Home · On This Day · Nov. 3, 1958
Canada broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain
Broadcast Date: Nov. 3, 1958
Though it broadcasts in 16 languages, there's just one priority for the CBC's International Service in 1958: bringing news from Canada to listeners in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The Cold War is on, and Communist rule in those countries leaves their people with few sources of reliable news about the world. On the CBC-TV program Scan, viewers learn how CBC's shortwave service works with other broadcasters to outwit Soviet efforts at blocking its signal.Canada broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain
• In February 1945 the CBC's International Service, using shortwave broadcasting, began sending its signal to Europe as a service to Canadian soldiers overseas.• The International Service launched Russian-language broadcasting, directed at the Soviet Union, in February 1951. Ukrainian-language service began a year and a half later, and Polish service started in 1953. After the 1956 revolution in Hungary, service in Hungarian was rushed to air.
• The CBC withheld the names of the broadcasters who staffed the Russian service. Only one was a Canadian citizen. Another was a merchant marine who jumped ship in a foreign port. Others had been taken prisoners of war by the Germans and released from camps by the Allies before finding their way to Canada.
• Two of the staff were actors and another had been an announcer for Radio Moscow.
• A 1954 document written by the guest in this clip, International Service director Charles Delafield, listed the objectives of the International Service. They included: "To provide a reliable source of Canadian and international news for peoples of Eastern Europe; to counteract communist propaganda about the western world, through news, factual information, a vigorous statement of our views on current topics to encourage the Soviet people to question their governmental policies and to oppose its aggression tactics."
• The Soviets attempted to block International Service broadcasts – as well as those of the BBC World Service and Voice of America (VOA) – by "jamming" their signals. This produced a grinding or bubbling noise.
• By co-ordinating their broadcasts, the CBC International Service, BBC and VOA could combat the jamming efforts and ensure that listeners heard something from the West.
• Though the CBC programmed the International Service, its budget was controlled separately by the Department of External Affairs until 1968.
• To learn more about the CBC's International Service, see the CBC Archives topic Our Voice to the World: 60 Years of Radio Canada International.
Canada broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain
Medium: Television
Program: Scan
Broadcast Date: Nov. 3, 1958
Guest(s): Charles Delafield
Reporter: Frank Stalley
Duration: 12:10
Last updated:
Dec. 3, 2010
Topic
With superpowers in the east and west testing powerful new weapons, the Canadian race for self-preservation took off in the early 1950s. The rising of the Iron Curtain intensified the threat of mass...
Topic
In February 1945, the "Voice of Canada" spoke to the world for the first time. The CBC International Service was founded to broadcast to Canadian Forces overseas in the Second World War. At war's end...
Canada broadcasts behind the Iron Curtain.
The CBC Digital Archives Website.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Last updated: Dec. 3, 2010.
[Page consulted on Feb. 16, 2012.]