Radio Enoch: the station you love to hate
Radio Enoch (see Lobster 46) was one of a number of Free Radio stations operating illegally during the 1960s and 1970s. Unlike its more pop music oriented contemporaries, however, Radio Enoch’s output consisted solely of right wing political propaganda, albeit with a musical background. (1)
Its origins lie with a group called People Against Marxism, which, in July 1978, set up Two Spires Radio, rejoicing in the slogan ‘The Station You Love to Hate’. Based at Leamington Spa, the station’s signal only covered the West Midlands. Over the next few months plans were made to utilise stronger short wave frequencies and to create a more instantly recognisable name. Thus, on the morning of 24 December 1978, Two Spires Radio was transformed into Radio Enoch and made its first short wave broadcast with the following announcement:
‘Good Morning Listeners. Good Morning to you patriots. You are tuned to the right wing wireless station Radio Enoch broadcasting from a secret location somewhere in England. Radio Enoch is operated by the right-wing pressure organisation People Against Marxism. Unlike the overtly Socialist British Broadcasting Corporation and Independent Broadcasting Authority, our broadcasts are free from the influence of Communist and Socialist Trade Union editorial modification. Our fight is a fight against Socialist advancement. Never before have the British people had to fight as hard as we must fight now to rid Britain of this evil and detestable philosophy, the philosophy of Marxist Socialism. Let us have some true Conservatism now.’
Just to make sure there were no misunderstandings a list of Radio Enoch’s aims was proclaimed:
- A firm stand against continued immigration
- Voluntary re-emigration
- Guest worker status for illegal immigrants
- Support for the governments of Rhodesia, South Africa & Namibia
- Withdrawal from the Common Market
- Restoration of British National Sovereignty
The programme ended with the announcement, ‘There’s no pulling the plug on Radio Enoch.’ (2)
To ensure that the plug wasn’t pulled, either by the Home Office or the Department of Trade and Industry, Radio Enoch kept its transmitter constantly on the move. Locations included a council flat in Tile Hill, Coventry; a farm near Shrewsbury; a doctor’s clinic in Portsmouth; a sub post office in inner London; a country residence in Kent; and several farms in the Midlands. (3) Although the Government failed to stop Radio Enoch, other Free Radio stations, feeling their own existence to be threatened, did their best to jam its broadcasts. They did have some success, occasionally destroying ‘…the major portion of the signal, rendering it virtually indistinguishable to the listener.’ (4) The people behind Radio Enoch were never fully identified. A contact address in Cleveland was given during its second broadcast in January 1979, although its occupant denied any knowledge of the station’s activities, saying that he had used his home as a mailing address for various companies in the past and that he had no official links with Radio Enoch. (5) In a statement the station described itself as ‘…largely a one-man band operation…’ with ‘…five people [taking] care of the necessary organisation…’. It also acknowledged the vital co-operation of approximately 200 supporters, some of these being described as ‘prominent people’. Intriguingly, Radio Enoch’s opening greeting referred to its being operated by ‘…professional engineers and a group of right-wing politicians’. (6)
Enoch Powell denied any connection with the station, but its station manager admitted to The Observer that he was ‘basically a Conservative and had once stood unsuccessfully for election as a Conservative city councillor.'(7) There was some speculation that it was funded by the South African government, but this has never been proved. (8) It also appeared to have had links with the anti-immigration magazine, Choice, at some point using the magazine’s address as its own semi-official mailing address. (9)
Radio Enoch had a relatively short life, making its final appearance in June 1980. Its broadcasts were also short 30 minutes, one Sunday every month. Even so, it managed to voice support for a number of like-minded organisations the Monday Club, and the Campaign Against Naturalisation amongst others. (10) By 1980, however, ‘wet’ Conservatism had been replaced by Thatcherite Conservatism and whoever was behind Radio Enoch probably felt that its mission had been accomplished.
Not that Radio Enoch’s demise signalled the end of political Free Radio. Four years later, at the height of the Miners’ Strike, a pro-Arthur Scargill pirate radio station regularly disseminated the NUM Leader’s speeches from a location somewhere in Nottinghamshire, the heartland of the working miner. (11) Same medium, different message.
With thanks to Dr David Turner for providing much of the information for this item.
Filthy Rich
Congratulations to Tony Buckingham, the first ex-mercenary to make The Sunday Times Rich List (he’s worth £50m and comes in at number 777). Buckingham one of the founders of Executive Outcomes and later linked to Sandline International has now moved into diamond mining and oil exploration, helped no end by his previous dealings with the governments of Angola, Namibia, Congo and Uganda. What The Sunday Times failed to mention is that one of his main income sources, Heritage Oil (Buckingham founded the company and remains a majority shareholder), has been accused of encouraging and inciting intertribal unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help gain control of valuable oil reserves. (12)
Forty years on
Jefferson Morley endeavours to rehabilitate the reputation of John Whitten, the CIA’s head of covert operations for Mexico and Central America in 1963. Within hours of Kennedy’s assassination he was leading the CIA’s investigation into the event. Two weeks later he was removed. According to Morley this was at the behest of Richard Helms who felt that Whitten might reveal too much of the CIA’s awareness of Oswald prior to the shooting. It was not until 1996 that Whitten’s lengthy deposition (made under the pseudonym ‘John Scelso’) was finally declassified by the Assassination Records Review Board.(13)
Morley has also written at length about one George Joannides, a Miami based CIA officer, responsible for monitoring one of the anti-Castro Cuban groups with which Oswald purportedly clashed in the summer of 1963.(14)
The anniversary of the Miners’ Strike has inspired a slew of articles and reminiscences. One unlikely source is The New Law Journal in which a retired barrister, David Mason, recollects representing striking miners in court (‘…my clients were, without exception, decent men.’) He also recalls that ‘…certain senior circuit judges were unofficially allocated to miners’ cases for “consistency,”‘ a remark that casts some doubt on the concept of a fair trial.(15)
David Hart, unofficial adviser to Thatcher during the Miners’ Strike and generous supporter of working miners, has been said by some to have achieved literary immortality in David Peace’s fictional account of the events of 1984 (16) as the ‘compellingly creepy’ right-wing millionaire Stephen Sweet. In the real world, right-wing millionaire Hart is currently listed as a director of no less than twelve companies, one of which is intriguingly called the Centre for International Security and Strategic Analysis Limited. Formed in March 2003, I’ve yet to find out anything more about it.
Neocon news
Peter Bergen carries out a substantial demolition job on Laurie Mylroie, a former academic who has made it her life’s work to prove that Saddam Hussein was behind every anti-American terrorist attack of the past ten years. For ‘prove’ read ‘assert’, as her theories have been roundly dismissed by almost everybody with a knowledge of Middle East affairs. Unfortunately they were warmly welcomed by her fellow neo-conservatives in the White House and Pentagon. As Mylroie herself put it: ‘I take satisfaction that we went to war with Iraq and got rid of Saddam Hussein. The rest is details.’ (17)
Notes
1 A typical broadcast would include extracts from ‘…Winston Churchill speeches, a rendition of “Land of Hope and Glory”, popular music…, military-style music, drum-rolls, criticism of the “left-wing” social services in Coventry, “humorous” songs sending up homosexuals and trade unions,…pieces of racist diatribe, and (to end each broadcast) a spin of “God save the Queen”.” John Hind and Stephen Mosco Rebel Radio: the full story of British pirate radio, (London: Pluto Press, 1985) p 52
2 A detailed account of the first broadcast, together with a comprehensive history of the station, is provided by ‘C’, ‘This is Radio Enoch’: the story of Britain’s political clandestine [sic]. Part One: <www.cvni.net/radio/e2k/e2k06article.html>; Part Two: <www.cvni.net/radio/e2k/e2k11article.html>
3 Sterling Times , Radio Enoch <www.sterlingtimes.co.uk/ radio_enoch.htm>; Hind and Mosco, see note 1, p 50
4 Andrew Yoder Pirate radio stations: tuning in to underground broadcasts in the air and online (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002) p.288.
5 ‘C’ ‘This is Radio Enoch’… Part One. See note 2.
6 Hind and Mosco, see note 1, pp. 52, 50
7 He also admitted to being over 45 years old and an engineering designer by profession. The vast majority of Radio Enoch’s supporters were said to be Tories, with ‘one or two’ Liberals. Robin Lustig and Lenny Michaels, ‘Radio Enoch hits at “aliens”‘, The Observer 18 March 1979.
8 One Radio Enoch broadcast seemed to be lifted verbatim from a leaflet of the Christian League for Southern Africa. Searchlight no. 47, May 1979, p.15
9 Launched in 1973, Choice was mailed out to some 300 individuals by Lady Jane Birdwood. Following her 1998 Old Bailey trial for distributing racist material, control of the paper passed over to Martin Webster. Zoe Heller, ‘Hunting for the Far Right’, The Independent, 2 August 1992; Stuart Millar, ‘Lady Birdwood’s failing memory brings early end to racism trial’, The Guardian, 20 January 1998.
10 But not the National Front. ‘The National Front’s policies are far too naïve, inflexible and likely to get little support. We do not like the National Front one little bit at all.’ The pre-Thatcher Conservative Party was also considered ‘wet’. Hind and Mosco, see note 1, p. 54.
11Dennis Barker, ‘Voice of Arthur blights the air: political pirate radio in Nottingham’, The Guardian, 22 August 1984.
12 Philip Beresford, ‘The Sunday Times Rich List 2004’, The Sunday Times, 18 April 2004; Paul Cowan, ‘Oil firm denies fuelling war’, Edmonton Sun, 13 June 2003; David Pratt , ‘Congo starvation, execution, slavery…..how can the world shy away from one of the deadliest wars yet?’ The Sunday Herald, 30 November 2003.
13 Jefferson Morley , ‘The Good spy: how the quashing of an honest investigator led to 40 years of JFK conspiracy theories’, Washington Monthly, 35 (12) (December 2003), pp. 40-59. On-line at <www. washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.morley.html>
The Whitten/’Scelso’ testimony can be found at <www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/secclass/pdf/Scelso_5-16-78.pdf>
14 Jefferson Morley, ‘Revelation 1963: for nearly four decades the CIA has kept secret the identity of a Miami agent who may have known too much too early about Lee Harvey Oswald’, Miami New Times, 12 April 2001.
15 David Mason, ‘The Miners’ strike 20 years on’, New Law Journal, 154 (7123) (9 April 2004), p.51
16 David Peace, GB84, (London: Faber and Faber, 2004). See Peace’s interview with Mike Marqusee for further background about the Hart/Sweet character: Mike Marqusee, ‘State of the union rights’, The Independent, 5 March 2004.
17 Peter Bergen, ‘Armchair provocateur: Laurie Mylroie the neocons’ favorite conspiracy theorist.’, Washington Monthly, 35 (12) (December 2003), pp.27-31. (Also available at: <www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0312.bergen.html>