An early preserved recording documenting the program’s beginnings — and the later rise of Pat Gates as one of the Voice of America’s rare internationally recognized broadcasting personalities.
The Breakfast Show was a worldwide English-language morning program inaugurated by the Voice of America (VOA) in 1961. Produced in Washington, D.C., it combined international news reporting, cultural commentary, music, and feature segments for overseas audiences. The recording presented here is among the earliest preserved editions of the program and captures the broadcast at its institutional beginning.
The Cold War Radio Museum acquired a one-hour magnetic tape recording of the opening portion of The Breakfast Show broadcast of June 19, 1961 (approximately 1:00 a.m. to 3:30 a.m., Washington time). The seven-inch reel remains in its original Voice of America box marked “#138 FOR IGC – Mr. Plesent.” The notation suggests that the recording may have been retained for review by the General Counsel’s office of the United States Information Agency (USIA), which at the time oversaw VOA operations. Such internal recordings were commonly used for legal and policy compliance review, including copyright and statutory requirements.
Recording One
Voice of America Breakfast Show — June 19, 1961 (Studio Recording)
This recording presents the opening portion of the Voice of America’s Breakfast Show broadcast of June 19, 1961. Unlike the later 1978 example that follows, this is a studio-quality archival recording preserved within VOA’s internal system.
The tape captures the program as it left the Washington, D.C. studios — before transmission, before atmospheric distortion, and before the signal traveled thousands of miles by shortwave. It allows us to hear the intended sound: clear microphone presence, newsroom pacing, controlled studio acoustics, and the structural rhythm of the program in its early institutional form.
For this archival presentation, music segments and portions of two short NBC feature reports have been removed for copyright reasons. All remaining spoken content — including both full news bulletins, continuity announcements, and promotional material — is presented as originally recorded. No additional enhancement, noise reduction, or equalization has been applied.
The purpose of preserving the audio in this form is documentary rather than aesthetic. What you hear is the sound of Voice of America as it existed at the source — a government broadcaster operating under the legal and institutional framework of the early Cold War, transmitting primarily to audiences abroad under the Smith–Mundt restrictions of the period.
When compared with the second recording (April 1978), which survives as an off-air shortwave reception copy, this studio recording demonstrates the difference between production and reception. It reveals the clarity, tonal balance, and professional delivery that VOA intended international listeners to experience but knew that it could not achieve on shortwave.
The contrast between the two recordings illustrates an essential aspect of Cold War broadcasting: the message was crafted in the studio, but it was experienced through the unpredictable physics of shortwave transmission.
The portion of the broadcast preserved on this tape opens with host Albert Johnson introducing the program to listeners abroad, followed by a full news bulletin delivered by Edward Conley from the VOA newsroom. The news covers major international developments of mid-1961, including recovery of a Discoverer satellite capsule, a deadly train derailment in France, U.S.–Soviet disarmament talks, negotiations over Laos, arrests connected with bombings in the American West, developments in Singapore and Japan, reports from Tibet, and U.S. political and diplomatic news. The program then alternates between additional news updates, promotional announcements, light cultural commentary, humorous observations by the host, musical performances, and two short feature segments sourced from NBC.
The first recording allows us to hear The Breakfast Show as it sounded inside the Voice of America studio in 1961. The second recording, made nearly two decades later, captures how such broadcasts could actually be heard on shortwave radio. Together, they illustrate the technological realities that shaped how international audiences experienced American broadcasting during the Cold War.
Recording Two
Voice of America Breakfast Show with Pat Gates — April 1978 (off-air shortwave reception recording)
This recording captures The Breakfast Show during its mature phase under Pat Gates. It is an off-air shortwave recording of a Voice of America transmission.
The file was later shared online by a DX enthusiast in India, Sivarama Prasad Kappagantu (VU3KTB), who indicated that he did not make the original recording and does not recall its original source. The location of reception is therefore unknown. It may have been recorded anywhere within range of the VOA transmitter serving the target area at that time.
Although the online label identified the recording as “1979,” the internal news bulletin reports that the Red Brigades had announced that they had tried Aldo Moro and sentenced him to death — a development that entered international news coverage on April 15–16, 1978. This strongly suggests that the broadcast dates from mid-April 1978, most likely between April 15 and April 17. Such internal news markers are often the most reliable method for dating surviving shortwave recordings.
— a development that entered international news coverage on April 15–16, 1978. This strongly suggests that the broadcast dates from mid-April 1978, most likely between April 15 and April 17. Such internal news markers are often the most reliable method for dating surviving shortwave recordings.
The sound quality reflects the realities of international shortwave broadcasting. Reception could vary dramatically depending on distance from the transmitter, atmospheric conditions, time of day, and solar activity. In some regions the signal would have been stronger and clearer; in others, more distorted or faint. What we hear here is not a studio master recording, but the way the program may have sounded to a listener abroad under specific propagation conditions.
Music segments and most of one feature report have been removed for copyright reasons. The spoken portions remain intact. The recording has otherwise not been altered, in order to preserve the authentic sound of Voice of America as transmitted and received in the late 1970s.
The second recording not only demonstrates the technical realities of shortwave reception, but also reveals how The Breakfast Show evolved over nearly two decades. By the late 1970s, under the stewardship of Pat Gates (and in collaboration with Phil Irwin), the program had become more confident in tone and more deliberately conversational. Gates’ delivery was warmer, more personal, and more assured than the early 1961 format. The program placed greater emphasis on interviews and cultural reporting rather than the lighter, sometimes awkwardly humorous NBC-acquired features heard in the earlier broadcast.
In the 1978 recording, for example, a feature segment explores the literary history of Connecticut through visits to sites associated with Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as well as Mark Twain, Noah Webster, Wallace Stevens, and other writers connected to the state. The report links regional history with broader themes of American intellectual independence and cultural development — a more textured and reflective approach to presenting the United States to foreign audiences. The difference between the two recordings is not only technical; it reflects a maturation of format, pacing, and editorial focus. The 1961 broadcast captures an institution establishing its voice. The 1978 program reveals that voice embodied in a recognizable personality.
Recording Three
Voice of America Polish Service (Głos Ameryki) — Medium Wave Reception Recording, Helsinki, February 1, 1982 (1197 kHz, Munich Transmitter)
This recording captures an off-air reception of the Voice of America Polish Service (Głos Ameryki), broadcast on 1197 kHz from the Munich medium wave transmitter and recorded in Helsinki at 22:50 GMT on February 1, 1982.
The broadcast took place during the period of martial law in Poland (1981–1983), when international radio became a critical source of uncensored information. Despite poor reception conditions and the deliberate jamming of Voice of America Polish Service broadcasts by the Polish communist authorities, listenership increased dramatically during this period. Contemporary audience research indicated that the weekly audience for VOA Polish-language programs in Poland rose nearly fivefold compared to pre–martial law levels.
Medium wave transmissions from Western Europe, including Munich, supplemented shortwave broadcasts and could carry effectively at night through skywave propagation. Reception quality, however, depended on transmitter power, atmospheric conditions, distance, and local interference. This recording preserves the actual sound of international broadcasting as it was heard outside Poland — with fading, noise, and signal variations characteristic of medium wave reception.
As a reception recording rather than a studio master, the audio reflects the physical realities of Cold War radio transmission. It documents not only the content of the broadcast, but also the technical and political environment in which millions of listeners sought reliable news during a period of repression.
Pat Gates: A Rare VOA Personality
In his book Voice of America: A History, Alan L. Heil, Jr. described The Breakfast Show as a “conversational” format — a relaxed, personality-driven program within the framework of a government institution. Heil noted that the program was first hosted by Al (Albert) Johnson — the sole master of ceremonies heard in this recording — and was later succeeded by Bill Reynolds, Phil Irwin, and ultimately Pat Gates.1
It was under Pat Gates that The Breakfast Show became something more than a format.
It became a voice.
Patricia Gates Lynch Ewell (1926–2011), known on the air as Pat Gates, began her broadcasting career before joining VOA. In the 1950s she worked in Washington for WETA and later for NBC, including NBC Monitor, which sent her to report from Western Europe and the Soviet Union. She also broadcast for the American Forces Network (AFN), traveling to Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Iran, and other countries.2
In the 1950s, relatively few women worked as reporters or on-air interviewers in national or international broadcasting. Most senior positions in commercial and government radio were still dominated by men, and women were often confined to narrowly defined roles. Gates entered the profession at a time when female foreign correspondents were rare.
NBC Monitor, launched in 1955, was one of the most innovative network radio programs of its era — a continuous weekend broadcast blending news, interviews, music, sports, and cultural reporting. It relied heavily on live remotes and international assignments. Working for Monitor gave Gates experience in conversational interviewing, fast-paced mixed programming, and reporting across political and cultural boundaries.
Her work for the American Forces Network placed her within a very different broadcasting system. AFN, established during World War II, was designed to serve U.S. military personnel stationed overseas by providing news from home, entertainment programming, and morale support. Although administered by the U.S. military, AFN frequently hired experienced civilian broadcasters, including military spouses, to ensure professional quality and continuity. Gates’ marriage to a U.S. Army officer likely facilitated her overseas assignments, but her hiring reflected professional qualifications at a time when AFN sought trained journalists capable of addressing American audiences abroad. AFN continues to operate today as part of the Department of Defense’s Defense Media Activity, serving U.S. forces worldwide.
These early experiences — commercial network journalism at NBC, military broadcasting through AFN, and reporting from behind the Iron Curtain — shaped Gates’ later approach at VOA. By the time she arrived at the Voice of America, she had already developed the interview-driven, personality-centered style that would define The Breakfast Show for decades.
She joined VOA in 1962 as a contract employee and became a full-time staff member in 1968.
In her oral history interview for the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, she described The Breakfast Show as:
It had everything on there… mostly interviews, some music. It covered American industry, theater, cultural events, science matters. It was a history of this country.3
— Patricia Gates Lynch, ADST Oral History
Pat Gates conducted interviews on civil rights, education, labor disputes, international conferences, and domestic political developments. She interviewed senators, Vice Presidents, Presidents, First Ladies, farmers, scientists, and teachers. She emphasized that she was never censored and that the freedom she enjoyed on the air was extraordinary. The Breakfast Show was one of the very few VOA programs whose hosts were allowed to ad lib.
Much of the program’s structure and professional rhythm during its most successful years was shaped by Phil Irwin, who served not only as co-host but also as Chief of Morning English Broadcasts at VOA. A seasoned broadcaster with experience in Armed Forces Radio in Germany and in European commercial radio before joining the Voice of America, Irwin helped refine the balance between hard news, interviews, cultural segments, and music that made The Breakfast Show distinctive. Under the joint stewardship of Pat Gates and Phil Irwin, the program became one of VOA’s highest-rated English-language broadcasts worldwide, ranking ahead even of the Willis Conover Jazz Hour. Phil Irwin retired from VOA in 1985 after more than two decades of service and died in 2020.
Pat Gates became closely identified with her closing line, which for many listeners symbolized the program’s tone of personal connection:
Thanks for listening, and if you see someone without a smile, give him one of yours.4
She ended her final Breakfast Show in 1986 with those words before resigning following her nomination by President Ronald Reagan to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Madagascar and the Comoros (1986–1989). Earlier she had served as Press Secretary to First Lady Pat Nixon and traveled extensively with the President and First Lady, including to Vietnam during the war. After her diplomatic service, she became Director of Corporate Affairs for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
Pat Gates died in 2011. See her obituary in The Washington Post.
Pat Gates opened her memoir by recalling how her life changed as a young girl in New Canaan, Connecticut, when Hitler’s armies invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.5
Listening to radio reports about the war in Europe and the Pacific sparked her lasting interest in world affairs and in international broadcasting.
When I joined the Voice of America Polish Service in the 1970s, she was already a well-known English-language personality at VOA. From time to time I listened to The Breakfast Show through our internal studio lines. After hearing one of her interviews that was particularly relevant to issues we were covering in Polish, I went to her office — on another floor — to ask whether I might obtain a tape for translation and use in our program on the American economy.
That brief professional exchange revealed her warmth, her generosity with colleagues, and her genuine interest in Poland and in life behind the Iron Curtain. I was grateful when she later sent me her memoir with a personal dedication.
Audience Reality: Public Diplomacy vs. Information for the Oppressed
In her 2008 memoir Thanks for Listening, published with an introduction by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, Pat Gates recalled that during her earlier travels in Poland she was told that many listeners tuned to VOA, but “mostly to Radio Free Europe,” because RFE provided more detailed reporting on internal Polish affairs.6 She also wrote:
The Polish spirit seemed alive and well, jokes were told that made fun of the Soviet system, and there seemed to be little acceptance of communism.7
Carefully conducted audience surveys among Poles traveling to the West in the early 1960s showed that RFE’s Polish Service reached approximately 40 percent of the adult population weekly, compared to roughly 10 percent for VOA. Listenership to VOA English-language programs in Poland was minimal.
According to surveys of Iron Curtain refugees and visitors in the West conducted around 1960, Polish respondents gave 76 percent to RFE, 19 percent to the BBC, and 11 percent to VOA when asked which Western broadcaster had the most influence in their country.8
At that time, VOA foreign-language services were required to translate and use news prepared by the central English-language newsroom and could not originate independent reporting without special authorization. Most funding and staffing resources were devoted to English-language programming. Only after management reforms in the 1980s carried out by Reagan administration officials did the VOA Polish Service significantly expand its audience reach. These gains could not have been achieved by translating from English to Polish news reports and features produced by VOA’s central services. They were used from time to time, including an interview or a report presented on The Breakfast Show, but the key to the audience expansion in Poland were reports and interviews originated by the Polish Service journalists and programs hosted live by talented broadcasters like Pat Gates. For ten years until the fall of communism in Poland at the end of the 1980s, the VOA Polish Service combined the presentation of America in the public diplomacy style of The Breakfast Show with surrogate news reporting similar to the Radio Free Europe style.
These changes illuminate a crucial distinction.
In countries without free media — where journalists were arrested, opposition suppressed, and human rights violated — listeners primarily wanted reliable information about what was happening to them. They wanted to know about arrests in their cities, strikes in their factories, protests in their universities, and political debates inside their own system.
For that, they tuned primarily to surrogate broadcasters such as Radio Free Europe and in the 1980s also to the VOA Polish Service.
The Voice of America English broadcasts were mostly about global news, U.S. news, and, to some degree, at least then, public diplomacy. It presented the United States to the world. But in repressive systems, listeners hungry for survival information about their own countries often looked elsewhere.
This distinction does not diminish Pat Gates’ achievement. It clarifies it. Her strongest audience was global and English-speaking — particularly in Africa and India — rather than in closed Eastern European societies. Not too many officials and journalists at the Voice of America who did not live under communist systems understood these distinctions, but Pat Gates did, judging from my conversations with her in the 1980s. Her role was primarily public diplomacy on behalf of the United States in the developing world.
Pat Gates and Willis Conover — and No Successors
In the history of VOA, only two English-language broadcasters achieved sustained name recognition abroad: Pat Gates and Willis Conover.
Conover’s Jazz Hour gained influence behind the Iron Curtain during the Stalinist period, when jazz was restricted in Eastern Europe. In Poland, once restrictions were lifted, its symbolic importance declined, though it remained influential longer in the Soviet Union. He was also popular in the developing world but not in Western Europe or in other countries with highly-developed free media, where demand for VOA English-language broadcasts in the second half of the 20th century was minimal, with no measurable audiences.
Conover and Gates did not became well-known figures inside the United States since domestic distribution of VOA programs was prohibited by law. Their recognition was international in specific media markets. At that time, Voice of America officials were carefully avoiding getting VOA involved in political controversies at home. They cultivated strong bipartisan support in Congress. Individual broadcasters like Conover and Gates were also extremely careful not to become connected with domestic partisan politics in the eyes of Americans or in the perceptions of their listeners abroad.
Since their departure, VOA has not found another English-language broadcasting personality of comparable stature and recognition abroad who could also help win bipartisan support from Congress and American voters. In 2002, the Voice of America remembered Pat Gates in an online article posted in connection with VOA’s 60th anniversary.9
Institutional Lag and Generational Disconnect
The 1961 recording also reveals generational tone, and VOA production and voicing standards.
As a teenager in Poland in the 1960s, I briefly listened to VOA Polish music programs. I was not interested in jazz and did not understand enough English to follow The Breakfast Show. What I noticed immediately was that VOA Polish music programming did not focus on rock and roll and was often hosted by voices that sounded one or two generations older than their intended audience.
I quickly switched to Radio Free Europe’s Polish Service music program Rendez Vous at 6:10, hosted by Jan Tyszkiewicz and Janusz Hewell. It was lively, contemporary, and played the latest music. It understood its audience.
The 1961 Breakfast Show music, like much of VOA Polish Service music programming of that era, was oriented toward an older generation.
As a bureaucratic institution, VOA has often been 10, sometimes 20 years behind emerging cultural trends. It excelled at formal journalism. It was less agile in sensing generational change. Some VOA English broadcasters tended to talk down to their audience.
Pat Gates was an exception. Her personal voice cut through the institutional tone.
The New Breakfast Show (1980–1981)
The guide introduced the revised format:
The Voice Of America takes pleasure in announcing the NEW Breakfast Show! A new sound, a new feel, a new immediacy, BUT WITH THE SAME OLD FRIENDS! Changing with the times, the Breakfast Show has adopted a format to enable us to bring our growing and increasingly important morning audience even closer to the latest developments…
Legal and Institutional Context
In 1961, the Voice of America operated under a distinctive legal framework established by the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, commonly known as the Smith–Mundt Act. Under that law, VOA programming was intended exclusively for foreign audiences and was restricted from domestic dissemination within the United States. Congress imposed this restriction in the early Cold War period out of concern that government-produced international broadcasting should not become a vehicle for influencing American public opinion. During World War II, members of Congress of both parties also became aware that some officials in charge of the Voice of America and some VOA broadcasters were Soviet sympathizers who promoted Stalin’s propaganda narratives. The first chief writer and editor of VOA English news was American writer Howard Fast, a Communist Party USA journalist and activist who in 1953 received the Stalin Peace Prize.
In 1943, Congress, in a bipartisan vote, almost completely eliminated funding for domestic propaganda by VOA’s wartime government agency, the Office of War Information (OWI) and came close to eliminating the Voice of America. Aware of these controversies, President Truman abolished the OWI agency by an executive order in 1945 and moved VOA into the State Department.10 In July 1947, the Truman administration announced a 40 percent reduction of Voice of America programs, eliminated several foreign language services and carried out deep cuts in the English language programs.11
In addition to prohibiting domestic distribution of VOA and other State Department programs, the Smith-Mundt Act, signed by President Truman in 1948, also required that government international broadcasting not create a monopoly over media production or duplicate the work of private American broadcasters.
The June 19, 1961 recording also includes two short feature segments sourced from the U.S. commercial National Broadcasting Company (NBC). During this period, the Voice of America sometimes purchased or incorporated commercially produced material for use in overseas broadcasts. In this program, the NBC material consists of light, partly humorous reports — one involving cultural commentary from Japan, and another featuring an interview with American women’s chess champion Lisa Lane. The VOA host similarly introduces elements of humor in his presentation. Listeners may judge for themselves the tone and effectiveness of these segments.
VOA’s use of commercially produced programming had earlier drawn congressional scrutiny. In 1948, senators sharply criticized Spanish-language programs about U.S. states that had been produced under government contract by NBC for broadcast over the Voice of America as “baloney,” “lies,” “insults,” “drivel,” “nonsense,” “falsehoods,” “downright tragedy.”12 On May 26, 1948, Senator Homer E. Capehart of Indiana read translated excerpts on the Senate floor, objecting to humorous portrayals of individual states that he regarded as inappropriate for foreign audiences. Other senators characterized the broadcasts as insulting or defamatory toward their states. The controversy underscored congressional concern that humor acceptable in domestic entertainment programming might be interpreted differently abroad, especially when presented as part of official U.S. international broadcasting. Although those programs were subject to VOA editorial approval, the episode reinforced demands for closer oversight of acquired material.
At the same time, the Voice of America enjoyed certain practical advantages in international music programming. Because VOA broadcasts were directed abroad and could not legally be transmitted to domestic audiences, the use of commercially recorded music in overseas shortwave broadcasts was generally treated differently from domestic commercial radio performance. In practice, VOA programming during this period often incorporated popular American and international music as part of its cultural diplomacy mission.
Programs produced and voiced by United States government employees are generally in the public domain. However, material acquired from commercial broadcasters or produced by contractors may remain subject to copyright, depending on the contractual arrangements in effect at the time. For the same reason that the music segments have been removed from this online presentation, only brief excerpts of the NBC material are included here in order to avoid potential copyright conflicts under current law. The full original tape, including musical content and complete NBC segments, remains preserved in the museum’s collection and may be made available for scholarly research by arrangement.
Since 2013, amendments to the Smith–Mundt framework have modified the legal treatment of domestic access to U.S. international broadcasting materials. While the original Cold War-era prohibition on domestic dissemination has been substantially relaxed, statutory safeguards remain in place to prevent the use of appropriated funds to influence public opinion in the United States. The legal environment governing archival access and online publication today therefore differs significantly from that which existed when this recording was first made.
This recording offers not only a window into the sound and structure of early 1960s Voice of America broadcasting, but also insight into the legal and institutional constraints that shaped American international radio during the Cold War.
Conclusion
The 1961 recording captures The Breakfast Show at its institutional birth.
Through Pat Gates — and in partnership with Phil Irwin — it later became one of the rare personality-driven broadcasts within a government structure: trusted not as propaganda, but as conversation.
Gates left the Voice of America at a moment when the media ecosystem that had made such English-language, U.S. government-funded radio so influential was beginning to change fundamentally. In the mid-1980s, technological shifts were expanding global access to privately produced American news and entertainment. Most visibly, CNN’s international English-language television service began broadcasting worldwide in September 1985, using satellite distribution to deliver continuous commercial news to audiences far beyond the United States. For the first time, a private American network could provide round-the-clock global television news in English on a scale previously associated only with state-supported broadcasters.
At roughly the same time, public and commercial radio distribution evolved as well. NPR expanded satellite interconnection through what became the Public Radio Satellite System, enabling reliable program feeds of American English-language programs to broadcasters and distribution networks abroad. Over the following two decades, the internet amplified these changes dramatically: hundreds of U.S. radio and television outlets — some of them in foreign languages — became accessible globally to anyone with an internet connection. In many open media markets, access to American news and culture no longer depended on a government shortwave transmitter or an interpretation by a government-hired journalist. Furthermore, English-speaking foreigners with access to internet and social media could easily observe and read about American culture in many forms — from low to high. They could read articles in American press and other media representing all political views, and follow English-language announcements and news conferences by State Department, Pentagon, and White House spokespersons.
These developments did not eliminate the need for U.S. government-funded broadcasting in some foreign languages. In countries marked by censorship, arrests, repression, and other human-rights violations, listeners primarily sought reliable information about what was happening to them — in their own societies and in their own languages. In such environments, surrogate broadcasters like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty often fulfilled a different mission than VOA’s public-diplomacy model: sustained reporting on internal political, social, and economic developments that state-controlled media suppressed.
The Voice of America attempted to adapt to the new competitive environment. VOA Europe, launched on October 15, 1985, combined contemporary music with short news updates and features presented by highly talented professional DJs recruited from private radio and distributed via satellite to European affiliates. It was an ambitious experiment in modernization. Yet in much of Western Europe — and later in newly emerging democracies in East-Central Europe — local stations preferred to produce their own English-language or local-language programming rather than rebroadcast an American-originated English service. As commercial media markets matured, the economics of carriage shifted. Stations increasingly demanded payment for rebroadcasting VOA English programming and, in some cases, even certain foreign-language programs in countries where domestic media were expanding and advertising markets were growing. The Voice of America could not compete with free or even partially free domestic media in East-Central Europe in English and even in local languages to achieve a significant audience impact unless it was willing to pay for rebroadcasting on domestic networks. It was the same pattern observed in Western Europe after World War II that led to the quick elimination of all of VOA’s direct broadcasts to that region. As good as she was, Pat Gates had no measurable audience in France during the Cold War. Other forms of American public diplomacy carried out by the United States Information Agency were used in countries with free and developed media.
From the 1990s into the early 2000s, as I worked in Europe on the distribution of VOA and RFE/RL programming, I observed this structural transformation firsthand. Shortwave listening quickly declined in importance. FM partnerships and local retransmission agreements became central but short-lasting. Station managers evaluated international broadcasters not only by editorial quality, but by format compatibility, cost, and audience demand. The conditions that had once allowed a two-hour English-language personality program to travel across continents by shortwave were disappearing.
In that changing landscape, the kind of long-form English-language radio personality program epitomized by Pat Gates became harder to sustain institutionally. Star broadcasters today would likely build their own platforms — podcasts, streaming channels, digital networks — or work for global commercial outlets such as CNN and other international media organizations. The media world no longer depends on a single shortwave frequency to carry a trusted voice across borders.
At the same time, the principal need for U.S. taxpayer-supported international broadcasting has shifted. It lies less in explaining America to English-speaking audiences in open societies, and more in providing reliable news in local languages to listeners in China, Iran, Russia, Cuba, North Korea, and a limited number of other countries where independent media remain restricted or suppressed.
The contemporary environment also poses new challenges. English-language U.S. government-supported broadcasting can become controversial in a highly polarized domestic political climate, especially when reporting on partisan disputes that are intensely debated within the United States itself. In an earlier era, under different leadership and with personalities like Pat Gates — who was notably careful not to entangle her journalism in domestic partisan controversies — the space for a broadly trusted English-language government broadcast was wider. Finding a renewed model for VOA English-language programming under present conditions may be difficult, but it is not necessarily impossible.
The 1961 tape lets us hear the beginning.
In the background hiss of the 1978 off-air recording of The Breakfast Show we can clearly detect the age of shortwave — a signal that crossed oceans imperfectly but carried with it a sense of immediacy and human presence. Satellite and digital transmission later brought clarity, reach, and abundance. What changed was not the need for trustworthy voices, but the medium through which those voices travel — and the expectations of the audiences who choose to listen, watch, or read news.
What followed depended not only on policy and law — but on voice, and on the technology that allowed that voice to be heard.
THE BREAKFAST SHOW
Voice of America — Washington, D.C. — June 19, 1961
Complete Transcript (Cleaned Historical Edition)
(All musical performances removed for copyright reasons. Spoken content preserved in full.)
Opening
Albert Johnson:
Good morning, and welcome to The Breakfast Show. Good morning, and welcome to The Breakfast Show. This is your host, Albert Johnson, speaking to you from the Voice of America in Washington, inviting listeners in Europe and East and West Africa to be our guests for the next two and a half hours.
We’ll be here each day with reports on world news, popular music, and special features.
Now it’s time for the news. Here is Edward Conley reporting from the Voice of America newsroom.
News Bulletin — First Edition
Edward Conley:
A capsule from America’s latest Discoverer satellite was successfully recovered from its polar orbit a few hours ago after whirling in space for two days. It was the fifth Discoverer space capsule to be safely returned to Earth.
After its planned ejection from the satellite, the capsule was parachuted into the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii and picked up shortly afterward. Inside the capsule were samples of both common and rare metals and instruments which will be studied by scientists to determine the effects of space travel on them.
Officials fear the death toll in one of the worst French train wrecks may climb even higher. Latest reports say 23 persons were killed and more than 150 were injured yesterday afternoon when the Strasbourg–Paris Express was derailed. The accident occurred near the town of Vitry-le-François in the Département de la Marne.
This morning, rescue workers were still searching for more passengers feared trapped in the wreckage. The cause of the accident has not yet been determined. Dispatches say there is no indication of sabotage. Eyewitnesses say the train was rounding a curve at a normal speed of 136 kilometers, or 85 miles per hour, when it appeared to pull apart. The locomotive and the first two cars continued along the tracks, but the next ten cars were hurled into a ravine. Three of the cars were smashed into a heap of twisted metal. The others were strewn about a slope.
Preliminary talks between the United States and the Soviet Union on the broad subject of disarmament opened today in Washington. The talks were arranged to deal with procedural matters such as the composition of the negotiating body. They are preliminary to a disarmament conference which President Kennedy expects will take place later this summer or at a United Nations General Assembly session in the autumn.
But in Moscow, the Soviet publication International Affairs said that the Soviet Union plans to talk about total disarmament, not just procedural matters. The American delegation to the talks will be headed by John J. McCloy, former United States High Commissioner in Germany. The Soviet delegation will be led by Valerian A. Zorin, Soviet ambassador to the United Nations.
In Zurich, Switzerland, the three main political leaders in Laos are meeting in an attempt to work out a settlement for the Asian kingdom. Premier Prince Boun Oum, former premier and proclaimed neutralist Prince Souvanna Phouma, and the chief of the pro-communist rebels, Prince Souphanouvong, held their first joint meeting yesterday. Three days of formal talks between the three princes are scheduled to get underway today. They say their negotiations will center on achieving national harmony and trying to agree on principles for forming a coalition government. The International Conference on Laos is scheduled to resume in Geneva at the same time.
The mystery of the bombed communication towers in the American states of Utah and Nevada last month has been solved. United States and Mexican authorities have arrested two Americans for conspiracy in connection with the bombings. Mexican authorities say the pair admitted blowing up the towers and temporarily knocking out defense circuits.
The men arrested are described as Bernard Jerome Bruce, a former real estate agent, and Dale Chris Jensen, a former machine equipment operator. Two other persons were detained for questioning. According to dispatches, Mexican authorities found a large quantity of arms and explosives aboard a schooner in which the four people sailed into Ensenada Harbor, Mexico.
Bruce, a gray-bearded man wearing a yachting uniform, said he heads a group he calls the American Republican Army, and he said the group aims at political power, though not by violent means. The bombings, he said, were just a scare to get attention, and because he claims a grievance against some privately owned companies.
The head of the West German Trade Union Federation, Willi Richter, calls for the right of self-determination for all Germans as a prerequisite to the reunification of Germany. Mr. Richter told a meeting in West Berlin yesterday that the unending stream of refugees from East Germany to the West proves that East German communist leader Walter Ulbricht keeps his regime in power only through force.
The United States Information Agency says communist bloc nations sharply stepped up their propaganda activities last year in Latin America, Africa, and the Far East. In Europe and the Middle East, the agency reported, communist propaganda activities appeared to be more of a holding operation to allow concentration in other areas.
This news is coming to you on The Breakfast Show from the Voice of America in Washington.
The government of Singapore has announced that eleven men have been arrested, charged with plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. No other details are available yet.
Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda has left Tokyo by air for the United States, where he will confer with President Kennedy. Premier Ikeda will also visit Canada.
A story of hardship and horror from Tibet. A Tibetan monk who has just escaped into India says the communist Chinese rulers of his country have turned from compulsion to persuasion in an effort to get Tibetans to produce more food. Mainland China is suffering from a series of poor harvests. The monk said bumper crops were harvested in Tibet during the past two years, and the Chinese confiscated almost all of them. He said that in one area the people have been driven almost insane by hunger and overwork. Recently, he said, Tibetan farmers demonstrated by lying down in the fields and roads and asking the Chinese to shoot them.
Back in the United States, death has come to former American Senator George Bender of the state of Ohio. He was 64 years old. Mr. Bender served sixteen years in the Senate and House of Representatives.
United States Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, President Kennedy’s personal envoy during his tour of ten South American countries, received a warm welcome on his arrival in Guayaquil, Ecuador. On his first stop in Guayaquil, word of his arrival spread swiftly and one thousand persons gathered at the airport to cheer him.
An exhibition of African art and culture has opened in Washington at the United States Department of Commerce called Tropical Africa: An Explosion into the Future. The exhibition is sponsored by the Twentieth Century Fund, a private organization devoted to research and public education on economic and social problems. The exhibition will also tour other American cities.
A California aircraft company has proposed jet-powered all-metal dirigibles designed to carry large payloads across the world. The Slater Aircraft Company says the fifteen-million-dollar project to design and build the first cargo dirigible would take less than two years. The company said the primary task of the proposed airship would be to handle some rocket cargoes now too big for rail or highway transportation. It is believed such an airship would be capable of moving entire buildings, radar stations, bridges, construction equipment, or any bulky cargo or pipelines where there is no access to highways.
America’s Phil Hill drove his Ferrari to victory yesterday at the Belgian Grand Prix automobile race. It was Mr. Hill’s second major racing triumph in a week. One week ago, he teamed with Belgium’s Olivier Gendebien to win at Le Mans, France. In yesterday’s race, Germany’s Wolfgang von Trips placed second.
In the Midwest city of Akron, Ohio, the small car era is creating new problems for city officials. A new footbridge was built for pedestrians only. But drivers of little sports cars, who found it just wide enough, have been using the footbridge as a roadway.
That’s the latest news. This has been Edward Conley reporting on The Breakfast Show from the Voice of America newsroom in Washington. The next report will be at five hours thirty Greenwich Mean Time.
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Larry Elgart Orchestra, “Liza.”]
Albert Johnson:
The Larry Elgart Orchestra gets us off to a rollicking start on this morning’s Breakfast Show, coming to you from the Voice of America in Washington with an instrumental interpretation of “Liza.”
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Larry Elgart Orchestra, “Liza.”]
Now vocalist Tommy Edwards is going to sing about the “Morning Side of the Mountain,” most appropriate early morning. It would be difficult to agree with anyone more than Mr. Edwards being on the twilight side of the hill.
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Tommy Edwards, “Morning Side of the Mountain.”]
A change of style now as we hear the Mitch Miller Chorus, and they have something about a holiday for lovers.
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Mitch Miller Chorus.]
Let’s take a look now at one of the foreign cultures that is foreign to Western civilization. Let’s go now to Japan, where the National Broadcasting Company correspondent, Cecil Brown, is standing by with an interesting story about Japanese ladies.
The Japanese themselves have a name for the cute, compact, and tiny Japanese girls. They call them “transistors” because they are so small. In fact, here in Tokyo, there’s a nightclub called the Long-Stemmed Statuesque Modern Japanese Beauty.
And it’s only appropriate now that the Benny Goodman Orchestra give us an instrumental selection, “Oh, Lady Be Good.”
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Benny Goodman Orchestra, “Oh, Lady Be Good.”]
Report to Youth, thirty minutes of vital information dealing with the interests and aspirations of young people. This Voice of America program is to be heard each Monday at 17 hours 30. A wide range of topics is covered in Report to Youth: student panel discussions, questions and answers on current national and world problems, and the interviewing of foreign guests are just a few of the things to be heard on the Voice of America’s Report to Youth, each Monday at 17 hours 30 Greenwich Mean Time.
You’ll hear voices on Report to Youth which have that same youthful quality which was heard just now by Miss Caterina Valente as she sang for us “La Strada del Amore” on The Breakfast Show, coming to you from the Voice of America in Washington.
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Caterina Valente, “La Strada del Amore.”]
At five hours thirty Greenwich Mean Time, we heard the Manny López Orchestra with an instrumental, “Summer Romance.” Now it’s time for the news.
News Bulletin — Second Edition
Edward Conley:
This is Edward Conley reporting from the Voice of America newsroom in Washington.
A capsule from America’s latest Discoverer satellite was successfully recovered from its polar orbit a few hours ago after whirling in space for two days. It was the fifth Discoverer space capsule to be safely returned to Earth.
After its planned ejection from the satellite, the capsule was parachuted into the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii and picked up shortly afterward. Inside the capsule were samples of both common and rare metals and instruments which will be studied by scientists to determine the effects of space travel on them.
Officials fear the death toll in one of the worst French train wrecks may climb even higher. Latest reports say twenty-three persons were killed and more than one hundred fifty were injured yesterday afternoon when the Strasbourg–Paris Express was derailed. The accident occurred near the town of Vitry-le-François in the Département de la Marne. This morning, rescue workers were still searching for more passengers feared trapped in the wreckage. The cause of the accident has not yet been determined. Dispatches say there is no indication of sabotage.
In Zurich, Switzerland, the three main political leaders in Laos are meeting in an attempt to work out a settlement for the Asian kingdom. Premier Prince Boun Oum, former premier Prince Souvanna Phouma, and the chief of the pro-communist rebels, Prince Souphanouvong, held their first joint meeting yesterday. Three days of formal talks between the three princes are scheduled to get underway today. They say their negotiations will center on achieving national harmony and trying to agree on principles for forming a coalition government. The International Conference on Laos is scheduled to resume in Geneva at the same time.
Preliminary talks between the United States and the Soviet Union on the broad subject of disarmament opened today in Washington. The talks were arranged to deal with procedural matters such as the composition of the negotiating body. They are preliminary to a disarmament conference which President Kennedy expects will take place later this summer or at a United Nations General Assembly session in the autumn.
The mystery of the bombed communication towers in the American states of Utah and Nevada last month has been solved. United States and Mexican authorities have arrested two Americans for conspiracy in connection with the bombings. Mexican authorities say the pair admitted blowing up the towers and temporarily knocking out defense circuits.
The men arrested are described as Bernard Jerome Bruce, a former real estate agent, and Dale Chris Jensen, a former machine equipment operator. Two other persons were detained for questioning. According to dispatches, Mexican authorities found a large quantity of arms and explosives aboard a schooner in which the four people sailed into Ensenada Harbor, Mexico.
Bruce, a gray-bearded man wearing a yachting uniform, said he heads a group he calls the American Republican Army, and he said the group aims at political power, though not by violent means. The bombings, he said, were just a scare to get attention, and because he claims a grievance against some privately owned companies.
The government of Singapore has announced that eleven men have been arrested, charged with plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. No other details are available yet.
Japanese Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda has left Tokyo by air for the United States, where he will confer with President Kennedy. Prime Minister Ikeda will also visit Canada.
Back in the United States, death has come to former American Senator George Bender of Ohio. He was sixty-four years old. Mr. Bender served sixteen years in the Senate and House of Representatives.
United States Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson, President Kennedy’s personal envoy touring ten South American countries, received a warm welcome on his arrival in Ecuador. On his first stop in Guayaquil, word of his arrival spread swiftly and one thousand persons gathered at the airport to cheer him.
That’s the latest news. This has been Edward Conley reporting on The Breakfast Show from the Voice of America newsroom in Washington. The next report will be at six hours Greenwich Mean Time.
Music and Commentary
Albert Johnson:
This is The Breakfast Show, presented daily from the Voice of America in Washington. Two and a half hours of world news, popular music, and special features. I am Albert Johnson.
The enthusiastic volunteer fireman, Mr. Arthur Fiedler, just conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra with the full sound of “Serenata.”
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler, “Serenata.”]
Now the Ray Conniff Singers, as they do their improvisation on “None But the Lonely Heart.”
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Ray Conniff Singers, “None But the Lonely Heart.”]
I just made a personal resolution after we’ve heard the Ray Conniff Singers with their improvisation of “None But the Lonely Heart” that sometime in the very near future on The Breakfast Show we’ll hear this song as it was recorded originally.
Now, Nat King Cole, and he’s going to take us, by way of his wonderful voice, to Madrid.
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Nat King Cole.]
Are you awake yet? Well, we are. There is no danger of sleeping on this morning’s Breakfast Show coming to you from the Voice of America in Washington.
There are two contemporary philosophies in the United States about American women. Well, there probably are more than two, but foremost among these is that women are very bad drivers. Now, make no mistake, I’m not going to get dragged into this, either pro or con.
The second is that women do not play chess very well. Well, I can’t get dragged into this either, because if there were only two chess players in the world, I would be the second worst, if I were the second one.
But on the subject of chess, here is Ron Cochran of the National Broadcasting Company, and he is going to be conducting an interview with Lisa Lane, who is a feminine chess champion. And you’ll hear her answering a question, why she enjoys playing chess.
Lisa Lane:
“I think so, although this only occurs during a game. I don’t have this same feeling all the time. I don’t think I would want to talk chess all the time.”
Lisa Lane, a chess champion going carefully about the business of checking a mate in person. And just imagine, when she finally does marry, her husband will probably be known as the Queen’s Pawn.
It’s just a matter of academic curiosity, but I’d like to know if the music on The Breakfast Show this morning is having the same effect upon you that it’s having upon me.
I just came back today from a long drive, having visited the home of Thomas Jefferson, the father of America’s Declaration of Independence, in Charlottesville, Virginia. His home is called Monticello. As long as we’re talking about it, if you come to the United States, please, by all means, try to make it a point to see this remarkable home. It’s a beautiful sight, and he was an incredibly interesting man — not only the father of the Declaration of Independence, but also a humanitarian, an artist, an architect, a designer, an inventor. Really remarkable.
The music you heard incidentally just a moment ago was Del Wood’s piano, and she did something which she calls “Down Yonder.” Well, she really went down there.
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Del Wood, “Down Yonder.”]
Now, one of our vocal favorites on The Breakfast Show, Miss Eileen Farrell and “Old Devil Moon.”
Music
[Music removed for copyright reasons — Eileen Farrell, “Old Devil Moon.”]
Forum, a half-hour Voice of America program on the arts and sciences in the United States. Foremost authorities discuss, among other things, the natural and physical sciences, humanities, and human relations. Forum is broadcast four times each week, on Monday and Tuesday, and Thursday and Friday, and can be heard at 21 hours 30 Greenwich Mean Time.
Plan to hear Forum from the Voice of America.
THE BREAKFAST SHOW
Voice of America — April 1978 (Exact date uncertain — likely April 15–17, 1978) — Shortwave Reception Recording (Exact location uncertain)
Opening Segment
Pat Gates:
“Good morning. Let’s listen to B.J. Thomas.”
[Music removed: B.J. Thomas — popular song; performance not included for copyright reasons]
“Good morning once again. I’m Pat Gates, and you’re listening to the Voice of America Breakfast Show. We’re coming from our nation’s capital, from Washington, and every day you’ll hear feature reports and interviews here on The Breakfast Show. We’ve prepared it for you. We have complete news reports.
Everybody loves a rain song. That’s a popular song by B.J. Thomas.
Our engineer is Don Rice. And in just a few minutes on this portion of the show, we’ll be going traveling with John Furbay. And this week, he’s in the state of Connecticut.
Here now is a song by Dotsie. It’s called ‘Here in Love.’”
[Music removed: Dotsie — “Here in Love”]
“That was Dotsie singing ‘Here in Love.’ Now let’s go traveling with our friend John Furbay.”
Feature Segment
John Furbay — The Literary Trail in Connecticut
“Authors have eternally needed two things: privacy and close proximity to publishers. And Connecticut has long provided both.”
[Substantial portion of feature removed for copyright reasons]
“…by Mrs. Stowe and her sister, Catharine Beecher. The Connecticut Literary Trail continues up to modern days, and it continues to James Campbell, Gordon Wilder, and Wallace Stevens, and right up to Anya Seton and William F. Buckley. The state abounds with authors as much today as in the past. This is John Furbay on the Literary Trail in Connecticut.”
Music Segment
“And here’s Jerry Wallace singing ‘Till the End of the Rainbow.’”
[Music removed: Jerry Wallace — “Till the End of the Rainbow”]
“That was Jerry Wallace singing ‘Till the End of the Rainbow’ here on The Breakfast Show this Sunday morning in April. I hope you’re having a good time with us.
Let’s listen now to the Arena Brass. Their melody is ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s.’”
[Music removed: Arena Brass — “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”]
Station Identification
“And this is The Breakfast Show, heard every day from the Voice of America in Washington.
It’s time now for a summary of late world news.
The news summary from the Voice of America.”
News Summary
Voice of America
“Two days of talks on Rhodesia have ended in Tanzania with reports of some sharp disagreement between the Anglo-American side and the Rhodesian Patriotic Front guerrilla alliance.
U.S. officials indicate that the Patriotic Front is demanding a dominant role in the Rhodesian governing council during transition to black majority rule, as well as the right to participate in the police force.
U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and British Foreign Secretary David Owen will continue their diplomatic efforts to convene an all-parties conference on Rhodesia. They travel to South Africa today and Salisbury on Monday.
The Italian Red Brigades guerrillas who kidnapped former Premier Aldo Moro a month ago now say they have completed their trial and have sentenced him to die. In a written message released in Rome, Milan, and Turin, the left-wing underground group said its ‘people’s court’ had found Mr. Moro guilty of political crimes as a leading member of the ruling Christian Democratic Party.”
NOTES:
- Alan L. Heil, Jr., Voice of America: A History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 68.
- “Patricia Gates Lynch,” Association of American Ambassadors, archived November 19, 2010, https://web.archive.org/web/20101119120933/http://americanambassadors.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Members.view&memberid=46 (accessed March 8, 2026).
- Patricia Gates Lynch, interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, February 26, 1992, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Women Ambassadors Series (Washington, DC: ADST, 1998), Library of Congress, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/mss/mfdip/2004/2004lyn01/2004lyn01.pdf (accessed March 8, 2026).
- Patricia Gates Lynch, “Thanks for Listening”: High Adventures in Journalism and Diplomacy, Foreword by Sandra Day O’Connor (Bloomfield Hills, MI: Countinghouse Press, Inc., 2008), 250.
- Lynch, “Thanks for Listening”, 3.
- Lynch, “Thanks for Listening”, 104.
- Lynch, “Thanks for Listening”, 104.
- Radio Free Europe, “The Radio Free Europe Story,” (Munich, Germany), August 1960, 13.
- “Pat Gates Hosted VOA’s Breakfast Show,” VOA News, April 24, 2002, republished October 30, 2009, https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-a-2002-04-24-10-pat/392163.html (accessed March 8, 2026).
- Harry S. Truman, Memoirs By Harry S. Truman – 1945: Year of Decisions (New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1956), 95.
- U.S. Department of State, International Broadcasting Division, press release, July 29, 1947, Record Group 59, National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD.
- Homer E. Capehart, “Voice of America?” speech delivered in the U.S. Senate, May 26, 1948 (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1948), “Not printed at Government expense.”
