124. RADIO PROPAGANDA. In Europe, especially, the widespread
possession of radio sets made it possible for the belligerents to use standard-
wave radio broadcasting as a regular means of getting propaganda into enemy
territory. The following, in approximate order of importance, were the
materials transmitted:
a. Official speeches by government leaders.
b. Official communiques.
c. News of the world, most of it true, but so arranged as
to favor one side or the other.
d. Special features (regular lectures, debates, "educational
programs").
black).
e. Regularly scheduled commentators (either white or
f. Ostensibly private or independent speakers.
g. Black stations (British-sponsored "Gustav Siegfried
Eins"; German "Lord Haw Haw"; American Operation Annie").
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h. Planted or falsified news quoted from its ostensible source
by official radio, while the official radio disclaimed responsibility.
i. "Ghost" voices or programs, cut in on an enemy wave-
length either while enemy radio was on the air or when enemy
stations went off because of air raids.
Jamming was not found to be successful except as an interference; it never
interdicted all listening to the jammed stations. More feasible anti-radio
measures were those taken to prevent use of materials heard over the air;
listeners were punished or killed in Axis Europe. Since radio propagandists
on both sides counted on the indirect audience (people who were told what
the radio had said), restriction of propaganda to the direct audience (people
who actually heard the broadcast) amounted to a definite control.
125. COUNTERPROPAGANDA AGAINST RADIO. On-the-ground
counterpropaganda was attempted. Newspapers on each side were given
materials with which to confute radio claims of the enemy. The strength
of the democracies showed in that the British and Americans could talk
the matter through in their domestic propaganda media, while the Germans
and Italians, having made all domestic publishing into propaganda, had no
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