Jeff: Half a century ago, the Voice of Peace radio ship was one of the best known pirate radio stations in the world. It was on the air in the Mediterranean for twenty years in an effort to bring peace to those troubled areas, and it was quietly sunk at the end of its illustrious history. That is our story for today.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. We’re doing a special tribute to the Voice of Peace this week, which first started broadcasting in the Eastern Mediterranean fifty years ago.
The owner and operator of the Peace ship, from which the Voice of Peace broadcast, was Abraham Nathan.
He was born of Jewish parents in Abadan in Iran on April 9, 1927. At the age of 12, young Abie moved with his parents and family members to Bombay in India.
There, when he left school, he became an RAF pilot, before moving to Israel and serving in the Israeli Air Force.
He then became a successful restaurant owner, but grew increasingly concerned about the conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East.
At the age of 40, shortly before the 6 Day War in 1967, Abie flew to Port Said in Egypt to try to convince the Egyptians not to invade Israel. When he returned to Israel after the war, he was promptly fined, and put in prison for having made contact with the enemy.
By 1969, Abie had decided that the best way to promote peace in the region was to launch an independent radio station, that could be used to air both sides in the conflict, improve communication, and entertain people with music of universal appeal.
Since the station would need to be neutral and not tied to any one country, he felt the best solution would be to broadcast from a ship anchored in International Waters.
He traveled to The Netherlands, and found a suitable ship – a former freighter – called the MV Cito.
It had the distinction of being the last ship to have been built and launched by the Dutch before the Nazi invasion in 1940.
A Christian organization, Holland Christian Church, then bought the ship and made it available to Abie Nathan for his peace project, as a mobile radio station in the Mediterranean. Soon after the purchase, the MV Cito was renamed the MV Peace, and she sailed for New York where a fund raising campaign was launched in order to outfit the ship with a set of new radio equipment.
However, after three years of fruitless attempts at fundraising, Abie returned to Israel, determined to fund the project himself.
He sold his home, his restaurant business and his art gallery, raising over $100,000. But the ship had deteriorated during the years it had been in the harbor and when Abie returned to New York, he found a lot more work was needed than he had originally anticipated.
Plus, the mooring fees had built up, with the result he was still about $40,000 short of what he needed.
After two more months, he tried one last desperate tactic, and went on an indefinite hunger strike. This did attract some media interest, and he was interviewed by Barbara Walters on the NBC ‘Today’ show.
Within 48 hours of that appearance, $50,000 in donations had come in from viewers across the USA.
Further, the Canadian Council of Churches bought diesel fuel for the MV Peace, and committed to cover the running costs for the radio station’s first three months on air.
Abie acquired two medium wave radio transmitters, both Collins 25 kW Model 831-G3, together with a combiner and additional ancillary equipment.
Studios were constructed, and a 160’ aerial mast supporting a T-type antenna was erected on the ship.
Finally, in March 1973, the new radio ship was ready to go.
The ship left New Jersey on Friday 16th March, and made a series of test transmissions on 1540 kHz (195m) while at sea.
A leak was detected in her hull, and she had to put into Bermuda for repairs.
She continued her voyage across the Atlantic a few weeks later and arrived off Cyprus in mid-April 1973. More test transmissions were made, but a violent storm caused more damage, and the ship had to put into the French port of Marseilles for repairs.
Eventually the MV Peace was able to return to an anchorage off Tel Aviv, Israel, and official broadcasts from the new station, simply called the Voice of Peace, began at 8pm local time on Saturday 26th May.
It had been difficult to find a suitable frequency due to the crowded nature of the medium wave band in Europe and the Middle East, and also the challenges in being between Europe, where 9 kHz separation was used, and Asia, where at the time, 10 kHz separation was more common.
The two transmitters were actually tuned to a little below 1539 kHz, although the operating frequency for the Voice of Peace was always announced as 1540 kHz.
At night, Deutschlandfunk in Germany with 700 kW on 1538 kHz produced a horrible heterodyne with the Voice of Peace transmissions, not unlike Radio London had suffered in the North Sea during the 1960’s.
Voice of Peace programming was a mixture of western pop, easy listening and classical music, presented in English by mainly British DJ’s.
< AUDIO – Jingle – Music Radio >
Announcements were made in English, French, Hebrew and Arabic, and most commercials were in Hebrew or English.
The station’s initial mailing address was given as P.O. Box 1010, Nicosia, Cyprus, although their administrative offices were, in fact, in Tel-Aviv, at 13 Frug Street.
Shortly after the launch, one radio columnist declared humorously:
The mouse roared! And at the height of its success, four years later, the Voice of Peace claimed a massive audience of 23 million people.
The station never gave its exact location over the air, but simply identified as “The Voice of Peace from Somewhere in the Mediterranean.”
< AUDIO – Jingle – Peace, Love and Good Music >
During the Yom Kippur war in October 1973, the MV Peace anchored off the Suez Canal in Egypt and appealed to the armies of both sides to stop fighting.
< AUDIO – The October War >
Supplies and crew changes were generally tendered by small Arab-owned fishing boats from Haifa and Jaffa in Israel, but it was also common practice for the ship to suspend transmissions and enter an Israeli port herself to take on food, water and fuel oil.
The WRTH listed the Voice of Peace transmitter power as 50 kW, but in reality, the station ran its two transmitters at a combined power level of just 35 kW.
Subsequently, when the combiner broke down, the transmitters were run individually, one at a time, at 25 kW.
Later the combiner was repaired, though ultimately the entire transmitter deployment needed to be replaced, and a 10 kW Nautel from Canada was installed.
But, the Voice of Peace was a costly venture, estimated as much as $10,000 a month, and advertising was hard to come by.
As a result, the station closed down in November 1973, and wasn’t heard from again until June 1975.
During that time, the ship had been moored in Marseilles again, while Abie was trying to raise more funds. He did take the ship back to Egypt, and tried to sail her through the newly re-opened Suez Canal, but the Egyptian authorities wouldn’t allow it.
Broadcasting eventually resumed off Ashdod just north of the Gaza Strip, and then the ship sailed north to Haifa. More funding was raised, and at the end of July 1975, the MV Peace left Haifa stocked with five months’ of fuel supplies.
Regular broadcasts from the Voice of Peace resumed on 1st August 1975.
MV Peace 1976 photo archive Noam Tal_restored
In the summer of 1976, former RNI and Radio Caroline DJ Crispian St. John took over as Program Director and implemented an ‘all-hits’ format, with the result that audience figures increased dramatically, almost immediately.
The station became hugely popular, and in an audience survey commissioned in late 1976 by the Israeli state radio network, Kol Israel,
Voice of Peace received over a 40% market share.
In response, the state broadcaster introduced its own pop music service – Programme C, Reshet Gimel – to compete with the popularity of the Voice of Peace.
On New Year’s Day, 1977, Abie Nathan did finally succeed in being allowed to sail the MV Peace through the Suez Canal, although he was not allowed to broadcast while doing so, and one of the conditions was that he should reduce the amount of Hebrew language commercials carried on the station.
For the first few years, no news bulletins were carried, although Abie Nathan would frequently use a Motorola mobile telephone link to go live on air from his office in Tel-Aviv to offer his commentary on current events.
Eventually in April 1977, regular top of the hour newscasts were introduced, relaying BBC World Service news in English on the even hours, and Kol Israel news in Hebrew on the odd hours.
After a few months, however, the BBC bulletins were dropped, in favor of those from Kol Israel.
In August 1977, the Voice of Peace started using a 1 kW shortwave transmitter, broadcasting in parallel on 6245 kHz, and later on 6240 kHz, but after a few months, this was discontinued at the request of the Israeli Army.
In April 1980, a 20 kW FM transmitter was added, on 100.0 MHz.
< AUDIO – 1980 11 17 Mon 0130 Voice of Peace (100FM) – ID >
And here was DJ Johnny Moss, better known these days as Johnny Lewis:
< AUDIO – 1980 11 17 Mon 0200 Voice of Peace (100FM) – Johnny Moss – Live ID >
On 27th January 1981, storms caused damage to the Peace ship, including the collapse of the antenna mast, which put the station off the air.
A hastily rigged wire antenna using just the ship’s own masts allowed a return to the air on 27th February on medium wave only, but it wasn’t until mid-April that a replacement antenna mast could be erected.
In August 1981, Abie applied for a land-based license in Israel, but this was not granted.
Here’s an example of Abie using the Motorola mobile phone link in October 1981, on the occasion of the death of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat:
< AUDIO – 1981 10 – Voice of Peace – Abe Nathan re death of Anwar Sadat >
On 28Th May 1983, the Voice of Peace celebrated its 10th birthday with a full day of Beatles music, as it had played on its opening day back in 1973.
On 27th July 1983, shortwave transmissions resumed on 6240 kHz, with a power of 400 watts using a center fold dipole aerial.
However, these out-of-band transmissions ended again in March 1984 due to a complaint received through the ITU that they were causing interference to Swedish Embassy communications.
In June 1985, a split AM/FM service was introduced, with different programming for four hours each night from 9PM.
On FM there was an hour of Russian music followed by either French, Italian, Greek or Romanian music, while on AM there was international pop music as normal.
Although this experiment ended after four months, the hour of Russian music was retained in the regular schedule from then on.
Throughout the early 80’s, generator problems had plagued the station, but in July 1986, a new Perkins generator was installed, and in May 1987, the 10 kW medium wave unit from Nautel was installed.
Here’s Irish DJ Kenny Page opening transmissions in November 1988:
< AUDIO – 1988 11 01 Tue 0600 VOP (100FM stereo) – Kenny Page – Live ID >
But during the late 80’s and early 90’s, advertising income again dwindled, there were many equipment failures, staff shortages and turnover was a constant challenge, and audience figures plummeted.
DJ’s received their air fare out to Israel, but were paid just a few hundred pounds for a six month tour of duty, and provided they stayed for the whole six month period, they received the return air fare back to Britain.
But, the Voice of Peace wasn’t like any other station. It didn’t exist to make a profit for its owner, but to be a vehicle for broadcasting his messages of peace.
It relied heavily on volunteer workers who, although professional broadcasters, were prepared to accept low rates of pay because they shared an empathy for the station and its ‘peace’ objectives.
A new engineer arrived in August 1990, Al Muick, and he solved a number of technical problems that had hindered transmissions for some time. He also set about rebuilding the shortwave transmitter, and tests were heard on 6265 kHz in the November.
< AUDIO – Shortwave Test Transmission >
Somewhat improbable plans were announced for a longwave transmitter on 171 kHz, to give greater penetration into the Middle East, but this never materialized.
Abie Nathan himself was in and out of prison a few times during the early 90’s for breaking an Israeli law that prevented Israeli citizens from having any contact with the Palestine Liberation Organization – the PLO.
Abie met several times with Yasser Arafat in an attempt to bring peace, but each time when he returned to Israel, he was promptly arrested by the authorities.
While he was imprisoned, no commercial sales were being made, and the station’s income shrank to almost nothing.
Attempts were made to sell the station and also to rent out its transmitters, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
At the end of June 1993, the FM transmitter failed, and although broadcasts continued on medium wave, many listeners and advertisers assumed the station was off the air completely.
Ultimately, the inevitable had to come. But, it was bittersweet, because Israel’s Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, had signed an historic peace accord with PLO leader Yasser Arafat in Washington on 13th September 1993. Consequently Abie Nathan felt that his mission, and that of the Voice of Peace, which he had set out to achieve in 1969, had been accomplished.
On Friday 1st October, 1993, Abie went on board the MV Peace to broadcast for the last time.
Only DJ Matthew French remained on board with Abie to help him close the station. During the morning, Abie recounted the lengthy history of the Voice of Peace, and thanked everyone who had worked to keep the station on the air for over 20 years. After playing the last record, ‘We Shall Overcome’ by Pete Seger, Abie simply said “Thank you all. Shalom. Love. Peace to everyone.”
And at 1:57pm, broadcasts from the Voice of Peace finally ended.
Attempts to establish the ship as a radio museum produced no results.
So, the broadcasting equipment was all removed from the ship in Ashdod harbor, and then on 28th November 1993, Abie Nathan and two assistants took the ship out to a position 15 miles offshore. Holes were made in the hull, and water was pumped into the vessel.
Quite slowly, over more than seven hours, the grand old MV Peace sank to its death in the eastern Mediterranean.
In 2007, a Voice of Peace Memorial was established at Gordon Beach in Tel Aviv, honoring the lifelong endeavors of Abraham Nathan to bring peace to his turbulent Middle East.
On August 27th of the next year, 2008, Abie himself breathed his last.
And during this year, 2023, The Netherlands is honoring the memory of the Dutch ship that was the home of the Voice of Peace with a 50th anniversary special event amateur callsign PD50VOP.
Wavescan is an international DX program, researched and written in Indianapolis by Dr. Adrian Peterson and in Los Angeles by Ray Robinson. Wavescan is produced in the studios of WMRI Shortwave in Okeechobee, Florida, by Jeff White.
The program frequently covers radio stations aboard ships. These reports are documented here.
