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by Naguib on 4 July that carried the name, later turning it into a radio station

complete with its own range of programming. 124

The creation of what would become a popular radio station among the Arabs

came at the height of the then Egyptian-CIA cooperation. The CIA’s Kermit

Roosevelt recruited people such as Paul Linebarger ‘the greatest “black”

propagandist’ to advise and train the Egyptians on how to utilise their press and

radio facilities. When it came to the radio, the aim was to set up ‘the most powerful

[station] in the entire Middle East’. The Egyptians would release reports that

seemed to promote the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) but caused more

harm than good to the overall image of the Soviets. In contrast they would issue

news reports against the US but that had a reverse effect. 125

Non-Arab owned media participated in agitating Bahrainis. Moscow Radio,

for example, labelled Belgrave a ‘Dictator’! 126 Mapp who was in Bahrain added in

his memoir that whenever the Russian radio called out the Adviser, the Ruler

‘chuckles’. 127 The American President Dwight D Eisenhower understood the rise of

‘virulent nationalism’ in the Middle East and considered the Russians to be taking

advantage of the situation. To him ‘the evidence of Communist meddling was

evident’. 128 The death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 marked a new turning point in Soviet

124 L.M. James, ‘Whose Voice? Nasser, the Arabs, and ‘Sawt al-Arab’ Radio’, Traditional Broadcasting
Studies, 16, (2006) in <http://tbsjournal.arabmediasociety.com/James.html> [accessed 2 January
2016].
125 Copeland, The Game Player, 167 and 180; Copeland, The Game of Nations, 116-17; and Eveland,
Ropes of Sand, 103. For more information on the development of Egyptian radio see, D.A. Boyd,
Broadcasting in the Arab World: A Survey of Radio and Television in the Middle East, (Philadelphia, PA:
1982).
126 Bell, ‘He Said Forward! To the Backward’, 157-74 (172).
127 Mapp, Leave Well Alone, 61.
128 Eisenhower, Mandate for Change 1953-1956, 157.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 40