TALKING TO THE WORLD
By A. L. KENNEDY
ABEGINNING is being made with the cutting down of Govern- ment Offices, especially those which were created or greatly expanded during the war. Of these the European Service of the B.B.C. is one—created, as Mr. Brendan Bracken pointed out in the House of Commons, not by the B.B.C., but by the Government. I was its Diplomatic Correspondent from 1942 until last Easter, and I should like to advance reasons why this particular war-time creation should not be liquidated, but should be allowed to survive as an essential semi-official branch of the Foreign Office. The dis- appearance of the Ministry of Information need not and should not involve the dissolution, or even the drastic diminution, of the European Service.
It is, of course, true that its immediate purpose has been accom- plished—and the many tributes received from abroad in Bush House seem to show that it did its job pretty well. Its bulletins of news and comment may not have achieved as much as was hoped in under- mining the spirit of the enemy.; but there is ample evidence that they nourished and sustained the courage of the occupied peoples. Through the close network of lies which was thrown over them by the Goebbels-controlled microphones, listeners knew that two, three, four times every day the truth would penetrate direct to them from London. Some of them afterwards called the voice of the B.B.C. their "lifeline" ; certainly thousands risked imprisonment, torture, even death, to hear, to record, and to disseminate the news and the views of the men who spoke to them from under the massive blocks of Bush House. Many of those listeners have since very earnestly impressed on us that they hope London's voice will still be heard by them, speaking their own tongue, so that, without understanding English, they can get the authentic English view ; and it appears to me, as I believe it does to thousands of them, that the service which foreign broadcasts can still render is world-wide and indispensable.
These are the days of democratic diplomacy. It is a common- place that foreign, policy depends nowadays far more than formerly on popular support. It is not enough for our Government to speak to foreign governments ; it must speak also to the general public of other countries. Broadcasting is the obvious mouthpiece of demo- cratic diplomacy. The average foreigner, especially in the more distant parts of Europe or Asia, could much more easily keep in touch with the trend of British opinion through wireless than through any other medium.
But relatively few can do it if they have to rely on the programmes of the British Broadcasting Corporation's headquarters. Many foreigners will no doubt like to listen to our home service—if their English is sufficiently good But even if they are quite familiar with our language, they will get a kind of service from* Broadcasting House different from that to which they have been accustomed from Bush House. The Corporat:on is, like Chatham House, an entirely
independent body. It has no politics and therefore no policy. Con- troversy is—quite rightly—its vitalising technique. Now that war- time restraints are being removed, there will be a growing tendency to put on to the air every kind of view, every variety of proposal. There will be heard on the ether and read in the Press a medley of talks and articles which will confuse the English-speaking foreigner, who will not have time to hear and read them all and sort them out.
All this is as it should be for home consumption. But is it all that we have to give the foreigner, who in many countries is not accustomed to our open forum methods? In my opinion, it is not enough. Many publicists and speakers—whether on the microphone or on the platform—will assail the British Government. Some of their criticisms will be taken up abroad ; and foreign Governments will probably add criticism of their own. Moreover, the Govern- ments of all foreign countries will certainly use the air to make their own views known, both to their own people and also to all who listen in other countries. Several have already organised a foreign broadcasting system. I suggest that Britain's case can no longer be allowed to go by default—as after the last war, with disastrous results. It is no longer the fashion for the strong man to be dumb ; inscrut- ability no longer suffices for wisdom.
And since, as I have said, the B.B.C. is by its charter debarred from having a policy and is properly proud of its independence, it seems to me that the European Division must come to be more sharply separated from its allied body than during the war. It must, for its usefulness abroad, continue to be, at least as much as it has been for six years, the mouthpiece of British semi-official opinion. To fulfil its essential purpose of making Britain's attitude clear and often thereby steadying public opinion in the country of the listener, it must now be known to be under the guidance of the Foreign Office. The connection can, and should, in peacetime, be openly professed. The European and other oversea services should become a broadcasting branch of the Foreign Office and be amalgamated with the present British Official Wireless News Service (which operates only in Morse), and stand in the same relationship to the Foreign Office. It would perhaps help matters if it were called the B.B.D., or B.D.—that is, the Broadcasting Department, to distin- guish it from its non-official partner.
The existence of \this separate service would also introduce the element of competition into British broadcasting which at present is lacking —for some of the bulletins of the B.B.D. would continue to be given in English. There are now four of them daily, and they attract quite a big number of listeners in this country and in Western Europe. Separation from the (Home) B.B.C. would also mean that it would relieve the B.B.C. of the expenditure which it would have to carry if it operated the European Service as a mere section of its own organisation. In no other way, so far as I can see, will an enormous asset of international goodwill and usefulness, created by the war, be maintained and augmented for the purposes of peace.
Previous page
