Radio War

In Saudi Arabia, in Palestine, Syria. Egypt and the other Arab lands of North Africa many Arabs faced the New Year last week with little food and less money, but plenty of others had new radio sets, many of them two. All were delivered absolutely free by suave efficient young men who set them up, tuned and locked them at a certain wave length, and departed smiling amiably.

Not charity but an undeclared war of increasing bitterness caused this lavish dispersal. Ever since the British joined in voting League Sanctions against Italy during the Ethiopian crisis, the Italian short-wave radio station at Bari has poured out an unending stream of anti-British propaganda in Arabic, intended to teach all Moslem nations that the British Empire was falling to pieces, that Benito Mussolini was a proper protector for Islam.

Britain protested officially and unofficially. Italy's answer was to increase the Bari broadcasts and then start distributing to Arabs radios that could be tuned in only on the Italian station. Lately Britain has retaliated with radio sets of her own.

At Daventry 75 miles from London the Government-controlled British Broadcasting Corp. went into action early this week with a fine sputter of pro-British Arabic. Guest star on the opening program was none other than Seif-ul-Islam Al-Hussein, the son of the Imam of Yemen.

Yahya, the Imam of Yemen is a wily Arab potentate whose triangular territory near the southern end of the Red Sea includes the famed coffee city of Mocha. The Ethiopian war and the growing power of Italy on the Red Sea have made Yahya the Imam an important character. Playing his nuisance value for all it was worth, he played British against Italian agents, finally threw in his luck with Italy last year. But Yahya the Imam has many sons, with all of whom he is at outs. British agents had swarthy spectacled Prince Hussein in London in no time, set him to soothing Moslem distrust in piping Arabic sentences.

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