Static Defense

Communist jargon and classical music are the usual radio diet of the Soviet citizen. But during five years of U.S.-Soviet detente, listeners in the Soviet Union had a simple alternative. A flick of the dial pulled in Western news, commentary--and even the throbbing beat of hard rock music. Moscow's decision in June 1963 to abandon jamming Western programs was an indication of the U.S.S.R.'s interest in a rapprochement with the Western world. Now the jamming is on again.

Within hours of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia last August, the Western broadcasts that had boomed through so clearly for half a decade were once again obscured by artificial static that overrode many broadcasts. The resumption of jamming was obviously an attempt to muffle the world's outcry against the invasion by Soviet troops, and it represented no small effort. The Soviets switched back on all their coldwar jamming devices, which some experts number in the hundreds. They consistently tried to blank out the Voice of America, the BBC and West Germany's Deutsche Welle, and at various other times jammed French, Italian, Swedish, Turkish and even Monacan stations. That massive Russian station break still persists.

Patient Fiddlers. Unfortunately for Kremlin censors, it is more difficult--and sometimes even more expensive--to jam programs selectively than it is to send them. Western broadcasters get their programs through either by taking advantage of Soviet technical lapses or by employing classified tricks of their own. And once through the barriers, they have an eager and well-equipped audience. Short-wave transmitters are much more common in the Soviet Union than in other nations because the vast size of the nation makes short-wave transmission the most practical way to reach the entire country. Perhaps as many as 30 million receivers are now in use, and listeners have become so fond of outside news and pop music (a recent headliner on the Voice of America: the Beatles' new album) that they are determined to stay tuned--if not to one station, then to another. By fiddling patiently with their dials, Russians overcome their government's effort to block the airwaves.* As one Soviet listener recently wrote to a Western broadcaster, "It might hurt one's ears and test one's patience. But one does find you."

Letters from Soviet listeners, in fact, filter through fairly often. Some write to complain about programs they consider unfair to the Soviet Union. But many more make it clear that the diversity of opinion expressed in foreign broadcasts provides the most credible source for news about their own country as well as the world. Regular listeners are kept informed about U.S. urban strife and protests against the war in Viet Nam, for example, and the BBC led off a roundup of editorial comment two weeks ago with the disarmingly frank observation that "most politicians must agree that we are in an unholy mess."

At the time of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, both the Voice of America and the BBC naturally devoted extra air time to news and comment. Much of the comment expressed outrage and dismay, some from Communist papers around the world. Soviet citizens have learned from foreign radio--much more than from their own news sources--of the rising cries of dissent from their country's intellectuals. The Voice of America, for example, has broadcast full versions of Physicist Andrei Sakharov's extraordinary outline for an East-West detente (which is critical of both U.S. and Soviet current policy) and Major General Pyotr Grigorenko's recent anti-Kremlin statements.

Name That Tune. Nettled by similar unkindnesses perpetrated by the BBC, the Soviets last week struck back at their Western tormentors. An article in the government newspaper Izvestia charged the BBC with "involvement in the most seamy operations" of British agents operating in Eastern European nations. One ploy, Izvestia reported, was to play certain tunes at prearranged times, thus enabling a British spy to forecast such events and so prove to local recruits that he was a bona fide spook. The BBC dismissed the charges as ridiculous, and in its own sly way mocked the paper's paranoia: "If there are any agents on the job in Moscow waiting for today's message," said a solemn-toned announcer last week, "here it is." There followed the theme from Come Spy With Me, a recent London stage farce.

* There are two major jamming techniques used by the U.S.S.R. One, called ground-wave jamming, employs a local transmitter that blocks a selected frequency with either a garbling distortion signal or by overriding another program with a Soviet program. This technique, however, works well only within a three-mile radius of the transmitter. Sky-wave jamming, the second technique, calls for transmission from a point as far away as the source of the outside signal. This requires expensive tower construction in remote areas and constant monitoring of the ionosphere, off which radio waves are bounced from sender to receiver.

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