SIG MEETING ON THE RECENTLY COMPLETED WORLD ADMINISTRATIVE RADIO CONFERENCE FOR HIGH FREQUENCY BROADCASTING (WARC-HF)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86M00886R000400020060-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 15, 2009
• Sequence Number: 60
• Publication Date: February 22, 1984
• Content Type: MEMO

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CONFIDENTIAL
The Director of Central Intelligence
Washington, D.C. 20505
FROM: Hal Ford
National Intelligence Officer At Large
NIC 01259-84
22 February 1984
SUBJECT: SIG Meeting on the Recently Completed World Administrative
Radio Conference for High Frequency Broadcasting (WARC-HF)
1. The following is for information. I confine my remarks to items of
interest to CIA. More details appear in State's attached brief summary of the
conference.
2. Ambassador Leonard Marks, who chaired the US delegation to the WARC-
HF, briefed the SIG yesterday on its outcome. According to Marks:
-- The Third World countries did not as expected vote as a bloc but were
divided on many scores, and certain of their representatives at the
conference gave US-backed issues considerable support.
-- A consideration which definitely helped explain the moderate Third
World behavior at the conference was the recent US departure from
UNESCO.
-- The conference reached agreement to study the impact of radio
jamming, the first time the ITU has ever so treated this subject.
The ITU study will of necessity identify the USSR as the principal
source of interference caused by jamming.
-- The Soviet delegates were surprisingly quiet and did not block the
jamming agreement. Marks: this was doubtless due in part to the
fact that conference issues were kept at the technical level.
-- All the agreements reached are purely provisional, and may be
modified or cancelled when the second half of this WARC-HF conference
takes place, now scheduled for October 1986.
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 Approved For Release 2009/01/15 : CIA-RDP86M00886R000400020060-3
CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: SIG Meeting on the Recently Completed World Administrative
Radio Conference for High Frequency Broadcasting (WARC-HF)
-- The Soviets and Third World countries may become less cooperative
than they were at the conference, especially as they come to realize
that certain of the provisional agreements reached favor the US --
with 45 percent of its HF transmitters located overseas -- far more
than they do the USSR (in Cuba only).
4. Comment: Also, the Soviets may not care too much even if the ITU
study should name them as the principal source of HF interference.
Hal Ford
Attachment:
As stated
2
CONFIDENTIAL
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WORLD ADMINISTRATIVE RADIO CONFERENCE
FOR
HIGH FREQUENCY BROADCASTING
The purpose of the Conference was to develop equitable
procedures for a more efficient use of the high frequency
broadcasting bands by all countries.
The Conference is being held in two sessions, with the
second session scheduled for August-September 1986. The
purpose of this first session was to make recommendations on
effective planning methods. The second session is charged with
developing regulations for the specific implementation of an
agreed-upon planning method.
Some of the major issues confronting this Conference
included:
1. Short term versus long term planning, with major
broadcasters prefering short term planning for both
programming and technical reasons.
2. Jamming, the deliberate creation of harmful
interference is the major factor in causing conjestion
in the shortwave broadcasting bands.
3. Transition to single-sideband operation. This method
of operation would provide a 35 to 40 percent increase
in available shortwave spectrum. However, we see this
transition as being lengthy in time, and costly.
4. Transmitter power limitations, multiple Frequency
Broadcasts and Protection Ratios are a few of the many
technical issues considered for inclusion in a
planning method.
Consistent with the policy guidance of NSDD-45 and the
approved Delegation Scope Paper the U.S. established the
following major objectives. These were reflected in our ITU
submission for the first session of HF WARC. They included:
1. Selection, by the Conference, of technical
characteristics that are in conformance with current
or future U.S. broadcasting operations,
 2. Selection, by the Conference, of a flexible,
short-term planning method, and
3. Prevention of adoption, by the Conference, of any
technical characteristics, procedures, rules or
planning methods that would restrict U.S. anti-jamming
counter measures.
In terms of overall U.S. objectives the Conference was a
success, we accomplished much more than just "damage control".
However this was not a win-or-loose negotiation as such.
Significant progress was made towards a plan which can ease the
problems associated with the limited broadcast spectrum.
No U.S. objectives were adversely affected by the session's
decisions. On the positive side, the session's major decisions
were all in line with U.S. goals:
1. A flexible framework for planning methods to be
considered by the second session.
2. Effective technical standards to be adopted for any
planning system developed by the second session.
3. A testing and evaluation project between the session
designed to measure objectively the effectiveness of a
range of planning options.
4. A plan for monitoring the effects of jamming on
high-frequency broadcasting congestion - the first
time that this issue has been dealt with positively by
an ITU Conference.
It is important to note that this first session did not
definitely agree to a single planning method. Many developing
countries came to the Conference favoring adoption of a single
planning method. While they differed among themselves on the
details of such a method, there was general support for a
method which would assign shortwave broadcasting frequencies
under a rigid system which would have adversely affected the
U.S. and other major international broadcasters. Instead, the
Conference agreed to test a planning method, developed largely
by the LDC's, to determine its feasibility in meeting their
minimum broadcasting needs without adversely affecting the
needs of the large broadcasters.
This session of the HF-WARC Conference was unique in that,
for the first time the ITU not only recognized jamming as a
global problem, but also identified actual steps to do
something about it.
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The Conference adopted a statement in the document on
planning methods which explicitly calls for consideration of
means of providing relief, in the form of alternative
frequencies, for the countries whose broadcast transmissions
are affected by jamming.
The Conference also approved a French-Canadian resolution
which calls on countries which transmit HF broadcasts "out of
band" (i.e. on frequencies not allocated to broadcasting) to
cease such operations. This relates to jamming since the
Soviet Union conducts considerable shortwave broadcasting which
has the effect of causing harmful interference to other
countries.
Among additional points it should be noted that there was
minimal consideration of extraneous political issues.
Credentials for Israel, for example, did not become an issue.
The only formal reservation the U.S. made was in response to
the Cuban condemnation of U.S. broadcasting to Cuba and Radio
Marti.