Listening to Cairo: British radio monitoring and intelligence gathering, c. 1953-1967

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines the BBC’s radio monitoring service, its relationship with Whitehall, and the CIA’s Foreign Broadcasting Information Service (FBIS). Radio monitoring was invaluable for analysing broadcasting in states, such as in Egypt, where the media became state controlled. Listening to radio broadcasts provided invaluable open-source intelligence concerning internal economic and political developments that might have been difficult to collect by more orthodox mechanisms. This article focuses on Anglo-American monitoring of Egyptian ‘political’ broadcasts by Sawt al-Arab (Voice of the Arabs) that were widely listened to across the Middle East and East Africa. Egyptian transmissions were characterised by their hostility to Britain’s allies and interests in Iraq, Jordan, and the Persian Gulf, which explains why they were examined in detail by the Joint Intelligence Committee. The evidence shows radio monitoring reports were invaluable for officials on the ground and in Whitehall, but the impact of intelligence analysis of Egypt’s intentions on high level decision making in Whitehall is contestable.