Short-wave has its own advantages, however, apart from its utility as a means of getting program material to the relay stations. Short-wave can and will be picked up by the enemy monitors and enemy intelligence systems. It will also be heard by persons of power, wealth, and influence, irrespective of the economic or political system of the enemy. The big shots of any system know how to transcend limitations that awe or defeat the ordinary man. The short-wave transmitter speaks therefore to the enemy government, to the groups which compose the enemy government, and to the individuals in or out of the enemy government who are leaders in their own country. We found that the _Joho Kyoku_ and the _Gaimusho_ (Foreign Office) in Tokyo were mimeographing a daily summary of our San Francisco broadcasts, and we thus knew that anything we said over San Francisco would be heard by the most influential men in Japan. Captain Ellis Zacharias, U.S.N., spoke Japanese and had known most of the Japanese leaders personally before the war; with government monitoring known to exist he felt free to address the Japanese leaders personally and directly with assurance his words would reach them, and his broadcasts are confessed by the Japanese themselves to have played a contributory part in bringing about the Japanese decision to surrender.
=Standard-wave.= The most effective use of radio is that which falls within the receiving capacity of the ordinary receiving sets owned or used by the enemy population. This means the establishment of transmitting facilities close enough to the enemy territory for the programs to get through. As between the United States and Japan from 1941 through 1944, this was very difficult. No Americans ever dared join the Shantung guerrillas, whether Kuomintang or Communist, with transmitters; and as long as we broadcast from the safety of our side of the ocean, we could only hope that occasional freak conditions would echo programs into Japan two or three times a month. With the British and the Germans, it was altogether different; the two countries were virtually touching, and each could cover the entire enemy territory.
With short-distance standard-wave broadcasting to an enemy known to have millions of radio receivers, strategic radio becomes effective. The chance is provided for building up a consistent group of listeners, for influencing their morale and opinions, and for circulating rumors that will reach almost every single person in the enemy population. The temptation to perform tricks, to lapse back to peacetime standards of radio-as-entertainment or radio-as-advertising, is a constant one. The propagandist knows that he is being heard, and he fears that his audience will lose interest if he does not stimulate them with a brilliantly variegated series of programs.