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The BBC and foreign affairs: 1935-1939

Paddy Scannell Media Culture Society 1984 6: 3 DOI: 10.1177/016344378400600102 The online version of this article can be found at: http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/6/1/3

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The BBC and

foreign

affairs: 1935-1939

PADDY SCANNELL

In the second half of the thirties British politics was dominated by the increasing gravity of the international situation as the threat of the European war loomed ever closer. How did broadcasting represent the progress of foreign affairs? This account is largely concerned to explain an absence, to show why there was so little coverage by the BBC, particularly in talks series, discussions and debates, of the march of events that led eventually, in September 1939, to the Second World War. The

has much to do with the hidden hand of the state; with the machinations of the Foreign Office, and later with Chamberlains conduct of his policy of appeasement towards the dictators.
answer

The Bartlett affair

The BBCs difficulties with the presentation of foreign affairs on radio can be traced back to the Vernon Bartlett row of 1933 (cf. Briggs 1979: 194-197, and Haworth 1981 from which this account is largely drawn). Vernon Bartlett became the BBCs foreign correspondent in 1932, having previously worked for the Daily Mail, Reuters, the Daily Herald and The Times. His brief included establishing personal contacts with European broadcasting stations, recruiting stringers in foreign capitals, and regular 15-minute weekly broadcast talks on foreign affairs for the regular programme and for schools broadcasts. He worked within the ambit of the Talks Department. On 14 October 1933 Germany pulled out of the Disarmament Conference convened by the League of Nations at Geneva. After the six oclock news that evening, which gave full coverage of the event, Bartlett made a short broadcast commentary, the general tenor of which was that the German action was understandable given the intractability of the allies and their failure to honour the pledges of Versailles. Britain, argued Bartlett, would have done the same thing if it had been in Germanys shoes. These comments caused immediate uproar. MacDonald, the Prime Minister, rang Reith at once to declare that the BBC was turning his hair grey and to know who was the government-himself and his colleagues, or the BBC? He followed this up with a letter of complaint to the Board of Governors. The matter was discussed in Cabinet. The Foreign Office was perturbed. Press comment ranged from the Daily Telegraph.r condemnation of Bartletts grave indiscretion to the Daily Herald.r praise for a courageous and outspoken broadcast. In the short term the BBC quietly dispensed with Bartletts services, and he was not asked to talk again on radio for several years. In the longer term it was a curtain raiser on the

issues at stake in the relationship between government, the Foreign Office and the BBC which were to be increasingly difficult as the decade progressed. The Foreign Secretary was alarmed by the terrible power of such a broadcast to create public panic and wondered whether such power should be left in the hands of the BBC. The Cabinet decided in effect that it could not do otherwise without challenging the independence of the Corporation-a fear which the left-wing press raised at the time. Reynolds News (22 November 1933) expressed its worries at the machinations of the establishment and defended radio correspondents from the kid-glove dictators at the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office was sensitive to being branded as censoring or interfering with free speech. In a private conversation with Rex Leeper of the Foreign Office, Alan Dawnay (Controller of Programmes) admitted that a serious blunder had been made, and after Bartletts departure the BBC was eager to clear with the Foreign Office the nature of future talks on sensitive areas. On 2 February 1934 Reith discussed with MacDonald, apropos the Bartlett affair, the whole question of BBC liaison with government departments which MacDonald felt could be much improved without prejudice to the autonomy of the BBC. Less than two weeks later Reith had a very helpful meeting with Sir Robert Vansittart and Sir Warren Fisher at the Foreign Office which did much to ease the strained relations between the BBC and the department. Vansittart was most affable and anxious to arrange all sorts of contacts. By the end of the month he and Reith had arranged to meet monthly for regular discussions on foreign affairs (cf. Stuart, 1975: 116-117). At the request of Reith, Leeper had drawn up some suggestions for the handling of talks on foreign affairs. He put forward three main options: one or two regular speakers, a panel of experts or reports from foreign capitals. Although Leeper preferred the first, the Foreign secretary and other colleagues were less keen. Their main concern was the tendency of listeners (especially foreign listeners) to accept the broadcast voice as official. John Salt, for the Talks Department, suggested a series of talks by intelligent travellers giving their strictly personal views and thereby neutralizing the effect of a single expert speaker. During 1934 no one voice dominated the foreign scene as Bartlett had done, and a variety of travellers expressed a variety of opinions. This arrangement was, in the end, to prove as unsatisfactory as the use of the single accredited expert. During a visit to Germany Richard Crossman broadcast his impressions of the country, but his trip coincided with Hitlers Night of the Long Knives. Crossmans view of Hitlers purge of the Brownshirts as a personal triumph over factional intrigue, with his word now law in the sense of burning public approval caused the Foreign Secretary to despair of the vein of exultant approval running through the talk and Vansittart to dismiss it as go-getter, sensation-mongering Hearstliness, man on the spot and red-hot stuff. Though Dawnay defended the talk, pointing out the difficulties of reporting in censor-ridden countries like Germany, the Foreign Office reaction put an end to Salts proposal (this paragraph is condensed from Haworth, 1981:

48-49).
The Citizen and His Government The
in relations between the government, the Foreign Office and the BBC came a year or so later. In 1935 the BBCs Adult Education Advisory Committee (AEAC) had recommended a balanced series of 12 educational talks

major crisis
1.
~1

, &dquo;t,

under the title The Citizen and His Government (cf. WAC R51/83; BP 5, paras. 54-62; and Briggs, 1979: 198-201). The first seven talks were to be expository by Captain Harold Balfour MP, and Mrs Agnes Headlam-Morley. The last five were to begin with two talks on fascism and communism by Sir Oswald Mosley and Harry Pollitt, followed by three talks critical of the preceding two by MPs representing the three constitutional parties-Isaac Foot (Liberal), Herbert Morrison (Labour) and Kenneth Pickthorn (Conservative). The outline of the series was approved by the Board of Governors, and submitted informally in the summer of 1935 to the Foreign Office, who raised no objection at the time. By the autumn it had become apprehensive. On 13 September 1935 Leeper rang Dawnay urging the BBC to drop the Pollitt talk, and a little later Vansittart expressed to Reith his concern that Mosley should be allowed to broadcast. Pollitt had recently identified himself with Dimitrovs call, at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International in the summer of 1935, for a united anti-fascist struggle in every country. The British Communist Party was finding growing evidence of popular support for a united front (cf. Branson and Heinemann, 1973: 334, and Rust, 1949: 33-35). The Foreign Office disliked Pollitts stance in view of their plans to make diplomatic representations to the Soviet Union about the infiltration of communist propaganda into Britain. Their fears over Mosley were prompted by Mussolinis
on Abyssinia. points were considered by the Board of Governors but, after careful thought, rejected. The Board took the view that it was their duty to allow expression to all shades of political opinion with any substantial backing, and the issue at stake in the series was not the point of view of individual speakers, but the claims of differing systems of government. Mosley would not be allowed in his talk to refer to the Abyssinian question. There was no connection, the Governors felt, between Pollitts talk and any flow of Comintern propaganda into Britain. The

recent

attack

These

overall structure of the series would do more to discredit and weaken communism in Britain than any measure to check the spread of subversive propaganda. It was agreed unanimously that, subject to such safeguards, the series should proceed. The Foreign Office threatened to take the matter further, but an imminent general election gave a pretext for postponing the last five talks in the series which had already started. After the election the AEAC pressed again for the inclusion of the talks in the Spring schedule for 1936. Negotiations reopened with the Foreign Office and Lord Stanhope (Under-Secretary of State) stated that the government policy remained the same, adding that it would be extremely embarrassing to the government if the BBC allowed Mr Pollitt to broadcast his views. By now the Board of Governors was prepared to abandon the series provided that the BBC could state publicly that the government was anxious that the talks should not be given. Stanhope countered by asking if the Board had considered the effect of such an announcement on Parliament shortly before the new Charter was due for discussion in the House. It would strengthen, he suggested, the case for those who demanded more Parliamentary control of the BBC. The Foreign Office insisted that government intervention should not be mentioned. Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, prepared a memorandum which was discussed in Cabinet on 12 February 1936. He concluded:

Though

it is still desirable that the BBC should withdraw the objectionable items of their programme without bringing in His Majestys Government, it seems impossible to induce them to

6
and if the talks are, in fact, withdrawn through Government intervention, it would seem in fact undesirable, to refuse to permit them to say so. It would however be neither true nor desirable to state publicly that the talks would be an embarrassment to the Government at the present time; but it would be true to say that they were not in the national interest. (Eden Memorandum, 7 February 1936, WAC R5/83)
so;

do

difficult, and

The Cabinet agreed that Baldwin should get the new Post Master General (Major G. C. Tryon) to find the final solution, and that he should be authorized to make it quite clear that the government would not permit the broadcasts. A week later Baldwin was able to report that the BBC had agreed to withdraw the Pollitt and Mosley talks and that no public reference would be made to government intervention. The Cabinet formally recorded its congratulations (Briggs 1979:

200).
The agreed public formula for cancelling the talks was: In view of the effect which the proposed talks might have on an international situation already aggravated by recent developments, the Corporation has decided to cancel the talks (BP5 para 58). The AEAC was not particularly impressed by this resolution of the issue. Cecil Graves tried hard to persuade its members of the wisdom of the BBCs decision, since occasions must from time to time arise when to do otherwise would quite possibly cost a considerable set-back to the work of the Corporation, and to the objectives which it shared in common with the committee. But the committee was not to be persuaded. At a meeting on 14 February 1936 Graves was asked if the BBC had capitulated because of the imminent publication of the Ullswater Report, and Graves replied that the BBC was naturally not anxious, at the present juncture, for a great deal of public attention to be focused on such an issue. Graves was then asked to withdraw from the meeting while the committee passed a resolution expressing its grave concern at the decision to cancel the talks, and the hope that this did not represent any narrowing of the field over which balanced controversy might be permitted. Graves had tried to persuade the committee that no change in policy had occurred, or was likely to take place, and the Board of Governors, in its reply to the resolution, confirmed unanimously that subject to adequate safeguards being taken, controversial series of talks should take a prominent place in the programmes of the BBC. This did not answer the point of the resolution about narrowing the field of controversy. The matter did not rest there. A few months later the new General Advisory Council considered the resolution of the AEAC, at its request, in a meeting on 29 June 1936. The Chairman of the Governors gave a confidential resume of the whole story, and reaffirmed BBC policy on controversial broadcasting. In the discussion that followed there was general concern at the future implications of the affair, and at the danger to the freedom of broadcast speech from government intervention. Its power to intervene was acknowledged, but the consensus of opinion was that the BBC would not be justified in accepting such intervention unless satisfied, with or without the necessary information, that a course advised by the government was in the public interest, or unless the government was openly prepared to accept responsibility for enforcing its will. There was general apprehension in regard to future possibilities of veiled interference by the government. The affair of Tbe Citizen and His Government was quite critical in clarifying the real nature of the relationship between the BBC and the state. The magnitude of

implications and the consequences that followed from it must be understood clearly. It is astonishing and slightly appalling that a recent Director General, the late Sir Charles Curran, should have had no knowledge of this case, although it was described with exemplary clarity by Burrows (in BP5) for the BBC Directorate many years ago. Of the clause in the Charter which empowers Ministers to require the BBC either to broadcast, or to refrain from broadcasting particular material,
its
Curran writes: In either case the BBC is free been received. He continues a little later:
to announce

that such

direction has

The power to require the BBC to refrain from broadcasting particular material is the famous unused veto. This arouses immense suspicion in the minds of visitors to Britain, who are not accustomed to the force of convention in British society. The fact that the power exists leads them to suspect that it must be used, or that its use must, at times, be threatened in order to secure desired objectives. This is simply not the case. (Curran, 1979: 63-64)

A wry smile at the quaint notion that only benighted foreigners might find anything fishy in this unused veto must give way to dismay that the Corporation today should be so ignorant of the history of its own dealings with government. The force of convention in British society is sometimes established by force, and

The Citizen and His Government was one such instance. Nor can it be dismissed as isolated event or an accidental hiccup in a normally smooth set of relations. It was in effect the culmination of a series of pressures to which broadcasting had been subjected ever since the ban on controversy (imposed by force) was lifted in 1928. It clearly narrowed the field of controversy, whatever the BBC might say, to the differences between the three constitutional political parties. Opinion to the right or left of these was not acceptable to the British state, though until that time the BBC had accepted in principle the right of expression for communist and fascist
an

positions on radio, even if they were there only to be disproved. Secondly it gave the Foreign Office de facto control over the discussion of foreign affairs on radio. The BBC, in the aftermath of the Vernon Bartlett row, had been progressing comfortably enough with routine consultation and advice. Now it knew that if the Foreign Office felt strongly enough it both could and would make its wishes prevail. Thirdly, and most disastrously, the state had made the BBC carry the can for the whole business, and had successfully concealed its exercise of power from the public. This was an intolerable violation of the principles on which broadcasting in this country was supposed to rest, and made nonsense of the supposed independence of the BBC. The proposed talks were in no sense a danger to some vital, or indeed particularly significant aspect of state policy. They were no more than potentially embarrassing to Foreign Office mandarins with uneasy visions of the propaganda mileage certain foreign governments might get from them; while a right-wing government simply disliked the idea of a communist speaking on radio to the British public. To say the talks were not in the national interest was a convenient smokescreen for a government more concerned with controlling, rather than informing, public opinion. The Ullswater Committees praise of the BBC for exercising the responsibility for controversy confided to it by the state with outstanding independence seemed a hollow mockery. Until this particular occasion the independence of the BBC, frail though it was, was perilously preserved. For the rest of the decade it was in pawn to the state. The caution of the BBCs attitude towards the Spanish Civil War, its silence on the rising menace of Nazi Germany, its ineptitude when the crisis broke

in 1838, its apparent complacent indifference in 1939 when war was inevitable-all this can be seen as stemming from this incident in 1935 and 1936. Our task now is to chart the unfolding of such consequences.

The

Spanish

Civil War-shameful

timidity?

In the aftermath of The Citizen and His Government The BBC maintained an extremely low profile on all political issues. The Talks Department was in a state of shock. News, still in its infancy, was having teething troubles. When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936 it produced a non-interventionist response from

the British government, a violent polarization of British public opinion, and another political minefield for the BBC. There were no symposia from the Talks Department on the subject, not even of the purely informative and educative variety. There were no further Crisps in Spain feature programmes to bring that of 1931 up to date. There were plenty of individuals in the BBC who cared passionately about the events in Spain and wanted to say something about it, but precisely because it was the most divisive issue in British politics of the 1930s, because it split government and opposition, polarized right and left-wing opinion, and brought bitterness and class-consciousness into foreign policy (Mowat, 1968: 577) it was an untouchable subject for all areas of programming other than news. And news soon found itself in trouble. We cannot accept Jonathan Dimblebys charge of shameful timidity over the BBCs coverage of the Spanish Civil War (Dimbleby, 1975). It fails to recognize the extent of the BBCs difficulties in handling political issues in general and the peculiar difficulties of this issue for the News Department. For by 1937 accusations were flying to and fro yet again of bias in the BBC. There were all the usual signs-questions in the House, letters of complaint from public persons, and a ramp in the popular press. The Daily Mail set the ball rolling with a campaign against the menace of the red bias on radio. In a leader article ( 13 January 1937) it wanted to know, Who is responsible for the conspicuous and persistent pro-red bias given to the BBCs service of news bulletins dealing with the Spanish Civil War? The left-wing press replied with a content analysis of bulletins to show that items of rebel news (i.e. about Franco) outweighed government news by two or three to one, and were helping to damp down sympathy for the Spanish democratic forces. The tone of voice of the announcers was adduced by some as evidence of bias, and the exact terminolgy for describing both sides was a matter of exquisite diplomacy. The BBC followed the Foreign Office in referring to the Madrid government as the government, and every recognised handbook on International Law in calling the Burgos government the insurgents (cf. Tbe BBC and Left Wling Bia.r, 1937 undated, WAC R34/523). The whole of the news room wanted some one of them to be sent out to report on the war from the front line, but that this was not permitted, although every newspaper had a reporter on the scene (Dimbleby, 1975: 76). The quality of agency material was admitted to be very unsatisfactory, and John Coatman, Head of News, had already complained about the matter. Each of the four agencies had their man in Madrid. There were none with Franco in Burgos. News from both sides was highly partisan and strictly censored, but the flow of information from government sources outran that from the insurgents by six to one. Communiques received from the same side on the same day frequently

contradicted each other. Many were undated. The insurgents tended to withhold information from all correspondents except those of the one or two papers friendly to their cause. Their main means of disseminating information was through their own radio stations, and these were not regularly quoted by the agencies. To frame a true and fair picture with such material was no easy task. What the News Department fell back on was maintaining an equal balance. As far as possible the bulletins carried statements from both sides. This prompted the Daily Worker (22 March 1937) to hail the BBC as an Ally of Reaction. The BBCs standard on impartiality in its reporting on Spain would be funny if it were not tragic. Its plan is to have an equal number of items from each side. This would not be so bad if the supply of news worked out that way, but frequently Exchange Telegraph tapes have two items from the rebels and four from Madrid. So two Madrid items are omitted. The result is shamefully misleading. It was an insoluble dilemma. Public opinion was so inflamed, and newspaper coverage so violently partisan, that belief had become more important than the events themselves. The strains on the department were such that at one point R. T. Clarke marched angrily into Reiths office and declared in no uncertain terms that the pressures on his boys must stop, and came out slamming the door behind him (Dimbleby 1975: 77).

The road

to

Munich

of 1937 the war had reached stalemate. It had begun to fade as a The British Government which, unlike the public, had never been story. in involved the Spanish Civil War, was turning its attention increasingly in greatly the direction of Hitlers Germany. In the summer a new British Ambassador, with pro-German views, had been sent to Berlin. Later in the year high-level government contact was made, for the first time, with the Nazi leaders, and in November Halifax (not Eden) went to Germany and met Hitler for the first time. Hitler blamed the British press and anti-German elements in the Foreign Office for the increasing tension between the two countries (History of the Times, vol. IV: 910). The two most prominent offenders were subsequently removed by Chamberlain. In January 1938 Sir Robert Vansittart, the permanent Head of the Foreign Office and intransigently anti-German, was promoted out of the way. On 20 February Chamberlain forced the resignation of Anthony Eden, his Foreign Secretary, who had long insisted on a firm line with the dictators and had found himself increasingly at odds with the new policy of appeasement (cf. Mowat, 1968: 594- 599). Halifax, more complaisant to Chamberlain, became Foreign Secretary and attention now turned to Hitlers other complaint-the media. The German press had been fulminating for some time over the coverage of Germany in the British press and in BBC news. On 13 February 1937 the Berliner Bdrsen-Zeitung had accused the BBC news service of taking

By the
news

autumn

opportunity of tendenuously corrupting German press comment, of underlining an alarmist questionable report. In Englands internal politics socialism is always preferred The lectures are nearly all with left bias. Lectures givmg another point of view merely serve as a convement foil. In Spain there is only one legal government-at Valencia. The BBC bears the chief responsibility for misleading the English public during the Abyssinian War. Recently they have endeavoured to mislead in regard to Spain.
every
or

10
a special watch to be kept on the BBC that no steps towards the improvement of AngloItalian relations were intended in the near future. It was precisely this that Chamberlain was after, hoping to drive a wedge in the Axis by wooing Mussolini from Hitler, and it was on this issue that Edens resignation was forced two weeks later. The BBC news statement was corrected on the order of the Prime Ministers secretariat, and denied in the main news bulletin the following day (News Review, 27 January 1938). There was a flurry in the press two weeks later as Germany denied rumours of unrest in the army, blaming Polish Jews and the BBC for the story. The German Foreign Office strongly attacked the BBC suggesting that the reports were inspired by a new British Propaganda Committee set up by Chamberlain and chaired by Vansittart (Manchester Guardian, 12 February 1938). Tbe Times, on the same day, pointed out that the new committee had not yet met, and that BBC bulletins were compiled from agency tapes. On 3 March Sir Philip Henderson, the ambassador in Berlin, told Hitler that Halifax had that same day arranged a press conference with responsible newspaper editors, and had also talked with the president of the NPA and senior BBC officials. To all he had emphasized their responsibility in the maintenance of peace (History of the Times, vol IV: 910, n.l). A week later the Foreign Office, immediately before Hitlers annexation of Austria (9 March), informed the press that no pressure could or would be exercised over newspaper content, but that personal attacks on German leaders, as distinct from reports and policy criticism, would make Halifaxs negotiations more difficult (P.E.P. Report, 1938: 202). Thus the governments appeasement policy began, not with direct censorship of the British media, but with discreet surveillance and diplomatic pressure. As Hitler marched into Austria the BBC Talks Department was running a talks symposium called Tbe Way of Peace (commenced February 1938). Its progress was not uneventful, and the series caused a minor furore when one of the speakers, Sir Josiah Wedgwood MP, was not allowed to deliver his contribution as originally written. Wedgwood had included in his script a long shopping list of Hitlers territorial demands and ambitions which the BBC insisted he must cut: Concrete charges of this sort, which are at the most conjecture, ought not to be given the great publicity of the microphone. Wedgwood refused to omit the offending passage and another more amenable speaker was fielded in his place. Wedgwood made a fuss in the newspapers and wrote a pamphlet attacking BBC censorship. The BBCs Home Intelligence Unit (organized by Sir Stephen Tallents) noted that the widespread impression created by this incident was that the BBC, due to recent political events (Austria), would not let dictators be criticized (for details cf WAC R34 / 512). In a crucial memorandum written seven months later (below pp.15-17) John Coatman, now Director North Region, bitterly criticized this series as playing about on the academic, idealistic fringes of the subject of war and peace. It bore as much relation to the necessities of the moment as the chatter of elderly spinsters at a Dorcas Societys tea-party bears to the fight of religion against sin. Coatman maintained that what had really been needed at that time were realistic talks by Liddell Hart, Admiral Richmond, Seton-Watson, Harold Nicholson, Voigt, Haldane and others telling simply and clearly the decisions this country would certainly have to take in the near future, and the state of military, economic and other resources in relation to those decisions (Coatman to Nicolls, 5 October 1938. WAC R34/325). What Coatman meant by realism will become plain later.

In

January 1938 Chamberlain ordered

statements

after

in the

news

11

At the same time the BBC was under pressure from two directions over political talks on radio-from the Labour Party and its own Talks Advisory Committee (TAC). It had still not succeeded in establishing an agreed code of practice between parties, between Government and Opposition, over the right of reply to Government broadcasts outside election periods. It had been trying hard to do so since the Ullswater Report had recommended the need for further progress in this direction, but so far without success. In this it was urged on by the TAC, a new committee formed early in 1937 under the chairmanship of Sir Walter Moberley. The committee superseded the AEAC, and marked a shift in policy away from the specialized listening groups for adult education talks towards the general audience (Briggs, 1965: 223). Its brief was to advise the BBC on major matters of talks policy, to make suggestions for talks, to consider and comment on the Corporations proposals and to act as consultants in the planning of particular series. One of its most active members was Megan Lloyd George MP, who, at the second meeting of the committee (1July 1937) had put down the following resolution which the committee accepted:
That this committee desires to reaffirm its view previously expressed as to the importance of the discussion before the microphone by whatever methods the BBC finds practicable, of live political issues which are actually under consideration.

Even before this resolution the BBC had been pressing the Post Master General for some agreed formula for political talks on radio, but the Post Office simply stalled. On 7 February 1938 the Chairman of the Governors wrote to Tryon asking again for an answer to the letter he had written nearly a year ago on 1 March 1937. Tryon replied on 18 February 1938 that there is no prospect of agreement being reached between the Parties in the present circumstances, and consequently there are no further steps which can be taken at the present time. A week later, immediately after Edens resignation, the Secretary of the Labour Party (J. S. Middleton) wrote to request-in the general public interest-the right, as the Official Opposition, to broadcast its views on the present International Situation in special relation to the Governments new declaration of policy. This was the first time that an opposition party had asked for the right to make a policy statement outside election time (apart from the agreed procedure for the Budget), and it put the BBC in a quandary. Should it accede to this request, at the same time offering the right of reply to other parties or the opportunity to make some other policy statement? How often should this be allowed? In its official reply to the Labour Party Delegation after a meeting with the Board of Governors in March the BBC stated that it had always held the view that there should be greater opportunity for broadcast discussions of political controversy, but that its efforts had so far, and not for want of trying, proved abortive. It would now look into the whole matter afresh in conjunction with its TAC. In the wake of the Austrian crisis Reith, at a Control Board Meeting (5 April) had raised the question of the effect on the public of the generally sensational tenor of the news. This was not the BBCs fault he declared-an odd way of putting it-but he wanted everyone to give serious thought to ways and means of formulating a positive policy to keep the country in better morale. The nation needed heartening (WAC R34/534). OBs had few ideas other than Royal broadcasts to give an idea of foreign goodwill towards this country and belief in its future (for these replies cf. WAC R34/486). For Features Moray McLaren was

12

bubbling with ideas. He put forward a four-part historical programme on Tbe Defence of Christendom to show the rape of Europe in the past by ancient Goths, Huns, Vandals and Infidels. This was followed by a weird medley of programmes to illustrate the themes of Liberty and Freedom (particularly British) as exemplified by the Armada, Trafalgar, Mount Everest, Nansen, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale, Henry V, Scott of Antarctica and the Golden Hind. For Talks, Maconachie was more sombre and realistic. In reply to Cecil Graves (to whom the task of implementing the new policy had been delegated by Reith), he declared:
I have been thinking over this proposal since you mentioned it to me, and feel that propaganda of this kind is full of pitfalls. If, for instance, we were dealing with subjects of real importance, such as the military strength of this country, it would surely be futile, if not dishonest, to leave out the black spots, and emphasise merely the bright ones.

He suggested more particularly that Features or Variety might create a series built round a pessimistic character, who, through a series of misadventures, was made to look ridiculous-the idea being to kill pessimism by ridicule. He also suggested that John Hilton might give a series of monthly talks. These would probably be crude and emotional, and would appeal probably only to the working class with whom it would probably be very effective (Briggs, 656). Maconachie did not think the BBC could broadcast talks series on such important subjects as our military strength (which was quite inadequate he added) unless it came frankly into the open and made its intentions plain with a general title such as the Bright Side. Such a series, so labelled, was unlikely to be successful. For the News Department, R. T. Clarkes reply was the most sombre of all:
News is concerned, it is very difficult for me to put up any suggestion on the matter of the morale of the country. I am afraid that at present the majority of people would admit that the main items of news are, in themselves, depressing .. It seems to me that the only way to strengthen the morale of the people whose morale is worth strengthening is to tell them the truth, and nothing but the truth, even if the truth is horrible. (Briggs, 656-657)
As far
as

improving

light of Clarkes comments Reiths own scheme for national heartening perhaps the most bizarre of all. He proposed that the BBC should administer a cheerful tonic calculated to remove any inferiority complex latent in the mind of the man in the street about Britains industrial efficiency, capacity and achievement. He wanted the news bulletins to carry a regular Industrial Report which, in a break with precedent, would give a pat on the back to British industry by naming individual firms that were holding their own in world markets-the Reith Award for Industry. This fatuous scheme was practically the last thing Reith did in the BBC. On 30 June he left the Corporation to go to Imperial Airways, and the fruitless task of pursuing this idea fell to others. It was greeted with no enthusiasm in the News Room, and collapsed entirely at the end of August after protracted wrangles with the Federation of British Industry whose competitive instincts disliked the idea of free publicity for some but not for others (details from WAC R28/94). Meanwhile Basil Nicolls (Controller of Programmes) was grappling with the intractable question of political broadcasts. In two long memoranda (30 May and 3 June 1938. WAC R34/ 534) he tried to define policy guidelines on the matter, drawing a sharp distinction between two different categoreis of political broadcasts and the different treatment they might receive. Category (A) was politics in the narrow sense of the word, i.e. Party Politics. In essence this involved the emotional
In the
was

13

of controversial subjects at a time when they were most forcibly before the attention of the public. This was what the Labour Party was after and one faction of the TAC (Megan Lloyd George) without much support from anyone else. In category (B) were political broadcasts in a wider social sense-broadcasts which served to educate the electorate on broad issues not acutely controversial or actively before Parliament or a public. The majority of the TAC members wanted more of this type of programme. For category (A) the only acceptable treatment was uncensored and emotional appeals by Front Benchers. The BBC did not, so to speak, guarantee the broadcast matter, which was the responsibility of the parties. For category (B) the normal BBC standards of impartial, authoritative and balanced presentation must apply. Speakers should be chosen for their expertise and not because they happened to be politicians. This second category (of which Tbe LYray of Peace was a recent example) was altogether an easier proposition than the first and a series on The Mediterranean was planned for the autumn. All the difficulties lay with the first category. It would always be virtually impossible for foreign politics to be treated in this manner, while certain domestic issues-such as defence or conscription-would almost certainly be turned down by the government. That left a residue of dull domestic subjects which were often not controversial enough to warrent the Parties sending their leaders to the microphone. Nicolls had scanned the programme for the present session of Parliament and it yielded-apart from foreign politics and defence-not a single bill of any controversial significance. There were highly technical subjects like rent restrictions and dull subjects like bacon. The best of a thoroughly bad lot seemed to be the Milk Bill, but after due consideration at Control Board, it was felt it would be a bad start, if not a downright absurdity, to write to the Parties and ask them to come to the microphone to spill milk. Nicolls concluded that it would be best to defer efforts in this direction until the autumn session when the Prisons Bill might offer a better opportunity. In the meantime the situation would be kept under review and if something interesting were to crop up, to which category (A) treatment might be applied, the chance would be seized upon. At the same time, in a desultory and leisurely fashion, the awareness was growing that the BBC had been caught napping by the Austrian crisis. At Programme Board (26 May) it was agreed that the BBC would give the impression of being more alert if programmes were broken into with topical items. A month later the Assistant Controller of Programmes, just back from America, reported that over there the BBCs handling of the Austrian crisis was felt to have been disappointing. Felix Greene, the BBCs North American Representative, said that the Corporation had much to learn from CBS and the other American networks. Nicolls confirmed that departments must take a more topical attitude to their programmes at the expense, if need be, of the advanced schedule. There was a long discussion of the Austrian Crisis at Programme Board on 4 August. It was realized that the American companies had greater freedom of action at times of crisis than the BBC. There was agreement that, news apart, the BBC had failed to give listeners, especially listeners overseas, adequate information on the course of events. There should have been much more in the way of information about the historical background leading up to the annexation of Austria, and in the provision of objective interpretations of events as they occurred (these details are in WAC R34/600/10). Not everyone, however, approved of red-hot man-on-the-spot Hearstliness which Vansittart had sneered at. In the moratorium on Munich a few
treatment

14

months later the Director of Overseas Services declared that, while he was not blindly opposed to broadcasts from the scene of action, he felt there were times when such things were liable to be unhelpful, misleading and purely sensational, and therefore not in accordance with the principles which guide our actions as a British organisation. The Americans networks had made a great splash in print about their coverage of the Munich crisis, presumably with a view to impressing their sponsors. The question was how far the BBC could preserve its principles if it decided to follow in the wake of American broadcasting? (cf. Crisis Broadca.rt.r, D.O.S. to C.P. 24 October 1938. WAC R34/325).

Munich and after The Czechoslovakia crisis was now boiling up. In August and September Nicolls pursuing attempts with the party Whips to come to some arrangement over category (A) broadcasts for the autumn schedule, but these negotiations were overtaken by events and had to be postponed. Reith, before his departure, had posed the problem of the BBCs treatment of sensational events in relation to maintaining the nations morale. Outwardly at least the BBCs performance during the critical period (late September to early October) appeared to be much as might by now be expected. Nicolls was anxious, as the crisis deepened, to get permission from Reuters to set up loud-speakers in public places so that the BBCs sober and objective news bulletins might be made as widely available as possible. This was taking a leaf out of Goebbelss book, who had already done this in Germany. Sir Roderick Jones (who owned Reuters) flatly turned down the idea, and events were moving too swiftly for it to be worth pursuing (Jardine Brown to Tallents, 28 September 1938. WAC R28/297). Some years later the BBC Registry compiled a report, quite fully documented, on the BBCs handling of the Munich crisis (WAC R34/325). The compiler summarized what s/he took to be the consensus of opinion outside the BBC about the role of broadcasting at that time:
was

Broadcasting naturally played an important part in the Czechoslovakia crisis of September/October 1938, and was commended afterwards on all sides for its efficient service and for its steadying effect on anxious listeners, only too ready to seize on wild rumours and to believe the most sensational newspaper stories.... There was no censorship by the Government of the BBC news bulletins or broadcast material, though the Corporation naturally kept in close touch with the appropriate departments and the bulletins fell in line with Government policy.... The news bulletins became the most important section of the programmes to a world wide audience during those anxious days and the calm voice of the BBC announcers evoked special comment from abroad in
contrast to

the excited

accents

of American announcers, and the

extreme

anti-Czechoslovak

propaganda from Germany.... The BBC earned considerable praise and practically no criticism for its part in keeping listeners informed on new developments, and exerting a calming influence by the avoidance of sensationalism or rumour-mongering. The bulletins themselves, on those critical two days (29 and 30 September) when Chamberlain flew to Hitler and returned with his scrap of paper promising peace in our times, contained-even in the moment of triumph-a steely glint of the true implications of these events.
A full record on microfiche of BBC news bulletins exists only from the beginning of the war. Before that only a handful of new scripts as broadcast have been preserved: those for the General Strike, a few from early 1938, and those on 29 and 30 September 1938.

15

The information gap

brought to a head all the dissatisfactions in the News Department with agency material that had been accumulating over a decade. In a four page memorandum R. T. Clark, now Head of News, reviewed the whole problem (cf. News Agencies during the Crisis, 4 November 1938. WAC R28/297). For home news the Press Association was largely excused since it was in the same boat as everyone else-a complete inability to get any information at all from Downing Street. In the absence of any official information it had fallen back on Lobby talk and Club gossip, but this of course we could not use. The bulk of Clarks report dealt with the inadequacies of Reuters. Clark began by pointing out that, as a commerical organization, Reuters had had to adjust to the demands of its customers. As such it had changed enormously from the service it had been before 1914. Reuters main clients now were the popular press with seven or eight editions nightly and peculiar methods of
Munich

presentation:
They can only take a very limited supply of foreign news, and that the most sensational. (I do not mean the most sensational politically, but the most sensational from the point of view of the type of reader for which they cater. The birth of a baby with four heads in Bulgaria is much more sensational from the point of view of this type of paper than the fall of the French Cabinet.) The result is that Reuters is concentrating on the non-essential and picturesque stuff, and furthermore owing to the changed conditions in Fleet Street, where the old fashioned trained sub-editor is a rapidly disappearing type, it writes and re-writes one story. The result of these changes was predictable. Reuters coverage of the crisis was poor
and
news

When the Czechoslovakia situation looked like growing into a the story agency had sent out one of their senior men, but three of his main stories were cancelled in their entirety within hours of their dispatch. For the first four or five days he had relied entirely on German Sudeten sources. Godesburg was badly covered and Munich was worse. During the whole of the crisis the service of the three agencies (the other two were Central News and Exchange Telegraph) was totally inadequate for the purposes of the type of service which the Corporation is

perfunctory.

trying to give. By contrast Clark pointed out, the serious newspapers had their own foreign correspondents. Such newspapers used Reuters mainly as a check and as a cover, relying on their own staff for at least nine tenths of foreign news. Their coverage of the crisis was far superior to the agencies. The best thing the BBC could do would be to give the News Department a service equivalent to the foreign correspondents of the serious newspapers. This, for reasons of costs, would obviously not provide a service as comprehensive as The Times, but it would secure a separate and reliable source of news, particularly at times and in places where such a service was
essential.

raised the most fundamental question of all-the extent of Government control of the BBCs activities in the sphere of news. This critical issue was posed in an important memorandum (the BBC and National Defence, 5 October 1938, WAC R34/325) which registered a deep and urgent disquiet on the matter. Coatman argued that the BBC was, in times of

Playing fair with the people The ex-head of News, John Coatman,

16

crisis, the most important public institution in this country.

since the mass of the people believed that the BBC could and yet was independent of it:

Its prestige was unique speak for the government

This belief should be carefully noted by us, because it not only gives us great authority, but also throws on us a very special responsibility and exposes us to a special danger. The responsibility I refer to is that of playing fair with the people of this country, of being, in fact, truly independent of improper control or coercion by the Government. The danger I refer to is that the Government, knowing now more clearly than ever the power and value of the BBC in times of crisis, may seek to secure control and influence over us such as would prevent us from, as I have put it, playing fair with the people. I am speaking now of the period before war is actually declared. On the declaration of war, of course, we must come under direct Government control.

troubled Coatman was that it had been common knowledge in the least a year, that war with Germany was inevitable, and yet this knowledge (and the magnitude of its implications and consequences) had not been communicated to the listening public. This point is substantiated in the minutes of the meeting of the Board of Governors (BG); of Control Board (CB); of Controllers Meetings (CM); and of Programme Board (PB)-all of which show that contingency plans for war had been routinely discussed and prepared since the middle of 1937. By August 1938 the Cabinet had accepted a synchronized scheme for wartime broadcasting and instructions for action when war was declared (CM, minute 411, 5 August 1938). The BBCs own arrangements for the outbreak of war were agreed on 9 September (CM minute 435). Arrangements for Staff, including wartime pay scales, were finalized just before the crisis (CM, minute 468, 23 September: CB minute 561, 27 September). It was in this context-of behind-thescenes planning based on the certainty of war, and a front-of-house policy which appeared to evade that certainty-that Coatman expressed his dismay. The substantial core of Coatmans argument must speak for itself: What

gravely
at

BBC for

a full sense of responsibility and, since I was for over three years Chief News Editor, with certain authority, that in the past we have not played the part which our duty to the people of this country called upon us to play. We have, in fact, taken part in a conspiracy of silence. I am not saying for a moment that we did this willingly or even knowingly, and most certainly there is not a word of accusation against any individual in what I am saying. In view of our history and our peculiar relationship to the Government, and also the very short ume, comparatively speaking, during which we have been at work, I think even the sternest critic can hardly have expected us to behave differently. But now things have changed. The position of this country is infinitely more dangerous than it has ever been in modern times, and the past few weeks have invested the BBC with a new importance, given it a more vital role in the national life, and have, therefore, laid a new responsibility on us who are its servants This responsibility is to let the people of this country know, as far as the sources available to us allow, just what is happening I am not for a moment suggesting that the BBC should have a rival foreign policy to that of the Government. In any case that is impossible, and even if it were not impossible it would be grossly improper and irresponsible. What I mean is that we should make it our duty to get the most authoritative and responsible non-official students of foreign affairs to expose the development of events frankly and fearlessly in our general talks and news talks We would, of course, keep full liaison with the Government, but we would never allow ourselves to be silenced except when we are taken mto that confidence which our position and sense of responsibility entitles us to, and are given specific, valid reasons for not following out some course of action on which we had decided.

I say, with

Coatman gave examples of what he meant by a conspiracy of silence. Over a year before, at a private gathering, a member of the Government had said that Britain would almost certainly be at war with Germany over Czechoslovakia by September 1938. That opinion, and the facts on which it was based, was known to

17

many people outside official circles, including several in Broadcasting House. Yet the BBC was unable to let the British people know, in any way, that such a
was not only possible, but almost certain. What most troubled Coatmans conscience was that, in consequence, the country was totally unprepared for war. The authorities had simply played at Air Raid Precautions. The Home Office had done well within the terribly close limits imposed on it by secrecy and Government policy in the last few months, but its action would have been immeasurably more effective and the country immeasurably safer, had the situation been exposed in all its urgency. It might, probably would, have made all the difference between the surrender to which democracy has submitted and the negotiation of a real peace which would have left Europe secure.

contingency

The attempt to reassert autonomy Coatmans memorandum was not intended simply to review what was past. The Munich Agreement had given this country, he wrote, a breathing space not a permanent peace, which the BBC must use to rethink its responsibilities to the country and its relations with government:
I know that what I have been saying now demands a certain adjustment in our organisation for broadcast news and talks. It requires important adjustments in our relations with the Government and, above all, it requires resolution and knowledge on the part of us of the BBC. I make a plea for

realism in our talks and news, and a determination to keep our people informed of developments at home and abroad, developments which concern them vitally, using that world in its literal sense.
was widely circulated in the BBC. If it had been slow the implications of the Austrian crisis, this time the response was swift. In the midst of the crisis the BBCs handling of it was discussed at Programme Board on 29 September. The matters raised were largely administrative and technical-including the allegation that the recording of Chamberlains speech at Heston, on his return from Godesburg, had been played at too fast a speed so altering the pitch, and hence the impression, of his voice. At the next meeting (6 October) the implications of the crisis were beginning to sink in. After noting that the Foreign Office had expressed high appreciation of the work of the news department, the next matter raised-by Coatman-was that of government control. On this matter Nicolls stated that there was a clear distinction between interference with broadcasting by the Government on its own behalf, of which there had been none during the crisis, and advice from the Foreign Office on matters affecting the national interest, which would have to be sought by the BBC if it were not offered in the first place. There was some discussion as to whether there had been enough topical talks on the factors leading up to the crisis and the personalities involved, and Maconachie stated there had been a talk on Czechoslovakia and a brief portrait of Dr Benes (the Czech Prime Minister). Other matters were dealt with and finally it was agreed that, in the wake of events, there should be a series of talks on After the Crisis in which the first speakers would be ordinary people describing their reactions, and the later ones would be authorative speakers answering the points they had made. It was hoped that the series would not be so edited, especially as regards politics, as to make them uninteresting (PB minute 167, 13 October). Next day, at the enlarged Control Board (for Regional Directors), under a minute headed Broadcasting in time of War, it was agreed

Coatmans memorandum

to

respond

to

18

that the lessons of the crisis should be recorded and present programme arrangements should be revised where necessary and given wider publicity. The issue was discussed at length again at Programme Board (3 November). It was agreed that the value of a post mortem would be greatly enhanced if it led to a definition of policy in advance of the next crisis. This was deferred until the next meeting (17 November) when the whole question of the BBCs relationship with government was reviewed. It was resolved that the BBC (1) neither could nor should adopt an editorial policy of its own; (2) should endeavour to ventilate informed opinion even though critical of the government, balanced with the official view; (3) should anticipate events as far as possible and try to give listeners the necessary background information before matters became so critical that there was opposition to their being treated at all; (4) should, during a crisis, broadcast more topical material (this, Nicolls said, would be met to a considerable extent by the current plan to establish BBC correspondents in European capitals); (5) should treat current events more regularly and in greater detail than at present, possibly by a general extension of news. The immediate response of Maconachie and the Talks Department was to run a symposium along the lines suggested by the Programme Board. Everyman and the Crisis (commenced November 1938) though it may have helped in restoring the nations morale, did little to add to the nations political education as to the real implications of Munich (cf. Cardiff 1980: 45). The change in the BBCs attitude showed most markedly in the activities of the News Department from November onwards. There efforts were made immediately to act upon the discussions and resolutions of Programme Board, whose effect was to strengthen Clarks belief that the job of the Department was to go on plugging away at the truth, no matter how horrible. His request for more staff, and particularly for foreign correspondents, was accepted as an imperative necessity (CM, 3 March 1939). Meanwhile efforts had been made to get what staff there were to the European trouble spots in the immediate wake of the crisis. Murray left for Prague on 1 October, and a week later Dimbleby and the recording van headed in the same direction (CB, 4 October). A change in the tenor of news was soon discerned. In November Tallents received a private letter-or at any rate a very semi-official one-from A. P. Ryan in the Offices of the Cabinet, complaining of the tendentious nature of the news bulletins and the predominance of commentators who in the past were of a pacifist nature but had lately become ultra-bellicose. Ryan observed that the news while perhaps containing nothing to which specific objection could be taken, has managed to convey a sort of leaning in one direction (cf. WAC R41 / 132 / 1). By early 1939 listeners had become accustomed to hearing nightly in the news actual recordings of fiery foreign dictators making their speeches. And what was more, according to Mr F. Washington Flatt, the BBC makes a point of recording the most vehement part of the speech, which of course is greeted with wild cheering.... Is it that they are trying to foment fear and turmoil in the minds of English listeners? (letter to The Times 29 March 1939). This correspondent was a month at least behind the times, for during the whole of February there had been a long and extraordinary correspondence in that newspaper about the tenor of BBC
news.

began on 2 February with a Peterborough) complaining that:

It

letter from Mrs E. Hester

. j
,...,
(

Blagden (The Palace,

19
Some of us ordinary citizens are troubled and perplexed that while our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary do all in their power to bring about friendly cooperation between this country and the peoples of Germany and Italy, we are subjected every evening in BBC news bulletins to hearing only those words from abroad which must aggravate ill feelings and exasperate tired minds, so that nightly we can go to bed more certain that war must come?

for there followed

Mrs Blagden wanted to know if something could be done to rectify this. Her letter struck some deeply responsive chord in the readership of The Times

an avalanche of letters, of which those published were but a in which the critics far outnumbered the contented (The Timers leader, 25 fraction, One February 1939). early correspondent put it mildly: Everybody must have been filled with admiration for the restraint shown by the BBC at the time of the crisis, but since then it does seem inclined to yield to the temptation to dramatise the news (W. G. Odger, 9 February). Others were less inhibited: alarmist, emotional, sensationalist, rumour-mongering, giving folk the jitters, one-sided (every item tending to place the Fascist nations in an unfavourable light), left-wing.... These were the charges endlessly repeated, with evidence drawn in as support from previous occasions. It did not escape the memory of some correspondents that it has been exactly the same in the Spanish Civil War; the atrocities on Francos side were always given prominence in the bulletins while nothing was said about Republican outrages (cf. WAC Press Cuttings, News / 1939,

P370).

popular press soon weighed in : The fat boys of the BBC who try to make are under fire. They are the news announcers who have been the sending country to bed at night convinced of immediate catastrophe. Now they are being criticised and it is right and proper they should be, for the manner and substance of much of the news broadcast is deplorable.... Thus, and much more, Daily Mail (15 February). Soon after this commotion had died down there was another, as the press splashed a spate of BBC Suicides said to have been caused by hearing bad news on the wireless (cf. Nottingham Journal, 15 April). There were no reported cases of newspaper suicides. The BBC was not deterred, and the News Department was not without one or
The
our

flesh creep

supporters. Professor V. G. Childe, who held the Chair of Prehistoric Archeology at Edinburgh University (and who had crossed swords with the BBC on a previous occasion) wrote to congratulate the Corporation on its objective news: The present correspondence in The Times is the best testimony to your success in separating news from propaganda. Personally I confess I find the decipherment of the ruling oligarchys tortuous aims, by applying to the skilfully selected halftruths in The Times the methods of criticism of ancient authors taught at Oxford, a better guide to the conduct of my own affairs than any attempt to discover what is really happening. This latest press ramp was discussed, with Clark present for the News Room, at the enlarged Control Board which agreed that it was not the job of the BBC to send people comfortably to bed. The fact that an item of BBC news did not appear next day in a particular listeners pet newspaper was not a reflection on its authenticity (Enlarged CB, 3 March, minute 136).
two

Bringing

Churchill

to

the

microphone

While all this was going on attempts to establish an agreed procedure on political talks of the category (A) variety had been resumed. These had been postponed

20

when the Munich crisis blew in, but by the beginning of 1939 senior officials in the BBC had returned once again to the task of rolling this particular stone uphill. The Board of Governors, and the BBC administrators, with a newfound resolution, began to take a firmer line. The Corporation was no longer an appeaser, though its efforts to break the silence were again eventually to be contained. In negotiations from the end of 1938 through to the summer of 1939 continuous efforts were made both to bring the opponents of appeasement to the microphone (Churchill and Eden above all), and to mobilize public opinion to an awareness of the inevitability of the European war. Both are evidence of that new found determination, in the aftermath of Munich, to play fair with the British people. In October 1938 Churchill had broadcast from London to America a powerful and sustained attack on government policy, appealing for American support as the lights in Europe went out (full text in Tbe Times, 17 October). The following week Control Board, noting that Halifax had agreed to broadcast to America after Churchill (to correct him of course), proposed that it might be desirable to get a talks series along the same lines by government and opposition speakers for the BBC National Programme. Frederick Ogilvie (the new Director General) agreed to take the matter up with Sir Horace Wilson, Chamberlains faithful civil servant (qv. Mowat 1968: 593). The time was scarcely opportune however owing to the preoccupations of Whitehall, and further attempts to arrange political talks were deferred until the new year. On 1 January 1939 Ogilvie wrote to Captain Margesson (Conservative Chief Whip) saying that he was most anxious to straighten out arrangements for political broadcasting, and asking for a meeting at his earliest convenience. After a meeting with Margesson (18 January) a new initiative began, though with foreign policy definitely excluded in the meantime. What was now accepted in principle by the parties were regular category (A) broadcasts on domestic issues by front bench spokesmen. Ogilvie contacted the Labour Party for suggestions and Attlee proposed a debate on Problems of Old Age Pensions (Attlee to Ogilvie, 15 February), which was accepted by the other parties. The news of regular radio discussions on political issues by the parties was publicized in the newspapers. This prompted Churchill to write to Ogilvie asking if some provision ought not to be made for public men who have held high office, and who are not likely to be chosen as spokesmen of their parties. Churchill gave a list of those who, like himself, were unlikely candidates for the microphone under the present arrangement. They included Eden, Duff Cooper, Lord Cecil, Amery, Lloyd George, Stafford Cripps and Lansbury. Yet it may be thought that they have a contribution to make which would be of value, and that large numbers of your listeners would like to hear what they have to say. The idea that no public men not nominated by party Whips should be allowed to speak on radio is not defensible in public policy (Churchill to Ogilvie 21 February). Ogilvie replied in most conciliatory and friendly terms. The BBC had long been anxious to increase its facilities for political broadcasting, and it seemed best at first to ask the parties to choose the subjects and the speakers. But, he went on, we are closely considering further stages in the development of political broadcasting, including the one which you are good enough to outline (Ogilvie to Churchill, 24 February).
.
,

~ ~.

21

Closing the door on the anti-appeasers What Ogilvie now tried to establish was the right to discuss, at the microphone, issues over which the parties were internally divided. Although the object of this exercise would be to bring Churchill and Eden to the microphone on their differences with their party over foreign policy, Ogilvie began his campaign more subtly. It would be useless to tackle the Conservative Party head on, so he started with the marginally easier option of persuading the Labour Party to air some of its differences on radio. The pretext having been established, the next move would be in the direction of the Government. Accordingly Ogilvie wrote to Attlee inquiring if he, or anyone else, might be willing to take part in a microphone debate with Sir Stafford Cripps. Cripps, who figured in Churchills little list of party offenders, had been seriously at odds with the Labour leadership for some years. He was well to the left of the Party, and had been prominent in the Popular Fronts Unity Campaign, organized in 1937 by the Socialist League, the Communist Party and the Independent Labour Party-all of whom had been anathematised by the Labour Party (cf. Mowat 1968: 581-582). In January 1939 Cripps had reactivated the Popular Front campaign, which was rejected again by the Labour Partys National Executive. Cripps persisted however and was expelled from the Party for his pains (Mowat 1968: 636). Thus Ogilvies proposal was not only highly topical and controversial, but probed as well the Partys divided attitude to the most forbidden of subjects-foreign policy. Attlee however sent the proposal smartly packing:
It would be setting an entirely new precedent in political broadcasting to initiate discussions on domestic differences between members or ex-members of the same political party No such suggestion has been made, as far as I know, in the cases of MR EDEN or MR DUFF COOPER who have differed with the Conservative Party on the issue of foreign policy. I think you will find that similarly the various occasions on which MR CHURCHILL, during recent years, has differed from the Government have not been made occasions for such a debate.

political broadcasting had always been confined to the issue between recognized parties. The difficulty of admitting fortuitous collections of individuals had, always been recognised as opening the door very wide to all kinds of cranks (Attlee to Ogilvie, 16 March). He and his colleagues would not entertain the idea. Ogilvie replied in quiet despair that the way of broadcasting is hard!. He reminded Attlee how hard the BBC had tried to open up political debate on radio. He hoped Attlee did not think that the new arrangement was the sum total of what could or should be done. He replied that the line between cranks and non-cranks (Attlees terms, not his) might be
He
went on to

say that

discussion of

matters at

difficult to draw, but it was one which it was the business of the BBC to face. He said that there was a general feeling in the BBC that the public demand occasionally to hear a Churchill, a Lloyd George, a Lansbury or a Cripps, was by no means unreasonable. He hoped to be able to approach Attlee and the other leaders when the times were a little rosier. In the meantime, he concluded, May I ask you to extend your sympathy to the BBC for its present inability, through no fault of its own, adequately to discharge what it believes to be its duty to listeners and to the country (Ogilvie to Attlee, 19 March). As that door closed the BBC was trying another way in. At a Controllers Meeting held on 10 March (cf. minute 120) the Chairman of the Governors (R. C. Norman) was asked to contact the Post Master General about the possibility of a debate on

22

Eden and Churchills request for a wider form of National Government. Before he did so the crux of the matter was raised in the Commons (27 March) by Sir Richard Acland, a Liberal MP and another prominent supporter of the Popular Front. Acland raised a question which he had already tried to put twice before, and which had been twice postponed for the convenience of the Government. At just after eleven oclock that night he was able at last to put the question which only the Prime Minister can answer. Why is he entitled to state (on radio) his views of foreign affairs when he chooses, and why is no other leader entitled, on any occasion, to make any reply? Chamberlain left the answer to his Post Master General, Major G. C. Tryon. This provided Norman with the pretext for raising the matter, and he wrote to Tryon on 5 April. Tryon, using the classic ploy of all Post Masters General when awkward questions on broadcasting were raised in the House, had replied that the question as to who should broadcast was a matter for the Governors of the BBC to decide. This, said Norman, was of course the true constitutional doctrine to which he unreservedly adhered. However, he found himself wondering whether the practice which has grown up with regard to political broadcasting does really accord with this doctrine. Normans letter was very tactful, and it roared like any sucking dove. But it did clearly make the critical points. There were difficulties, he granted, arising out of the BBCs policy of balanced controversy. The Prime Minister of the day, whatever his political colour, was more than a party leader and was entitled to speak sometimes as the leader of the nation. So the BBC had gladly allowed Mr Chamberlain to make a number of broadcasts in the past few months, and had withheld the right of reply though not infrequently the speeches included passages of a party nature. It was a good thing that, after years of trying, the BBC had been able at least to arrange broadcast debates on Old Age Pensions and Municipal Trading. Encouraging though this was as a start, no-one could claim that these were the questions on which the mind of the public was concentrated, or that any of the issues which had been before the public for many months had been adequately discussed on the air. They were issues frequently debated in Parliament and canvassed daily in the press; but the vast audience of thirty million who listened to the wireless were deprived of any opportunity of getting, through the unrivalled instrument which the BBC controlled, such an education in the most vital controversial questions as was in the sole power of broadcasting to offer. Acland was, said Norman, uncomfortably near the truth in saying that who should speak at the microphone was in the hands of the Prime Minister. And matters were made worse by the fact that although many prominent politicians outside the Government had spoken over the air to the United States, they remained unheard in this country-a fact which had naturally exposed the BBC to much criticism. It could not be right that the British people, at such a time as this, had no chance to hear statesmen of the standing of Churchill, Lloyd George or Eden. It was essential that they, along with leading members of the government, should come to the microphone. I gravely doubt, said Norman, whether we are doing our duty and exercising properly the discretion which, as you truly say, lies with us under the Charter. Norman ended by noting that though he was shortly to lay down his chairmanship, he had not wanted to depart without registering his sense of the urgency of the matter, and hoped that Tryon would discuss the whole question with the new Chairman. Tryons reply was a rude as it was short. He thanked Norman for his views and was glad to have them before he departed (see

23

WAC R34 / 5 34 / 3 for this correspondence with Churchill, Attlee and Tryon and for other details). This finally closed the door on these efforts to bring the opponents of appeasement to the microphone. The BBC had one more cast of the dice. It might yet try to mobilize public opinion to prepare for war and in so doing smuggle in Churchill and Eden as speakers. This it tried to do in those last few months before September 1939.

Preparing the

nation for

war

Back in December 1938 the Ministry of Labour had contacted Sir Stephen Tallents (in charge of Public Relations for the BBC) over its preparations for a general publicity campaign to launch its new National Service scheme. In the first few months of 1939 the Whitehall and military apparatuses moved ponderously into action and the News Department found itself up to its neck in Army propaganda schemes and the plans of the War Office which, as Richard Dimbleby confided to Donald Boyd, are more or less of a compulsory nature as far as we are concerned. By Easter the campaign was well and truly bogged down through the lack of any coordinated government plans or any established means of liaison between Whitehall, the army and the BBC. At the end of April Charles Siepmann (now Director of Programme Planning) wrote to advise Basil Nicolls that there was considerable puzzlement and anxiety in Broadcasting House at the lack of any clearly emerging policy. Gielgud and the others were sick, he said, of half measures and a policy which seemed to vacillate between appeasement and half-hearted propaganda. Siepmann summed up the general feeling that if we wait upon the Government the immense influence of broadcasting for mobilising public opinion and a proper appreciation of our present state, recruitment and National Service will all be deferred until the bombs are dropping (Siepmann to Nicolls, 20 April. See WAC R34/486 from which the

following account is compiled). Siepmann suggested, with respect, that the BBC should take the initiative and at once devote a portion of the daily programme schedule to giving effect to a concerted scheme of professional propaganda. He wanted every section of the community to be made aware of its particular danger; to launch a major campaign for army recruitment, ARP and local emergency services; to exploit the appeal of Churchill and Eden, the illustrative resources of feature and educative possibilities of talks as a spearhead for the exercise. It would need the co-operation of Government departments, but the BBC must take the lead. This recommendation was immediately accepted and over the next six weeks the BBC went ahead with its own preparations for a major campaign on the themes of ARP and National Service. It was hampered by fairly continuous examples of Whitehall inefficiency and stupidity in banning items for broadcasting when they were obviously of urgent public interest (Whitehall Inefficiency, Nicolls to Graves, 10 May for detailed examples). In spite of this the BBC moved ahead. Lindsay Wellington grappled with plans for a big talks series to persuade the country to support the recruitment drive. His jotted notes reveal an almost equal concern to persuade the government of the gravity of the situation, with the added worry that to initiate a big campaign was worse than useless if the administrative machinery for dealing with a big influx of recruits was not in existence. Wellington began with the assumption that a great many people still did not believe that

24

Britain was on the brink of war and that until they understood that this was so they would be unwilling to volunteer for national service. A statement of the real situation and the necessary objectives, coupled with a direct appeal for concrete action was the indispensable first step. Two popular figures had scarcely been heard on radio-Eden and Churchill. Let them speak on the situation generally (which will ensure a large radio audience) on condition that they appeal for recruits for National Service. Add to this broadcasts on the requirements of the four services which need recruits by men already organizing and serving in them (basis come and help instead of go and help). He then sketched out a sequence of such appeals, starting with Eden and Churchill, spread out over successive days of one week. At the same time Laurence Gilliam was drafting detailed proposals for a features series to support The BBC Recruiting Drive. The series would recreate the events leading to Munich, the crisis itself and its implications through to the present. It would combine news bulletins, public speeches, foreign press and radio bulletins with public reactions to these events drawn from Everyman and the Cri.ri.r, data from the Institute of Public Opinion and from Mass Observation reports. It might have been brilliant had it ever been done. By the end of May detailed plans had been drawn up for a two week campaign which the BBC wanted to launch between 18 June and 1 July. The short list of speakers had been prepared: the leaders of the three parties, and a sample drawn from Baldwin, Churchill, Lord Derby, Morrison, Gracie Fields (for women recruits), Lloyd George, Dorman Smith, Eden, Halifax and Anderson. Everything was ready. Only the official green light was needed. On 31 May Nicolls wrote to the Ministry of Labour enclosing the preliminary draft of the scheme. He asked the Ministry to give it a general blessing on behalf of the Government, and to two aspects of it in particular. The BBC wanted to be able to tell its speakers that the scheme had general Government approval, and that the suggested guidelines they should take in their talks had been drawn up in consultation with the Ministry of Labour. Secondly if the BBC was to make this big effort, it would be useless unless it really could go all out to convince the country, without necessarily being very alarmist, that the need was urgent and the crisis still remained. Nicolls pointed out that time was of the essence-speakers needed to be recruited, and if the plan was to make the Radio Times it must be with the printers within a week at the latest. On 5 June there was a meeting at the Ministry of Labour between the department, the Lord Privy Seals Office and Nicolls and Maconachie of the BBC. Before the meeting started Nicolls was told that the Ministry of Labour was very keen on the idea but there were grave doubts about the attitude of the Lord Privy Seals Office which had a General Policy control over the Ministry of Labour. Mr S S. H. Wood then spoke for the Lord Privy Seal who was very grateful for the BBCs a He but who rather felt it was a steam hammer to crack nut. scheme, taking objected to having in all the big guns-Churchill, Lloyd George, etc.-since it would make people think that the Government was in a hole and must have mismanaged its recruiting campaign in the past. The truth was that the present campaign was the most phenomenally successful campaign ever launched in Britain. He added that the Lord Privy Seal objected to this crisis programme as being likely to give people the idea that they might be involved in a war in a few months time-by, say, September!
=

25

Reading between the lines Nicolls inferred that the objections to the scheme were clearly (a) Party Political (i.e. jealousy of the Churchills and Lloyd Georges pulling the irons out of the fire), and (b) Appeasement or some shade of it (i.e. the doctrine that if we were to be prepared, the objective must not be obtained at the expense of saying that Germany might go to war). At one point a Ministry of Labour official stated that the department only expected to get 1 ~0, 000 recruits out of a target of half a million set for 2 July. Wood replied that this was better than alarming people. Nicolls had no option but to withdraw all the major ingredients of the scheme. There was a good deal of further discussion amongst the government representatives at the other end of the room, much of which was
inaudible to Maconachie. Nicolls reassured him afterwards that he hadnt missed much (cf. this account with Briggs, 1965: 657-8). So the BBCs last effort was squashed, like all preceding ones. Nicolls sent round a memorandum (6 June) to all concerned telling them of his very great disappointment that the plans, due to political or other extraneous motives of the Government, would have to be very considerably watered down. Nearly all the features were cancelled, so too were the elder statesmen talks, along with most of the What can I do? talks planned to advise ordinary citizens on ARP and so on. Nicolls was angered at the waste of time and effort that staff had been involved in. He was now no longer prepared to put the BBC to any great expense or inconvenience on behalf of a Government who saw no need for urgency. The summer of 1939 was glorious. In July and August the BBC did all the things it usually did at that time of year; there was plenty of tennis, cricket and golf, there were the usual August Bank Holiday specials. There were OB relays from the seaside. Features did a programme on Oxford-Undergraduate Summer (produced by Stephen Potter)-from its backwaters to its common rooms. John Betjeman talked about How to look at books. North Region launched a new series called Mr Mike Walks In, in which the microphone turned the audience into broadcasters by calling on them informally in their own homes. John Pudney produced a Modern Pastoral about the coming of electricity to a remote Essex village, and J. B. Priestly began reading in instalments his new novel Let the People Sing before it was published. There were new quiz programmes and parlour games-Noahs Ark, All in Bee and For Amusement Only. The Radio Times carried details of what the Autumn had in store for listeners by way of talks, music and entertainment. At last this hypnotic trance-as if warm days should never cease-was broken. On 3 September Neville Chamberlain came to the microphone which he had so jealously preserved as his own exclusive property to announce to the nation that Britain was officially at war with Germany.
z

Note

on

Sources
comes

Most of the material in this article

from the BBC Written Archive Centre (WAC), Cavertham,

Reading. Sources are referenced by their file numbers. Newspaper quotes are from their extensive Press Cuttings Collection which is boxed chronologically and according to subject matter (e.g. News 1936). Broadcast Policy Paper 5 (BP5) on the Broadcasting of Controversial Matter, is particularly useful. Written internally in 1942 at the request of the BBC directorate, it is a detailed and reliable account of relationships between the BBC, governments and parties from the early days to the first year of the war. Its purpose was to brief the Director General as he prepared to retrieve the political independence of the Corporation from government control at the end of the war.

26

Bibliography
BRANSON, N and HEINEMANN, M (1973). Britain in the Nineteen-Thirties, Panther BRIGGS, A (1965). The Hirtory of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, vol. II, The

Golden

Age of

aspects of the evolution of style in radio talk 19281939, Media Culture and Society, vol. 2, no. 1 CURRAN, C (1979). A Seamless Robe, Collins DIMBLEBY, D (1975). Richard Dimbleby, Hodder and Stoughton HAWORTH, B (1981). The British Broadcasting Corporation, Nazi Germany and the Foreign Office, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 1, no. 1 The History of the Times , vol. 4, Times Publishing Co., 1952 MOWATT, C L (1968). Britain Between the Wars, Methuen, University Paperback POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC PLANNING (1938). Report on the Press RUST, W (1949). The Story of the Daily Worker, Peoples Press STUART C (1975). The Reith Diaries, Collins

Wireless, OUP BRIGGS, A (1979). Governing the BBC, BBC CARDIFF, D (1980). The Serious and the Popular: