Jamming Elsewhere

For the first time since 1980, the Soviet Union has stopped jamming Voice of America broadcasts in Russian and eight other Soviet languages. It’s a welcome move. Unfortunately, however, what the Kremlin offered with one hand it took away with the other: Two jamming transmitters previously used against the Voice are now being employed in intensified efforts to jam programs from two other U.S. overseas broadcasting services.

English-language broadcasts by VOA, the British Broadcasting Corp. and other foreign information services have generally been let alone. For years, however, the Soviet government has carried on a massive, off-and-on effort to blot out foreign broadcasts in the major languages spoken by the Soviet Union’s diverse ethnic groups. This despite the Soviet Union’s signature on the 1975 Helsinki accord which banned such interference.

British experts estimate that jamming costs Moscow $1.2 billion a year--more than all Western governments combined spend to broadcast the programs in the first place. When jamming eases in one direction, it is usually intensified in another. For example, when jamming of the BBC stopped last January, the transmitters previously used for that purpose were redirected at Deutsche Welle, the West German version of VOA, and the U.S.-run Radio Liberty.

That pattern is being repeated. Two jamming transmitters previously targeted on the Voice were quickly put to work intensifying the jamming of Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe, which specialize in broadcasting news of developments within the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in competition with the controlled Soviet media.

There is no question that under Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost , or greater openness, the Soviet people are being allowed greater though still limited access to information that is at odds with the party line. Maybe, in time, jamming of RL and RFE will be halted, too. As of now, however, the definition of news that can be entrusted to Soviet citizens will continue to be made solely by the Kremlin.