Iranica:
The BBC Persian Service was launched on 28 December 1940 (BBC Written Archives Centre (WAC), “BBC PERSIAN SERVICE – General Background, and specific notes on the operational, abdication and post-abdication periods – Confidential,” no date, p. 1) ten months after Radio Iran had gone on the air – with German assistance (Sepantā, pp. 301-3). The first broadcast was made by Ḥasan Mowaqqar-Bālyuzi, whose station call: “Injā Landan ast” (This is London) became familiar to thousands of Persian-speaking listeners in the region. He also presented the BBC’s “friendly greetings” to all “guš-dahandagān-e Irāni (Iranian listeners) and Persian-speakers, wherever in the world they may be.” The cumbersome term “guš-dahandagān” was later replaced with the more familiar “šenavandagān” (The BBC Persian Service, History of the Persian Service of the BBC on tape, hereinafter referred to as History).
Another founding member of the Service was the leading Persian intellectual, Mojtaba Minovi (Figure 1), who had gone to Britain on a study visit, but had stayed on for fear of political persecution by the regime (Māh-Monir Minovi, pp. 135-36). Minovi’s decision to join the BBC was considered so important that it was reported at the beginning of a confidential memo which concluded that “we are now ready to go ahead with the Persian broadcast,” (WAC, Confidential BBC Memo, 12 December 1940). By mid-September 1941, well before the end of his first year with the BBC, Minovi had delivered the broadcasts which were “reputed to have driven the Shah from his throne” (BBC Memo, Miss E. Burton to Miss Edmond, Secretariat, 23 September 1941).
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A nest of bee hovyat spies working for a foreign government.