Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service

The Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service was first established in the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by Presidential directive on February 26, 1941. This system was set up to monitor foreign short wave broadcasts.^[1] The year following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the system gained importance and changed its name to The Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service(FBIS).^[2]

At four different listening centers it recorded short-wave broadcasts on plastic disks. Selected material was transcribed and translated and then sent to War agencies with weekly reports. These special reports included special titles such as Radio Tokyo's Racial Propaganda to the United States, Underground Movements and Morale in Japan, and New Nazi Portrait of the American Soldier.^[2] Monitored stations included official stations in many countries, and "black" stations that weren't what they pretended be. These black stations broadcast attacks on President Franklin D. Roosevelt while pretending to be stations in the American Midwest. This tactic was used to stir up race tensions and other issues.^[2]

Multiple speeches and recording were monitored including speeches by Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Benito Mussolini, Philippe Pétain, Pierre Laval, and others; broadcasts over German radio by American citizens, including Fred W. Kaltenbach, Douglas Chandler, and Edward Leo Delaney; and broadcasts from Japan or Japanese-held territory, including news reports and commentary by "Tokyo Rose."^[1] The FBIS kept track of a total of sixty "black" stations, which included a German-language station that pretended to represent an anti-Nazi army group, an anti-Nazi "Catholic" station, and an English-language station that attacked Winston Churchill.^[2]

The Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service was abolished in 1946 and was replaced by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. A year following the name was changed to the Foreign Broadcast Information Branch and then back again to the Foreign Broadcast Information Service within the Central Intelligence Agency.^[1]

References

1. "National Archive". Records of the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service. Retrieved 2011-04-28.
2. Barnouw, Erik (1968). A History of Broadcasting in the United States. ([Verschiedene Aufl.] ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 400. ISBN 0-19-500475-2.