On [The Divided Dial]: Fishing In The Night

Summary

Radiolab Podcast Summary: "On The Divided Dial: Fishing In The Night"

Radiolab dives deep into the intricate history and transformation of shortwave radio in the new episode of The Divided Dial: Fishing In The Night. Hosted by Katie Thornton and produced by WNYC Studios, this episode explores how shortwave radio evolved from a utopian medium envisioned to connect the world to a battleground for propaganda and, ultimately, a tool for extremist groups in the digital age.

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1. Introduction to "The Divided Dial" Series

Katie Thornton, a freelance journalist and radio enthusiast, introduces her new series The Divided Dial. Building on the success of Season One, which investigated the rise of right-wing talk radio in the United States, Season Two delves into the often-overlooked realm of shortwave radio.

Katie Thornton (02:10): "This season we're diving into the often failed promise of a medium that was once ubiquitous, connecting people around the world long before the Internet ever did."

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2. The Golden Age of Shortwave Radio

The episode begins by painting a nostalgic picture of shortwave radio in the early 20th century. Shortwave was initially celebrated for its ability to transcend national borders, offering a global platform for communication and cultural exchange.

David Goren, a radio preservationist, shares his childhood experiences and the allure of shortwave:

David Goren (05:43): "I turned it on and it's like the radio leapt out of my hand. With the North American service of Radio Moscow, suddenly the world was all within reach, available to him right there in this box."

Listeners engaged in "fishing in the night," a pastime of scanning the shortwave dial to catch distant broadcasts, fostering a sense of being part of a secret global community.

Katie Thornton (08:00): "I felt like I had been welcomed into a club that was somehow secret and yet right there for anyone to join."

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3. Shortwave as a Propaganda Tool in World War II

As World War II loomed, the utopian dreams of shortwave were overshadowed by its potent use in propaganda warfare. Susan Douglas, a media professor, explains the technical and strategic shift:

Susan Douglas (13:02): "Susan Douglas is a professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan. She says that these lower layers of the atmosphere are made up of ions that get all charged up by the sun."

Germany’s shortwave service, Radio Zeesen, exemplified this shift by transitioning from cultural broadcasts to Nazi propaganda in multiple languages, targeting American audiences.

Matt Kilty (19:06): "You might have heard of a person called Lord Haw Haw... He was a British man named William Joyce who was working in Germany, broadcasting on their shortwave service."

American resistance came in the form of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe, which countered enemy propaganda with their broadcasts, fostering global support for the Allies.

Katie Thornton (23:07): "The Voice of America was very highly respected and many people think that it, you know, did a great deal to help us win the war."

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4. The Cold War and the Battle for Hearts and Minds

During the Cold War, shortwave radio emerged as a critical tool in the ideological battle between the United States and the Soviet Union. The US government ramped up its shortwave operations, expanding the reach of the VOA and launching Radio Free Europe to infiltrate Eastern Bloc countries.

Katie Thornton (30:25): "Debuting in 1950, Radio Free Europe was a flame throwing anti communist shortwave network."

Shortwave stations became battlegrounds for influence, with the Soviet Union investing heavily to disrupt Western broadcasts and propaganda efforts.

Katie Thornton (31:07): "It was portrayed as grassroots, run by emigres and exiles, and it did employ those folks, but secretly. It was funded by the CIA which was busy meddling in global politics and supporting pro capitalist coups."

Music played a pivotal role in these broadcasts. The US employed jazz and later rock music as cultural ambassadors to showcase American freedom and counter Soviet messages.

David Goren (33:05): "The federal government ran a jazz ambassador program that sent musicians like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington on tours around the world."

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5. Decline and Transformation: From Global Connectivity to Extremist Tool

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the raison d'être for shortwave radio as a propaganda tool diminished. However, this void allowed extremist groups and right-wing factions in the United States to reappropriate the medium.

Katie Thornton (39:17): "These stations and the programs grew and they took over."

Groups advocating for white supremacy and anti-government sentiments began utilizing shortwave to disseminate their messages, transforming the once-hopeful medium into a platform for fringe ideologies.

Michelle Helms (39:27): "Myself who is sick of being harassed and tormented?"

Latif Nasser (39:26): "We don't want to have to kill you. We hope to not have to kill you. But we can kill you."

This shift mirrors the broader changes in American radio, where deregulation during the Reagan administration allowed for greater corporate and ideological diversity, often at the expense of public broadcasting standards.

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6. Conclusion and Future Outlook

The episode concludes by highlighting the enduring legacy of shortwave radio. While its prominence has waned in the age of the internet, the battle over public airwaves continues, now mirrored in online platforms where extremist groups vie for influence.

Katie Thornton (40:05): "Next time, on the Divided Dial it's the shortwave story you've never heard—the private citizens who took over a fringe medium with a fringe message and used it to build a movement that fundamentally changed mainstream US politics."

The Divided Dial: Fishing In The Night offers a comprehensive exploration of how shortwave radio evolved from a beacon of global unity to a contested space for ideological warfare and extremist mobilization. Through meticulous research and engaging storytelling, Radiolab sheds light on the profound impact of this medium on global politics and societal narratives.

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Notable Quotes:

• Katie Thornton (02:10): "This season we're diving into the often failed promise of a medium that was once ubiquitous, connecting people around the world long before the Internet ever did."

• David Goren (05:43): "I turned it on and it's like the radio leapt out of my hand. With the North American service of Radio Moscow, suddenly the world was all within reach, available to him right there in this box."

• Susan Douglas (13:02): "Susan Douglas is a professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan. She says that these lower layers of the atmosphere are made up of ions that get all charged up by the sun."

• Katie Thornton (39:17): "These stations and the programs grew and they took over."

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This episode of Radiolab not only chronicles the technological and political shifts surrounding shortwave radio but also invites listeners to ponder the enduring influence of media on public consciousness and political movements.

Transcript

[Jad Abumrad]

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[Lulu Miller]

Radiolab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliate. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Oh, wait, you're listening.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay. All right. Okay. All right.

[Matt Kilty]

You're listening to Radio Lab.

[Katie Thornton]

Radio Lab from wnyc.

[Matt Kilty]

From the top. Hey, this is Radiolab.

[Katie Thornton]

Okay, here's Matt.

[Matt Kilty]

I'm senior producer Matt Kilty.

[Latif Nasser]

Hi.

[Katie Thornton]

And today, how are you?

[Matt Kilty]

We're starting in Minnesota. It's great to see you too. With freelance journalist Katie Thornton in Katie's home, Minneapolis.

[Katie Thornton]

Minneapolis. You're here in Minneapolis.

[Latif Nasser]

What a delight.

[Katie Thornton]

Nice to see you.

[Matt Kilty]

So last winter Katie came to New York, was my roommate for a month as she was finishing up season two of this project. She's created this show called the Divided Dial. Season one was about. You should say it.

[Katie Thornton]

Well, season one is about.

[Latif Nasser]

This has been the biggest global dry.

[Lulu Miller]

Run to prepare the world to receive.

[Katie Thornton]

The mark of the beast.

[Matt Kilty]

The vast majority at this point of gender confusion is being driven by societal mania.

[Latif Nasser]

Racial profiling is good for your health drill.

[Lulu Miller]

Build a keystone pipeline. Deport illegals. Defy the federal government.

[Katie Thornton]

How the right came to dominate talk radio in America.

[Matt Kilty]

Peabody Award winning season one.

[Katie Thornton]

Indeed.

[Matt Kilty]

So that was season one. Then Katy came out to finish season two, which is.

[Katie Thornton]

Let's see what we got.

[Matt Kilty]

All about. Wait, is this.

[Katie Thornton]

This is am. Okay, so let's go to shortwave now.

[Matt Kilty]

Shortwave radio.

[Katie Thornton]

We said that we were going to.

[Matt Kilty]

Go to Shortwave 1, so maybe you've heard of shortwave. I kind of like knew it as a phrase, as a thing, but didn't know really anything about it or its significance. Turning the dial.

[Katie Thornton]

Turning the dial.

[Matt Kilty]

So Katie was just going to show me what this is by tuning into a shortwave radio station on this radio. She has.

[Katie Thornton]

Oh, okay. So nothing there.

[Matt Kilty]

Which she tried to do.

[Katie Thornton]

Let's try 75. 70. Back.

[Matt Kilty]

Up we go for a while.

[Katie Thornton]

Up we go.

[Matt Kilty]

A long while.

[Katie Thornton]

Ah, nothing. 50. We can try 58.

[Matt Kilty]

50, like for 20 minutes.

[Katie Thornton]

5. Oops.

[Matt Kilty]

This is what we did.

[Katie Thornton]

Mm. Mm.

[Matt Kilty]

Nothing.

[Katie Thornton]

Nothing.

[Matt Kilty]

Well, this is almost a perfect segue into. Katie, why did you do this series?

[Katie Thornton]

Um, great question. Should I turn this down so we don't have to worry about it? Just turn it.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, you can turn it off. Great.

[Katie Thornton]

Boom. Yeah. Well, shortwave radio completely altered the course of, you know, geopolitics globally in the 20th century. It also played a really big role in sort of shaping the modern right in the US and giving rise to the anti government militia movement, which we've of course seen make its way into the mainstream. And then I also found out that there is a very strange battle taking place on the shortwaves today where on these sort of often ignored, minimally known frequencies, Wall street is trying to get access to the short waves for a very unexpected reason that maybe I won't give away because it's the final episode of this. I haven't heard it yet.

[Latif Nasser]

I need to know.

[Katie Thornton]

Do you want me to tell you?

[Matt Kilty]

I'm like, just tell me.

[Katie Thornton]

Okay, I'm gonna tell you, but okay, so they find out.

[Matt Kilty]

You listening will not be told. You're gonna have to listen to the series. And so today what we're doing is we're playing the first EP in season two of the Divided Dial, which was created by Katie, produced by on the Media, our friends, colleagues, literally just down the hall at wnyc. And I swear, episode one, it'll grab you. It will eventually lead you down a path to revelation of what Wall street is doing with shortwave radio. And it's great. It's basically like episode one is kind of about the promise, the hope, the dream of shortwave radio, which you actually would not expect, feels very present to today. So with that, we present to you on the media, Katie Thornton. Divided Dial Season 2 Episode 1 Enjoy.

[Katie Thornton]

Zen with Transoceanics this is such a cool radio. With the little. Last summer, I met up with a journalist and radio fan named David Goren.

[David Goren]

These were like beautiful radios up for a fan.

[Katie Thornton]

I went to his house in Brooklyn, New York, so that we could listen to the radio together. Not any old radio, not AM or fm, not nothing you can pick up in your car. But shortwave radio, the little known cousin of AM&FM with fuzzy stations that can reach insanely far distances. David's been listening to shortwave since he was a kid in the 70s when his uncle gave him a radio and.

[David Goren]

I turned it on and it's like the radio like leapt out of my hand. With the North American service of Radio.

[Katie Thornton]

Moscow, suddenly the world was all within reach, available to him right there in this box.

[David Goren]

In the seventh grade, I became the expert on the next five year plan in the Soviet Union, the economic plan.

[Katie Thornton]

Today he's part of the Library of Congress's Radio Preservation Task Force. And together on a sweaty Thursday afternoon last July, quick and dirty, we sat down to hear what we could find on the shortwave dial. Today, just like when David was a kid, we heard lots of of government run stations like Radio Marti, the US.

[David Goren]

Broadcasting news and information to Cuba, Voice.

[Katie Thornton]

Of Islamic Republic of Iran, China Radio.

[David Goren]

International broadcasting in Spanish. Let's see, anything else?

[Michelle Helms]

Strong, the Voice of Italy broadcast in Italian.

[Katie Thornton]

On other days, David has picked up English language shows from North Korea.

[David Goren]

They have very strident, you know, military.

[Katie Thornton]

Stuff and news from Cuba.

[David Goren]

This is Radio Rebelde. Radio Rebel and it goes back to the revolution.

[Katie Thornton]

On the short waves, the global tussle for influence plays out 24 7. But we didn't just hear news and propaganda.

[David Goren]

Well, let's just go up the bench.

[Katie Thornton]

Let's hope.

[David Goren]

I heard some Morse code.

[Katie Thornton]

There were beeps and bloops, coded messages sent between amateur radio operators or between government officials who used the shortwaves to send military data or secret instructions.

[David Goren]

Let's see what else we have.

[Katie Thornton]

And some of what we heard just sounded like normal radio with lots of music and preaching strong in the Lord.

[Latif Nasser]

And the power of his might against the wiles of the devil. It was hidden just to hide the meaning and the power of the divine name. It is inherent in the name of Yahoo.

[Katie Thornton]

That's an End Times ministry that also preaches that the earth is flat, which.

[David Goren]

Is very interesting because true radio wouldn't propagate in a flat earth, you know. But details, details.

[Katie Thornton]

In just about an hour of surfing the shortwaves, we heard prayer and propaganda news and conspiracy theories. So many languages and some really decent jams from all over the globe. I felt like I had been welcomed into a club that was somehow secret and yet right there for anyone to join. And I know it's cliche, but there was something magical about tuning into the world, training my ear to listen through the crackle, hearing the distance. As it turns out, this practice of scanning the dial, finding out what you can hear and from how far away is a single century old art. It was popular among radio's early adopters. These early distance fiends as they were known, uncovered something very strange about how radio waves traveled through space. And what broadcasters did with that information completely altered the trajectory of the 20th century. This is season two of the Divided Dial. I'm your host, Katie Thornton. I've worked in radio since I was a teenager, sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes behind the mic. In season one, I investigated how Right Wing Talk took over AM&FM radio. But in all my years of radio research, I'd never really learned about shortwave radio before. And listen, I'm not going to tell you that shortwave radio is as influential today as the AM&FM talk radio we covered in season one. It's not. But I and I think you love the medium of radio. So this season we're diving into the often failed promise of a medium that was once ubiquitous, connecting people around the world long before the Internet ever did. But like the Internet, shortwave also took a turn for the chaotic. Over the next four episodes, I'm going to explain how shortwave radio became a propaganda tool for governments at war and then a propaganda tool for American right wing extremists and cults. And we'll explore what a little known battle playing out on the shortwaves right now between radio fanatics and Wall street can tell us about what happens when we cede control of our public airwaves. That's all coming up on this season of the Divided Dial. But let's get back to the story. Radio broadcasting, as in from one to many, it didn't start on short wave. It started on AM taking off around 1920. And AM was inherently local.

[Latif Nasser]

Daniel Larson and Mrs. Lester Larson. Happy birthday.

[Katie Thornton]

Signals reached up to 50, maybe 75.

[Latif Nasser]

Miles by the way, down Texas way. Your home state didn't think about will you now think about I will. Taylor up there in Lake Geneva says happy birthday to us. You know it's her birthday too.

[Katie Thornton]

But at night, those listening at home noticed something strange. As the sun set, more stations emerged from the static. And they weren't coming from down the street or the next town over. Sometimes listeners in New York, Edison Studios, waam, located at one barn, would hear stations from Chicago. A listener in Kansas might hear an opera or a boxing match from the East Coast. After dark, it was like the world cracked open and distant stations faded in and out on ghostly, mysterious winds. Most people had never heard a faraway voice, period. Long distance telephone calls were the costly domain of dignitaries and government officials, and even those were fed across long, scratchy copper lines. A disembodied voice without a Wire without a fee, from hundreds of miles away. That awed and baffled people, even scientists, some of whom believed that radio perhaps could be used to communicate with the dead. But of course, there was an explanation for these voices in the night.

[Latif Nasser]

Let us follow through the steps and the processes in transmitting or sending radio messages.

[Katie Thornton]

Here's what was happening. The way AM normally works is that radio waves get shot from the top of a tall tower, which is often on top of a tall hill.

[Latif Nasser]

The radio messages lead of the antenna as electromagnetic waves and travels with the speed of light.

[Katie Thornton]

The waves travel over the ground, basically line of sight from the tower to you. It's called a ground wave, and it's the thing that fades out a few dozen miles from the tower. But when you shoot out an AM signal, there's another thing that happens, almost a byproduct.

[Latif Nasser]

Radio waves are sent out in all directions.

[Katie Thornton]

It's called a skywave. And the skywave goes up into the.

[Susan Douglas]

Atmosphere, the lower layers of the ionosphere, which about 45 to 75 miles above the Earth's surface, they're like a huge sponge during the day, and they absorb the signals that pass through them.

[Katie Thornton]

Susan Douglas is a professor of communication and media at the University of Michigan. She says that these lower layers of the atmosphere are made up of ions that get all charged up by the sun. And in the daylight, those layers are where radio waves go to die.

[Susan Douglas]

But at night, when the sun sets, these layers disappear, and the ones above them, they combine to form a dense layer, and it acts like a mirror to sky waves.

[Katie Thornton]

At night, these sky waves, the sort of byproduct of AM transmission, they keep going until they bounce off this other layer of the ionosphere and they come back down to Earth vast distances away.

[Latif Nasser]

When these waves strike the antenna of a receiving set, this entire process is reversed. We hear sound originating at that very moment hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

[Katie Thornton]

That's what these late night AM radio listeners were hearing. A radio wave that had ricocheted off the ionosphere to get to them, and it rocked their world. Long distance channel surfing became a fad called fishing in the night, with listeners casting out into the ether and seeing what they could catch.

[Susan Douglas]

They had a map on the wall with map tacks, and every time they reeled in a station, they would put a map tack on where that broadcast emanated from. Was it Kansas City?

[Katie Thornton]

Was it Washington, D.C. wherever radio manufacturers ran ads with slogans like concerts from 14 cities in one evening. In newspaper editorials, distressed housewives and sometimes husbands, lamented that their significant other was spending every evening out in their Radio Shack. But while AM broadcast listeners burned the midnight oil to marvel at all the faraway stations, there was one group of people who weren't so surprised by radio's ability to go long. They were the amateur radio operators, what you might know as ham radio. Basically, guys who weren't broadcasting, but were tinkering with radio equipment just to chat one to one, like long distance walkie talkies. Back in the days before broadcasting, almost all radio transmission was one to one. The radio waves were mostly used by ship captains or the military and the hams who were just having fun. But In World War I, the US government got worried about interference on those AM airwaves. So they eventually assigned specific frequencies for ships, for the military, and for those meddling amateurs.

[Susan Douglas]

They were kicked down to the waves that were thought utterly worthless. Short waves.

[Katie Thornton]

Back then, people thought the shortwaves with short wavelengths picture a really tight squiggly line, just wouldn't go very far. Even Guglielmo Marconi, the father of radio, thought that longer wavelengths would mean longer distances. But the amateurs weren't put off.

[Susan Douglas]

They began experimenting with them.

[Katie Thornton]

And as it turned out, the shortwaves weren't the short end of the stick.

[Susan Douglas]

They were getting really far. They were getting stations in Australia and New Zealand, or stations in England and France.

[Katie Thornton]

For the most part, reception was clearer at night, but it didn't have to be dark to go the distance.

[Susan Douglas]

Amateurs reported spanning distances as great as 10,000 miles, which was unthinkable. Australia and New Zealand were described in the fall of 1923 as a bedlam of Yankee signals.

[Katie Thornton]

The amateurs proved something huge shortwave could do round the clock what AM could only do at night. It could use the ionosphere as a springboard. And this changed the game for AM broadcasters who wanted their station to reach more people. In 1923, Pittsburgh's KDKA, the country's first commercial radio station. They got their station on shortwave and reached as far as South Africa. New shortwave stations started up in Switzerland and Japan and Venezuela. And with the scars of World War I still fresh, this burgeoning international medium was a source of hope.

[Matt Kilty]

There was a lot of utopian discourse around radio that, you know, having allowed people to communicate across all these borders, you know, would there be no more wars?

[Katie Thornton]

Michelle Helms is a retired professor of media studies who has written a lot about radio.

[Matt Kilty]

It would, you know, solve all kinds of problems. Huge enthusiasm over the possibilities of shortwave as a medium.

[Katie Thornton]

Entire magazines were devoted to helping people discover new shows on international radio. Listeners would write to far flung stations and the stations would reply with these beautifully decorated cards branded with the station name and maybe some imagery that evoked the national culture of wherever they were broadcasting from. They're called QSL cards. It's international code for I confirm receipt of your transmission. Shortwave listeners around the world amassed collections of these ornate cards, Tangible evidence of their part in an ethereal global community. By the late 1930s, almost all home radio sets had AM and shortwave settings. But the peacenik aspirations for shortwave didn't last.

[Matt Kilty]

It was the first time that human beings had had it in their power to be heard around the world. And a lot of government figured out that this could be a really powerful tool for the common good, but also, of course, for the waging of wars.

[Katie Thornton]

Lots of the world's governments had taken to the shortwaves by the 1930s, but no nation used them quite like Germany.

[Latif Nasser]

This is Germany Coin. We are going to present tonight a.

[Michelle Helms]

Radio play entitled Vision of Invasion.

[Katie Thornton]

Ziessen, Germany's state run shortwave service, had spent years building a large following in America and around the world, playing things like orchestral music. But in time, they started pushing out Nazi propaganda tailored for specific countries in 12 different languages. And with its own festering Nazi movement, the US was a key target.

[Matt Kilty]

You had people like X. Sally, this.

[Latif Nasser]

Is Berlin calling and I'd just like to say that when Berlin call, it paid to listen.

[Matt Kilty]

She was an American living in Berlin. She became the first American woman to be convicted of treason after the war. But she was broadcasting into the United States on short wave.

[Latif Nasser]

Women of America waiting for the one you love. Thinking of a husband who is being sacrificed by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

[Matt Kilty]

You might have heard of a person called Lord Haw Haw.

[Latif Nasser]

The great exodus is well underway.

[Matt Kilty]

He was a British man named William Joyce who was working in Germany, broadcasting on their shortwave service.

[Latif Nasser]

The rich and affluent are removing themselves and their valuables as fast as they can.

[Katie Thornton]

There was also a big band called Charlie and his Orchestra run by the German Ministry of Propaganda. They'd take popular big band and swing songs and add or change lyrics to berate Roosevelt or denigrate Jewish people.

[Latif Nasser]

All the Jewish family. As a brand new heir he dare join Heaven sent. And they proudly present Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jones.

[Matt Kilty]

They were trying to persuade Americans that, you know, that the Germans had the right side in the war and that it was crazy for them to fight.

[Latif Nasser]

None intervention. How he spoke shows it. His decision to send troops along the.

[Katie Thornton]

US government had banned all editorializing on domestic radio stations during the war, making it illegal for Americans to promote the Nazi cause on the AM airwaves. But the feds didn't have any control over shortwave broadcasts beaming in from Germany. So the content was still there for the many Americans who wanted to listen. Journalists at CBS and NBC launched counteroffensives.

[Susan Douglas]

The networks had what were called shortwave listening posts in New York.

[Katie Thornton]

Susan Douglas again.

[Susan Douglas]

And they had people who were fluent in foreign languages monitoring international shortwave broadcasts.

[Katie Thornton]

And then they turned their findings into entertainment, like the hit CBS radio series hosted by a popular detective novelist named Rex Stout. It was called Our Secret Weapon.

[Latif Nasser]

The truth is a weapon that isn't secret in our country, but it's a big secret to the people who live in Germany, Japan and Italy. Our enemies don't have this weapon. They don't dare let their people know the truth.

[Katie Thornton]

Every week, radio sleuth Stout debunked enemy shortwave propaganda.

[Latif Nasser]

First, a broadcast to the official German News Agency on August 2. The meeting between Churchill and Stalin was very excited and hysterical. He had assumed a dramatic. On August 8, beamed at England. This morning, Churchill shook hands with Stalin at the Kremlin. As we now know, Churchill actually arrived in Moscow on August 12. You can't beat that for a scoop.

[Katie Thornton]

The rest of the Allies were also busy fighting Germany's shortwave radio propaganda. It was during World War II that the BBC ramped up what would come to be known as the World Service on shortwave.

[Latif Nasser]

This is London calling in the overseas service of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

[Katie Thornton]

They broadcast news to the world with just a bit of pro ally spin.

[Latif Nasser]

The Danes have already had a taste of what German protection means. A better word for it would be plunder, for the Germans are seizing goods and property at will.

[Katie Thornton]

And in early 1942, the US followed suit. The federal government debuted its shortwave radio service, the Voice of America, with an in language broadcast to Germany.

[Latif Nasser]

This is a voice speaking from America.

[Katie Thornton]

Our voices are coming to you. From New York, across the Atlantic Ocean to London. The Voice of America started as a government run radio show. And they partnered with networks like NBC and CBS to get it out worldwide. NBC and CBS were already broadcasting overseas via shortwave. But shortwave quickly proved so central to the war effort that the US government did something unprecedented. They nationalized all the roughly one dozen shortwave stations broadcasting from US soil, filling the international airwaves with approved broadcasts daily.

[Latif Nasser]

At this time we shall speak to you about America and the war. The news may Be good or bad, we shall tell you the truth. True.

[Katie Thornton]

And for the most part, they did that, if a bit selectively.

[Matt Kilty]

Michelle Helms they were walking a fine line between willful propaganda and sort of putting a good spin on things.

[Katie Thornton]

As the US sent more troops into battle, it used shortwave to boost morale.

[Susan Douglas]

They began to transmit entertainment programming via shortwave to the troops.

[Katie Thornton]

Susan Douglas again.

[Susan Douglas]

And this was so important during holidays like Christmas and New Year's, when there you are, freezing and alone and scared.

[Matt Kilty]

They had programs that would allow troops to speak to people back at home. You know, oh, here's Mailbag, and we have letters from soldiers. And they would read them aloud.

[Latif Nasser]

Dear Mother, tonight I'm very lonely. I've never written that before and maybe it's a shock to you. And then again, maybe you've read the between the lines and I've known it all along.

[Matt Kilty]

There was a very popular program called GI Jive with Jill.

[Latif Nasser]

Here's Jill and the GI Jive. Hi, you fellas. This is GI Jill with GI Jive.

[Susan Douglas]

You know, the World Series, the 1942 World Series broadcast. You gotta have the World Series.

[Matt Kilty]

The Voice of America was very highly respected and many people think that it, you know, did a great deal to help us win the war.

[Katie Thornton]

By the end of the Second World War, the Voice of America blanketed much of the world. It ran in about 40 languages. But they were about to get lots of company on the airwaves because in the Cold War, the shortwaves exploded. That's coming up after the break.

[Matt Kilty]

Okay, the rest of on the Media's Episode one of the Divided Dial Season two when we come back.

[Jad Abumrad]

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[Lulu Miller]

Radiolab is supported by Audible. Can AI predict the source of the next global pandemic? Or at least help convince all Hollywood studio to buy a new screenplay from Scott Z. Burns, the writer of Contagion? With special guest appearances from director Steven Soderbergh, Laurence Fishburne and Jennifer E. Lee Check out what Could Go Wrong? A deeply thoughtful, occasionally frightening and often hilarious Audible Original Podcast, the series delves head and heart first into one of today's burning questions. Can humankind and AI work hand in hand? Featuring an extraordinary collection of minds, both skeptics and optimists across academia, sciences, journalism and the entertainment industry, what Could Go Wrong Follows Scott as he slips deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole with an ever expanding cast of AI generated partners, including Lexter, his extraordinarily gifted sharp tongued collaborator. They co write and pitch Hollywood Execs the Contagion sequel. In this brave new world of human AI collaboration, one question looms large. What could possibly Go Wrong? Listen to what Could Go Wrong now on audible. Go to audible.com whatcodgo wrong to learn more. Radiolab is supported by Capital One Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that Radiolab is his favorite podcast too. Oh really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com Bank Capital One NA member FDIC Radiolab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy.

[Matt Kilty]

Madigan Radiolab Back to Katy Divided Dial on the Media.

[Katie Thornton]

CPE this is on the Media. I'm Katie Thornton, host of OTM's Divided Dial series. We're right in the middle of episode one of our second season. Before the break, we heard about how groups like the VOA dominated the shortwaves at the end of World War II. But during the Cold War, shortwave would become so much more Radio peaking.

[Latif Nasser]

This is Tehran Radio Iran, the Australian Forces Radio. You are tuned to the North American service of Radio Moscow.

[Katie Thornton]

The voa, the BBC, the Soviet Union, China, Egypt, Iran, Argentina and so many others were on shortwave, broadcasting their national identity to the world in stories and song. They were joined by newly decolonized nations like Libya and Ghana, whose leaders saw the shortwaves as a way to promote their independence and to fuel an international anti colonial movement. But the global superpowers, the US and the Soviet Union were two of the most Dominant voices on shortwave and shortwave became one of the most ferocious battlegrounds of the Cold War. At bat for the Soviet Union was Radio Moscow. Founded in 1929. The USSR's government run network broadcast in over 70 languages with news, propaganda and human interest stories. It offered a Soviet alternative to the BBC and the voa.

[Latif Nasser]

America hit a new high in crime and according to FBI reports to the President, nearly half of the criminals were young people. The causes of this menacing situation are well known. The pornographic pictures distributed among adolescents and the exhibitions of abstract paintings and statues that say nothing to either the heart or the mind.

[Katie Thornton]

The BBC and the VOA were expanding too, sending more and more coverage over the Iron Curtain. But the United States government wanted to reach people in Eastern Europe with messages that weren't so obviously propaganda as the literal voice of America. So they lied.

[Latif Nasser]

Radio Free Europe gets through with the truth every day.

[Katie Thornton]

Debuting in 1950, Radio Free Europe was a flame throwing anti communist shortwave network.

[Latif Nasser]

Into the closed communist countries of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania go the facts. The people are not allowed to hear the truth. The truth that helps them hold onto the will and the drive.

[Katie Thornton]

It was portrayed as grassroots, run by emigres and exiles, and it did employ those folks, but secretly. It was funded by the CIA which was busy meddling in global politics and supporting pro capitalist coups. During these Cold War years, staff at Radio Free Europe launched weather balloons into the Eastern bloc and airdropped over 300 million leaflets instructing listeners on how to tune in. The Soviet Union did not like any of this. They spent tons of money trying to drown out western broadcasts. They'd flood the shortwaves with ear splitting noises that listeners recalled sounding like a buzz saw or a machine gun. Sometimes the battle went beyond the airwaves, like when a Czechoslovakian double agent poisoned the salt shakers at Radio Free Europe's Munich office. That plot was foiled before any of the 1,200 plus employees sat down for lunch. Years later, a Radio Free Europe journalist died after allegedly being stabbed with a poison tipped umbrella. But these US run shortwave stations weren't just beaming out journalism.

[Latif Nasser]

Willis Conover speaking. This is the Voice of America Jazz Hour. The music of jazz parallels the freedom that we have in America, something that not every country has.

[Katie Thornton]

In the 1950s and 60s, music, especially jazz, was a key component in the US government's shortwave campaign.

[David Goren]

This is the Voice of America.

[Katie Thornton]

The federal government ran a jazz ambassador program that sent musicians like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington on tours around the world. They focused on countries that the Soviet Union was also hoping to win over. All the while, though, many of these very same musicians faced racism and segregation at home and on the short waves. Radio Moscow and others were ready to exploit this contradiction. The revolutionary people of Cuba sympathize with all people who struggle for social justice. In the early 1960s, Cuba's government run service, Radio Havana regularly beamed this show, Radio Free Dixie, up to the United States. It is in this spirit that we proudly allocate the following hour in an act of solidarity, peace and friendship with our oppressed North American brothers. Radio Free Dixie invites you to listen to the free voice of the South. Radio Free Dixie was hosted by US Black power activist Robert F. Williams. He was on the lam in Cuba, fleeing, drummed up charges that were later dropped. And he broadcast a perspective that couldn't be found in the mainstream US media.

[Latif Nasser]

1 Negro goes to the White House as a member of the President's cabinet, while another is gunned down like a wild dog for using a white folks toilet. It should be more than clear to us that if we are ever going to be free, we must liberate ourselves.

[Katie Thornton]

Outlets like Radio Moscow and Radio Havana won followers around the world with their mix of propaganda and just factual reporting on civil rights abuses. In the US Governments saw winning people over on shortwave as a key path to winning the Cold War. So Even after the CIA's secretive role at Radio Free Europe was revealed in the early 70s, not much changed. In fact, Congress increased its budget and they kept pumping out news and tunes. Increasingly they played the defiant and oh so American sound of rock music, which was heavily censored in the USSR and Eastern bloc. On the US government run taxpayer funded shortwave stations, they broadcast groups like Metallica and Motley Crue to listeners around the world. By the early 1980s, the US government's shortwave stations reached an estimated 80 million people each week. It took tons of manpower. And it was a huge infrastructure project too. The government had miles upon miles of fields filled with antennas. But one man didn't think that was enough.

[Latif Nasser]

We're as far behind the Soviets and their allies in international broadcasting today as we were in space when they launched Sputnik in 1957.

[Katie Thornton]

On the home front, Ronald Reagan had vetoed public broadcasting budgets and overseen a massive deregulation of the airwaves that allowed for big businesses and conservative and religious broadcasters to dominate AM and FM radio. You know, season one of the divided dial. But on international radio, on short wave, the great deregulator had no qualms about spending taxpayer dollars. He poured public money into the VOA and Radio Free Europe.

[Latif Nasser]

I'm pleased to call on Director Wick and Minister Filali to sign this agreement, an important step towards strengthening the signal of the Voice of America.

[Katie Thornton]

Reagan's administrators wrung their hands over what to do about rock music. Lots of them didn't believe it represented the best of Western culture. But after long internal debates, they decided to keep the rebellious racket going on the short waves. Meanwhile, on the journalism side, Reagan led a shakeup by sidestepping one of the Voice of America's long held tenets, the idea that a free press is the U.S. s best advertisement. Sure, that idea hadn't always been perfectly executed. But Reagan opted instead for more heavy handed anti communist propaganda. Reagan's VOA ran explicit editorials on behalf of the administration. Many longtime leaders resigned, replaced by more amenable colleagues, including Richard W. Carlson, father of right wing bloviator Tucker Carlson. And it was Reagan who launched a costly new shortwave service targeting Cuba with hardline anti communist messages.

[Latif Nasser]

Today I'm appealing to the Congress, help us get the truth through, to support our proposal for a new radio station, Radio Marti, for broadcasting to Cuba.

[Katie Thornton]

While public broadcasting floundered at home, government subsidized propaganda and bad hair metal reverberated on shortwave from the US to the world. In its first seven decades of life, shortwave transformed from an idealistic experiment in global cooperation into a hardened government tool of information warfare. And then in the late 1980s, much of the medium's reason for being crumbled.

[Latif Nasser]

In Eastern Europe, which the Soviets had held by force since World War II. Mikhail Gorbachev said that Moscow would no longer interfere. Serious fighting begins in the early morning, a staccato of machine gun bursts punctuated by by cannon fire. In the last weeks and months, we've seen one Communist party after the other in Eastern Europe knocked off its perch by the people.

[Katie Thornton]

The Cold War was over. On this medium that seemed almost tailor made for propaganda. There was vacancy, airtime for rent, and in the US a particular group of people was ready to snatch it up.

[Latif Nasser]

You must form your militia unit. Pay no heed to the federal government, which is a counterfeit enemy foreign government.

[Katie Thornton]

Are you a white woman such as.

[Michelle Helms]

Myself who is sick of being harassed and tormented?

[Katie Thornton]

Call Aryan nations for a whiter, brighter America.

[Latif Nasser]

We don't want to have to kill you. We hope to not have to kill you. But we can kill you. And if need be, we will kill you. Well, what are a few lives in the grand scheme of liberty. I'm sure you are now seeing the reports of some things that are regularly said over the airwaves in America today. These stations and the programs grew and they took over.

[David Goren]

They dominated what is associated in the.

[Lulu Miller]

Public'S mind with shortwave. It's no longer the BBC World Service. Now it's the guys who helped Timothy McVeigh bomb a federal building.

[Katie Thornton]

Next time, on the Divided Dial it's the shortwave story you've never heard the private citizens who took over a fringe medium with a fringe message and used it to build a movement that fundamentally changed mainstream US politics. The Divided Dial is written and reported by me, Katie Thornton, and edited by OTM's executive producer, Katya Rogers. Music and sound design is by Jared Paul. Jennifer Munson is our technical director. Fact checking by Graham Hacha. The series was made possible with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

[Matt Kilty]

Okay, that's it. Episode one, Season two of on the Media's Divided Dial. You can listen to the rest of this series wherever you get podcasts, just find on the Media. You'll see in the episodes list season two of the Divided Dial. Or you can go to onthemedia.org up near the top there's a little tab for the Divided Dial. You can listen there. It's great. The next episodes get into conspiracy, militias, cults, very much mirroring what you see on the Internet today. And then of course, the Wall street thing. You'll hear about the Wall street thing. So yeah, go listen again. I'm Matt Kilty. We'll be back soon with some new episodes for you.

[Latif Nasser]

So.

[Matt Kilty]

Until then, goodbye.

[Michelle Helms]

Hi, I'm Eisha and I'm from Plano, Texas. And here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Doran Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Rebecca Lax, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyanasambandam, Matt Kilty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sara Kari, Sarah Sandak, Anissa Vita, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters, Molly Webster, Jessica Young, with help from Rebecca Rand. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Anna Pujol Mazzini and Natalie Middleton. Hi, this is Michelle calling from Richardson, Texas. Leadership support for Radiolab Science programming is provided by the Simons foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

[Jad Abumrad]

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