212. Memorandum From the Director of the International Communication Agency (Reinhardt) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1
SUBJECT
- Status of Soviet Jamming of VOA Broadcasts
The jamming of VOA broadcasts into the Soviet Union is now entering its second month. The following status report is based on information from our staff in Washington and from monitoring sites within the Soviet Union and on its periphery.
The Current Jamming Effort
As you know, the Soviet Union resumed jamming of VOA, BBC and Deutsche Welle broadcasts on the morning of August 20.2 The broadcasts of Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Kol Israel and Radio Peking continue to be jammed, as they have been all along. All VOA language services are currently being jammed, i.e., Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian. The attached “Penetration Index” shows the percentage of VOA programming now being received well or acceptably in several languages.3 We plan to send a monitor to Turkey shortly to obtain accurate readings on reception of our Georgian, Armenian and Ukrainian broadcasts.
The Soviet Union is utilizing two types of interference to jam foreign broadcasts. One method, called “mayak jamming,” transmits a distorted version of a regular Soviet domestic program on the same frequency as a VOA program. The other method, “noise jamming,” is a buzz sound transmitted on the same frequency as the VOA broadcast. The jamming noise reaches its targets either by radiation from powerful transmitters beaming signals into the ionosphere and reflecting them back to earth or by groundwave propagation. Skywave jamming can cover large areas, and groundwave jamming can effectively interfere with reception in large cities.
Jamming normally is a very expensive undertaking, more expensive than broadcasting itself. The speed and exactitude with which the Soviets have interfered this time with VOA broadcasts, however, lead us to suspect that they are employing their mobile military transmitters [Page 632] for jamming, in addition to those transmitters they used for jamming previously. The military transmitters exist as back-up facilities to satellite circuits; thus their use for jamming would require neither new construction expenditures nor the disruption, under peacetime circumstances, of other uses of the military transmitters.
It is unlikely that we would ever succeed completely in overtaxing the capabilities of Soviet jamming equipment. It is also unlikely that they would ever succeed in thoroughly blotting out reception of VOA throughout the Soviet Union.
VOA Countermeasures to Jamming
A combination of several techniques has enabled VOA to penetrate Soviet jamming to some extent: 1) high power transmitters are delivering the strongest possible signal into the Soviet Union; 2) as many transmitters as possible can beam many different frequencies to achieve what is called “saturation broadcasting”; and 3) VOA is transmitting the same program simultaneously from VOA Relay Stations located at different geographical points to take advantage of varying propagation conditions. We have added three transmissions in Russian from our station in Kavala, Greece, and one transmission in Georgian, Armenian and Ukrainian from our station in Tangiers. In addition, due to the fact that VOA is transmitting from West to East, there is a short period each day when VOA can use frequencies higher than the jammers; we refer to this period as “twilight immunity.”
We have begun a series of meetings at VOA to examine a range of technical and political options that might be employed if protracted jamming continues. These will include the possible reassignment and increase of frequencies available to beam the programs, the extension of broadcast time, and the recasting of programs. The latter option would cater to short-span listening by reducing music programs to a minimum and by replacing block programs with a magazine format and an increased number of newscasts. We will also consider broadcasting in Russian and other Soviet languages for longer periods and during different hours.
History of Soviet and Eastern European Jamming of VOA
The Soviet Union began to jam VOA and other Western broadcasts in 1948. Most of the Eastern European countries joined in this effort in 1950. In 1956, Poland became the first Eastern European country to stop jamming Western broadcasts. In 1963, the Soviet Union unexpectedly ceased jamming and was followed shortly by Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Soviets resumed jamming within hours of their invasion of Czechoslovakia in August, 1968. In 1972, VOA started broadcasting in Uzbek, which was heavily jammed minutes after it was on the air. At the time of the CSCE talks in 1973, all jamming of [Page 633] VOA broadcasts to the Soviet Union again ceased and was not resumed until August, 1980. In September, 1974, Bulgaria, the only Eastern European nation to continue jamming, stopped its electronic blockade of VOA. No Eastern European countries are currently following the Soviet example of jamming VOA broadcasts.
International Prohibitions Against Jamming
In addition to disregarding the provisions of the Helsinki Final Act concerning the dissemination of broadcast information,4 jamming contravenes a number of other international agreements. In 1950, the U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 424 (v), which condemned jamming “as a denial of the right of all persons to be fully informed concerning news, opinions, and ideas regardless of frontiers.” Further, the U.S. Government shares with most other countries the position that intentional interference with radio transmissions is a violation of the International Telecommunications Convention.
At the conclusion of the World Administrative Radio Conference of 1979, the United States asserted that since some of its broadcasting was subject to interference, it would take the necessary and appropriate actions to protect its broadcasting interests. Neither the Soviet Union nor any other nation entered a contrary statement.
Over the last month, the Soviets have consistently denied that they are jamming our broadcasts, although they have claimed that they would be within their rights to do so. In the past, the Soviets have used a variety of public forums to attempt to justify jamming, citing their sovereignty over the “ether” in their country and their “right and duty” to protect their people from what they consider to be subversive broadcasts and “radio aggressions.”
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Subject File, Box 9, Board for International Broadcasting (RFE, RL, VOA): 2–9/80. Confidential.↩
- See Document 210.↩
- Not attached.↩
- See footnote 2, Document 210.↩