doi:10.1093/tcbh/hwn025
ALASDAIR PINKERTON* Royal Holloway, University of
London
............................................
TCBH Postgraduate Essay
Prize Winner for 2007
‘Strangers in the Night’:
The Falklands Conflict
as a Radio War1
Abstract
This article concentrates on the role of radio within and beyond the Falkland
Islands. With radio as their primary communication technology, Falkland
Islanders were part of a ‘sonic community’ framed around a complex radio
environment. On the eve of the 1982 Argentine invasion, radio was to perform
a vital strategic function in terms of alerting Islanders and wider communities
(including the UK parliament) to the unfolding events. Using broadcast
transcripts, interviews and published materials, this article reconstructs how,
and with what consequences, broadcasting and listening conditioned the
responses of Islanders to the seventy-four-day occupation, and also details
* [email protected]. The author would like to acknowledge the Shackleton
Scholarship Fund, the ESRC and Alistair Cameron Memorial Fund for their support and
funding of this project. Warmest thanks are also due to Jane Cameron and Tansy Newman
of the Falkland Islands Government Archives, and the staff of the Falkland Islands
Broadcasting Station, who worked tirelessly to locate, catalogue and provide many of the
radio programmes and transcripts that contribute to this article. Myriam Booth deserves
special thanks for supplying a complete copy of her own ‘radio archive’ from the invasion
night of 2 April. Thanks, too, to the British Academy for their award of a Postdoctoral
Fellowship, which has provided the time to work through the comments and
recommendations provided by the editors and reviewers associated with Twentieth
Century British History. The author also extends gratitude to Klaus Dodds (Royal
Holloway, University of London) for his supportive comments on an earlier draft of
this article.
1
The Editors and Editorial Boards of Twentieth Century British History would like to
extend their congratulations to Alasdair Pinkerton, winner with this article of the TCBH
Postgraduate Essay Prize for 2007. For further details of the Essay Prize, see http://
www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/tweceb/essay_prize08.html
Twentieth Century British History, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2008, pp. 344–375
ß 2008 Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: [email protected]
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
345
Argentina’s attempts to replace this Islander network. It is noted, by way of
conclusion, that the official history of the Falklands campaign underplays this
crucial sonic dimension.
Introduction
‘Well, I suppose you could say this is really the radio man’s war,’ said
my learned colleague from The Standard, Max Hastings, reciting a
litany of his experiences in covering wars in Vietnam and the Middle
East. In some ways he was right, in others quite wrong. For the radio
man seeking that precious voice link to London from Goose Green,
San Carlos, Teal Inlet or Stanley itself, much of the campaign had
passed in a whirl of hitching lifts in helicopters, seizing boats to ply to
stormy anchorages off San Carlos, of impersonating all ranks, high and
low, to get the vital transfer to the ship with the right kind of satellite
telephone to make the call to Broadcasting House. Communication,
the mechanics and message soon became an obsession.2
The Falklands Conflict has been recognized as the ‘worst reported War
since the Crimea’.3 There were no photographs for the first fifty-four
days of the conflict, and television—given its heady technical demands
in the remote South Atlantic—was limited to providing reporter
commentary accompanied by stock footage of military hardware. The
hardships and frustrations felt by ‘task force’ correspondents have
become well known since 1982, while critical and emotive broadcast
reports—not least Brian Hanrahan’s immortal ‘I counted them all out,
and I counted them all back!’—have shaped the collective lexicon of the
War, and entered broadcasting history.4 Nonetheless, radio’s role during
the Falklands Conflict is not yet fully understood, especially with
regard to the ‘radio environment’ (or soundscape) that developed
within the Falkland Islands during the seventy-four-day war. This
article investigates radio’s emergence not only as a vital communications technology, but also as a symbol of collective resistance to
unwanted, and uninvited, military aggression. Drawing upon original
broadcast recordings maintained in the Falkland Islands Government
(FIG) Archive, programme transcripts, interviews and published
sources, this article attempts to realize the complexities and challenges
2
BBC Radio 4, 19 June 1982, Robert Fox: ‘On being a war correspondent (From Our
Own Correspondent)’, quoted in Brian Hanrahan and Robert Fox, ‘I Counted Them All Out
and I Counted Them All Back’: The Battle for the Falklands (London, 1982), 21–2.
3
The Guardian, 25 Feb 2002. URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/falklands/story/
0,,657871,00.html (accessed on 1 April 2003).
4
Port Stanley airfield bombed—Brian Hanrahan ‘counted them all out’ (1.5.82),
The Falklands War, March–June 1982, BBC Radio Collection (BBC, London, 2002), Track 30.
See also Hanrahan and Fox, ‘I counted them all out’.
346
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
associated with broadcasting and listening in moments of conflict.
Above all, this essay provides a narrative that acknowledges a littleknown moment in the story of the Falklands conflict in which Islanders
‘of British stock and tradition’ powerfully resisted—and ultimately
subverted—the Argentine invasion and occupation.5
The Aural Prologue to the 1982 South Atlantic Conflict
Despite the widespread adoption of television in most countries around
the world since the late 1940s, and the near-universal subscription to
telephone exchanges in the Western world, the Falkland Islands in 1982
remained peculiarly committed to their radio-based media and
communications systems. Harold Briley, the BBC’s Latin America
correspondent, reflected on Falkland Islanders’ ‘media signature’, in a
profile piece for Radio 4 broadcast in March 1982.
When you first set foot in the Falklands you feel a sense of
isolation, like you’re at the end of the earth, which is where you
nearly are. The British Governor and commander-in-chief, who
looks after the British Antarctic Territories as well, presides over
the largest area left in the British colonies, counting all that
expanse of ocean, with just about the smallest population—only
1800 people; not counting half a million sheep and 10 million
penguins. There’s no television, and no roads to speak of outside
the capital . . . An unarmed police force of half a dozen men and
one woman act more like a social service because there’s hardly
any crime. But, there is a lot of drunkenness, a high divorce rate,
and a shortage of women. The community indulges vigorously in
outdoor sports, listens avidly to radio, and gossips endlessly on walkietalkie radios and the radiotelephone.6
There were good reasons for radio’s continued dominance in the
Falklands, not least of which were the geographies and geomorphology
of the Islands themselves. Located some 300 miles from the coast of
Argentina in the icy waters of the South Atlantic ocean, the location of the
Falkland Islands archipelago prevented anything but the most accurately
directed of short wave (SW) signals, with their extraordinary ability
to travel thousands of miles by refracting off the ionosphere (known as
‘skywave’ propagation), from reaching the remote British colony (Figures
1 and 2). The BBC Overseas Services and the Calling the Falklands
5
Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 21, 3 Apr 1982, 633–4.
Harold Briley reports on the growing Argentine threat (26.3.82), The Falklands War,
March–June 1982, BBC Radio Collection, Track 2.
6
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
Figure 1
Map of the Falkland Islands.
Figure 2
Map of Stanley c.1982.
347
348
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
programme—relayed on SW from BBC’s mid-Atlantic transmitter
on Ascension Island—provided much-sought-after entertainment,
news and information, while ethereally connecting Islanders with the
United Kingdom 8,000 miles away. Higher radio frequencies used for
television, FM radio and medium wave (MW) broadcasts in South
America quickly depleted as they crossed the maritime horizon, and
could only rarely be detected in the Islands. The relative cost-effectiveness
and ‘mobility’ (in an era before mobile phones) of two-way radio systems
had made them a logical and popular device for connecting the Islands’
sparse populations, clustered in farming settlements on West and East
Falkland (also the site of the capital, Port Stanley) and more than a
dozen other inhabited islands, who were beyond the reach of fixedline telephones. Islanders used a system of ‘radio telephones’ known
as the R/T, since its inauguration in the 1950s, as a wireless alternative
to the telephone. This was superseded in the mid-1970s by the so-called
‘2 metres system’. In both, the radio signals were open for all to hear, and
‘listening in’ to other people’s calls became a form of entertainment in the
Islands. No information was private—and the effect was to create an
unusually open and transparent society. During his first trip ‘in Camp’
following his inauguration as the Governor of the Falkland Islands
in 1980, Rex Hunt was struck by the effect of radio on Islander-life.7
That evening, we went down to the community hall to meet the
settlement people. They were a little shy at first but chatted more
freely after a beer or two. I was impressed by how well informed
they were, not only on the Falklands affairs but also on world topics.
On the way back to the ‘big house’, Adrian explained the reason in
two words: ‘BBC Overseas’. Without television or daily newspapers
or a choice of radio station, they depended almost entirely on BBC
Overseas for news and entertainment. As we were to discover later
when we went into the Islanders’ kitchens, their radios were
invariably on, tuned in to the local FIBS [Falkland Islands
Broadcasting Station] during its broadcast hours in the evening
and the BBC Overseas at other times. Many of the BBC Overseas
programmes were also relayed by the FIBS. In addition, most people
had their own ‘diddle-dee radio’ the amateur band, the world of the
2-metre set, which had spread like wildfire throughout the Islands
over the last few years. Many households had two sets, one in house
and one in the Land Rover. VHF and supposedly line-of-sight only,
it defied the experts and bounced off and round hills to give freak
reception at unheard-of distances. The experienced hams (which
meant most wives as well as husbands) could transmit a message
7
‘Camp’ (from the Spanish campo) is a locally used term in the Falkland Islands to
refer to the ‘countryside’—and, therefore, most of the land outside the capital, Stanley.
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
349
through the diddle-dee network across the length and breadth of
the Islands within minutes. It was often more efficient than the
Post Office’s 4.5 m HF network [the R/T], which was installed in
managers’ houses and served instead of the telephone. It was also a
boon to the traveller, who could call up for help if he broke down or
simply warn his wife that he would be late if he became bogged.8
The level of interconnectedness—which anticipates the 1990s mobile
phone revolution—allowed information to travel quickly and efficiently
through the Falkland Islands, forming an effective ‘virtual information
society’ in an era before the widespread adoption of digital and
electronic communications. But the radio provided much more than just
a social network. It was also intensely geopolitical; news of the ‘Dirty
War’ being waged in Argentina by successive military governments
(broadcast by the BBC Overseas Service) had been instrumental in
fortifying Islander resistance to ongoing Argentine claims over the
Falklands throughout the late 1970s.
By early 1982, public expressions of anti-Argentine resistance had
assumed their own risks. It seems likely that Argentine informants on
the Falkland Islands—in particular the staff of the Argentine-operated
LADE [Lı́neas Aéreas del Estado] air service—had been monitoring
R/T and ‘2-metres’ channels in an attempt to identify the politically
‘troublesome’ amongst islanders.9 Growing concerns over the security
of broadcast information were being felt in Government House.
Presented with a telegram from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO) in London outlining their belief that an invasion was probably
imminent, and with a notice to ‘make your dispositions accordingly’,
the Governor sought to ensure that all future correspondence with
Islanders would be subject to the tightest security.10
It would also be prudent to lock up all the LADE personnel, not only to
prevent them from warning the task force that we knew they were
coming (using their powerful radio link with Buenos Aires), but also for
their own safety. I also wanted to warn the Islanders of the impending
invasion as soon as possible, without of course saying anything over
the local radio that might compromise our intelligence sources.11
8
Rex Hunt, My Falkland Days (London, 2002), 32.
This seems to have been a simple, but highly effective intelligence-gathering process
employed by the Argentine military who had become well versed in the monitoring of
civilian populations during the years of the military junta. The irony remains, though,
that at the point of the invasion it would seem that the Argentines had a far superior
knowledge of the Falklands community than did the British authorities. See, for example,
Jack Child, Geopolitics and Conflict in South America: Quarrels Among Neighbours (New York,
1985).
10
The FCO telegram was received in Government House, Port Stanley, on 1 Apr.
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 167.
11
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 170.
9
350
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
The resident Argentine population of only a dozen or so men had
become a threat to the Islands’ security while the local radio system,
in conjunction with the LADE office’s radio connection with Buenos
Aires, had been identified as a possible mechanism in the intelligence
flow to Argentina.
By the evening of 1 April 1982 the threat of a full-scale invasion
was looming ever larger, in spite of the collective hopes of Falkland
Islanders that the events would turn out to be an ill-conceived April
Fool’s Day prank. These hopes were finally dashed when the Governor
made his now historic announcement on FIBS—dramatically re-enacted
by Ian Richardson on the twentieth anniversary of the invasion in the
BBC television film, An Ungentlemanly Act (1992)—regarding the
complete breakdown in diplomatic relations with Argentina.12
Determined not to cause any unnecessary panic, the Governor insisted
that the evening’s radio programming should be broadcast as
scheduled after the completion of his unsettling message. ‘Special
Requests (music for the ill and elderly), the for-sale and wanted notices,
and the Sing Something Simple would’, recalls the Falkland Islands
journalist and author, Graham Bound, ‘go ahead come hell, high water
or invasion’.13
Bound also recalled, however, that the announcement had a ‘slowburn’ effect as the terrible implications of the Governor’s message
were gradually, and painfully, realized; armed conflict in the streets
of Port Stanley was only a matter of hours away.14 The Governor’s
announcement would, for the Islands’ population, stand as the opening
words in that battle.15 It also represented the first shot in an emerging
media war for the ‘hearts and minds’ of Falkland Islanders.
‘Take that Gun out of my Back!’ Radio and the 1982 Argentine Invasion
Radios remained on throughout the night as Islanders listened for any
news updates on the BBC Overseas Services and for official word from
the Governor on FIBS. The midnight bulletin from the BBC brought
word from Sir Anthony Parsons, UK Ambassador to the UN, regarding
the outcome of the Security Council (UNSC) meeting scheduled for
that evening in New York. As expected, the UNSC had called for a
cessation to any and all future threats of violence. In response, the
BBC Latin America correspondent, Harold Briley, was attempting to
get official reaction from Buenos Aires, although nothing seemed
12
An Ungentlemanly Act, BBC, 1992.
Graham Bound, Falkland Islanders at War (Barnsley, 2002), 35.
14
Bound, Falkland Islanders, 35.
15
The full transcript of that announcement is reproduced in Hunt, My Falkland Days,
175–6.
13
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
351
to be forthcoming. Despite this bleak picture, the distant radio voices
of the ‘BBC Overseas’ appear to have brought some comfort to the
occupants of Government House; their familiarity and intrinsic support
for the Falklands’ cause providing much needed reassurance.16 In light
of their reports, though, it was clear that the Governor would, for the
second time that night, have to address the Islanders.
You probably heard the outcome of the Security Council meeting on
the BBC—both Britain and Argentina were called upon not to use
force to settle their dispute over the Falkland Islands. We must now
wait and see what effect this has upon the Argentine Government.
As I speak, there is no indication that the Argentine Navy task
force heading this way has changed course. Unless it does, we can
expect it off Cape Pembroke by dawn. Now please don’t be
inquisitive and go and see for yourselves. You’ll just get in the
way. Stay indoors and we shall keep you informed by radio.17
That was followed some four hours later, at 4.15 a.m., by another radio
address with the news that President Galtieri of Argentina had rebuffed
the personal pleas of the US President, Ronald Reagan, to resist the
slide towards armed conflict. It was clear to all concerned that the
invasion of the Falkland Islands was imminent. A state of emergency
had been declared and Stanley was being locked down in preparation
for the street fighting that was expected to follow.18
Shortly afterwards, the Governor confirmed to his officials that the
‘invasion has started’ signal should be immediately transmitted to the
FCO in London. This triggered a procedure (agreed only hours before
with Brian Wells, the Chief Communications Officer) for despatching the
last communiqué to London which, they anticipated, would be sent while
under fire. Central to the plan was the destruction of the Government
House cypher equipment—essential in encoding and decoding sensitive
messages between the United Kingdom and the Falklands.
‘We may not have much time, so let’s have the last signal ready to
go.’ I scribbled down the simple message: ‘Invasion has started.
16
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 179. This sense of emotional investment/comfort and
support vis-à-vis BBC broadcasting is significant and has resonances with earlier listening
to the BBC Empire Service in remote imperial outposts. See Alasdair Pinkerton, ‘Radio
and the Raj: Broadcasting in British India (1920–1940)’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,
18 (2008), 167–91; Emma Robertson, ‘ ‘‘I get a real kick out of Big Ben’’: BBC Versions of
Britishness on the Empire and World Service, 1932–1967’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio
and Television, 28 (2008).
17
FIBS Broadcast, 2 Apr 1982, ‘Rex Hunt’s reaction to BBC’s midnight news’. Emphasis added.
18
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 186.
352
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
Closing down.’ We agreed that, after destroying the cypher
equipment, Brian would lock the security doors and combination
blisters, throw the keys in to the harbour and join Christine [Brian’s
wife] at Avril’s.19
That message would never arrive at its intended destination
in Whitehall—not because of any deliberate sabotage of the
Government House or Cable & Wireless (C&W) SW radio system
(although that possibility was briefly considered) but as the result of an
unsuccessful readjustment of the C&W radio link with the United
Kingdom earlier that morning. Fearing the possibility of Argentine
jamming and/or monitoring of radio communications between the
Falklands and the United Kingdom, it was thought advisable to
recalibrate the link between Stanley and the receiving station at Rugby
and switch to an alternative station at Portishead. The Governor had
agreed to this move under the strict proviso that, ‘they kept some link
open with the UK’.20 That demand went unfulfilled, and the connection
with Portishead was never established. All communications with the
United Kingdom were now lost. The C&W engineer Brian Summers
found no obvious problem with the Islands’ broadcasting equipment
and was forced to assume that there was either a problem at the UK
receiving stations or, alternatively, that one of the regular curses of
broadcasting in (and to) the South Atlantic area—particularly at
Falklands latitudes—was at play; the unlikely sounding issue of the
ionosphere ‘playing up’.21
It must have seemed bitterly ironic to those involved that, in
attempting to avoid the possibility of Argentine radio interference, the
integrity of the Islands’ vital radio connection was compromised and
ultimately lost. Such feelings were undoubtedly heightened further as
the full implication of the ‘invasion has started’ protocol was realized.
It had, after all, called for the FIG cypher equipment to be decommissioned following the despatch of the last communiqué—a process
that appears to have been, at least in part, enacted during the few
moments between the signal having apparently been sent, and realizing
that the transmission had failed. The Governor instructed Brian Wells,
19
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 180.
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 181–2.
21
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 186. At certain times of year, including during the late
austral-summer months of March and April, activity and movement in the Kennelly–
Heaviside layer of the ionosphere, off which SW radio waves bounce and refract to their
destination, was at its most intense causing significant disruption in the reception of SW
radio signals. See, e.g. Robert D. Hunsucker, ‘Auroral and polar-cap ionospheric effects on
radio propagation’, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, 40 (1992), 818–28.
20
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
353
‘to retransmit the invasion signal en claire as soon as contact [with
the UK] was re-established and to destroy the remainder of our cypher
equipment’.22 Direct contact would not be re-established until
British forces recaptured Stanley seventy-four days later, leaving
Government House entirely cut off from the FCO in London, and for
much of 2 April the British Government with suspicions—but not
official confirmation—that an invasion of the Falkland Islands had
taken place.23
Patrick Watts: Has the word been communicated to the British
Government that the Islands have been invaded?
Rex Hunt: I haven’t. I haven’t had a chance to get to Cable &
Wireless and see if they’re open again. We destroyed all our
security cypher stuff so we went out of business on telecoms
with London as soon as we heard the Argentines had landed.
We got rid of all our secret cypher stuff, so they couldn’t get
hold of that. So no, we haven’t told the Foreign Office that
we’ve been invaded, they’ve just guessed, because our
communications suddenly stopped. I think that the Cable &
Wireless will soon be on again but whether they’ll [the
Argentines] allow us to pass the message through, I don’t
know!24
The Argentine forces permitted no such communications with London.
This left the Thatcher government in the awkward position of
confirming the attack on Port Stanley, not on the basis of internal
diplomatic channels, but from the regular news bulletins of BBC
Radio 4. By about 2.30 p.m. GMT, the BBC’s Harold Briley was
reporting direct conversations with sources within the Republic’s
military junta who confirmed that the Falklands had fallen.25
Awkwardness surely turned to embarrassment as subsequent news
programmes juxtaposed Briley’s report with a somewhat less informed
parliamentary statement given at 2.34 p.m. by Francis Pym, Leader of
the Commons, Cabinet Minister, and soon to be Foreign Secretary
22
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 186.
Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 21, 2 Apr 1982, 570–7, 618–21.
FIBS Broadcast, 2 April 1982, ‘Rex Hunt & Patrick Watts discuss communications
with UK’.
25
Harold Briley, ‘Argentine Invasion: Falklands’ (2 Apr 1982), BBC Radio Transcript,
personal communication. It is interesting to note that Briley had broadcast about
increased Argentine speculation of an invasion as early as February 1982.
23
24
354
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
(following the resignation of Lord Carrington on 4 April 1982). As the
transcription of Radio 4’s 6 o’clock news programme testifies:
[Big Ben chimes]
Brian Perkins: BBC News at 6 o’clock. Good evening, this is Brian
Perkins . . . The Falkland Islands, the British colony in the South
Atlantic has fallen—that’s what Argentina is saying. It claims its
Marines went ashore as a spearhead this morning to capture
key targets, including the capital, Port Stanley. Here’s how our
man in Buenos Aires reported the claim.
Harold Briley: The ruling military junta said the Malvinas,
Argentina’s name for the Falklands, had been recovered. The
Foreign Minister said Argentina had taken this action because
Britain had left it no alternative.
Brian Perkins: As we were getting that report, the Leader of the
Commons, Mr Francis Pym, was saying this:
Francis Pym: There is no confirmation of any change in the
position in relation to the Falkland Islands since my Honourable
friend made his statement this morning.
Brian Perkins: Since then, it has been announced that the
Commons is to have a special meeting in the morning. It’s also
been announced that Britain is breaking off diplomatic relations
with Argentina and its diplomats here are being given four days
to leave.26
In fact, the British government did not learn precisely what had
happened in the Falklands until 8.30 a.m. GMT on 3 April when
Mrs Thatcher was able to speak to the now-exiled Rex Hunt on the
telephone from Uruguay.27 This was a deeply embarrassing episode for
the Prime Minister and her Cabinet, and compounded criticism that the
government has been serially inattentive to the brewing South Atlantic
tensions.28 Potentially even more damaging was speculation that the
government’s failure to react to the Argentine threat was not so much a
strategic failure as a symptom of reduced enthusiasm for maintaining
British sovereignty over the Islands at all. It was widely suggested
26
Radio 4 News of invasion, read by Brian Perkins. With voices of Harold Briley and
Francis Pym (2.4.82), The Falklands War, March–June 1982, BBC Radio Collection, Track 5.
27
Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 21, 3 Apr 1982, 633.
28
The Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, his deputy (Humphrey Atkins) and a
Foreign Office Minister of State (Richard Luce) resigned within three days of the invasion
(on 5 April), following strong criticism in Parliament and the press that government
policy had failed to protect the security of the Falkland Islands. See also Peter Beck,
‘Britain’s Antarctic dimension’, International Affairs, 59 (1983), 429–44.
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
355
in the media and in Parliament that the FCO had been actively
pursuing ways to dispose of the Falklands (and bring an end to the
dispute with Argentina) by arranging to cede sovereignty to Argentina
via a leaseback scheme.29
As radio reports were provoking embarrassment within London’s
political circles, a very different kind of radio experience was emerging
in the South Atlantic. In a remarkable and little-known moment in the
story of the Falklands War, Islanders—increasingly able to spot troops
and weaponry moving through the streets of Stanley in the morning
light—began to telephone the radio station with detailed reports of
what they were seeing. The FIG Broadcasting Officer and radio
announcer, Patrick Watts, coordinated the incoming calls and expertly
compèred the impromptu phone-in. Eliciting useful geographical and
directional information, an intriguing ‘soundscape’ can be heard to
develop, revealing the encroachment upon Stanley by the Argentine
forces.30 As in one exchange with Alistair Grieves:
Watts: Now, you haven’t seen any of the vehicles at all yet, Aly?
Grieves: No, I can see about three ships out in Port William from
the window at the front here.
Watts: You can see three ships in Port William. What do they look
like, Alistair?
Grieves: Most of them I can just see tops of masts. That’s as much
as I can see I’m afraid.
Watts: Yeah, they’re pretty big though, are they?
Grieves: One of them certainly looks very, very big. Whether or
not that’s the Carrier, I don’t know!
Watts: Have you seen anything coming through the Narrows at
all, Alistair?
Grieves: Nothing at all, Pat, nothing—just the Forrest when she
came back in!
Watts: These people that have infiltrated into the town, you didn’t
see them coming up the harbour at any time at all, Alistair?
Grieves: Nothing came up that way at all. From the way we heard
the firing down here, I would have said they came in over the
back at the Camber, that’s the idea I’ve got. Possibly some in
from Eliza Cove direction, over the back of Sapper’s Hill.
Watts: Yes, they came in that way?
Grieves: I would also think some came over the Camber—it just
sounded that way, it was very clear. It could well be echoes.
29
30
See Peter Beck, The Falkland Islands as an International Problem (London, 1988).
Susan Smith, ‘Soundscapes’, Area, 26 (1994), 233–41.
356
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
Watts: When you looked out your window just now, you couldn’t
see any sign of the armoured vehicles?
Grieves: Eh no, but I was very cagey about looking, Pat!
Watts: I don’t blame you. Right, keep inside, keep your head
down, Aly, and if you see any of them passing, perhaps you’ll
give us a call. Cheers!31
Reports of this kind continued to reach the radio studio for much of the
next two hours, Patrick Watts vowing to keep the station ‘on air’ as
long as he could. The information being shared seems to have been a
genuine help to the Islanders in making sense of what was happening
around them—not only in terms of the tactical positioning of Argentine
troops, the Royal Marines contingent and Falkland Islands Defence
Force (FIDF) volunteers—but also in maintaining a sense of community
and shared identity (via these radio networks) in resolve against this
latest hardship. As Joe King, a resident of Stanley, later recalled:
Patrick Watts had wireless on all the time, records playing and
up-to-date information if he had any and that kept us informed right
through you see, and when they started at daylight we could see the
amphibious tanks coming ashore at York Bay and going up towards
. . . And we could hear the battle for the airport and that starting, and
he [Patrick Watts] said, ‘I’ll let you know when they make a move
towards town,’ because the Marines were up there.32
Not all the radio reports that morning were made by men.33 When
Ronda Felton phoned FIBS during the impromptu phone-in from her
home on the high ground near the Grasslands Trial Unit to report the
movement of armoured cars in Stanley (which she announced was ‘all
very colourful’), concern began to grow—particularly in Government
House—for the safety of the town’s population. As Rex Hunt
remembered in his reaction to that particular phone call,
Colourful it may have been but, if the APCs carried on at this rate,
they would be outside Government House in ten minutes. I decided
that it was time to talk, picked up the telephone and asked the everfaithful Hilda to get me the Vicecomodoro.34
31
FIBS Broadcast, 2 Apr 1982, ‘Aly Grieves and Patrick Watts discuss the Argentine
advance through Stanley’.
32
Interview: Joe King, formerly in charge of FIG Printing/Publications (Stanley,
Falkland Islands, 26 Nov 2003).
33
Trudi McPhee also played a significant role, and became known locally as ‘Task
Force Trudi’ for the assistance she gave the British troops following their landing at Port
San Carlos. Daily Telegraph, 10 Apr 2007. URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
migrationtemp/1548078/’Task-Force-Trudi’-and-the-seeds-of-resistance.html (accessed on
10 May 2007).
34
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 191.
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
357
The Governor thus sought to open the first line of communications
with the Argentine forces. Before he could do so, however, a telephone operator at the central exchange in Stanley reported hearing
a scripted Argentine message being broadcast on some of the popular
radio frequencies utilized in the Island’s R/T system. She telephoned
the FIBS studio to ensure the message was re-broadcast across the
radio.35 The announcement, spoken in English that eventually emerged
from the clicks and whistles of static interference and feedback was
the first official message to be heard by the native Islanders from the
invading force.
This is a call to the British Colonial Government of the Islas
Malvinas. In order to fulfil orders from the Argentine
Government, we are here with a numerous taskforce remaining
faithful to our Western and Christian principles for the purpose of
avoiding bloodshed and property damage among the population,
we hope that you will act prudently. Our concern is for the
welfare and safety of the people of the Malvinas.36
Hoping to make a better assessment of it, the Governor instructed
Patrick Watts at FIBS to broadcast a request for the message to be
replayed. The re-announced message was marginally more audible
during its second airing, allowing the Governor to set about generating
a formal response. ‘He [the Governor] was not going to surrender,’
the Colonial Secretary, Dick Baker, later recalled, ‘but was prepared
to negotiate.’37 Not for the first time that night, though, technical
constraints prevented the transmission of the Governor’s message, and
it soon became clear that face-to-face negotiations with the Argentine
invasion force would have to be arranged. Dick Baker and Hector
Gilobert (the Argentine Vicecomodoro of LADE) were asked to take up
this particular challenge and under the cover of a white flag (actually a
rather expensive umbrella with a white net curtain stretched over it)
slowly made their way from Government House towards the Town
Hall in central Stanley. Their progress walking along Ross Road was,
35
Bound, Falkland Islanders.
FIBS Broadcast, 2 Apr 1982, ‘Argentine message to the Colonial Government of the
Islas Malvinas’ (emphasis added). The invocation of the terms ‘Western’ and ‘Christian’,
here, is significant and speaks not only to an Argentine desire to pacify Islanders with a
shared sense of cultural/religious identity, but—critically—also the Argentine government’s strong anti-Communist credentials.
37
Bound, Falkland Islanders, 58.
36
358
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
inevitably, the topic of many phone-calls to FIBS—information greatly
appreciated by the Governor who was concerned for the safety of his
envoys amidst the ongoing gunfire.38
Vicecomodoro Gilobert telephoned into FIBS from the Town Hall to
propose the meeting of official representatives, broadcasting in both
English and Spanish:
Watts: I have on the telephone Vicecomodoro Gilobert who is
going to relay a message. Vicecomodoro, will you go ahead
please?
Gilobert: I am the Vicecomodoro Gilobert and I want to speak to
the Commander of the Force because I am with Mr Dick Baker
and we want to talk with the commander of the force. If he is
listening, can he come to the Town Hall with a white flag?39
As officials and Islanders waited anxiously for the Argentine response,
FIBS continued to relay reports of military activity from around Stanley,
interspersed with show-tunes from the radio station’s music library.
Showing that humour (however unintended) was not entirely lost even
in this most tense of situations, the musical interludes included
orchestral versions of popular classics ‘Yesterday’, ‘Spanish Eyes’ and
Frank Sinatra’s ‘Strangers in the Night’. Within a few minutes contact
was made with the commander of the Argentine forces, his response,
inevitably, relayed through the radio station:
. . . accepting your requirement, the officer commanding the force
of disembarkment is coming up now to the Catholic Church, to
the square near the Catholic Church to meet people that you have
suggested.40
Following a brief discussion in the Town Hall, the party walked to
Government House where the Governor formally exchanged terms with
the Commander of the Argentine Task Force, Admiral Carlos Busser.
A ceasefire, a British surrender in all but name, soon followed.41
With the Governor and the solitary detachment of Royal Marines
occupied in Government House, the Argentine forces continued to exert
their strategic advantage over the Islands and its institutions. In what
38
Hunt, My Falkland Days, 192–3.
FIBS Broadcast, 2 Apr 1982, ‘Vicecommodoro Gilobert proposes meeting of official
representatives’.
40
FIBS Broadcast, 2 Apr 1982, ‘Argentine commander accepts offer of meetings of
official representatives’.
41
Hunt, My Falkland Days.
39
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
359
was clearly a predetermined move to seize control of vital broadcast
facilities, Argentine troops stormed the undefended FIBS studios.
Patrick Watts, who had broadcast continuously throughout the night,
reacted instantly to the unfolding events within the station building.
In one of the most dramatic and widely cited passages in the story of
the Falklands conflict, Watts surreptitiously activated his microphone
and transmitted the unfolding events into homes across the Islands.
A sudden fading of broadcast music revealed the sound of busy
activity and a young, Spanish-accented voice, followed by an indignant
Patrick Watts:
. . . Well, the radio station has now been taken over—I still hope
we can get His Excellency The Governor’s message to
you . . .[Speaks to Argentine soldier, followed by shouting] Well, just a
minute . . . if you take the gun out of my back, I’m going to
transmit this news, if you take that gun away, but I’m not
speaking with a gun in my back . . .
[Shouting]. . . Well there’s an argument going on now between the
three Argentines . . . they’ve disappeared, they’ve left me alone in
this room. They’re having an argument between themselves.42
At that moment, with the Argentine occupiers’ attention diverted
elsewhere, the sound of the studio telephone could be clearly heard
ringing in the background. Seizing the opportunity to address the
community for one last time, Rex Hunt had called with some parting
words to Islanders:
Watts: Sir, I have just been taken over by the Argentines.
Hunt: [Governor’s voice on phone in background] Yes I heard
that, can I have a word?
Watts: Well yes, okay sir . . . but they’ve gone and gone into an
argument now.
Hunt: [Governor’s voice on phone, in background] Can I have a
word quickly?
Watts: Right. Well, His Excellency the Governor is on the line now
and he’s going to speak to you before we play the Argentine
tapes. Yes, Sir, go ahead please.
As the equipment that would usually allow the Governor to broadcast
directly on FIBS had malfunctioned, Watts held the studio telephone
42
FIBS Broadcast, 2 Apr 1982, ‘Patrick Watts announces, ‘‘Take the gun out of my
back!’’.’
360
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
to the ‘live’ microphone to allow the Governor to be heard. In his final
message to the Islanders, Rex Hunt can be heard to maintain a
remarkably controlled temperament—and determinedly subverted the
new Argentine authority:
Hello Kelpers and Islanders,
I hope that you can hear me on the phone. The machine here
doesn’t work. I’m sorry it happened like this . . .
. . . The Admiral [Busser] came along to me and I told him that
he had landed unlawfully on British Sovereign territory and
I ordered him to leave forthwith. He refused, claiming that he was
taking back territory that belonged to Argentina and that it
was Britain that was unlawfully in possession. I said that it was
reprehensible that Argentina should have seized the Islands by
force after Britain and Argentina had agreed in the UN to settle
the dispute by peaceful means . . . I’m sorry it’s happened this
way. It’s probably the last message I’ll be able to give you, but
I wish you all the best of luck and, rest assured, that the British
will be back.43
Within minutes of the Governor’s final message, the Argentines
assumed full control of the radio station and in so doing seized the only
realistic source for disseminating the word of the new Argentine
authority throughout the Islands. As John Smith, local historian and
curator of the Stanley museum, noted in the diary he kept throughout
the invasion and occupation:
1017 Hours: The Argentine national anthem has been played over the
radio. It now seems final. The Argentines have got us.44
The Argentine Occupation: Soundscapes of Propaganda and Resistance
During the seventy-four days of the Argentine occupation of the Falkland Islands ‘the radio’, which had bound together and framed the
Islands’ community since the late-1920s and which had sustained the
spirits of many Islanders throughout the invasion night of 1–2 April,
would become a contested and even dangerous tool of communication.
It was certainly clear that with the occupation of the radio station
one of the main ‘lifelines’ between the Islands’ inhabitants—in
43
FIBS Broadcast, 2 Apr 1982, ‘The Governor’s last broadcast’ (emphasis added).
John Smith, 74 Days: An Islander’s Diary of the Falklands Occupation (Hampshire,
2002), 20.
44
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
361
Stanley and Camp—and with the outside world had been fundamentally compromised. Graham Bound later came to realize:
There had never been a more dramatic FIBS broadcast than the
remarkable invasion phone-in. But when, early on the morning of
2 April, the Argentine troops entered the station with their dedicated broadcasting team, the radio drama simply entered another
remarkable phase. The Argentines had prepared to use the station
to emphasise the dawn of a new era and their authority. FIBS was
the only way of communicating with the newest Argentine citizens.
And it was the best way of controlling them.45
The new ‘broadcasting team’ brought with them tapes of the Argentine
national anthem (at least four versions can be found in the FIBS
archives), brass band music and pre-recorded messages to be broadcast
to the listening population, in both English and Spanish. These
messages heralded the new public ‘identity’ of the radio service. No
longer the FIBS, the new name, LRA 60 Radio Nacional Islas Malvinas
(RNIM), was more in tune with Argentine nationalist sentiments. Such
sentiments found even greater expression in the scripted announcements that were read out ‘live’ on air by the Argentine presenters.
These communiqués, or ‘edicts’ as they were known, offered a startling
insight into the new regime.
During the morning, RNIM transmitted four edicts; the first,
a general call for people to obey all instructions issued through
written and broadcast communications. The second confirmed the
relief of British colonial and military authorities of their duties, and
revealed that British officials together with their families and personal
effects would be repatriated to the United Kingdom later that afternoon (2 April). The third provided ‘Instructions for the Population’
and adopted a more sinister tone, couched euphemistically in a
language of ‘personal misfortunes’ and ‘inconveniences’ for those
who failed to obey the broadcast instructions. It was also announced
that all schools, shops, stores, banks, pubs and clubs would remain
closed until further notice. In fact, it appeared that the only thing
that would remain functioning was the radio station, which would
broadcast any further instructions and would, ‘remain in permanent
operation’.46
The fourth edict did little to calm any anxieties generated
by previous communiqués, despite offering a number of firm
45
Bound, Falkland Islanders, 64.
Radio Nacional Islas Malvinas Broadcast, 2 Apr 1982, ‘Edict Number 3’. These edicts
also provide a vivid sense of a rather more demanding and forthright ‘governmentality’
under the Argentine regime.
46
362
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
guarantees to the Islanders. As the Stanley resident Mike Butcher
remembered:
The Argentines immediately then started to put out their ‘edicts’ as
they were called, which came out in a steady stream on invasion
day; one after the other. Slightly contradictory really because they
would say things like ‘Nothing will change, except that you will now
drive on the other side of the road’, and ‘You can have worship
as you like, but the Catholic church is now at the front’, and also
‘‘There will be no change in your work or circumstances except we
will now pay you in Pesos’’. So there were about six on the first day,
fairly fast and furious really.47
With the administrative realities of occupation becoming ever more
apparent, Islanders listened intently for the British response to the
invasion. The re-broadcasting of the hourly BBC World Service news
had ceased with the takeover of FIBS, although Islanders could still
receive the World Service on their SW radios. These broadcasts became
necessary listening, although at 11.30 am on Friday 2 April, John Smith
noted with some concern in his journal;
11.30 Hours: Outside on the streets armoured personnel carriers,
armoured cars and DUKWs (amphibious landing vehicles) are
rushing and roaring about all over the place, knocking down fences,
breaking up the roads; troops and guns are everywhere. It’s like
a living nightmare. From the BBC in London we hear they think the
Falkland Islands may have been invaded. Words fail us—this is
the age of the train, rockets to the moon, computers and microchips
and they only think that the Falklands may have been invaded.
God help us all.48
This may have been the ‘age of the train’ (as British Rail’s
advertisements of the early-1980s would have us believe), the era of
microelectronics and Sir Clive Sinclair’s ZX Spectrum, but events in the
South Atlantic were unfolding at a moment and in a geographical
location which conspired against easy and reliable communications. As
the UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, observed in her speech to
the House of Commons on 3 April, it was not at all uncommon for
‘atmospheric conditions to make communications with Port Stanley
difficult’.49 What would be much less easy to reconcile however
would be the profound sense of politico-military isolation, and
resentment towards the British Government and the FCO, felt amongst
47
Interview: Mike Butcher; father was electrical engineer of the original radio system
in Stanley (Stanley, Falkland Islands, 26 Nov 2003).
48
Smith, 74 Days, 23.
49
Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 21, 3 Apr 1982, 632–3.
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
363
Falkland Islanders. After all, despite John Smith’s prayers for
divine intervention, it was becoming clear that only a large, powerful and resolute British task force could possibly help the loyal
Islanders now.
By the early afternoon of 2 April, domestic radio communications
channels became subject to monitoring by the Argentine occupation
forces, who moved promptly to staunch the flow of information passing
through the government-run R/T system. It was also evident that a
significant intelligence-gathering operation had preceded the military
invasion. The occupying forces had been well briefed about the
Falklands way of life, the importance of radio in maintaining and
supporting that way of life, and seemed to have compiled detailed
profiles on individual Islanders. This came as a shocking revelation,
and can be felt palpably during one ‘on air’ moment involving Patrick
Watts who, although exhausted from his broadcasting marathon,
had remained at the FIBS/RNIM studio throughout the broadcast of
the edicts. In discussion between Watts and one of the Argentine
radio team named Francisco, it is revealed that biographical information had been collected about the Director of Broadcasting prior to
the invasion—and was compiled in a book in Francisco’s possession.
In recordings of that moment, a somewhat stunned Patrick Watts is
uncharacteristically silenced by the revelation and takes several
moments to recover.50
This certainly corroborates subsequent observations that the
Argentines were deeply conscious of the threat of the radio to their
new regime, and were desperate to gain fast and total authority over
the airwaves. As Bound recounted:
The Argentines were well aware of the value of radio communications to the Islanders, but their claimed intention to maintain
the framework of normal Island life could not extend to radio
communications. They harboured an almost pathological fear that
Islanders were spying on them and that they would use their sets
to communicate with the British.51
This fear was not, though, isolated to those radio listeners and amateur
broadcasters in Stanley. It equally applied to those in Camp and on the
isolated islands and settlements of West Falkland who relied on their
radios for everyday communications. When the edict was issued to
demand that all amateur ‘ham’ radio-sets, two-metre transceivers
and standard radio receivers be decommissioned and aerial rigs be
dismantled, both in the capital and in the countryside, there was
50
Radio Nacional Islas Malivinas broadcast, 2 Apr 1982, ‘Patrick Watts & Francisco in
discussion of edicts’.
51
Bound, Falkland Islanders, 120.
364
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
a widespread and distinctly unfavourable reaction.52 As John Smith
noted, with a hint of sadness (revealing some of the emotional
attachment that Falkland Islanders felt to their wireless sets), on 9 April:
From the military authorities we had instructions that tomorrow all
2-metre and ham radio equipment is to be handed into the military;
anything capable of transmitting is to be given in. Again notice was
given that persons outside Stanley should dismantle their sets, with
valves to be placed at least one mile from the set. I don’t think many
people have valves nowadays, but it means, sadly, that we will have
to part with our faithful old Eddystone set, which came from a
whale-catcher at South Georgia years ago. When all else failed we
could always rely on the Eddystone to keep us in touch.53
Following interventions from medical staff at the King George Hospital
in Stanley, who argued that removing radio contact from the families on
isolated settlements could potentially lead to a fatality amongst their
distant patients, it was decided that the genuinely isolated settlements
could retain a two-metre transceiver, although the R/T, which provided
greater concerns for the Argentine forces due to the greater range of its
broadcast signal, would remain cut off.
The occupying authorities were right to be worried. Unbeknown to
the Argentine forces, Eileen Vidal, the principal operator of the R/T
system, had already been in contact with the Royal Navy ice-patrol
vessel HMS Endurance at sea near South Georgia.54 In an impeccably
timed exchange, Endurance had signalled the R/T station during one of
the sanctioned calls between the school boarding house in Stanley and
parents scattered throughout the Islands. Vidal heard the voice of
Captain Nick Baker who was seeking news about the state of affairs in
Stanley in order to assess whether the ship could help in the liberation of the town. Knowing that Endurance would be hopelessly outgunned and out-manoeuvred by the vastly superior Argentine force,
Vidal warned Baker to stay well away. She was also able to pass
on useful strategic information about the Argentine taskforce. As she
later recounted:
I told them as much as I could about the Argentine ships and the
number of troops in Stanley—we thought there were about 15,000
ashore—and all I could about the aircraft and helicopters. I knew
it was a bit risky, but I did the best I could.55
52
Interview: Roddy Napier, Owner of West Point Island (West Point Island, Falkland
Islands, 23 Nov 2003).
53
Smith, 74 Days, 39.
54
Bound, Falkland Islanders.
55
Bound, Falkland Islanders, 121.
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
365
Concerned about just this kind of radio espionage, the Argentines
enforced complete radio silence in the larger camp settlements (with
in situ medical provision) such as Fox Bay, Hill Cove, Goose Green and
Darwin. Yet, despite numerous physical searches of the farmhouses
and public buildings in the settlements, and frequent monitoring of
radio frequencies, the terms of the edict were constantly challenged.
Islanders—skilled in building, dismantling and rebuilding their
radio sets—went to extraordinary lengths to maintain their wireless
connections throughout the occupation. As Richard Cockwell, Manager
of the Fox Bay East sheep farm, recalled in interview:
RC: During the War—[radio] was very important for us during the
War . . . everybody. And we had our radios confiscated, but we had
some hidden so we were able to keep in touch with what was
going on and that was vital.
AP: So you managed to retain a few?
RC: We hid a couple! In fact we hid two. We took one to pieces
and spread the pieces all round our attic. There was 19 of us living
in the house, and so we spread one all around the place. We hid
another one in a fairly obvious place, thinking if they found it
they’d say, ‘Ah we got it in our bedroom’ and go away and we’d
still listen, but they never found the obvious one for some reason.
Even though they turned the house upside down; I don’t know
why they missed it.56
By 1 May, with the British naval Task Force established in South
Atlantic waters, the subversive use of radio by the Islanders became an
even greater challenge. Fearing that Islanders might be communicating
with the British fleet, Argentine searches for radio equipment were
further intensified, as was the use of radio-signal detection equipment.
This did not stop the clandestine operations by Islanders. Reg Silvey,
one of the keepers of the Cape Pembroke lighthouse and keen radio
ham, had managed to maintain a secure contact with another radio ham
in Yorkshire since the day of the Argentine invasion on 2 April.57 By
keeping his despatches short and having disguised his high-power
aerial rig as a washing line strung across the back garden—in a plan
that strikingly foreshadowed the British television programme
‘Allo! ‘Allo, first broadcast in December 1982—Silvey’s broadcasts
thwarted all attempts at location detection and his identity remained
56
Interview: Richard Cockwell, Councillor and former manager of Fox Bay sheep farm
(FIG Archives, Stanley, Falkland Islands, 20 Nov 2003).
57
The Guardian, 25 Feb 2002. URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/feb/25/
falklands.world4 (accessed on 5 May 2005).
366
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
undiscovered for the duration of the occupation.58 This was no comedic
misadventure, however. By maintaining his clandestine broadcasts and
illegally acquiring an official notice that denied access to Argentine
soldiers—it claimed that the premises had been ‘cleared’ by the Military
Police—Silvey was able to relay vital strategic details to London,
despite the enormous personal risks.
This sort of subversive contact was enormously important in
reinforcing the unbroken 150-year relationship between the Falkland
Islands and the United Kingdom, especially so during the four-week
wait for the Task Force to arrive in Falklands’ waters. Through
‘the radio’, Islanders were able to express their intense loyalty towards
the United Kingdom and—importantly—to participate in the war by
challenging the Argentine occupiers through the ether. As Tim Blake,
owner of the Hill Cove sheep farm, recalled:
And then, of course, on, I think it was the 1st May, [HMS] Hermes
called up wanting to get hold of the Argentines to tell them to
‘Begger Off!’ so that was a red-letter day. At that stage we still had
our land telephone-line to Fox Bay, which had an Argentine Garrison
there. I told Hermes that I could pass a message at noon down to
the Argentines . . . That was the last day our landline worked—they
[the Argentines] were not happy bunnies! They hadn’t realised we
could talk to Fox Bay and because there were a number of people
there who were basically house-bound we used to talk three times
a day: 8am, 1pm and 6pm, so they had at least some outside
contact, but that ceased on the 1st May when the Argentines, sort of,
‘cut the wires’.59
The well-rehearsed Argentine communications and monitoring
teams were being tested to their extreme. Not only were they fighting an ongoing battle with domestic (i.e. within the Falkland
Islands) radio espionage, but also their resources were being consumed in the costly pursuit of jamming the ever-troublesome BBC
World Service.
Calling the Falklands: The Media War
Since the start of the conflict, the BBC World Service had been
allowed to gradually increase the time allocated to its programming
for the Falkland Islands—officially called Calling the Falklands, but often
58
Bound, Falkland Islanders, 122–3.
Interview: Tim Blake, former Speaker of Legislative Council and owner of Hill Cove
farm (Stanley, Falkland Islands, 28 Nov 2003).
59
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
367
known as ‘London Bridge’ in the Islands after the music used in the
programme’s introduction—from 30 minutes once per week to a nightly
broadcast of 40 minutes, by 27 April.60 These increases in broadcast
frequency were widely applauded in the UK press, with the BBC World
Service enjoying considerable praise for its activities, not least from the
Daily Mail who lauded the ‘Bulletins of Hope on BBC.’61 The
programmes, hosted by the experienced radio journalist, Peter King,
were considered unmissable in the Falkland Islands although, as Tim
Blake noted, Islander reactions were not uncritical:
You couldn’t get any news at all excepting from the BBC. The BBC
did, still does, a programme ‘Calling the Falklands’ twice a week:
that was extended to half an hour with news of people and friends,
and what have you, in Britain and a certain amount of conflict news.
We would listen in the morning to the BBC, but the critical time was
4 o’clock (local). . . What’s his name . . . cadaverous voice [Ian
MacDonald, MoD spokesman]. . . would come on, we’d never miss
that! Then, in the news, you got a late version of what was actually
happening locally. You were also fed pundits’ ideas of how the
conflict should be run and also the pundits’ ideas of how the
Argentines could [laughs] defeat the British. I mean, literally, if
the Argentine did this, and this, and this, then there is no way that
the British forces can succeed!62
Aware that this sort of information could compromise the security and
operational effectiveness of the UK forces, information about movements and operations of the British Task Force proved, on occasions,
to be as much of an irritation to the Islanders as a reassurance. Joe King
was acutely aware of the risks posed by the BBC broadcasts:
In this last conflict with Argentine, when that was on, we didn’t half
do some growling when the BBC gave away what the British Forces
were going to do with their next step. We used to get wild here! . . .
Well, ‘London Bridge’ came on every night and gave us all the news
about the Falklands—what they were doing here, which annoyed us.
They overfed us with information.63
60
Whilst the World Service is operated and administered by the BBC, its funding
comes directly from the FCO via a grant-in-aid. As part of this arrangement, the FCO has
traditionally designated which countries the World Service broadcasts to, and offers a
time allocation for these broadcasts. See Andrew Walker, A Skyful of Freedom (London,
1992).
61
Daily Mail, 6 Apr 1982, ‘Bulletins of Hope on BBC’.
62
Interview: Tim Blake (Stanley, 28 Nov 2003).
63
Interview: Joe King (Stanley, 26 Nov 2003).
368
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
It would be wrong to pin blame for these reports entirely on the BBC.
Each and every report despatched from Task Force journalists
(including the BBC correspondents, Brian Hanrahan and Robert
Fox) was censored of strategic information before being transmitted
back to London.64 Instead, the source of the controversial news
broadcasts was, it would appear, the regular press briefings given
by the MoD itself.65 It is intriguing to note that information,
seemingly sterilized of strategic value on the pages of London’s
newspapers, retained much of its potency on the front line of the
South Atlantic theatre—particularly among local listeners (including
Argentine forces) familiar with the territory and military geographies under discussion. These tensions came to a head following
the now infamous World Service news broadcast on 27 May which
announced the location of Second Battalion of the Parachute
Regiment (2 Para) who, following the landing of British forces at
San Carlos, were manoeuvring towards the garrisoned settlement
at Goose Green. During their dawn attack the following morning,
2 Para faced unexpectedly stout defence from the alerted Argentine
positions. In the ensuing fighting seventeen British servicemen
were killed, including the Battalion’s Commanding Officer, Lt Col.
‘H’ Jones, who was mortally wounded by small arms fire. The
BBC was immediately implicated. Max Hastings, writing from the
Falkland Islands in a pooled article published in the Sunday Times
and Sunday Telegraph on 30 May, revealed ‘Anger over BBC’ within
the British forces, citing widespread and intense bitterness over
‘the extraordinary indiscretion by the Ministry of Defence and
the BBC World Service’.66 News of 2 Para’s position had, in reality,
been widely reported in London from 26 to 27 May, based on
MoD sources, and had even been intimated in Parliament by the
Prime Minister. But it was the World Service, as the carrier of
this information to the South Atlantic, that faced the most stinging criticism; a striking and unfortunate reminder of the affective
potential of the ‘audio media’,67 radio and the World Service (with
its international range and reputation for accuracy and truth)
64
See Valerie Adams, The Media and the Falklands Campaign (London, 1996); David
Morrison and Howard Tumber, Journalists at War: The Dynamics of News Reporting During
the Falklands Conflict (London, 1988).
65
Interview: Harold Briley, BBC Latin America Correspondent during Falklands War
1982 (Battle, United Kingdom, 6 Feb 2005).
66
Sunday Telegraph, 30 May 1982, ‘Anger over BBC’.
67
Gerard Toal, ‘Just Out Looking for a Fight: American Affect and the Invasion of
Iraq’, Antipode, 35 (2003), 856–70.
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
369
in particular, in remote and/or information-poor environments,68
and moments of conflict.69
Despite serious question marks (and ‘growls’ of irritation) over its
news broadcasts, the BBC World Service provided a vital source of
reassurance and goodwill for Falkland Islanders during the Argentine
occupation—somewhat echoing the role it played in occupied Europe
between 1939 and 1945.70 As the BBC’s Harold Briley (who reported
from Buenos Aires throughout the conflict) came to realize of the World
Service’s role in Islanders’ lives:
The ‘Calling the Falklands’ programmes, as well as the Spanish BBC
service for Latin America, were valuable communications channels to
the people who didn’t know what was going on. [They] really didn’t
know what was going to happen to them and so the ‘Calling the
Falklands’ programme became a great morale-booster because on it
were delivered many messages, not just from the BBC, but from
their friends, from relatives, people who had been thrown out of the
Falkland Islands; from Councillors, from the Governor Rex Hunt,
from Ministers, all talking to the Falkland Islanders. And they [the
Islanders] paid great tribute to the ‘Calling the Falklands’
programme for telling them what was going on, for sending them
these messages of comfort and hope and keeping up morale.
There was a famous ex-announcer named Peter King who was
brought back out of retirement to front that programme who did
a tremendous job and his became a very welcome and powerful
voice, and they appreciated him very much.71
Resonances with the Second World War, and the ongoing cold war for
that matter, were made all the clearer by the sustained Argentine
attempts to jam the BBC’s broadcast frequencies, which often distorted
Peter King’s closing catch-phrase—‘heads down, hearts high!’—with
an intense noise that best resembled a ‘demented chainsaw’.72
The jamming of Calling the Falklands would continue until the BBC
in London was alerted to the situation by their correspondents,
68
See Pinkerton, ‘Radio and the Raj’.
Michel Stenton, Radio London and Resistance in Occupied Europe: British Political
Warfare, 1939-43 (New York, 2000). In former Dominions, the BBC faced particular
challenges, and perennially sailed between the Scylla and Charybdis of acclaim and
censure. During the 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pakistan conflicts, for example, the BBC’s South
Asian Services provoked correspondence from listeners which both congratulated and
condemned (in the most extreme terms) their coverage of the unfolding military and
political confrontations. See Alasdair Pinkerton, ‘A new kind of imperialism? The BBC,
cold war broadcasting, and the contested geopolitics of South Asia’, Historical Journal of
Film, Radio and Television, 28 (2008).
70
Stenton, Radio London.
71
Interview: Harold Briley (Battle, United Kingdom, 6 Feb 2005).
72
Bound, Falkland Islanders, 105.
69
370
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
Robert Fox and Brian Hanrahan, after they disembarked at San Carlos
with the UK forces. Bush House, the home of the World Service, on
London’s Aldwych, responded by adjusting their broadcasts to an
alternative frequency that would go uninterrupted for the remainder of
the fighting. However, by the time the British forces, and accompanying
journalists, arrived on the Islands as part of the liberation operation,
the broadcasting landscape of the Islands had undergone a further
startling and unexpected development. During the early stages of the
occupation, the collective broadcasting attention of the Argentine
authorities (while not tackling clandestine radio transmissions and
jamming the BBC) had been deployed in the creation of an all new tool
in the struggle for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the islands; an ultra-high
frequency (UHF) broadcasting system. Television, and colour television
at that, had been brought to the Falklands and was set to become part
of the propaganda effort.
Prior to April 1982 broadcasting in the Falkland Islands was entirely
based on the SW and MW frequencies, critical to the long-range
transmission of sound. Only a very few televisions had been imported
into the Islands, and all of those had been employed exclusively in the
playback of pre-recorded videos. There was certainly no capacity for
the local broadcasting of television pictures. It came as an enormous
surprise, then, when an expert Argentine broadcasting team constructed a fully operational television broadcast system, complete with
studio crammed into the former FIBS/RNIM building. John Smith, on
Saturday 10 April, took note with a certain hint of sarcastic glee:
New announcement for the population from the military government. These are now greeted with hoots of derision and raspberries.
Today’s great news is that as from next week we will have real-life
television—broadcast from Stanley. To enable as many as possible
of their fellow countrymen in the Malvinas to benefit from it, the
people of Argentina have sent to us 100 TV sets which can be
obtained by paying a deposit of £20, then 10 monthly payments of
£10. So for £120 we can have a TV—in colour as well. The immediate
question from everyone, ‘Does it speak English?’ We are assured that
a certain amount of the broadcasting time will be specially put over
in English. Great stuff. Hurrah.73
Not even the novelty of television and the affordable hire purchase
scheme set up by the Argentines could entice most Islanders to watch
the broadcast programming. For many, the very idea of participating in
the scheme was tantamount to collaboration. That said, despite the
great potential for broadcasting political propaganda, the programming
73
Smith, 74 Days, 41–2.
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
371
Figure 3
Joe King with long-redundant Argentine television, 28 Nov 2003 (by author).
that was transmitted hardly qualified as the most coercive (or co-optive)
of fare. Nor did it conform to the genres of entertainment that the
traditional Islanders would have welcomed, the schedule dominated by
a cycle of Tom and Jerry cartoons and Spanish-language dramas.
Notwithstanding protestations from his wife, Joe King did elect to pay
the £20 deposit (Figure 3), and received his new television set:
There was a German type and a Japanese type and you could get a TV
set for a first instalment of £20 I think and then you paid off so much
a month, or a week, or whatever. And I said well I’m going to go up
and get one. My wife said ‘you’re not. We’re not having any of that
damned Argentine . . .’ [Reply] ‘We haven’t seen what was on it yet!’
And I said, ‘Well, we’ll get one and if nobody wants it, well, I’ll take
372
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
it back.’ So anyway I brought it home and half the people were
looking at the ceiling [i.e. refused to watch].74
Although a locally produced news bulletin featuring Patrick Watts and
his Anglo-Argentine counterpart Norman Powell as presenters was
broadcast, it was not widely remembered among Islanders who, by and
large, refused to participate in the initiative. Within just a few weeks,
the closing titles rolled on the embryonic television project as more
pressing military concerns began to dominate the Argentine occupiers’
attention.75
By late May, the internal structures and flows of information that had
held together the disparate Argentine forces began to break down. The
Argentine infantry units stationed in Camp and West Falkland were
slowly cut off from the central command by the advancing British
forces. As anxieties increased about the outcome of the war so too did
tensions with the native Islanders. And yet, with reliable information
becoming an ever more scarce resource for the Argentine troops, there
was increased sympathy for Islanders’ ongoing quest for information
about the progress of the military campaign. In a situation that seems to
have been played out in several places across the Islands, the Argentine
troops stationed within the isolated settlements came to rely on longhidden and illicitly retained wireless receivers, the broadcasts of the
BBC World Service, and the often-stilted English–Spanish translations
offered by the Islanders. Richard Cockwell remembered one such
moment of inverting power relations, where the ‘occupied’ came to
influence the ‘occupier’:
In Fox Bay there was a ship, one of their [Argentine] merchant ships
which were all like RFAs [Royal Fleet Artillery], been taken over
by the military and they still had a civilian nucleus crew on. When
the Harriers started attacking it all the crews came off and they
were living in one of our garages, one of my garages. They adopted
us and they used to bring us food from the ship and things.
They also used to get me to go over and listen to ‘el BBC’ and tell
them what was going on. So that was my other way of knowing
what was going on. They used to make sure I went over for a Matte
[a South American infusion, similar to tea] and something when
the BBC was on.76
74
Interview: Joe King (Stanley, 26 Nov 2003).
This was the first time in Falkland Islands history that there was domestic
production of scheduled television programming. After the Argentine military abandoned
their attempts at a television system in the Falkland Islands, a replacement would not be
permanently established until the British Military opened the purpose-built Mount
Pleasant Airbase in 1985.
76
Interview: Richard Cockwell (Stanley, 20 Nov 2003).
75
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
373
In what appears, in the circumstances, to have been remarkable
displays of altruism, Islanders offered assistance to their ever more illinformed—and misinformed—occupiers, who were, themselves,
coming to realize that, ‘you can’t believe a word we’re being told [by
the Argentine military command]’.77 This had been a radio war from
first to last. The very openness of pre-war radio communications had
exposed individual Islanders and their so called ‘tough, happy-go-lucky
existence’ to the attention of the Argentine military; and provided the
invasion force with vital strategic and political intelligence on the
Islands and their people.78 As Patrick Watts and others quickly
discovered, radio’s very public message could be, and was, in times of
conflict a considerable threat to individual and collective security.
Combined with the fact that the largely inexperienced Argentine
infantry became subject to misinformation by their own superiors, radio
had shown itself to be both a dangerous and a coercive tool of political
warfare and authoritarian control.
Well, they were misinformed. That was the problem. You know, radio
is a very dangerous tool in the hand of unscrupulous people.79
Conclusion
The seventy-four-day campaign confirmed radio’s wide-ranging
significance during moments of conflict, and within isolated communities, at a time when ‘the radio’ was being written off (not least by the
BBC itself) as an outdated and outmoded medium.80 Falkland Islanders
not only revealed their commitment to radio as a broadcast and
communications medium, but also demonstrated their emotional
investment in the ethereal connections radio created. The World
Service’s broadcasts back to the Falklands theatre, and the occasional
military/strategic controversies they provoked, vividly illustrated the
fluid and contested nature of information in times of war.81 The ‘Task
Force’ broadcasts from Brian Hanrahan and Robert Fox (which had
attracted adverse attention after 2 Para’s attack on Goose Green),
combined with the alleged ‘anti-British’ bias of the BBC’s domestic
77
Interview: Richard Cockwell (Stanley, 20 Nov 2003).
Harold Briley reports on the growing Argentine threat (26.3.82), The Falklands War,
March–June 1982, BBC Radio Collection, Track 2.
79
Interview: Richard Cockwell (Stanley, 20 Nov 2003).
80
BBC Written Archive Centre (BBC WAC) E3/991/1: Importance, role and scope of
radio in developed and developing societies (Nov 1974).
81
See, for example, Daily Mail, 15 May 1982, ‘BBC bias revealed’; Daily Telegraph,
28 Apr 1982, ‘Buenos Aires tunes into Bush House’.
78
374
ALASDAIR PINKERTON
television programming (most famously Newsnight), provoked a bitter
backlash from the British government, and a profound worsening of
Whitehall–BBC relations during the early 1980s.82 Such a situation was
not to be repeated until the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, typified
by the infamous radio broadcast of Andrew Gilligan on BBC Radio 4’s
Today on 29 May 2003.83
The radio story of the Falklands Conflict is made altogether more
complex, contested and compelling because of the characteristics of
radio itself. Frequently broadcast ‘live’ and—unlike television—
‘unrecorded’, radio has been regarded as both an ethereal and
ephemeral medium, its broadcast message vanishing into the atmosphere without physical remnant after transmission.84 As this article
demonstrates, though, traces can be found, typically in the form of
published diaries and first-hand accounts, interviews, newspaper
articles, policy documents and official archival recordings. In the case
of the 1982 invasion, these sources were given additional ‘voice’
through a near-continuous recording of the FIBS invasion-night
broadcast, as heard and recorded by the Falkland Islander, Myriam
Booth, on a radio set from her home in Stanley. But, as Tamar Liebes
has noted in the context of Israel, radio has a powerful appeal to
‘collective history’ and memory, particularly during moments of
national emergency and/or ‘surprise’.
It is a medium more associated with national trauma, unexpected
tragedies, tough confrontational events (not entirely under control),
and looming threats in the nation’s tumultuous history. These are
events when radio is central, and even today, despite television, it
has ceded little place. In the decades when it reigned alone [as it did
in the Falkland Islands until after the 1982 conflict], radio was truly
the point of focus. It acted as a virtual town hall in crises, gathering
Israelis . . . to live through the collective experience in real time. It
was the first to publicly announce that war is declared, to inform the
home-front what is happening in the field, and it even played a role
in activating the process itself by announcing the call up of reserves.
It also provided these moments of chaos and existential anxiety with
coherence and a sense of control, not only by reporting the news, but
also by hosting national commentators. At moments of crisis (when
some are mobilised, others volunteering, others still carrying on
normal lives, but all whom need important information) radio’s
82
Sunday Telegraph, 30 May 1982, ‘Anger over BBC’.
Martin Montgomery, ‘Broadcast news, the live ‘‘two-way’’ and the case of Andrew
Gilligan’, Media, Culture and Society, 28 (2006), 233–59.
84
See Paddy Scannell and David Cardiff, A Social History of British Broadcasting
1922–1939: Serving the Nation (Oxford, 1992), particularly the ‘Preface’.
83
FA L K L A N D S C O N F L I C T A S A R A D I O WA R
375
speed, accessibility, and sometimes its (telephoned in) interactivity
make it vital.85
Radio’s collective potential is not without methodological risks. Liebes
noted, for example, that Israeli interviewees remembered listening to
important national events ‘live’ on radio that had, in reality, not been
broadcast; radio’s appeal to ‘collective identity’ and ‘collective
imagination’ leading to an apparent ‘flexibility’ in media memories.
The last word should go to Falkland Islanders and their ‘radio
signatures’, as it was they who played a role in aiding British military
intelligence and in shaping the conflict as a ‘radio war’. Islanders—with
a sophisticated understanding of radio technologies and communications—embraced the broadcast medium; sharing information on troop
movements despite the threat of reprisals. This form of ‘radio
resistance’ was inscribed into the ‘sonic communities’ that persisted
throughout the occupation, as Islanders strove to maintain radio contact
with one another, and—through the BBC World Service and the Calling
the Falklands programme—with the outside world. During this period,
an unlikely alliance developed between the Argentine occupiers and
Islanders who all turned to radio for information and reassurance.
Disappointingly, the official history of the Falklands campaign gives
little attention to this distinct feature of the conflict and underestimates
the manner in which the Islanders listened and communicated their
hopes, fears and determination to resist the Argentine occupation.86
85
Tamar Liebes, ‘Acoustic space: the role of radio in Israeli collective history’, Jewish
History, 20 (2006), 73–74.
86
Lawrence Freedman, Official History of the Falklands Campaign: vols. 1 & 2 (London,
2005).