Stanford Listening Post.

Historical Note

The Stanford Listening Post was established in the Archives Division of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace in 1940 for the purpose of recording and studying radio broadcasts from the Far East. The Rockefeller Foundation granted $8,250 to cover the costs of equipment, supplies, and salaries for receiving, recording, and transcribing trans-Pacific broadcasts. Recording began in mid-September 1940 and continued to the end of May 1941 when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established listening posts throughout the country for round-the-clock monitoring of foreign broadcasts. The Stanford post recorded foreign broadcasts for the FCC from 1941 to 1943 and transmitted American broadcasts of the United States Office of War Information (OWI) to the Far East from 1942 to 1945.

The Stanford Listening Post used two short-wave receivers, an RME 69 and a highly selective HRO. During the last few weeks of the experiment, a Hallicrafter commercial type receiver was used in place of the RME. Two rhombic antennas provided directional reception from east-west and north-south. Two standard office Ediphones recorded the broadcasts. Only transmissions in English were recorded in the beginning, although test recordings of other languages were made. News and news commentator programs in English from three stations were recorded regularly--Tokyo, Japan; Chungking, China; and Saigon, French Indo-China. Occasional recordings were made from Hsinking, Manchukuo; Shanghai, China; and Sydney, Australia.

After broadcasts were recorded on Ediphone wax cylinders, a single typed copy was made of the transcript with text double spaced. There were several checks for accuracy. After the final checking, transcripts were duplicated and sent to a selected list of persons and libraries interested in Pacific affairs.

The staff of the Stanford Listening Post included Inez G. Richardson, who was director, Richard Beckett, Pauline Hamm, Maria Hoge, Rosemary Johansson, Kay Kitagawa, Margaret Lintner, Helene von Damm, and Ann Van Wagenen.

(Source: Annual Report of the Chairman, 1940-41. Hoover Library on War, Revolution, and Peace).

From the guide to the Stanford Listening Post Records, 1940-1945, (Hoover Institution Archives)