Begin forwarded message:
From: Salvatore Scifo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: October 4, 2008 10:50:24 AM EDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [RADIO-STUDIES] BBC's dilemma over who would announce a
nuclear attack (The Independent, 3 Oct 08)
Reply-To: Salvatore Scifo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Source:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/bbcs-dilemma-over-who-would-announce-a-nuclear-attack-949703.html
BBC's dilemma over who would announce a nuclear attack
By Cahal Milmo
Friday, 3 October 2008
'Whitehall was obsessed as much with the voice that would be used to
announce Armageddon as it was with protecting what was left of the
British population'
"This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been
attacked with nuclear weapons." In the normally prosaic world of
public safety announcements, they were probably the two most
chilling sentences ever recorded in readiness for release across
Britain's airwaves.
But secret documents released today, revealing for the first time
the full text of the warning to be broadcast by the BBC in the event
of a nuclear war, show that Whitehall was obsessed as much with the
voice that would be used to announce Armageddon as it was with
protecting what was left of the British population.
Senior civil servants in charge of drawing up the pre-recorded radio
announcement became concerned that only a recognisable broadcaster
should be used for fear that an unfamiliar voice would create the
impression that Auntie had been "obliterated".
The quandary was deepened when it emerged that the only BBC employee
to have been given the appropriate security clearance for the
project was a relatively unknown retired newsreader called Hugh
Searight. None of the BBC's star broadcasters – Angela Rippon,
Michael Parkinson, Frank Bough or Richard Baker – were judged to
have been checked to the required level. The apocalyptic tussle
between the Beeb and three Whitehall departments in 1973 and 1974 is
detailed in documents released at the National Archives in Kew, west
London.
In one memo from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, a
senior manager suggests an "authoritative Voice of the BBC" was
required for the advent of nuclear destruction.
The memo said: "The reassurance that the 'BBC is still there' would
not be gleaned from a recorded announcement by an unfamiliar voice.
Indeed, if an unfamiliar voice repeats the same announcement, hour
after hour... listeners may begin to suspect they are listening to a
machine... and that perhaps the BBC has been obliterated."
The debate arose from a Cabinet Office review of procedures to be
followed in the aftermath of a nuclear attack, with 12 regions set
up with an underground facility ready to play the announcement on a
pre-arranged radio frequency.
The documents offer no clues as to who was chosen to make the
recording but experts on Britain's nuclear war preparations say it
almost certainly went ahead. Dr Kristan Stoddart, of the Mountbatten
Centre for International Studies at Southampton University, said:
"The whole enterprise seems macabre but the one thing that the
British government ensured was done very well was the contingency
planning for the aftermath of a nuclear attack."
This is an edited transcript of the script to be used after a
nuclear attack:
This is the Wartime Broadcasting Service. This country has been
attacked with nuclear weapons. The number of casualties and the
extent of the damage are not yet known. Stay tuned to this
wavelength, stay calm and stay in your own homes. Radioactive
fallout is many times more dangerous if you are directly exposed to
it in the open. Roofs and walls offer substantial protection. Make
sure gas and other fuel supplies are turned off and all fires are
extinguished. You should refill all your containers for drinking
water after any fires have been put out, because the mains supply
may not be available for long. Until you are told that lavatories
may be used again, other toilet arrangements must be made. Water
means life. Don't waste it. Ration your food supply, because it may
have to last for 14 days or more. If you live in an area where a
fallout warning has been given, stay in your fallout room. When the
immediate danger has passed, sirens will sound a steady note. The
"all clear" message will also be given on this wavelength. Do not go
outside the house. Radioactive fallout can kill. We shall repeat
this broadcast in two hours' time. Stay tuned to this wavelength,
but switch your radios off now to save your batteries until we come
on the air again.
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