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Lee Swan Island, its radio history AWA Review including the CIA and the revenge of United Fruit 2010 Bartholomew Lee ABSTRACT Swan Island, between Honduras and Cuba (Figure 1), amounts to just over three-square Swan Island in the miles of very little: coral, palms and big igua- Caribbean, once a pi- nas. But from the standpoint of radio, it does rate lair, can tell many have “location, location, location” and some related radio stories. It very interesting radio tales to tell. United Fruit shows a century of com- Company used it fi rst as a wireless telegraphy munications technol- relay station circa 1911. In 1960 through 1968, ogy in the real world of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) commerce, geo-politics, used it as a propaganda and clandestine station war and weather. Unit- against Cuba on short wave and in the broadcast ed Fruit Company put band. As Radio Swan, it broadcast anti-Castro Swan Island to work programming and operational messages for as its long wave spark the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Then wireless relay station for as Radio Americas, it broadcast propaganda its sea-borne commerce to Cuba, all of which was preceded by a little in bananas and sugar. known CIA pirate radio operation on Swan Swan Island thereafter Island in the previous decade. provided an ideal site for researching the Carib- bean hurricanes. In the Cold War, Latin Ameri- can insurgencies sur- rounded Swan Island. In opposing them, the American Central Intel- Fig. 1. Swan Island on the Horizon, c. ligence Agency, with re- 1922, occupied by United Fruit since 1909, markable connections to named after Pirate Captain Charles Swan of the Cygnet in the 17th Century. (Radio Broadcast, Vol. United Fruit, once again 1, No. 1, May, 1922 [1]) put Swan Island to work -- for “black ops” and Real pirates based themselves on Swan Is- propaganda. The CIA land long before radio pirates. Captain Charles enjoyed Swan Island’s Swan, sailing his smuggling ship (and later advantages for nearly outright pirate) Cygnet, visited in the late 17th four decades of covert Century while working for pirate Henry Mor- action. Now, Swan Is- gan. Swan Island is about as far from other land once again provides places as an island in the Caribbean Sea can be. a sunny, peaceful lair The somewhat grandiosely called Grand Island for its big Iguanas, with is the one usable island in a group of three. It is an occasional visit from barely big enough for the small airstrip put in amateur radio opera- for the CIA about 1960. Sea Captain Alonzo Ad- tors. ams originally claimed it for the United States as a guano island, bird guano being a valued fertilizer in the 19th century. The Boston family Volume 23, 2010 115 Swan Island of Sumner Smith owned the island, each. Today, Latin America exports having acquired it from Captain about 17 million metric tons of ba- Adams. Its central location made nanas a year. it ideal for a relay radio station and United Fruit imported boat- for broadcasting to nearby coun- loads of bananas and considerable tries, as well as for the earlier Ca- sugar from Central American coun- ribbean pirates. See Figures 2 & 3, tries known, in O. Henry’s phrase, for a map of its ocean location and as “banana republics.” As a verti- a map of its minimal geography. cally integrated enterprise, United Bananas are central to Swan Fruit planted the producing trees Island’s radio history. In the early and sugar cane. Then it managed 20th century, bananas had become the plantations for export, and then the fruit of choice, largely as a result it provided the transportation to of promotion by the Boston Fruit American markets. It also opened Company, which evolved into the schools and medical facilities and United Fruit Company and then employed many tens of thousands Chiquita Brands. Only bananas of people. It operated railroads (and oranges) were available year and provided regional communi- round. A “bunch” consists of many cations and transport. It owned “hands” of individual bananas; a million and a half acres of land each banana is a fi nger. “Banan” but cultivated only 365,000 acres, means fi nger in Arabic; early glo- as of 1922, and employed 67,000 balization at work. In 1922, United people in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Fruit asserted that it had imported Cuba, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama 284,000,000 bunches of bananas and the Canary Islands, and in the in the last ten years, and that it did United States. [1] a $10,000,000 a year Latin Ameri- To appreciate the role of Swan can mercantile business. Adjusted Island in intrigue as well as com- for infl ation that is $130,000,000. merce, the United Fruit Company [1] Today, the per capita American should be understood to have had consumption is about 25 pounds three subsidiaries at various times: Fig. 2. The Caribbean Sea, S w a n I s l a n d (arrow) in its midst, South West of the Caymans and Cuba, North east of Guatemala, enjoying only ‘Location, Location, Location’ (Google Maps) 116 AWA Review Lee tions in nearby countries closer to Guatemala City. The utility and location of Swan Island in the 1954 operation likely made Swan Island the prime candidate for the site of the 1961 operation that became Radio Swan. SWAN ISLAND AS UNITED Fig. 3. Swan Island, as shown on a current navigational map showing the FRUIT COMPANY’S CENTRAL 1961 airstrip, beacon and structures. WIRELESS RELAY STATION Untoward delay in the distri- 1) the company known as Wire- bution of tropical bananas caused less Specialty Apparatus Company, great loss. Wireless telegraphy Inc.; made itself indispensible at sea, 2) the country known as Gua- circa 1909, (see Figures 4 & 5, Mar- temala; and coni state-of-the-art shore and ship 3) “the company” known as the stations). United Fruit saw its ad- CIA, the United States Central In- vantages for coordinating its exten- telligence Agency. sive “Great White Fleet” of banana The CIA fi rst landed on Swan boats. It could maximize effi ciency Island in 1954, in a little known and provide weather warnings. The episode in the ether wars. It set up range of long-wave spark systems a “black-ops” radio broadcasting was, however, limited. This ne- network including a powerful Swan cessitated relay stations. United Island transmitter, to effect the Fruit created a network of wireless CIA-sponsored overthrow of the stations extending from the inte- elected government in Guatemala riors of the countries hosting its – and it worked, although largely plantations such as Guatemala, to executed by propaganda radio sta- the gulf coast of the United States, Fig. 4. A wireless telegraphy shore sta- tion of the fi rst decade of the 20th cen- tury; a spark gap on an induction coil to the right, Leyden jar condensers to the left, clock center, inker for record- ing received signals and in front of it, a coherer detector, and to the left of the Fig. 5. A Marconi ship station (Empress coherer, the tuner for reception. This is of Britain, callsign MPB), tuner to the a reconstruction of the Marconi station left, as reconstructed at the British at Lizard Point, Cornwall, UK; curator Museum. (Photo Bart Lee, 2002) David Barlow. (Photo Bart Lee, 2005). Volume 23, 2010 117 Swan Island especially Florida and New Orleans off his biography). He then joined and up to Boston. United Fruit the Boston company in 1907. Pick- sited one station on Swan Island. ard invented and developed nu- It had initially leased some of the merous mineral crystal detectors island from Sumner Smith’s Swan for reception of wireless signals, Island Company of Boston to grow and contributed the technology of coconuts. Figure 6. the point contact junction, known United Fruit sought reliable colloquially as the “cat’s whisker.” wireless apparatus in the dawn of Wireless Specialty Apparatus de- the radio age. Good gear was hard tectors and wireless sets, especially to fi nd, and often had to be hand- its IP-501 receivers, were known crafted to specifi cations. Wireless in their day for their reliability, Specialty Apparatus Co., Inc., and are known to this day for their (WSA) was a then “high-tech” com- quality and collectability. pany with an excellent reputation United Fruit bought WSA in and it was conveniently located 1912 so it would have a source of in Boston. One of its principals reliable and increasingly power- was Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, ful radio equipment. See Figure an outstanding Harvard educated 7. United Fruit enjoyed the ad- engineer who had worked for vantages of this equipment at sea American Wireless Telephone and and shoreside. Figure 8. United Telegraph Company briefl y, circa Fruit also took advantage of the 1902, then American Telephone skills and diligence of its corps of and Telegraph Company (AT&T) competent, innovative and clever until 1906, and who then consulted wireless operators. [2] briefl y for Lee de Forest (although he seems to have left that episode Fig. 7. Cover of a catalog, circa 1922, Fig. 6. Swan Island Boundary Marker of Wireless Specialty Apparatus 1912: “Boundary of Property Leased Company, a Subsidiary of United Fruit to the United Fruit Co Dec 10, 1912” Company; UFCO Steamship Pastores (From Tom Kneitel, Dec., 1985 [8]) is on the cover. (Author’s collection). 118 AWA Review Lee United Fruit soon developed (RCA, beginning in 1919) including one of the earliest successful radio American Marconi, Westinghouse, networks that carried public traffi c General Electric and AT&T, in 1921 as well as its own.