British surveillance of postwar Soviet radio jamming: US–UK intelligence relations and interference detection at BBC Tatsfield, 1948-1949

ABSTRACT

Following World War II, the BBC, better known for radio programme broadcasts, continued its long-standing work of radio spectrum surveillance at the specialized receiving and measurement facility located at Tatsfield. Both before and after Soviet jamming of US and British Russian-language broadcasts escalated in April 1949, Tatsfield catalogued the technical characteristics of jamming signals. BBC engineers, experienced in interpreting types and sources of radio interference, issued fortnightly summaries with interpretations of these technical observations. US intelligence agencies knew of Tatsfield’s findings, but differing perspectives in Washington and London resulted in divergent responses to the technical intelligence data. With rising tensions in wider Anglo-American intelligence relations, fueled by the Soviet weapons program and security breaches, such differences presaged separate approaches to Soviet communications threats. US agencies received greatly increased funding, while the BBC’s budget struggles persisted. Even so, interference detection was a high-water mark in Britain’s early Cold War intelligence work.

KEYWORDS:

• Radio
• jamming
• BBC
• Tatsfield
• CIA
• Soviet Union
• cold war
• intelligence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ See Michael Nelson, War of the Black Heavens: The Battles of Western Broadcasting in the Cold War (Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997) and Nicholas J. Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–1989 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 46–51.

² Timothy Stoneman, “A Bold New Vision: The VOA Radio Ring and Global Broadcasting in the Early Cold War,” Technology and Culture 50, no. 2 (2009).

³ Jonathan Reed Winkler, “The Forgotten Menace of Electro-Magnetic Warfare in the Early Cold War,” Diplomatic History 42, no. 2 (2018).

⁴ Nelson (1997), 22, cited by Stoneman (2009), 322 n 18.

⁵ An overview of Soviet jamming throughout the Cold War omits consideration of detection, except to note that on 21 November 1988 the Technical Monitoring and Receiving Station run by US broadcaster Radio Free Europe, near Munich, observed the end of jamming altogether: George W. Woodard, “Cold War Radio Jamming,” in eds. A. Ross Johnson and R. Eugene Parta, Cold War Broadcasting: Impact on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010), 51–65.

⁶ Cull (2008), 49; Mark G. Pomar, Cold War Radio: The Russian Broadcasts of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Lincoln NE: Potomac Books, 2022), 23, 31.

⁷ Asa Briggs, The International History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 5 vols.

⁸ David Hendy, The BBC: A Century on Air (New York: Public Affairs, 2022); Gordon Johnston and Emma Robertson, BBC World Service: Overseas Broadcasting, 1932–2018 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019); Simon J. Potter, This is the BBC: Entertaining the Nation, Speaking for Britain, 1922–2022 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).

⁹ Laura M. Calkins, “Patrolling the Ether: US-UK Open Source Intelligence Cooperation and the BBC’s Emergence as an Intelligence Agency, 1939–1948,” Intelligence and National Security 26, no. 1 (2011), 1–22; Laura M. Johnson, “Establishing Broadcast Monitoring as Open Source Intelligence: The BBC Monitoring Service during the Second World War,” (PhD diss., University of London, 2013).

¹⁰ Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol III: The War of Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 60. See also Callum A. MacDonald, “Radio Bari: Italian Wireless Propaganda in the Middle East and British Countermeasures 1934–38,” Middle Eastern Studies 13, no. 2 (1977), 198–203.

¹¹ In short, signals intelligence (‘SIGINT’) is the collection and analysis of communications transmissions, which often are point-to-point and/or encoded, while electronic intelligence (‘ELINT’) is the collection and analysis of non-communications pulses or signals from which no messages are extracted.

¹² Asa Briggs, The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, Vol II: The Golden Age of Wireless (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 340.

¹³ Briggs (1965), 341. Here, the term ‘allocation’ follows usage outlined by Hugh G.J. Aitken, “Allocating the Spectrum: The Origins of Radio Regulation,” Technology and Culture 35, no. 4 (1994): 689.

¹⁴ Telecommunications Journal (Berne) 15:1 (January 1948), 24. In early 1952 British officials discussed the legality of Soviet jamming, with the Legal Adviser to the Foreign Office concluding that ‘existing conventions did not specifically condemn jamming’ and no appropriate ‘court of appeal’ was available in international law, so any ‘argument about jamming would [not] be of much value:’ Letter, Foreign Office to BBC, 23 January 1952, British Broadcasting Corporation Written Archives Centre [hereafter WAC] E2/118.

¹⁵ Briggs (1965), 372.

¹⁶ Edward Pawley, BBC Engineering 1922–1972 (London: BBC, 1972), 64; “Tatsfield Receiving and Measurement Station,” March 1952, WAC E2/118.

¹⁷ Pawley (1972), 196; Briggs (1995), 60 n246, 64.

¹⁸ US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), “Historical Developments in the Jamming of the VOA by the USSR,” OSI-1-50, 20 January 1950, in Declassified Documents Reference System [hereafter DDRS], Document CK2349296108.

¹⁹ Terms of Reference, “A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of January 31, 1950,” 7 April 1950, FRUS 1950 National Security Affairs, Foreign Economic Policy Vol I, Document 85. NSC 68 was approved by President Truman in September 1950. A basic review of the extensive and contending literatures on NSC 68, its origins and impacts is found in Beatrice Heuser, “NSC 68 and the Soviet threat: A new perspective on Western threat perception and policymaking,” Review of International Studies 17, (1991): 17–40, and Michael Cox, “Western Intelligence, the Soviet threat and NSC-68: A reply to Beatrice Heuser,” Review of International Studies 18 (1992), 75–83. A more recent study linking Anglo-American financial relations to the emergence of NSC 68 is Curt Caldwell, NSC 68 and the Political Economy of the Early Cold War (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

²⁰ ”Report of the IAC Ad Hoc Committee on Soviet Jamming of the Voice of America,” 2 June 1950, in CIA Records Search Tool [hereafter CREST]: cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005615969.pdf.

²¹ Nelson (1997), 21–24; Cull (2008), 43 n66.

²² A comparison of the CIA document and Tatsfield’s fortnightly reports 1948–49 demonstrates that the former’s technical intelligence information reprises selected items from the Tatsfield findings; the only original US intelligence contribution seems to be anecdotal evaluations from listeners reported to be inside the USSR.

²³ CIA, “Historical Developments,” 6, 8.

²⁴ ”Intelligence on Soviet Jamming Operations and Techniques,” 6 October 1949, CREST: cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01731R002900440055-7.pdf; [CIA], ‘No. 7 The Foreign Intelligence Program,’ 15 August 1952, DDRS Document FFQAMU 410930076.

²⁵ James David, “Soviet Secrets in the Ether – Clandestine Radio Stations at the New York and San Francisco Consulates in World War II,” Cryptologia 27, no. 2 (2003): 137 n6.

²⁶ Charles Denny, 6 May 1947, “Independent Offices Appropriations Bill for 1948,” Committee on Appropriations, US House of Representatives (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1947), 1251.

²⁷ The CIA reported listening ‘tests’ for Soviet jamming conducted on 10 consecutive days in February–March 1948. At Vladivostok, for example, American Russian-language broadcasts were said to be ‘almost totally unintelligible owing to a powerful uproar:’ ‘Jamming of Voice of USA Broadcasts,’ Memorandum to the Assistant Secretary of State From Director CIA, 18 March 1948, CREST: cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01731R001300250011-3.pdf. A more technically specific CIA report from the same test period exists; the place where the information was acquired has been redacted: ‘Observation of Jamming,’ 16 March 1948, CREST: cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-04864A000100040014-1.pdf. Under special instructions the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), normally tasked with monitoring the content of foreign radio programmes, listened to Soviet jamming for two weeks beginning 29 April 1949 (following the start of the Soviet jamming surge): US FBIS, ‘Jamming of “BBC” Russian Language Broadcasts,’ 16 May 1949, WAC E8/49/1.

²⁸ Graham Wallace, RAF Biggin Hill (Chatham: Mackay & Co., 1957), 15–16.

²⁹ Pawley (1972), 194–197.

³⁰ H.V. Griffiths, “Observations on the U.S.S.R. Earth Satellite Radio Signals,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences 248, no. 1252 (1958): 16.

³¹ Details on CIA acquisition of information developed at Tatsfield remains obscure. In late 1952 the CIA asked the Head of the BBC Monitoring Service to send ‘a recent full report on Soviet jamming prepared by the Tatsfield Monitoring Station;’ it was agreed that this report would be provided via the London Bureau of FBIS, along with unspecified ‘additional information’ the CIA said it needed: ‘Request for Information from the BBC Tatafield [sic] Monitoring Station,’ 13 November 1952, CREST: cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-00765A000100010007-6.pdf.

³² ”Tatsfield Receiving Station: Jamming Report,” 18 January 1949, WAC E8/49/1 [all reports by Tatsfield in this 1948–49 series are found in WAC E8/49/1, and hereafter are noted as ‘Tatsfield Report’ with the report date].

³³ ”Jamming,” 31 January 1949, WAC E8/49/1. Tatsfield’s reply was copied to FBIS: ‘Jamming of Vatican,’ 2 February 1949, WAC E8/105/1.

³⁴ Memorandum to I. Campbell-Bruce, Government Communications HQ, 16 May 1949, WAC E8/49/1.

³⁵ BBC Tatsfield was damaged in a daylight German bombing attack on 3 October 1940: Briggs (1995), 268. Staff and equipment were evacuated during July–November 1944 due to ‘acute danger from V1 Flying Rockets,’ but surveillance work continued elsewhere: Pawley (1972), 286.

³⁶ George C. Sponsler, “Sputniks Over Britain,” Physics Today 11, no. 7 (1958): 16; Pawley (1972), 517.

³⁷ Cull (2008), 43.

³⁸ Cyrus Andrews, ed. and comp., Radio Who’s Who (London, 1947), 143; L.W. Turner, ‘Mr. HV Griffiths, M.B.E.,’ Nature 192 (11 November 1961), 504.

³⁹ H.V. Griffiths, ‘Observations,’ (1958), 16; and Numb. 41404 The London Gazette (Supplement) (3 June 1958), 3528.

⁴⁰ Pawley (1972), 197.

⁴¹ Briggs (1995), 64.

⁴² Tatsfield Report 4 August 1948, 1 April 1949.

⁴³ Tatsfield Report 10 December 1948; ‘Jamming’ 31 January 1949, WAC E8/49/1. A draft CIA report dated 15 June 1949 makes clear that US analysts were aware that the USSR was ‘employing both German and Russian war time techniques,’ but does not disclose how this was known: ‘Political and Security Implications of Jamming by USSR of VOA/BBC Broadcasts,’ 15 June 1949, CREST: cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-01617A000500180004-0.pdf.

⁴⁴ Tatsfield Report-Addendum 31 May 1949.

⁴⁵ Tatsfield Report 4 March 1949. These German and Italian technologies came into use during 1937–38 against Spanish Republican broadcasting; see Alan Davies, “The First Radio War: Broadcasting in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 19, no. 4 (1999): 500.

⁴⁶ Tatsfield Report-Addendum 31 May 1949.

⁴⁷ Tatsfield Report 9 September 1949, 7 October 1949.

⁴⁸ ‘Russian Jamming Reports,’ 29 December 1949, WAC E8/49/1.

⁴⁹ Tatsfield Report 21 October 1949.

⁵⁰ Pawley (1972), 196.

⁵¹ ‘Jamming of BBC Broadcasts to Hungary,’ 25 May 1949, WAC E8/49/1.

⁵² FBIS also identified Morse patterns within Soviet jamming signals: ‘Jamming of “BBC” Russian Language Broadcasts,’ 16 May 1949, WAC E8/49/1.

⁵³ Tatsfield Report 28 October 1948.

⁵⁴ Although providing no dates, one analyst suggests that ‘when the Soviets discovered that these identifiers were being logged’ in the West, Morse indicators were frequently changed: Woodard (2010), 60.

⁵⁵ ‘Jamming,’ 31 January 1949, WAC E8/49/1; Tatsfield Report 29 April 1949, 4 November 1949.

⁵⁶ Woodard (2010), 53.

⁵⁷ Tatsfield Report 23 April 1948. Through its own episodic tests the CIA was aware of Soviet jamming of US Russian-language broadcasts by March 1948; CIA, ‘Political and Security Implications,’ 15 June 1949.

⁵⁸ Tatsfield Report 4 August 1948, 15 October 1948, 23 December 1948, 4 February 1949, 1 April 1949.

⁵⁹ ‘Broadcast Jamming: A Short Summary of the Jamming Observed, March 1949,’ 24 March 1949, WAC E8/49/1. From 1946, US shortwave broadcasts from New York in 15 languages were relayed to Europe by ‘the Munich transmitters under US control:’ ‘Listening Notes,’ 23 December 1946, WAC E8/87/5.

⁶⁰ ‘Broadcast Jamming,’ 24 March 1949.

⁶¹ Tatsfield Report 18 March 1949.

⁶² Tatsfield Report 18 March 1949.

⁶³ Tatsfield Report 22 April 1949.

⁶⁴ February 1948 has been given as the starting date for the USSR’s ‘massive jamming operations against foreign broadcasts’: Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, Britain’s Secret Propaganda War 1948–1977 (Stroud UK: 1988), 61. Elsewhere August 1949 has been suggested: Arch Puddington, Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (Lexington KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2000), 214. Confusion over the onset of the jamming escalation is noted in Alban Webb, London Calling: Britain, the BBC World Service and the Cold War (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 76, 207 n2.

⁶⁵ ‘Jamming of Russian-Language Broadcasts on BBC and American Transmitters,’ 27 April 1949, WAC E8/49/1. The US Embassy, Moscow, reported the same date: Telegram to Secretary of State, 26 April 1949, in US State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States [hereafter FRUS], 1949 Vol V: Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Document 50.

⁶⁶ Tatsfield Report 29 April 1949.

⁶⁷ Tatsfield Report 29 April 1949.

⁶⁸ BBC transmissions in all languages besides Russian remained clear, while US broadcasts in all other languages encountered ‘no deliberate jamming.’ Munich transmitters were not jammed when carrying ‘Armed Forces network’ programming, but were always jammed when carrying US Russian-language relays: Tatsfield Report 1 July 1949.

⁶⁹ Tatsfield Report 13 May 1949, 17 June 1949, 1 July 1949, 7 October 1949, 21 October 1949.

⁷⁰ Tatsfield Report 12 August 1949, 17 June 1949. The CIA’s January 1950 report said ‘new receiver design’ might be underway in the USSR but declared ‘little is known of the frequency ranges of these receivers.’ It claimed that US tactics ensured that ‘penetration on high frequencies occurred,’ whereas Tatsfield repeatedly noted that these broadcasts could not be received by standard Soviet radios: CIA, ‘Historical Developments;’ Tatsfield Report 12 August 1949.

⁷¹ CIA, ‘Political and Security Implications,’ 15 June 1949.

⁷² ‘Jamming – Tatsfield Report Covering 1945-April 14^th 1948,’ 15 April 1948, WAC E8/49/1.

⁷³ Tatsfield Report 4 May 1948.

⁷⁴ ”Jamming,” 15 April 1948, WAC E8/49/1.

⁷⁵ Tatsfield Report 12 November 1948.

⁷⁶ Tatsfield Report 13 May 1949.

⁷⁷ Tatsfield Report 23 September 1949.

⁷⁸ ‘Jamming of Russian Language Broadcasts on BBC and American Transmitters,’ 27 April 1949, WAC E8/49/1; Tatsfield Report 29 July 1949. In early 1952, Tatsfield had an operational staff of 53, supported by clerical, maintenance, and catering personnel working under H.V. Griffiths, Engineer in Charge, and his assistant: ‘Tatsfield Receiving and Measurement Station,’ March 1952.

⁷⁹ Stoneman (2009): 323–324.

⁸⁰ Stoneman (2009): 323.

⁸¹ Citing an internal State Department memorandum of 15 November 1949, Stoneman describes US tactics as an ineffective ‘incremental approach,’ but when these changes were implemented or how it was known that Soviet responses rendered them ineffective is not mentioned: Stoneman (2009), 323–24, n22, 25, 26.

⁸² Ian Jacob, ‘The Russian Jamming Campaign and Measures to Meet It,’ [n.d.], WAC E2/118.

⁸³ Tatsfield Report 29 April 1949.

⁸⁴ Tatsfield Report 13 May 1949.

⁸⁵ Jacob, ‘The Russian Jamming Campaign.’ The BBC altered the times and frequencies of other European language services and cancelled all broadcasts in Russian at other times, using all available transmitters to send synchronized Russian-language bulletins: ‘Schedule Alteration on 12th June 1949,’ 25 May 1949, WAC E2/324/2.

⁸⁶ Tatsfield Report 17 June 1949.

⁸⁷ The US also briefly used its West Berlin transmitter to carry Russian-language programmes: Tatsfield Report 13 May 1949. A new medium-wave transmitter had been built with $775,204 in US FY1948 and FY1949 funds; constructed in the Munich suburb of Ismaning, it entered service on 1 September 1949. Its relays of US programmes were quickly jammed: Hearings, ‘Third Supplemental Appropriation Bill for 1951,’ Part 2, Committee on Appropriations, US House of Representatives (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1951), 260; Tatsfield Report 9 September 1949.

⁸⁸ Tatsfield Report 15 July 1949.

⁸⁹ Moscow to US Secretary of State, 21 October 1949, FRUS 1949 Vol V: Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Document 390.

⁹⁰ Tatsfield Report 21 October 1949, 18 November 1949, 2 December 1949.

⁹¹ Ian Jacob, BBC, To CFA Warner, Foreign Office, 17 June 1949, WAC E2/324/2.

⁹² Tatsfield Report 17 June 1949.

⁹³ Tatsfield Report 15 July 1949.

⁹⁴ Tatsfield Report 4 May 1948. Munich probably had a ‘listening station’ which charted Soviet jamming attacks in order to guide its rapid frequency changes: Tatsfield Report 28 October 1948. The CIA’s January 1950 review noted only that Munich conducted direction-finding work in April 1948: CIA, ‘Historical Developments,’ 2.

⁹⁵ Tatsfield Report 23 December 1948.

⁹⁶ ‘Russian Jamming: Present Position,’ 28 July 1949, WAC E8/49/1; Tatsfield Report 12 August 1949, 2 December 1949.

⁹⁷ Cull (2008), 49.

⁹⁸ B.U.P. Frankfurt, 26 May 1949, WAC E2/118; CIA, ‘Historical Developments,’ 3.

⁹⁹ Tatsfield Report 31 May 1949, 17 June 1949.

¹⁰⁰ Tatsfield Report 29 July 1949. When Munich transmitters used frequencies that Moscow simultaneously used for its own broadcasts, Munich’s signal was ‘jammed as soon as possible’ regardless of how this affected local reception of Moscow’s programmes: Tatsfield Report 12 August 1949.

¹⁰¹ B.U.P. Frankfurt, 26 May 1949.

¹⁰² Woodard (2010), 60.

¹⁰³ Tatsfield Report 7 October 1949.

¹⁰⁴ Tatsfield Report 4 May 1948.

¹⁰⁵ ‘Jamming of Russian Language Broadcasts on BBC and American Transmitters,’ 27 April 1949.

¹⁰⁶ Tatsfield Report 31 May 1949, 29 July 1949.

¹⁰⁷ Tatsfield Report 12 August 1949.

¹⁰⁸ Tatsfield Report 15 July 1949.

¹⁰⁹ Tatsfield Report 23 September 1949.

¹¹⁰ The new system may have been favored by the CIA: CIA, ‘Historical Developments,’ 8.

¹¹¹ Tatsfield Report 12 August 1949.

¹¹² ‘Jamming of BBC Transmissions in Russian: September 1949,’ 14 November 1949, WAC E8/49/1. In late 1949, listener and Embassy monitor reports were received from Moscow, Helsinki, Istanbul, Budapest, and Tokyo: ‘Jamming of BBC Transmissions in Russian: October 1949, Detailed Information,’ 25 November 1949, WAC E8/49/1.

¹¹³ CIA, ‘Historical Developments,’ 7.

¹¹⁴ ‘Russian Jamming Reports,’ 29 December 1949, WAC E8/49/1.

¹¹⁵ The September 1948 signing of this agreement may have spurred Tatsfield to begin issuing its fortnightly reports on Soviet jamming on 1 October 1948: International Telecommunications Union, European Broadcasting Convention and Copenhagen Plan (Berne: General Secretariat of the International Telecommunications Union, 1944); US State Department, ‘Continuance in Operation of the “Voice of America” at Munich,’ 14 February 1950, FRUS 1950 Vol IV, Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Document 124.

¹¹⁶ By November 1950 all OIR leaders were Eastern bloc officials, and its assets had been relocated from Brussels to Prague: Telecommunications Journal (Berne) 18, no. 5 (1951): 194.

¹¹⁷ US notes were delivered to Belgium, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, and thereafter to Egypt, Turkey, Sweden, and Switzerland: Editors’ Note, FRUS 1950 Vol IV, Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Document 124.

¹¹⁸ CIA, ‘Historical Developments,’ 10.

¹¹⁹ Stephen Dorrill, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (London: Fourth Estate, 2001), 54–56; Martin Rudner, “Britain Betwixt and Between: UK SIGINT Alliance Strategy’s Transatlantic and European Connections,” Intelligence and National Security 19, no. 4 (2004): 574. Rudner employs the phrase ‘acute crisis,’ citing Dorrill, whose analysis is generally more sanguine.

¹²⁰ Michael Goodman, “Who is Trying to Keep What Secret from Whom and Why? MI5-FBI Relations and the Klaus Fuchs Case,” Journal of Cold War Studies 7, no. 3 (2005): 128.

¹²¹ Goodman (2005), 142.

¹²² Richard J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (Woodstock NY: The Overlook Press, 2001), 382–84.

¹²³ Richard J. Aldrich, “GCHQ and Sigint in Early Cold War 1945–70,” Intelligence and National Security 16, no. 2 (2001): 87–88; Simone Turchetti, The Pontecorvo Affair: A Cold War Defection and Nuclear Physics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 119ff.

¹²⁴ Stoneman (2009), 325.

¹²⁵ British Embassy, Washington to Foreign Office, London, No. 664, 12 August 1950, WAC E2/325/2.

¹²⁶ CIA, ‘Historical Developments,’ 10.

¹²⁷ Editors’ Note, FRUS 1949 Vol 5, Document 350; CIA, ‘Political and Security Implications of Jamming,’ 15 June 1949.

¹²⁸ CIA, “Political and Security Implications of Jamming,” 15 June 1949; CIA, “Historical Developments,” 5.

¹²⁹ Tatsfield Report 29 July 1949.

¹³⁰ ”USSR Short Wave Broadcasts,” 22 June 1950, WAC E8/105/1.

¹³¹ Tatsfield Report 26 August 1949, 9 September 1949.

¹³² Belgrade’s Russian-language broadcasts began in June 1949. Soviet jamming commenced on 12 September 1949: Tatsfield Report 17 June 1949, 23 September 1949, 21 October 1949.

¹³³ Tatsfield Report 29 July 1949, 7 October 1949. On combination frequencies, see “Legal Aspects of Jamming,” 28 December 1951, WAC E2/118.

¹³⁴ CIA, “Historical Developments,” 5.

¹³⁵ Tatsfield Report 15 July 1949. Additional ‘new types of jamming’ were identified in October: Tatsfield Report 21 October 1949.

¹³⁶ State Department, “Support for the Voice of America in the Fields of Intelligence and of Research and Development,” n.d., FRUS 1950, Central and Eastern Europe, and The Soviet Union, 285–86. The State Department’s view of the technique is discussed by Winkler (2018), 256–57.

¹³⁷ State Department, “Support for the Voice of America,” 288.

¹³⁸ Armstrong to Hillenkoetter, 24 March 1950, CREST: cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R002600310002-2.pdf.

¹³⁹ Aldrich, Hidden Hand (2001), 383–85.

¹⁴⁰ ”Report of the IAC Ad Hoc Committee on Soviet Jamming of the Voice of America,” 2 June 1950, CREST: cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0005615969.pdf.

¹⁴¹ Jerome Wiesner, 15 March 1951, “Third Supplemental Appropriation Bill for 1951,” Part 2 (1951), 244, 247.

¹⁴² Potter (2022), 128.

¹⁴³ Jacob, “The Russian Jamming Campaign”

¹⁴⁴ Webb (2015), 101–14.

¹⁴⁵ Jacob, “The Russian Jamming Campaign”

¹⁴⁶ In the FY1950 appropriation bill (made law on 16 November 1949 with ‘funds becoming available to IBD shortly thereafter’), $675,275 was approved for enhanced broadcasting responses to the surge. Expenditure of a further $422,794 was ‘deferred for technical intelligence reasons’ not specified in a report made to Congress in early 1951: “Third Supplemental Appropriation Bill for 1951,” Part 2 (1951), 261.

¹⁴⁷ Once approved, the $97.5 m was ‘to remain available until expended:’ “Third Supplemental Appropriation Bill for 1951,” Part 2 (1951), 220–21.

¹⁴⁸ CIA, ‘Intelligence on Soviet Jamming Operations and Techniques.’

¹⁴⁹ ‘Estimate of Soviet Capabilities with Respect to New Weapons in 1951 and 1954,’ Intelligence Memorandum 269, 2 February 1950, CREST: cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-01617A000800300001-9.pdf. CIA concerns about the Soviet capacity for ‘electromagnetic warfare’ across the radio spectrum continued to grow, and the view that expansive US broadcasting had triggered development of new Soviet offensive capabilities persisted during the 1950s. It reappears, for example, in a 1958 White House report claiming that US broadcasts ‘led the Soviets to perfecting a jamming capability which could be used against Free World military communication’: ‘Subject: Location of Radio Broadcasting Facilities Abroad,’ 27 January 1958, DDRS Document CK 2349283118.

¹⁵⁰ M.S. Goodman and H. Dylan, “British Intelligence and the Fear of a Soviet Attack on Allied Communications,” Cryptologia 40:1 (2016).

¹⁵¹ Richard J. Aldrich, “GCHQ and Sigint in Early Cold War 1945–70,” Intelligence and National Security 16, no. 1 (2001), 81–82; Richard J. Aldrich, GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain’s Most Secret Intelligence Agency (London: HarperPress, 2010), 110–12.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Laura M. Calkins

Laura M. Calkins holds a PhD from the University of London, UK, and is Associate Professor of History, Texas Tech University, Texas, USA.