SIR,--While I cannot speak Serbo-Croat, I was greatly interested in
the controversy in your columns, for the principles involved are of the greatest importance to all who are conscious of Britain's traditional concern for freedom and her consistent opposition to any form of totalitarianism.
You can imagine my dismay when I chanced to read some time ago, in the reputable Swiss publica- tion Schweizer Radiozeining (a combination of the Listener and Radio limes) in its issue No. 28/1958 of July 13, 1958. a report on foreign broadcasts to Yugoslavia under the title 'Radio war over Yugo- slavia' from which I quote :
For some time past, a transmission in Croat by the Spanish Radio has been very popular among Yugoslays. . . . In Serbia, too, listening to Madrid seems to be no less widespread. The transmissions of the BBC, on the other hand, are rejected by many Yugoslays as being 'pro-Tito.' The Yugoslav broadcasts of Radio Paris and Voice of America are more popular. A large number of Serbians and Macedonians are enthusiastic listeners of Bulgarian transmis- sions of Radio Free Europe which, owing to the similarity of language, are easily understood by them.
To see the prestige of the BBC, so splendidly built up during the war, being so thoughtlessly allowed to decline is indeed tragic and unpardonable.
Having studied Russian while in the Forces, and afterwards having listened on and off to the Russian service of the BBC, I can say that, although standards are not as abjectly low as in the Yugoslav service, the broadcasts really have not much to commend them. Their sins are chiefly sins of omission. Rarely, if ever, are Soviet official pronouncements criticised, and Soviet policies are not attacked even when they must horrify the ordinary Russian citizen. If space per- mitted, I would enlarge upon this, but no doubt others might he able to produce many concrete instances.
It would seem, therefore, that an objective and searching inquiry into the working of the European services is called for. This, of course, should cover not only Bush House, but the whole set-up of foreign broadcasting.—Yours faithfully,
E. ELEAZER /6 College Crescent, NW3
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