March 1970 marked a brief but symbolically powerful chapter in the history of offshore broadcasting, when a small group of Canadian supporters helped beam uncensored news to Greece from international waters.
Canadians for a Free Greece was a political advocacy group active in the late 1960s and early 1970s that campaigned against the military junta (the regime of the colonels) in Greece.
The group fought against the military dictatorship of Georgios Papadopoulos, who ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. Its goal was to mobilise the Greek diaspora in Canada and the broader Canadian public to put pressure on the Greek government and advocate for a return to democracy. Karl Jaffary, a prominent Toronto city councillor and lawyer, was a member of the group’s steering committee. Members travelled to Greece to observe political trials of opponents of the regime.
On 23 March 1970, The Ottawa Journal reported that Canadians for a Free Greece had begun sponsoring an offshore radio operation aimed at breaking the information blackout imposed by Greece’s military junta. The group, numbering around 150 members, announced that its station had started a three-day pilot run from a yacht operating off the coast of Greece. The broadcasts had begun on 21 March. Other sources at the time placed the vessel in international waters off Malta, underscoring the deliberately elusive nature of the operation.
The project was conceived as a gesture of solidarity and a practical attempt to reach listeners inside Greece with unbiased, uncensored news. Janet Rosenstock, a leading official of Canadians for a Free Greece, explained the purpose succinctly: the broadcasts were intended “to illustrate to the Greek people that there is support for them outside Greece, as well as to bring them unbiased, uncensored news reports.” According to Rosenstock, the transmissions were scheduled for three consecutive nights, each featuring a special recorded message.
Those messages were voiced by Dr Andreas Papandreou, a Toronto-based academic at the time and the son of the late Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou. Georgios Papandreou had led Greece during two turbulent periods, serving briefly in 1944–45 and again from 1964 to 1965. His son Andreas, himself a prominent economist and political figure, had become one of the most recognisable opponents of the military regime that seized power in Athens in April 1967.
Following the coup led by Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos, both Andreas and his father were imprisoned. Georgios Papandreou died in 1968 while under house arrest, and Andreas was subsequently expelled from Greece. Other sources reported that Papandreou was smuggled out of Greece by Paul Wilking (‘Pistolen Paul’). He spent the following years in exile, first in Sweden and then in Canada. Between 1968 and 1969 he held a visiting professorship in Stockholm, before moving to Toronto, where he remained until 1974. During this period he founded the Panhellenic Liberation Movement (PAK), an opposition organisation campaigning internationally against the junta.
It was from this context of exile and resistance that Radio Free Greece emerged. Broadcasting from the yacht Hebe, the station transmitted programmes in the Greek language on 15.070 kHz shortwave, a frequency chosen to give the best possible chance of reaching listeners inside Greece. An on-air contact address was announced as 8 Esterbrooke Avenue, 22 Willowdale, Ontario, Canada, reflecting the station’s organisational base in Toronto.
Operational support on board the yacht included John Paul Harney, Ontario secretary of the New Democratic Party, who was reported to be present to send the broadcasts. The involvement of a mainstream Canadian political figure highlighted the extent to which opposition to the Greek junta had resonated beyond the Greek diaspora and into wider democratic circles in North America.
In his recorded speeches, Andreas Papandreou urged passive resistance to the colonels’ regime, appealing to Greeks at home to maintain their resolve and to remember that their struggle was not forgotten abroad. The tone of the broadcasts was sober rather than incendiary, designed to inform and encourage rather than provoke.
The station’s impact, however, was short-lived. Almost immediately after transmissions began, Radio Free Greece was met with powerful jamming, widely believed to have been carried out by transmitters operated by the Greek military authorities. Combined with severe financial constraints, the interference ensured that the experiment lasted only the planned three days.
Despite its brevity, the initiative did not end in silence. A few weeks after the test broadcasts, Canadians for a Free Greece announced plans to purchase a stronger transmitter, with the stated aim of enabling permanent broadcasts in the future. Whether or not those ambitions could be realised, the March 1970 transmissions from the Hebe had already demonstrated the symbolic value of offshore radio as a tool of political expression.
Martin van der Ven, January 2026
