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Inventory of the United States Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service Miscellaneous Records
58011
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Title: United States Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service miscellaneous records
Dates: 1941-1946
Collection Number: 58011
Creator: United States. Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service.
Collection Size:
1 manuscript box, 1,077 phonorecords
(108.1 linear feet)
Repository:
Hoover Institution Archives .
Stanford, California 94305-6010
Abstract: Sound recordings of foreign radio broadcasts, and translations of transcripts of Chinese communist broadcasts from Yenan,
China.
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Archives
Languages:
English
Collection is open for research.
The Hoover Institution Archives only allows access to
copies of audiovisual items. To listen to sound recordings or to view videos or films during your visit, please contact the Archives
at least two working days before your arrival. We will then advise you of the accessibility of the material you wish to see
or hear. Please note that not all audiovisual material is immediately accessible.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Archives.
[Identification of item], United States Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service miscellaneous records, [Box number, if appropriate],
Hoover Institution Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 1958.
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. To determine if this has occurred, find
the collection in Stanford University's online catalog at
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/ . Materials have been added to the collection if the number of boxes listed in the online catalog is larger than the number
of boxes listed in this finding aid.
This service was established by the U.S. government as the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service, a unit within the Federal
Communications Commission, in February 1941. It recorded, translated, analyzed, and reported to other agencies of the U.S.
government on broadcasts of foreign origin. It set up listening posts at Silver Hill, Maryland; London; San Francisco; Portland,
Oregon; Kingsville, Texas; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and other places to intercept broadcasts of foreign news, intelligence,
or propaganda emanating from authorized stations and clandestine transmitters in belligerent, occupied, and neutral countries.
At the listening posts, translations of the intercepted broadcasts were made and immediately teletyped or cabled to Washington
headquarters. Some broadcasts were also recorded on discs. At Washington, incoming wires and transcriptions were edited and
the more significant parts, or the full texts, were teletyped to the government agencies that were waging war on the military,
diplomatic, and propaganda fronts. Special interpretations and daily and weekly summaries were prepared at headquarters and
distributed to appropriate government agencies and officials.
Through cooperative arrangements with the Office of War Information, the British Ministry of Information, and the British
Broadcasting Corporation, editors of the service were assigned to overseas posts maintained by those agencies to select material
valuable for transmission to Washington. Editors and monitors of the service acted as part of the Army Psychological Warfare
Branch in North Africa when Allied troops were landed there in 1943.
On December 30, 1945, the service was transferred to the War Department, and in 1946 the functions of the service were transferred
to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Source: National Archives and Records Service.
Federal Records of World War II. Vol. 1,
Civilian Agencies. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1950.
Scope and Content of Collection
Sound recordings of foreign radio broadcasts, and translations of transcripts of Chinese communist broadcasts from Yenan,
China.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Propaganda, Communist--China.
Radio broadcasting.
World War, 1939-1945--China.
World War, 1939-1945--Propaganda.
Phonorecords.