments for use by this country in maintaining the stability of the free world in the present struggle with Russian Communism. This struggle, often called the “Cold War”, seems likely to be long. It cannot be won quickly, though it might quickly be lost. BBC Memorandum for the Cabinet Committee on Colonial Information Policy, June 19501 From 1 January 1947, the third successive Charter of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was intended to mark not only the continuation of the BBC as the monopoly broadcaster in the United Kingdom but also denote the transition from the wartime activities of its overseas services to the broadcasting requirements of peace.2 Emerging from ‘six long, weary and perilous years’, as the BBC’s Director-General William Haley put it in his Victory in Europe Day message to staff, broadcasting was considered as having a vital function to perform as ‘the newest of the great instruments of peace’.3 However, it was not long before fissures in post- war international relations plunged the world into a ‘cold war’. Once again, radio was pressed into service by the British government, this time as an adjunct to its non-shooting war with the Soviet Union, providing the opportunity to directly engage the hearts and minds of populations behind the Iron Curtain. Broadcasting overseas by the BBC had begun on 19 December 1932 with transmissions in English to the Empire on shortwave but it was not until January 1938 that programmes in other languages were inaugurated, with an Arabic Service, followed quickly by Spanish and Portuguese Services for Latin America. Transmissions to Europe began in September 1938 with German, Italian and French news broadcasts started at the time of the Munich crisis, in a deliberate attempt to counter the propaganda of Italian and German radio stations.4 It was this competitive impulse to ensure that people in other countries should be made aware of the British interpretation of events that became a founding principle of broadcasting in other languages and lay at the heart of the subsequent massive expansion of the BBC World Service, not just in Europe but to all continents, during the Second World War. In this way, Britain’s geopolitical concerns and the intricacies of international diplomacy were dynamically and irrevocably knitted with the existing purpose of the BBC’s Empire Service, which had been to transmit the core values of the British way of life to the imperial outreaches and create a tangible (as well as metaphorical) border-defying community of interests, held together by an imperceptible network of wavelengths with London at its heart.5 At its peak, in 1943, the BBC was making regular programmes in over 45 languages (not including English) and by the end of the war, the number of hours beamed abroad exceeded that of domestic broadcasting.6 This explosion in the overseas activities of the BBC during the war, affecting the scope of its transmissions and the scale and multinational character of its workforce, altered the nature and remit of the BBC to a point where Haley was able to assert