Shortwave Nazis

A new book, “GI G-Men,” recounts FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's wartime global hunt for Nazi American propagandists.on the airwaves

Expat poet Ezra Pound broadcast his pro-fascist ravings via shortwave radio from Italy. Hardly anyone could hear him. He was arrested in 1945, convicted and committed to an insane asylum in Washington, DC. (New Directions). .

Long before the age of internet influencers, a different breed of provocateur took to the airwaves to spread disinformation. In the 1930s and 1940s, a cadre of expatriate Americans—some ideologues, some opportunists—used the radio to broadcast pro-Nazi, pro-fascist, and antisemitic propaganda back to the United States.

To FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, these broadcasters weren’t just deluded enemy sympathizers. They were “renegades,” and he was determined to round them up for prosecution. And more: Hoover’s campaign against them was the final step in a calculated, three-phase expansion of FBI power, all orchestrated with the blessing of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.