Radio Nations: The Story of a Global Station Serving Diplomacy

There are radio stations whose names have been all but erased from history, despite playing a significant role in their day. Radio Nations is one of them. For ten years, this radiotelegraphy center in the Geneva countryside enabled the League of Nations (the forerunner of the United Nations) to do something no international organization had ever managed before: communicate directly, without intermediaries, with its members scattered across five continents. It also reached the general public through shortwave broadcasts.

The Incident That Started It All : Half an Hour Between War and Peace

The official decision to build the station is generally dated to December 1929, following a proposal by the French delegation. But the idea itself can be traced back to a far more dramatic episode four years earlier.

In October 1925, a border dispute erupted between Greece and Bulgaria. Shots were exchanged across the border, troops were mobilized, and war appeared imminent. The League of Nations Council, alerted by the accidental interception of a radiotelegraph message, realized how serious the situation had become. At the suggestion of its then-president, Aristide Briand, it decided to send both governments an urgent appeal to preserve peace.

The problem was that the telegrams had to pass through several countries, languages and telegraph administrations, with each relay adding its own delay. It was later learned that the messages had reached their destination barely thirty minutes before the scheduled start of an offensive.

Thirty minutes: according to contemporary accounts, that was all that stood between war and peace. Any further delay, and an order to halt military operations would not have reached the commanders in time. The experience, seen as a near-catastrophe narrowly averted, ultimately convinced the League of Nations that it needed a direct means of communication with every country one independent of national telegraph networks and their bureaucratic delays.

Choosing the Right Solution for Radio Nations

Yet several years of negotiations would pass before construction could begin. The League of Nations faced a delicate challenge: it needed an autonomous communications capability without infringing upon the sovereignty of the country hosting it. The Swiss Confederation, in particular, expressed strong reservations, fearing that such a station could compromise its obligations of neutrality. That concern would resurface later, under far more serious circumstances.

Three options were considered: a station entirely owned by the League of Nations; a Swiss station made available only in times of crisis; or a hybrid arrangement built in partnership with Radio-Suisse, the Swiss wireless telegraphy company (a successor to Marconi), officially a private company but closely connected to the federal authorities. Two further episodes helped convince the remaining skeptics. During the Sino-Japanese conflict, the League of Nations expert section struggled to obtain information quickly enough. Shortly afterwards, a conference in Lugano was hampered by congested telegraph lines, overwhelmed by communications between Bolivia and Paraguay, then in the midst of the Chaco crisis.

In 1929, the Assembly opted for the hybrid solution. The final cost was estimated at around 4.3 million Swiss francs, of which 2 million was to be covered by Radio-Suisse, which would operate the station in peacetime. This station, known as Radio-Nations and established on land and in buildings belonging to Radio-Suisse, shall comprise, on the one hand, a central telegraph office and a long-wave station currently in operation, fitted out at the expense of Radio-Suisse and owned by it, and, on the other hand, a shortwave station to be established as soon as possible at the expense of the League of Nations and owned by it. Radio-Nations shall be operated in peacetime by Radio-Suisse and, in times of crisis, shall come under the exclusive management of the League of Nations, the agreement between the Swiss Federal Council and the League of Nations stated.

Five Nations Join Forces to Build Radio Nations

Great Britain contributed to Radio-Nations by supplying, through Marconi engineers, a shortwave transmitter and a set of antennas designed for this type of transmission. Standard Telephones and Cables, which was then manufacturing new shortwave transmitters for the British Empire, also supplied a substantial amount of telephone equipment, notably for use by delegates.

France, for its part, contributed another shortwave transmitter, installed by engineers from the Société Française Radio-Électrique (SFR, unrelated to the mobile phone operator). German engineers from Telefunken helped install the transmitting and receiving antennas. The Netherlands supplied the electronic tubes, while most of the high-power electrical machinery was built by Swiss engineers.

Two Sites, Two Distinct Functions

Radio-Nations was not a single station but a four-part system spread around Geneva: Prangins, about 25 km away, for transmission; Colovrex, about 7 km away, for reception; a central operations office on Rue du Stand in Geneva; and an emergency center combined with a radio studio on the first floor of a building on Rue des Pâquis, near the Secretariat. The system was designed to ensure that the organization could continue operating in the event of a major crisis. The studio was later moved to the Palace of Nations.

Prangins: The Transmitting Station

At Prangins, a long-wave transmitter owned by Radio-Suisse operated on a wavelength of approximately 1,625 meters. Its 15 kW antenna power was sufficient to provide coverage across Europe. Two additional shortwave transmitters extended communications to the rest of the world. The first, built in France, was an S.W. model manufactured by the Société Française Radio-Électrique and covered wavelengths from 14 to 40 meters. The second, built by the Marconi Company, covered a wider range, from 14 to 100 meters. Each of these two transmitters had an output of approximately 20 kW. Through a common distributor, either shortwave transmitter could be connected to any of the antennas directed toward different regions of the world.

These directional antennas were supported by six towers ranging from 60 to 80 meters in height. They were supplemented by non-directional antennas and an auxiliary antenna suspended 125 meters above the ground. The entire installation was powered by a 13,000-volt high-voltage line supplied by the hydroelectric plants of the Joux Lakes and the Orbe. In an emergency, a 300-hp Sulzer generator could take over. Thanks to this equipment, Radio-Nations could maintain a permanent radiocommunications service with cities as far away as Shanghai, Tokyo, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro.

Colovrex: The Receiving Station

At Colovrex, the challenge was the opposite: picking up often faint signals from every corner of the globe. The station was equipped with three short- and medium-wave receivers, seven receivers covering wavelengths from 10 to 30,000 meters, and a Bellini-Tosi direction-finding system. Three high-speed receivers, capable of handling up to 200 words per minute, completed the installation, one of them dedicated to voice transmissions. One detail is particularly striking: under normal operating conditions, the entire Prangins-Colovrex system required only two technicians, with just one stationed at Colovrex.

The First Major Test : The Bolivia Paraguay War

The first major public demonstration of the system s effectiveness came one afternoon in January 1933, at precisely 5 p.m. The League of Nations Council had just decided, on the Secretary-General s proposal, to make known throughout the world its urgent appeal to Bolivia and Paraguay, urging them to accept the arbitration proposal put forward by the Washington Commission of Neutrals. The Prangins station immediately alerted the posts with which it had direct connections New York, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo and Shanghai and asked them to relay the message onward to other stations concerned.

The transmission record, carefully documented at the time, reveals the uncertainties of radio communications in that era. Tokyo received the message with an estimated reception quality of 80 percent, Shanghai around 60 percent, while Rio de Janeiro received it clearly but with interference from atmospheric disturbances. New York, despite normally paying close attention to broadcasts from Geneva, simply reported that it had not had time to record the communication that day. A reminder that even the most advanced technology remained dependent on the people operating it.

A Radio Service for the General Public

Beyond its diplomatic role, Radio-Nations quickly developed a broadcasting service aimed at the general public. This shortwave service, intended for overseas audiences who were often poorly informed about the activities of the League of Nations, was inaugurated on September 25, 1932, by Sir Eric Drummond, then Secretary-General of the League of Nations.

Every Sunday evening (later Saturday evening) from 11:30 p.m. to 12:15 a.m., broadcasts were transmitted from the studio on Rue des Pâquis on wavelengths of 31.27 and 38.48 meters. Programs were generally broadcast in the League of Nations two official languages, French and English, but Spanish was also used on occasion to reach audiences in the Americas, as during the appeal to Bolivia and Paraguay. Requests for broadcasts in Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese also poured in, and were accommodated whenever possible.

Since September 1932, Radio Nations has operated a weekly broadcasting service run by the Secretariat s Information Section, in close cooperation with the Transit Section. As part of this joint effort, the Information Section selects the subjects and provides the texts of the talks and bulletins to be broadcast, while the Transit Section handles the technical side of the transmissions, an internal memorandum explained. Prime ministers, foreign ministers and conference presidents came to speak into the microphone, while Secretariat officials gave interviews on current affairs. The programs were hosted by Mr. Gallarati, assisted by the technical collaborator van Dissel.

The response exceeded all expectations. Within eighteen months, 17,000 letters arrived in Geneva from around the world, from every continent and in numerous languages. Among the station s most faithful correspondents were a dairy farmer from Venezuela, a garage owner from Georgia and a notary from Angola. On a single day, the station director received letters from Málaga, Dublin, some twenty correspondents in the United States, Argentina, Angola, the Indies and China. Not everyone, however, was equally enthusiastic. “It should nevertheless be noted that some of these listeners are not primarily interested in the content of the broadcasts, but are rather wireless enthusiasts“, an internal report observed.

The “Boring” Station ?

“This is the boring station, the weekly L’Antenne complained. Laughter and good jokes must not be commonplace in the studios of Prangins, from which the solemn information that the League of Nations has been sending to its countless listeners around the world since the beginning of the month is broadcast. Imagine an official newspaper, as monotonous and boring as all official newspapers, with even fewer of the amusing interventions that can occasionally be found in reports of parliamentary debates. Sad subjects, sad speakers, sad voices !“

And, above all, no scoops. It should be noted in this regard that Radio-Nations must be very careful not to compete with the press telegram agencies or with the correspondents whom the international press generally maintains in Geneva at considerable expense, an internal report stressed.

Some public broadcasters rebroadcast Geneva programs directly. Dublin and Buenos Aires, for example, retransmitted a speech by the President of the League of Nations Council. Negotiations were also opened with broadcasters in Denmark, Yugoslavia, Canada, China and Japan, with the language barrier remaining the main obstacle to overcome. From 1937 onwards, Radio Nations also began broadcasting programs for Swiss citizens living abroad, following an agreement with the Swiss government. These programs were managed by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SSR).

Radio Nations’ Baptism of Fire : The Italo-Ethiopian Crisis

It was in 1935 1936, during the implementation of sanctions against Italy under Article 1 6 of the Covenant, that Radio-Nations radiotelegraph service demonstrated its full operational value. Every evening, around midnight, the long- and shortwave transmitters sent proposals, documents and resolutions to countries around the world. The volume was impressive: approximately 202,000 words in October, 157,000 in November and 35,000 in December more than 400,000 words in just three months. By comparison, the Lytton Report on the Sino-Japanese conflict alone contained nearly 14,000 words, while the reports on the Chaco conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay totaled 16,000 and 14,500 words respectively.

The End of an Adventure as World War Looms

The story of Radio-Nations came to an end quietly, amid the tensions of the late 1930s. In August 1939, just a few weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War, the press revealed that the government in Bern had begun negotiations with the League of Nations Secretariat to purchase the station. The talks, which had already been underway for two months, reportedly faced only one remaining obstacle: the price.

When asked why the station was being sold, League of Nations Secretary-General Joseph Avenol gave two reasons. The first was financial, and fairly straightforward. The organization s expenditures had exceeded its revenues for several years, while the declining number of member states following the successive withdrawals that marked the 1930s made substantial cost-cutting necessary. The second reason was more political and reflected the growing concerns of the Swiss authorities. The extraterritorial status enjoyed by Radio-Nations worried the Swiss government, which feared how the station might be used in an increasingly tense international environment and what diplomatic complications this could create for Swiss neutrality. What followed unfolded in the shadow of a war that had already begun.

On January 21, 1940, the Swiss government formally terminated the reciprocal operating agreement with the League of Nations. Under Article 13 of the convention, the notice period meant that the termination would take effect on February 2, 1942 exactly ten years after the first broadcast. Radio-Nations ceased to operate as a League of Nations station at midnight on February 1, stated the archives of the League of Nations Secretariat. Compensation, determined through arbitration, was paid by Radio-Suisse in the amount of CHF 265,530. With that settlement, the League of Nations no longer retained any interest in the installation it had spent nearly a decade bringing into existence.

Thus ended, almost without a sound, one of the most ambitious international communications projects of the interwar period not because of a technical failure, but because of the collapse of the diplomatic system it had been created to serve.

Sources: historical press, United Nations archives