History of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU): Transnational techno-diplomacy from the telegraph to the Internet 9783110669701, 9783110669602

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History of the International Telecommunication Union

Innovation and Diplomacy in Modern Europe

Edited by Andreas Fickers and Pascal Griset

Volume 1

History of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Transnational techno-diplomacy from the telegraph to the Internet Edited by Gabriele Balbi and Andreas Fickers

ISBN 978-3-11-066960-2 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11066970-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-066977-0 ISSN 2629-5059 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932544 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Drawing of International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference held in Geneva in 1959; Reproduced with the kind permission of ITU Druck und Bindung: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Table of Contents Gabriele Balbi and Andreas Fickers Introduction: The ITU as Actor, Arena, and Antenna of Techno-Diplomacy

Part I ITU as a Global Actor in the History of Telecommunications Marsha Siefert 1 The Russian Empire and the International Telegraph Union, 1856 – 1875 15 Andrea Giuntini 2 ITU, Submarine Cables and African Colonies, 1850s – 1900s

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Richard R. John 3 When Techno-Diplomacy Failed: Walter S. Rogers, the Universal Electrical Communications Union, and the Limitations of the International Telegraph Union as a Global Actor in the 1920s 55 Christiane Berth 4 ITU, the Development Debate, and Technical Cooperation in the Global South, 1950 – 1992 77 Gianluigi Negro 5 The Rising Role of China in the Promotion of Multilateral Internet 107 Governance, 1994 – 2014 Dwayne Winseck 6 Is the International Telecommunication Union Still Relevant in “the Internet Age?” Lessons From the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) 135

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Part II ITU as an Arena of Techno-Diplomatic Negotiations for Emerging Technologies Simone Fari 7 Telegraphic Diplomacy From the Origins to the Formative Years of the ITU, 1849 – 1875 169 Maria Rikitianskaia 8 The International Radiotelegraph Union Over the Course of World 191 War I, 1912 – 1927 Christian Henrich-Franke and Léonard Laborie 9 Technology Taking Over Diplomacy? The ‘Comité Consultatif International (for) Fernschreiben’ (CCIF) and Its Relationship to the ITU in the Early History of Telephone Standardization, 1923 – 1947 215 Heidi Tworek 10 A Union of Nations or Administrations? Voting Rights, Representation, and Sovereignty at the International 243 Telecommunication Union in the 1930s Anne-Katrin Weber, Roxane Gray, Marie Sandoz, with the collaboration of Adrian Stecher 11 ITU Exhibitions in Switzerland: Displaying the “Big Family of Telecommunications,” 1960s – 1970s 265 Nina Wormbs and Lisa Ruth Rand 12 Techno-Diplomacy of the Planetary Periphery, 1960s – 1970s Valérie Schafer 13 The ITU Facing the Emergence of the Internet, 1960s – Early 321 2000s Index

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Gabriele Balbi* and Andreas Fickers**

Introduction: The ITU as Actor, Arena, and Antenna of Techno-Diplomacy Information and communication technologies have been networked for centuries if we include, for example, roads, channels and rivers, postal services, telegraphs, telephones, and, of course, the Internet. Exchanging information between two or more nodes in a network requires the definition of several factors: the cost of information exchange, technologies that can be used (and others that cannot be used) to transmit messages, and rules for the production, circulation, and reception of information. These various processes can be defined with two intertwined terms: standardization (in which technical standards, rules and tariffs are negotiated among several entities) and regimes of regulation (implementation and control by a legally and/or politically recognized institution). Standardization and regulation are at the heart of techno-diplomacy because they involve a multitude of actors (technical, economic, and political) and arenas (platforms of negotiation) on national, international, and transnational levels. As the term techno-diplomacy suggests, these processes are characterized by strategic actions, tactical manoeuvres among all actors involved and, generally, require a high degree of both technical knowledge and diplomatic skills by the negotiating parties.¹ This book aims to study the role of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in the field of standardization and regulation of information and communication technologies from its origins in the mid-19th century to the present day. Indeed, the ITU has been, and still is, one of the key places and players at the global level – or, as defined in the next paragraph, one of the key actors, arenas and antennas – where strategic actions at political, economic, technical, and even cultural levels are taken to establish, reinforce, or change the order of telecommunications management. This book is about long-term strategies of regulation and standardization at global levels and techno-diplomatic manoeuvres taken inside an international organization to manage communications, going from convincing the majority of the nations to establish the official seat of the

* USI Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland ** University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg  On the concept of techno-diplomacy see Fickers, “Cold War techno-diplomacy”; Fickers and Griset, Communicating Europe, 109 – 158. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-001

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Telegraph Union bureau in Switzerland in the 1860s, to contrasting the multistakeholder model of Internet governance (supported by US and ICANN).

Actor, Arena, and Antenna Since 1865, international communications have been regulated by the first international organization ever established, the so-called Telegraph Union, which was later renamed the International Telecommunication Union. Yet, despite its historical relevance, there are few scientific studies on ITU’s evolution. Several commemorative works have been published by the ITU itself, whose historical objectivity often takes a back seat to the self-celebratory reconstruction of events.² The most important scientific studies on the Telegraph Union are, instead, law and political science publications that focus above all, but not exclusively, on the internal functioning of the Union itself.³ In recent years, also because of the 150th anniversary of the Telegraph Union’s foundation, there has been a revival of studies on ITU history, and scholarly attention has shifted from institutional history to other subjects: in particular, the role of the ITU as international regulator of telecommunications and as a virtual place where national interests converged and competed.⁴ The lack of scientific research on the ITU is surprising because this institution has played a key role in different realms such as regulations of tariffs, technological standardization and homogeneity, establishment of shared norms, promotion and support of projects and studies, for example, in developing countries. The ITU was a crucial place – and so not only an actor but also an arena – for the negotiation of a regulatory regime in the field of telecommunications.⁵ We argue that with the ITU a new culture of regulation emerged, which combined the importance of political networks, interpersonal communication inside and, especially, outside official meetings, and a community of practice driv A comprehensive list of these publications can be found online: https://www.itu.int/en/his tory/Pages/FurtherReading.aspx and most of them are freely accessible online.  Codding, The International Telecommunication Union; Navarro, ITU: síntesis de organización, funcionamiento y objetivos de la Union Internacional de Telecomunicaciones (U.I.T); Durand-Barthez, Union Internationale des Télécommunications; Lyall, International Communications.  See for example, Fari, Una penisola in comunicazione; Laborie, L’Europe mise en réseaux; Giuntini, Le meraviglie del mondo; Balbi et al., Network Neutrality; Fari et al., The Formative Years of the Telegraph Union. This book takes the same path and aims to adopt a long-term and intermedia perspective on this issue.  On the ITU as international organization see Fari et al., The Formative Years of the Telegraph Union.

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en by the belief in the power of techno-scientific expertise in the realm of telecommunications. As mentioned, processes of standardizing and regulating communication technologies are highly complex, involving a variety of actors from individual experts to institutions and state bodies. Their interactions – especially in times when new standards or regulations are negotiated or old standards need to be reshaped because they are not up-to-date anymore – are often characterized by strategic agendas and tactical manoeuvres.⁶ These negotiations illuminate the tensions between normative ideals (of technical or scientific rationality) and techno-political and industrial/economic realities.⁷ We aim to analyse these interactions, from a transnational and global perspective, as performances of techno-diplomacy in the field of telecommunications. As a techno-diplomatic actor and arena, the ITU developed into a hub of the international network where nation states and transnational institutions such as EBU, UNESCO, ICANN me(e)t and negotiate(d), trying to deal with the many tensions involved in such strategic manoeuvres. Among the most common conflicts, we can mention the “classic” political tension between public and private management of telecommunications; the lobbying of often-powerful private corporations over public regulators; technical tensions and conflicts among experts and engineers in order to impose the “best,” most efficient and more reliable technology; and cultural tensions, such as the language to be used internationally. Gathering during ITU conferences or in specific study groups, technical expertise was constantly confronted by all these tensions, from protectionist industrial policies to political interests, from governmental strategies to telecom companies’ pressures, from engineering mentalities to public needs.⁸ As these communication technologies touched the very heart of political power and social relationships⁹, while representing a major economic sector, it is not surprising to see issues of standardization, regulation or tariffs at the top of the agendas. Clearly, specific political or ideological circumstances affected the role, self-image and public conception of the “experts” and diplomats involved in these debates and negotiations. After all, engineers and technicians acting in international arenas had to develop diplomatic skills in order to reach agreements, and state or government officials had to learn the language

 See Schmidt and Werle, Coordinating Technology.  Fickers, Hommels and Schueler, Bargaining Norms – Arguing Standards.  On technical expertise in European and transnational perspective see Kohlrausch and Trischler, Building Europe on Expertise.  Hugill, Global Communications since 1844.

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of science and technology.¹⁰ Engineers and technicians had to learn how to cooperate in an environment dominated by national politics and protectionist or liberal economies. In other words, the soft skills acquired in the “trading zone” of ITU meetings, conferences, or informal gatherings are key to the practice of techno-diplomacy.¹¹ To study such a community of practice from a historical perspective is a big challenge, as most of the sources available tend to suppress such information from official records.¹² Besides being a place of negotiations (arena) and an active player in imposing visions of telecommunications management (actor), the ITU can also be considered an antenna able to pick up, and bring to international discussion, national or even local issues. In this sense, techno-diplomacy can also transform the issues debated in the public sphere and change the ways in which telecommunications and its related problems are perceived in the public realm. During more than 150 years of its existence, the ITU picked up and transformed issues such as technological transfer to developing countries, visions of future technologies, how to deal with communications during war periods, worldwide communication orders, creative commons in the field of communications, and neutrality just to mention a few. The ITU was able to act as an antenna because it became the reference point for national governments (and especially their post and telecommunication ministries), the place to consult and to look to for further improvements in telecommunication sectors, and the place able to process and transform all these inputs into a common practice. This is also a form of techno-diplomacy: the ability of technicians and diplomats to receive, process and change ideas and praxis of communication.

A Long-Term Perspective In historicizing the ITU as an actor, an arena and an antenna for techno-diplomacy, this book offers a unique perspective on how these competences and practices changed over time by introducing a periodization of regulatory regimes in a long-term perspective.¹³ A preliminary periodization has identified three main time spans:

 Schot and Lagendijk, “Technocratic Internationalism in the Interwar Years.”  On the concept of “trading zone” see Collins, Evans and Gorman, “Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise.”  Henrich-Franke, “Cookies for ITU.”  On the concept of regulatory regimes see Coen and Héritier, Refining Regulatory Regimes.

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From 1865 to 1947, the ITU was largely Euro-centric: key technical experts and diplomats were basically from European countries and the ITU was mainly focused on regulating European telecommunications; From 1947, when the ITU became a specialized branch of the United Nations, to the early 2000s, the ITU was more driven by the United States of America and its dominance over the world communication order; Starting from the mid-2000s, and thus approximately in the last decade, the ITU supported new models of communication (such as the multilateral one) for Internet governance under the influence of BRICS countries, especially China.

This periodization can and should be discussed, and, it will be contested throughout this book, that interpreting the role and influence of the ITU during different periods definitely depends on the perspective from which historians look at the past. Nevertheless, this long-term investigation is also a starting point to reconsider the ITU as a unique political, economic and cultural institution, in which the moments of change have co-existed with surprising continuities in the style of management over time. On the one hand, the ITU has indeed kept, over decades, institutional bodies such as the Bureau, the plenary conferences, or even a magazine (originally called Journal Télégraphique). On the other, it was able to adapt and manage the technological transition over time. In this book, for example, several technological transitions are addressed: from telegraphs to submarine cables, from telephone to wireless, from broadcasting to satellites, from computer networks to mobile phones and to the Internet. These transitions are characterized by a complex geography and temporality of parallel and overlapping life cycles of technical infrastructures and large technological systems, as new telecommunication technologies generally meant an expansion of communication facilities and rarely the extinction of established ones.¹⁴ In other words, all new technologies and their regulation were debated in an intermedia environment or ecosystem, meaning that techno-diplomacy was deeply embedded into opposing visions of past, present and future media ecologies.¹⁵ At the same time, technological shifts were equally dependant on varying political ideologies or economic rationalities – two other forms of transitions that are considered in this book. Political transitions, such as the switch from European colonialism, imperialism and dominance, the rise of US political, mili-

 See Edgerton, Shock of the Old.  Chadwick, The Hybrid Media System.

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tary and soft power, or the contemporary multilateral order with the emergence of China, have affected the ways in which ITU regulated global telecommunications. Similarly, opposing economic thoughts such as liberal/Keynesian or socialism/capitalism (and their neo-versions) have influenced discussions and decisions at the transnational level. Indeed, the ITU is an organization driven by people who make decisions. If one aims to analyse the history of the ITU from a techno-diplomatic perspective, one has to look at the often long-term presence, turnover, and activities of relevant figures acting at various institutional levels – be it as formal ITU employees (such as General Secretaries), as national delegates at conferences, or as experts involved in the many study groups and technical committees. This biographical perspective can help to understand how ITU acted in its day-to-day business (sometimes repeating over time very similar tactics) and how and when relevant decisions were, and still are, taken. The interactional expertise that emerged from long-standing collaborations in specific fields of technical, juridical or administrative matters shaped a persistent community of practice that differed from simply scientific or diplomatic networks and that is still relevant today.¹⁶

About this Book Based on the central concept of techno-diplomacy, this book is divided into two main sections, reflecting on one hand on ITU being a global actor in the field of telecommunications and, on the other, on being the arena in which techno-diplomatic negotiations are being performed. Section I maps the global activities of the ITU, covering its European, American, African and Asian dimensions during important time periods. Marsha Siefert focuses on the Russian Empire and its role inside the Telegraph Union between the 1850s and 1870s. In a time when Russia wanted to regain the status of Great Power at a global level and wanted to launch Great Reforms, the Telegraph Union was a crucial place where the Empire played its cards, fulfilled its goals and even shaped the future development of European telecommunications after the St. Petersburg conference in 1875. The age of empires is also crucial in the chapter written by Andrea Giuntini, focusing on ITU and submarine cables linking European countries and African colonies in the second half of the 19th century. Submarine cables are often considered the first ever technologies of globalization, but the ITU basically failed in

 Wenger, Communities of Practice.

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trying to regulate them (submarine cables remained a private business during this period) and, consequently, in assigning a geopolitical role to Africa. Richard R. John writes another case of failed techno-diplomacy at global level in his chapter focusing on the figure of Walter S. Rogers. Rogers was an American journalist, very active in the geopolitics of communications after WWI and he aimed to establish a new international organization in the 1920s regulating cable and radio networks worldwide, the so-called Universal Electrical Communication Union. This unsuccessful attempt can be seen as one of the first times in which the United States (who did not join the ITU at that time) started to challenge the authority of the ITU. After WWII, and so after inclusion in the UN and the rise of American power, the ITU started to focus its activities on the so-called Global South promoting several projects to assist underdeveloped countries in appropriating new technologies and, as such, to promote innovation in telecommunications. Christiane Berth’s chapter reconstructs these actions from the 1950s to 1990s, culminating in symbolic documents such as the report The Missing Link (1985) and the creation of a specific ITU branch in 1992 called ITU-D (where D stands for development). The last two chapters of the first section focus on the Internet and how ITU was able (or not) to manage it. Gianluigi Negro focuses on the role ITU had, and still has, in promoting the so-called multilateral model in internet governance as opposed to the multi-stakeholder model mainly supported by the United States. The multilateral model is largely sponsored by China and so ITU has recently been considered close to the Chinese point of view. However, Negro argues that the power of China inside the ITU has increased, at least from the first half of the 1990s, as a consequence of a slow geopolitical shift at the global level. Dwayne Winseck closes this section by trying to answer a simple question: is the role of the ITU in global internet governance as relevant as it used to be in the past with other forms of communication? Focusing on the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications as a case study, Winseck considers all the criticisms addressed to the ITU (especially by the so called “group of 55”) and other institutions competing with ITU for the global control of the Internet. In sum, the ITU seems to have lost its regulatory centrality, but plays again a role in the global debate over the control of the Internet. Section II offers a variety of case studies dealing with the role of the ITU as an arena for techno-diplomacy negotiations in times of technological transitions. When new technologies such as the telegraph, wireless, the telephone, TV, satellite and the Internet arrived, the ITU has had to face phases of hybridity from an institutional perspective, adopting different tactics: bureaucratization, structural changes, public communication of the technological innovations,

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and integration with old technologies are just a few of them. Simone Fari analyses the construction of the ITU arena from the late 1840s to the 1870s and rechristened it as a “capitalist compromise” between national states and big business to defend dominant positions. The Telegraph Union was funded in 1865 with a peculiar structure made of voluntary membership, periodic conferences with a solid group of delegates, and a day-to-day business office called Bureau. In addition, thanks to this structure and this original compromise, the ITU was able to work efficiently for a long time and to be a key place for techno-capitalism. Maria Rikitianskaia describes the origins of wireless telegraphy at the beginning of the 20th century and the creation of the International Radiotelegraph Union, a semi-independent structure within the ITU. This is a “classic way” ITU reacts to new technologies, creating sub-branches with the goal of managing new forms of telecommunications which seem to be disruptive. However, the history of the ITU is also exemplary for two other reasons: how ITU copes with wartimes (so times when states opposed each other and often decide to interrupt communications) and how radio represented the beginning of the shift from a Eurocentric to American control. Christian Henrich-Franke and Léonard Laborie deal with the rise and standardization of another innovation: the telephone. Specifically, they focus on the birth and development of the CCIF, ‘Comité consultatif international (for) Fernschreiben’, from 1923 to 1947. According to them, CCIF was intentionally separated from the ITU. It was the arena where the culture of standardization emerged, and it was even able to later impact the standard-setting culture of the ITU. When the telephone and wireless telegraphy (or radio) emerged, it was clear how the International Telegraph Union should change the name and include new forms of telecommunications. Consequently, the new International Telecommunication Union, the official name that still exists today, was created in 1932 in Madrid, but the choice was not uncontroversial. Heidi Tworek in her chapter reports on the discussions and the linked issues that emerged in the Spanish conference, especially the voting rights and national sovereignty of imperialist countries and colonies inside the ITU. The ITU indeed is not a frozen organization, but political, economic, and technical phenomena always favour institutional changes. Can new political powers be negotiated through exhibitions and fairs? AnneKatrin Weber, Roxane Gray, Marie Sandoz, with the collaboration of Adrian Stecher provide a clear answer: after 1947, Switzerland lost its leading role inside the ITU and the country re-negotiated it through industrial exhibitions and public fairs. This chapter analyses the role of the ITU fairs organized in several Swiss cities in the 1960s and 1970s: exhibitions organized by the ITU to pro-

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mote telecommunication technologies to a broader audience and exploited by Switzerland to create opportunities for Swiss industry to connect with global markets. At the same time, the world of telecommunications was revolutionized by a new, disruptive and understudied technology: the satellite. Nina Wormbs and Lisa Ruth Rand analyse the use and regulation of the Earth orbit and the role of the ITU in this process. The ITU was a crucial actor in mediating among several international conflicts over a “natural” resource: the allocation and use of this newly profitable space called geostationary orbit generated discourses of spatial techno-diplomacy, involving super-powers. The ITU was the main arena where those controversies were discussed and eventually solved. In media history, the “next big thing” after the satellite was probably the rise of the Internet and the ITU was involved in it. Not only at a global level and in connection with China, as we have seen before, but also in the early stages on the net. Valérie Schafer’s chapter deals with the regulation of the Internet from the 1960s to the early 2000s and the role of the ITU. The ITU was a key global player in the standardization of telephone networks and through the so-called CCITT, Consultative Committee for International Telephone and Telegraphy, was naturally involved in the debate over the standardization of computer networks in the 1970s and 1980s. From the 1990s onwards, mainly because of the success of the TCP/IP standard and the rise of American digital companies, the ITU lost its centrality in the global governance of the Internet. The same conclusion sketched by Dwayne Winseck in his chapter. Overall, this book would like to contribute to different research fields. The ITU is, first and foremost, an international organization and, applying the concept of techno-diplomacy in telecommunications, this book aims to contribute to an interdisciplinary approach to the history of international organizations in a global perspective.¹⁷ When we say “interdisciplinary,” we mean that new regulatory regimes are also the result of a complex negotiation of techno-scientific, economic, cultural and political factors.¹⁸ This is also a book on the history of telecommunications, a field that has grown significantly in the last decades.¹⁹

 Davenport and Prusak, Working knowledge; Kaiser and Schot, Writing the Rules for Europe; Kott, “International Organizations – A Field of Research for a Global History”; Herren, Internationale Organisationen seit 1865; Kott, “Une autre approche de la globalization.”  Fickers, “Neither good, nor bad, nor neutral.”  See for example Hugill, Global Communications since 1844; Headrick, When Information Came of Age; Mattelart, Histoire de la société de l’information; Mosco, The Digital Sublime; Winseck and Pike, Communication and Empire. On the historiography of telecommunications, see Balbi, “Studying the Social History of Telecommunications.”

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The history of telecommunication is often made up of “national” stories, in which crucial decisions are mainly taken at a national level. This book adopts a different point of view, underlining the relevance of the transnational approach. The ITU is indeed an exemplar case of an international institution regulating flows of information across national borders and, consequently, creating new spaces, visions, and practices of transnational communication.²⁰ Digging into archived materials such as conventions and study group minutes, code books, ITU magazines, correspondence registers, maps, images, and several other sources, all chapters of the book are based on new research and provide a broad range of new archival evidence for each case study. This consistent amount of new research would not have been possible without the support of three institutions. We are very thankful for the support of the ITU Library & Archives (and especially to Kristine Clara and Heather Heywood), who have been committed to this project since the beginning, who have helped the authors in collecting sources, and who have done a fantastic job in digitizing important collections of their holdings and making them available online.²¹ The Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Luxembourg funded two workshops held in Geneva in 2015 (hosted by the ITU Library & Archives) and Luxembourg in 2017. These were key arenas (to abuse this term…) and moments where the authors of this book met and discussed their respective chapters, ideas, and visions of the ITU. This project would not have been possible without these two events.

References Badenoch, Alexander, and Andreas Fickers. “Introduction: Europe Materializing? Toward a Transnational History of European Infrastructures.” In Materializing Europe. Transnational Infrastructures and the Project of Europe, edited by Alexander Badenoch and Andreas Fickers, 1 – 23. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Balbi, Gabriele, Fari, Simone, Richeri, Giuseppe, and Spartaco Calvo. Network Neutrality: Switzerland’s Role in the Genesis of the Telegraph Union, 1855 – 1875. Bern: Peter Lang, 2014. Balbi, Gabriele. “Studying the Social History of Telecommunications.” Media History, vol. 15, n. 1 (2009): 85 – 101. Chadwick, Andrew. The Hybrid Media System. Politics and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

 Badenoch and Fickers. “Introduction: Europe Materializing?”; Fickers and Griset, Communicating Europe.  See https://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/Home.

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Codding, George A. The International Telecommunication Union. An experiment in international cooperation. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1952. Coen, David, and Adrienne Héritier, eds., Refining Regulatory Regimes. Utilities in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2005. Collins, Harry, Evans, Robert, and Michael Gorman. “Trading Zones and Interactional Expertise.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 38, n. 4 (2007): 657 – 666. Davenport, Thomas H., and Lawrence Prusak. Working knowledge. How organizations manage what they know. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2000. Durand Barthez, Patrice. “Union Internationale des Télécommunications.” PhD diss., Université de Paris I, 1979. Edgerton, David. The Shock of the Old. Technology and Global History since 1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Fari, Simone. Una penisola in comunicazione. Il servizio telegrafico italiano dall’unità alla Grande Guerra. Bari: Cacucci, 2008. Fari, Simone, Balbi, Gabriele, and Giuseppe Richeri. The Formative Years of the Telegraph Union. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. Fickers, Andreas, and Pascal Griset. Communicating Europe. Technologies, Information, Events. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019. Fickers, Andreas. “Neither good, nor bad, nor neutral. The historical dispositif of communication technologies.” In Technological Change. Historical Perspectives, Contemporary Trends, edited by Martin Schreiber and Clemens Zimmermann, 30 – 52. Frankfurt: Campus, 2014. Fickers, Andreas. “Cold War techno-diplomacy: Selling French Colour Television to the Eastern Bloc.” In Airy Curtains in the European Ether: Broadcasting and the Cold War, edited by Alexander Badenoch, Andreas Fickers, and Christian Henrich-Franke, 77 – 100. Baden-Baden: Nomos 2013. Fickers, Andreas, Hommels, Annique, and Judith Schueler, eds., Bargaining Norms – Arguing Standards. The Hague: STT Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends, 2008. Giuntini, Andrea. Le meraviglie del mondo: il sistema internazionale delle comunicazioni nell’Ottocento. Prato: Istituto di studi storici postali, 2011. Headrick, Daniel. When Information Came of Age: Technologies of Knowledge in the Age of Reason and Revolution, 1700 – 1850. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Henrich-Franke, Christian. “Cookies for ITU: The role of cultural backgrounds and social practices in standardization processes.” In Bargaining Norms – Arguing Standards, edited by Andreas Fickers, Anique Hommels and Judith Schüler, 86 – 97. The Hague: STT Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends, 2008. Hugill, Peter J. Global Communications since 1844: Geopolitics and Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Kaiser, Wolfram, and Johan Schot. Writing the Rules for Europe: Experts, Cartels, and International Organizations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Kohlrausch, Martin, and Helmuth Trischler. Building Europe on Expertise. Innovators, Organizers, Networkers. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014. Kott, Sandrine, ed., Une autre approche de la globalisation: Socio-histoire des organisations internationales (1900 – 1940). Special issue of Critique internationale, n. 52 (2011). Kott, Sandrine. “International Organizations – A Field of Research for a Global History.” Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History, n. 8 (2011): 446 – 450.

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Herren, Madeleine. Internationale Organisationen seit 1865. Eine Globalgeschichte der internationalen Ordnung. Darmstadt: WBG, 2009. Laborie, Léonard. L’Europe mise en réseaux: la France et la coopération internationale dans les postes et les télécommunications (années 1850-années 1950). Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2010. Lyall, Francis. International Communications: The International Telecommunication Union and the Universal Postal Union. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. Mattelart, Armand. Histoire de la société de l’information. Paris: La Découverte, 2003. Mosco, Vincent. The Digital Sublime: Myth, Power, and Cyberspace. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 2005. Navarro, J. F. ITU: síntesis de organización, funcionamiento y objetivos de la Union Internacional de Telecomunicaciones (U.I.T). Chile: Entel-Chile, 1975. Schmidt, Susanne, and Raymund Werle. Coordinating Technology: Studies in the International Standardization of Telecommunications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. Schot, Johan, and Vincent Lagendijk. “Technocratic Internationalism in the Interwar Years: Building Europe on Motorways and Electric Networks.” Journal of Modern European History, vol. 6, n. 2 (2008): 196 – 217. Wenger, Etienne. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Winseck, Dwayne, and Robert Pike. Communication and Empire: Media, Markets, and Globalization, 1860 – 1930. Durnham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

Part I ITU as a Global Actor in the History of Telecommunications

Marsha Siefert*

1 The Russian Empire and the International Telegraph Union, 1856 – 1875

1.1 Introduction Among the 20 participants at the first Paris meeting of the International Telegraph Union (ITU) in 1865 were representatives of the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian Empires. These continental empires, with their extensive, land-based telegraph networks, had a large role to play in this first conference on the telegraphic harmonization of Europe.¹ For no state was ITU participation more important than for the Russian Empire, however. Following its defeat by Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War of 1853 – 1855, the Russian Empire under its new Tsar Alexander II sought to regain its place as one of the “Great Powers” of Europe.² The Crimean defeat “exposed the obsolescence of Russia’s military establishment and provided shocking evidence of the country’s economic backwardness and the corruption of its civil administration.”³ Thrust into the leadership of Russia as the war was being lost, Tsar Alexander II faced the subsequent decades “as a military man who recognized the lessons of the Crimean War, and as an emperor for whom the prestige and greatness of the state took precedence over everything.”⁴ This chapter will focus on how the aims of the Russian Empire – to regain its status as a “Great Power”⁵ – fitted into the work and achievements of the Inter-

* Central European University, Hungary/Austria The author would like to thank Gabriele Balbi and Maria Rikitianskaia for their comments on an earlier version of this chapter. This research, which grows out of a larger project on the telegraph in the Russian Empire, has benefitted from the assistance of Sergey Dobrynin, Anastasia Felcher, Monika Metykova and Victor Taki.  Among the range of texts on the globalization of the telegraph networks in the 19th century, most emphasize the role of British submarine cables in the “girdling of the earth.” Headrick, The Invisible Weapon; Hugill, Global Communications since 1844; Mattelart, Networking the World, 1794 – 2000; Wenzlhuemer, Connecting the Nineteenth-Century World; Winseck and Pike, Communication and Empire.  Jennifer Mitzen’s Power in Concert provides a helpful explanation of the earlier precedent for European Great Power cooperation.  Maiorova, From the Shadow of Empire, 6 – 7.  Zakharova, “The Reign of Alexander II: A Watershed?,” 595.  Neumann, “Russia as a Great Power, 1815 – 2007.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-002

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national Telegraph Union in its early years. Combining perspectives from the history of technology, geopolitics and international relations, this chapter will build upon contemporary accounts of the telegraph conferences from Russian, French and American journals as well as from ITU documents and publications. After exploring the dynamics of technology and diplomacy in the Russian context, this chapter will illustrate how the period of Russia’s “Great Reforms” in the decade following the Crimean defeat related to the development of Russian telegraphy. The chapter will then describe Russia’s attendance at the first conference of the International Telegraph Union, their active participation as an ITU member, and their hosting of the seminal 1875 meeting in St. Petersburg. In conclusion, the chapter will address the ways in which Russian goals were realized at the 1875 St. Petersburg meeting and later assessed in terms of their legacy and contribution to international communication. The chapter argues that Russia’s technological and bureaucratic reforms after 1856 and their active participation in the first decade of ITU conferences helped to solidify Russia’s central role in trans-border telegraphic communication to, from and outside of Europe. At the same time, Russian actors were able to demonstrate Russia’s Great Power status by contributing to what was then seen as the “civilizing discourse” of Europe, which was developing at concurrent European conferences aiming to codify the laws of war. Seeing the 1875 St. Petersburg Telegraph treaty in this context helps to interpret the conference achievements as well as their implications for the relationships between telegraph technology and geopolitics, between international diplomatic practices and national security concerns, and between the achievements of telegraph regulation and the strategies of its interpretation.

1.2 “Techno-Diplomacy” and the Russian Empire Techno-diplomacy is a relatively recent concept dating from the late 1980s,⁶ a concept that came to prominence describing relations between imperial Russia’s successor, the Soviet Union, and the West. Sharing of information about science and technology, even cooperating in space exploration, as it developed during the latter stages of the Cold War, suggested ways in which technological matters

 In an influential book, James Der Derian poses techno-diplomacy as a sixth myth, whereby diplomacy operated to mediate the “estrangement” created by the technologically enabled velocity of events.

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could be negotiated even when political circumstances were under strain.⁷ Such political circumstances among the European powers also obtained in the decades before and after that first ITU conference in 1865. Thus, not only the aftermath of the Crimean War but also the 1866 Austro-Prussian War and the FrancoPrussian War of 1871 posed challenges to the peacetime use of trans-border communications networks. The history of building of the telegraph infrastructure, overland and underwater, and negotiating the multilateral agreements of the ITU must attend to European political relations, in order to understand the complexities of maintaining trans-border communication ties while guarding the security of these very same borders. To define what techno-diplomacy might mean for Russia in the imperial era I divide the term at the hyphen to propose two paradoxes. In the realm of technology, the Russian state actively supported the study of science and technology yet often, when faced with a choice of a domestic or “foreign” technology, especially in becoming part of a trans-imperial system, the Russian state chose the latter. This choice was not based so much on a distrust of the domestic variant but on the Russian economic bureaucracy that made it difficult to develop a technological application from a scientific breakthrough.⁸ The state also needed to choose a technology that provided the loan of experts and funds, as financing and engineering infrastructure over such a large territory was a long-term and expensive proposition.⁹ Taking the example of the telegraph, Russian inventors had been involved in electromagnetic experiments as early as the 1830s; in fact, the British entrepreneur William Cooke was said to have conceived his idea for a commercial telegraph after observing Russian inventor Baron P.I. Schilling’s 1836 demonstration of his telegraph in Berlin.¹⁰ B.S. Jacoby, who took over from Schilling at his death, had invented a telegraph machine that in the late 1840s sat on the desk of Nicholas I, connecting him to his residence at Tsarskoe selo and the mili-

 Schweitzer, Techno-Diplomacy; Fickers, “Cold War Techno-Diplomacy”; Salzman, “Techno-Diplomacy for the Twenty-First Century.”  The arc lamp, invented by a Russian, for example, found success only in Europe and like the telegraph was first promoted by the military and overseen by the Ministry of Interior. Coopersmith, The Electrification of Russia. Attention to and financial support for large-scale infrastructure did develop during Soviet rule, although even then hesitations developed with regard to an all-union computer network. Peters, How Not to Network a Nation.  Russia’s financing of railroads through the French is another example. Cameron, France and the Economic History of Europe.  Vysokov, Elektrosviaz v Rossiiskoi imperi, 48 – 57.

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tary bases at Oranienbaum and Kronstadt.¹¹ In September 1850, a special committee was set up to select the best instrument for the telegraph line on the newly completed railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow. From among the many available models – Bréguet (French), Cooke (British), Morse (USA), Siemens (Prussia) and the Russian prototype from B.S. Jacoby – the Russian state chose Siemens.¹² The choice may have depended in part on the desire to have a system compatible with and equal to the other European states¹³ and in part through personal contacts. In 1849 Werner von Siemens had met the engineer Karl von Lüders from Russia,¹⁴ then being trained in Berlin, who purchased four Siemens & Halske telegraphs and lines to test in 1849, the same Karl von Lüders who became the head of the Russian telegraph department and representative to the ITU.¹⁵ While the Russian contract was a life-saver for the Siemens business at the time, according to Siemens’s brother Carl, Russian telegraph officials understood how to get the most from their contractual obligations.¹⁶ Within three decades the Russians had taken over the Siemens contract. Their later arrangement with the Danish Great Northern Telegraph Company for the trans-Siberian telegraph line, and their granting right-of-way to the British Indo-European line, all demonstrate how the Russian state used the technological and economic necessities of working with foreign firms to distribute their network among a range of European competitors. In the realm of diplomacy the paradox is represented in the rule of law: Russian jurists actively contributed to the codification of international law while the Russian Empire was “notoriously not governed by law at home.”¹⁷ Renowned legal scholar and influential counselor at the Foreign Ministry, F. F. Martens

 Vysokov, Elektrosviaz v Rossiiskoi imperii, 68 – 75. Tsar Nicholas I also had been impressed by the French semaphore system and by 1838 had constructed a chain of 226 semaphore towers from St. Petersburg to Warsaw. Palmer, The Chancelleries of Europe.  Vysokov, Elektrosviaz v Rossiiskoi imperii, 114. Although Tsar Nicholas I had one of Schilling’s telegraph apparatuses installed in his office in the early 1840s for military purposes, he did not allow Jacoby to publish on his telegraph work, which appeared only in 1901. Jacoby later accused Siemens of plagiarism. Ibid. 100, 107.  Russia’s relative “backwardness” is debated in the classic work by Gerschenkron, Economic Backwardness, and its long history of citation.  In Russian Lüders’s name is transliterated as Liuders or L’uders. Here I choose the spelling used in the ITU documents, unless transliterated from primary sources.  Vysokov, Elektrosviaz v Rossiiskoi imperii.  Kirchner, “The Industrialization of Russia,” 325, 336.  Cited in Holquist, “The Russian Empire as a ‘Civilized State’,” 1. Although Holquist is referring to the effort to codify the rules on land warfare, I believe it applies equally to this example. Also note the subtitle of a related article, Mälksoo, “F.F. Martens and His Time.”

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(1845 – 1909), saw international law as representing the crucible of European civilization. International law thus became, according to contemporary historian Peter Holquist, “a way for one sector of Russian educated society to negotiate its relationship with “the West,” providing a fulcrum for arguing within Russia for a political order more like Europe’s, while proudly affirming Russia’s unambiguous role as a leading civilized nation to those Europeans who might doubt it.”¹⁸ Pursuing diplomacy through international legal means, especially in multilateral European forums, thus allowed the Russian Empire to lay claim as a civilized nation as well as a European one.¹⁹ Additionally, Russia’s active participation in the first decade of telegraph conferences and their hosting of the 1875 conference in St. Petersburg must be interpolated with their participation in other multilateral meetings and negotiations. Such conferences included their hosting the 1872 statistics conference and their participation in the meetings about the international conduct of war: the 1864 Geneva Convention; the 1868 St. Petersburg Declaration banning explosive bullets; the 1874 Brussels Conference on Proposed Rules for Military Warfare (initiated by Russia), and the conference’s resulting declaration on the laws and customs of war. With the interrelations between technology and warfare being debated by the same states during the same decade as the ITU meetings, the hopes for international law as a “gentle civilizer of nations”²⁰ are another factor in interpreting the achievement of the St. Petersburg 1875 ITU conference – an international treaty linked to the Russian capital. Both paradoxes embody the complicated relations of imperial Russia to the West and can help explain the practices and techniques of techno-diplomacy in telegraphy overall and over time at the ITU. The persistence of both paradoxes in the period leading up to the first decade of ITU conferences can be understood within the specificities of what have been called in Russian historiography “the Great Reforms.” As summed up by Alexander II’s Foreign Minister, Prince Alexander Gorchakov in a circular to the Russian legations, the emperor had decided to “devote himself to the well-being of his subjects and concentrate on the development of the internal means of the country.”²¹ This required foreign invest-

 Holquist, “The Russian Empire as a ‘Civilized State’,” 8.  Neumann, Russia and the Idea of Europe.  Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations.  Famously, Gorchakov continued: “They say that Russia sulks. Russia does not sulk. Russia is collecting herself “ (La Russie ne boude pas, elle se recueille). Variously translated as “calculated self-absorption” or “concentrating,” this policy of recueille has been interpreted as Russia creating “breathing space” to make these domestic reforms and to direct its imperial ambitions to-

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ment and attention to technological and legal deficiencies. The centerpiece of the Great Reforms was the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, but the military reform and the reform of engineering education directly related to telegraphy in supporting the technological push for networking the empire. The military reforms have been treated as a corrective to perceived organizational deficiencies and necessary modernization of the army. Certainly technology came to be recognized as “perhaps the single most important arbiter of change in military affairs.”²² While technology in these discussions usually refers to the quality of weapons or the improvement of railway infrastructure, the communicative failures of the Crimean War were also on the agenda. The Telegraph Division of the Military had been created during the war in 1854 to oversee Siemens’ construction of a telegraph line to Sebastopol, then under siege; ironically, the Crimean line became operational only in time to transmit capitulation in September 1855.²³ After the Russian defeat the military increased their attention to telegraph networks and communications more generally. In 1856 Siemens telegraph lines linked two military regiments in Tiflis (Tbilisi) and Kodzhori in 1857 along the Georgian Military Highway, and a line to the Black Sea port of Poti was finished in 1860. By early January of 1864 a line had opened between Tiflis and Yerevan making five lines operating in the Caucasus, with a Moscow connection becoming operative in 1865, by the time of the first ITU meeting.²⁴ The construction of these lines along and splintering from the Georgian Military Highway is not incidentally linked to the eventual subjugation of the North Caucasus between 1856 and 1859 and the rest of the region by June 1864.²⁵ The emergence of what came to be called “enlightened bureaucrats”²⁶ contributed to the implementation of reform as practiced by the new Tsar in a “managed autocracy.”²⁷ The competition between the Foreign Ministry and the Interior Ministry over telegraph development is larger than the goals of this chapter. But it does matter to the background of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Aleksandr

ward territories less likely to provoke great power intervention. Wortman, Scenarios of Power, 27; Astrov, “There Are More Important Things”; King, The Ghost of Freedom, 50.  Menning, Bayonets Before Bullets, 2.  Psurtsev, Razvitie sviazi v SSSR, 22– 23; Feldenkirchen, 60.  Karbelashvili, “Pervyie telegrafnyie linii na Kavkaze,” and Vysokov, Elektrosviaz v Rossiiskoi imperii, 138 – 143.  King, The Ghost of Freedom, 123. In 1857 the Russian Steam Navigation Company began Black Sea operations, but no railway connected the Black and Caspian Seas until 1885.  Lincoln, The Great Reforms.  Rieber, “Alexander II.”

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Egorevich Timashev, who was in office for the relevant period (1868 – 1878). He had been in charge of the telegraph department in 1867 when the Ministry of Communications was reorganized. While historians remark that his appointment “is an indication that administrative skill and political vision were not required for ministerial office,”²⁸ his experience as a military man and as the former chief of staff for the “Third Section of his Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery” (colloquially the secret police) does have some bearing on how he would view the telegraph network. Engineering was a state-regulated profession and the engineering schools were state organized.²⁹ The military reform privileged engineering instruction for officers, including training in signal corps, and the military academies incorporated lessons not only from the Crimean War but also from the American Civil War. As early as 1861 a Russian military historian publicized his hope that the war “would clarify the importance of steamships, railways, and the telegraph.” In 1865, the US Civil War campaigns began to be used at the Military Academy for the Russian General Staff to demonstrate the influence of technology, with an initial lecture illustrating communications’ importance in Ulysses S. Grant’s 1862 campaigns. Subsequent lectures included the role of the military telegraph in the 1866 Prussian victory over Austria.³⁰ The professionalization of the engineers after the Crimean War also aimed “to decrease the country’s reliance on imported technology and to oust foreign personnel from strategic (and lucrative) positions in Russian industry.”³¹ On the latter point, the engineering professional organizations were also concerned about a disproportionate number of important positions held by those from nonRussian areas of the empire, a circumstance that did not change until the end of the century.³² The career of Karl Karlovich Lüders, who eventually became the head of the Russian telegraph department, illustrates these trends. Lüders, born in the Russian province of Estland (present day Estonia), graduated from the Institute of the Corps of Communication Engineers in 1835. Following the usual career route, Lüders entered government service in the Main Administration of Communications and Public Buildings, In 1848 Lüders was assigned the task of con-

 Orlovsky, The Limits of Reform, 84.  Rieber, The Imperial Russian Project, chapter 5.  Persson, “The Russian Army and Foreign Wars,” 109 – 111. The Franco-Prussian War (1871) was decisive in demonstrating the need to improve the organization of the military telegraph; ibid., 169.  Balzer, “The Engineering Profession,” 66.  Ibid., 68.

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structing a telegraph line along the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway, when he established the contact with Siemens.³³ In 1858, the Main Administration of Communications was reorganized and Lüders was promoted to deputy director (and the rank of Colonel) of the telegraph department. In 1860 he was elevated to the rank of Major General and on 4 November 1866 he became Head of the Russian Telegraph Department within the Ministry of the Interior.³⁴ Writing to Napoleon III in 1864, shortly before the first meeting of the ITU, Alexander II stated that “The true condition of peace in the world lies not in inactivity, which is impossible, and not in dubious political maneuverings…, but in practical wisdom, which is necessary in order to reconcile history, this unshakeable behest of the past, with progress – the law of the present and the future.”³⁵ Although ostensibly about the abolition of serfdom, this sentiment could just as well apply to Great Power relations on the eve of the first ITU meeting.

1.3 The ITU, the Russian Empire and Key Issues of Debate Whatever Napoleon III thought of Alexander’s II’s sentiments, neither the Russians nor the Austrian and Ottoman Empires were included in the first invitations to attend the Paris 1865 conference. The French organizers originally described the conference as a follow-up meeting to the 1858 joint meeting of members representing the two existing multinational telegraph agreements, the West European and the Austro-German telegraph unions. However, initially the French organizers presumed, publicly at least, that all members of the Austro-German Telegraph Union could be represented by the Prussian member as had been the case in their 1858 joint meeting.³⁶ Austrian displeasure was expressed through what might be called early techno-diplomatic channels. The head of the Austrian telegraph had previously been the head of the Swiss telegraph and so was able to write directly to the Swiss representative, whose own prefer-

 Lüders also continued his European travel to learn the newest telegraphic developments, traveling to Paris in 1867 and presumably to Vienna in 1874, among other trips.  During his tenure the Amur telegraph line was completed in 1869 and the line to Khabarovsk in 1870, as well as the lines connecting Russia to Scandinavia, “Byvshiy direktor telegrafnogo departamenta.”  Cited in Zakharova, “The Reign of Alexander II,” 596.  Fari et al., The Formative Years of the Telegraph Union, 15 – 17.

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ences favored a telegraph union less centered in France and congenial to transit telegraph traffic.³⁷ Further negotiations were carried out through the ambassadorial network, with France finally issuing invitations to the 1865 Paris telegraph conference not only to Austria but also Russia and Turkey,³⁸ as the Ottoman Empire was called in ITU correspondence. The Russian invitation supported by Austria was based at least in part on their memberships in the Austro-German Telegraph Union, which they had joined as early as 1854 to send telegrams outside their borders during the intense days of the Crimean War. These negotiations for an invitation to Russia were likely carried out through traditional diplomatic channels for another reason. The 1863 Polish uprising against the Russian Empire, to which France was presumed to be sympathetic, had been crushed by the Russians in April 1864, contributing to a deterioration of French-Russian relations. The first ITU 1865 congress in Paris and subsequent conferences debated telegraph regulations and rates despite continued tensions, rivalries and even wars. Two years after their defeat in the Austro-Prussian War, Vienna hosted the second ITU meeting which established the ITU Bureau in Berne. The Bureau solidified the importance of the Swiss diplomacy foreshadowed by the 1865 invitations.³⁹ The German defeat of France (1870 – 71) and German unification contributed to tensions during December 1871 ITU meeting in Rome. Still, as regulations multiplied, especially related to the questions of international telegram tariffs, and questions were continually raised about the relationship between states and telegraph administrations, it became clear that important issues remained to be negotiated in the years leading up to the St. Petersburg Conference in 1875.⁴⁰ During this period, the Russian telegraph administration was active in improving their network and enhancing their position in telegraphy. As envisioned in the original Siemens contract, in 1867 they took over the maintenance of the Siemens lines and the Siemens St. Petersburg branch began manufacturing telegraph apparatuses for Russian use.⁴¹ Already in 1866 Lüders had proposed to reduce domestic telegram tariffs. Although the proposal was initially viewed with

 Balbi et al., Network Neutrality.  Fari et al., The Formative Years of the Telegraph Union, 15 – 17.  Balbi et al., Network Neutrality.  Ibid.; Fari et al., The Formative Years discuss these interim conferences and the debates, which are also fully detailed in ITU documents and are reviewed in the 1875 issues of “Mezhdunarodnaya konferentsiya v S-Peterburge.”  Kirchner, “The Industrialization of Russia,” 324.

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skepticism, an increase in the volume of telegraph traffic doubled income,⁴² an example that was to contribute to their later position on international tariffs. Russia also exhibited other characteristics of the more “mature” European telegraph systems. Under Lüders’ leadership the first telegraph schools to prepare civilian personnel were opened in 1870. As early as 1865 women had been introduced into the Russian telegraph service, first in Finland and then in Russia proper. As documented by a Journal Télégraphique survey, in 1870 32 % of the personnel involved in the departments serving “foreign” telegraphy were women.⁴³ The Russian Empire also had more routes to offer for telegraph traffic beyond Europe. In 1868 they had awarded the concession to operate the Russian-constructed Trans-Siberian telegraph route to the Great Northern Telegraph Company of Denmark⁴⁴ and a year later the concessions for laying cables to China and Japan. The official opening of these lines on January 1st, 1872, gave the Russian empire a financial stake in trans-imperial telegraph traffic. Not surprisingly then, the voluminous pages of discussion for the December 1871 meeting in Rome, published in June of 1872, are filled with debates over rates. Charging more for telegrams being sent outside Europe, especially offering routing “via Russia” to Asia, both East and South, was a Russian interest and a Russian gain. It is noteworthy that ten private telegraph companies were invited to attend the Rome ITU conference. Even if they were not allowed to vote, their presence at the debate over rates took into account those with commercial stakes in the outcome. Given that three private European telegraph companies had stakes in Russian imperial telegraph lines, their presence would add negotiating strength. More generally Russia might see such negotiations as a way to enhance their trade relations with Europe. Beginning in 1863, an elaborate web of economic treaties had been concluded among the European states and thus far Russia had been effectively excluded from these treaties. ⁴⁵

 Cited in Losich, “Appendix,” 6.  “Participation des femmes au service télégraphique de la Russie,” Journal Télégraphique (July 1870), 132– 134; “Byvshiy direktor telegrafnogo departamenta.”  Having lost its bid for territorial enlargement in 1864 to a Prussian victory, Denmark made its mark through commerce, another of the small states benefitting from “governmental internationalism.” Jacobsen, “Small Nation.” Jacobsen, “Bol’shoye severnoye telegraficheskoye obshchestvo i Rossiya.”  Lazer, “The Free Trade Epidemic of the 1860s,” 472.

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Among the decisions made in Rome was the site of the next conference. Attendees voted by secret ballot on the choice of the 1875 conference site. The results of the first rounds were St. Petersburg, 7 votes; London, 7; Berlin, 5; Constantinople, 1. Given the member states at that time, one can infer a distribution of votes among members. The next round was a runoff between the two capitals – London and St. Petersburg – that tied for the lead with ten votes each. So, lots were drawn, giving the conference to St. Petersburg.⁴⁶ It was a much-desired victory for Russian prestige. The interests of St. Petersburg in hosting the conference fitted with the increased visibility sought by the Russian imperial bureaucracy as a way of reasserting its place in European affairs. Thus, the preparation for the St. Petersburg meeting engaged the head of the Russian telegraph administration, Lüders, who had led the previous two Russian delegations in 1868 and 1871, and Louis Curchod, the head of the Berne ITU Bureau. In their analysis of this correspondence, ITU historians Balbi and his colleagues point to the role taken by the ITU Bureau in initiating a poll of members on the question of the voting procedure. Reading the two letters from the Bureau head, one officially reporting the results of the poll and the other a private, confidential advice, Balbi and his colleagues persuasively argue that the ITU recommendation could in this way be proffered without the presumption that it would be accepted.⁴⁷ To an “enlightened bureaucrat” like Lüders, a carefully prepared position going into the conference, likely to succeed, which could also be discussed within the Russian Interior Ministry, would be beneficial. A “new international treaty brought about via diplomatic channels” would make the St. Petersburg meeting consequential internationally.⁴⁸ The St. Petersburg meeting was anticipated also for its potential contribution to the ongoing international discussion of the laws of warfare. The Americans had publicized the proposal by Cyrus W. Field, the US (non-voting) delegate at the 1871 Rome conference, for the neutralization of telegraphs in times of war, assuming that the German states would support this renewed American proposal at the St. Petersburg meeting.⁴⁹ At the same time the Russian Empire was actively pursuing the proposal to ban explosive bullets, which was realized in 1874.

 Saveney, “La télégraphie internationale,” 583. Saveney was the penname of the author Emile Saigey. The British envoy thanked the delegates; London was the location of the next conference site in 1879.  Balbi, et al., Network Neutrality.  Cf. Balbi et al., Network Neutrality. Ongoing efforts to secure documents from the Ministry of the Interior archive may shed light upon the internal bureaucratic discussion.  “The International Telegraph Conference,” Journal of the Telegraph 19 (1874): 295.

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Therefore, the issue of telegraph “network neutrality” in times of war would turn out to be of great significance in the final treaty as part of a larger effort to ensure domestic security while working toward a re-establishment of international norms about the conduct of war and the management of the peace.

1.4 The St. Petersburg Telegraph Convention and Imperial Russia The St. Petersburg conference took place in June and July of 1875, with new players and new stakes. Although 10 private telegraph companies had already participated at the 1871 Rome conference, by the St. Petersburg meeting it was clear that the states attending were intimately involved in the activities and needs of those companies who were building and operating the large trans-imperial networks. Even though the United States, which did not have a state telegraph network, was not entitled to participate, the Russian host pressured them to send an observer so that the outcome of the St. Petersburg meeting would not undermine the universality of the adopted regulation.⁵⁰ To interpret the meeting from the Russian point of view, it is worth beginning with a quotation from the official publication of the Imperial Russian Telegraph Department. Describing the scientific conferences on telegraph, postal statistics, and geography as “exchange[s] of thoughts and works between representatives of all countries of the civilized world,” Russia is noted for hosting “in a relatively short period of time” the statistical congress in 1872⁵¹ as well as the telegraph conference that had just opened.⁵² Printing verbatim the opening speeches from Minister of Interior Timashev and Head of the Russian Telegraphs K.K. Lüd-

 Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 42.  The success of this 8th international statistical congress, 22– 29 August 1872, might be considered a model for how the desired prestige of the ITU meeting could be interpreted, also to include a moral obligation. The British report commented on Emperor Alexander II’s “real interest” by nominating as the Honorary President His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Constantin Nicolaievich, the Emperor’s brother, who addressed the members in French: “The Russian Government, learnt with the liveliest pleasure…that the next Session should be held in St. Petersburg. It was grateful for the honour of receiving so many representatives of statistical science from all parts of the world, and considered it a pledge of future progress in the country, of uniting statistical institutions with those of other countries, and as involving a moral obligation on the Government to carry into practical effect the resolutions of the Congress.” Brown, “Report on the Eighth International Statistical Congress,” 431.  “Mezhdunarodnaya konferentsiya v S-Peterburge v 1875 g.,” 157.

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ers, it is noteworthy that Lüders compares the telegraph union to an extensive family, and looks for ways to expand it through simplicity, consistency and recognizing common needs. The three-part article reviews the Russian preparations and the debates in each of the 20 sessions. As part of the official publication of the Telegraph Department, distributed to telegraph administrations throughout the empire, this full account published in Russian so soon after the conference attests to the intent to highlight the important Russian role for the domestic telegraph industry as well as for the state. The 1875 St. Petersburg conference is noted for decisive actions in two areas: tariff reform for extra-European communications and setting the rules for voting procedures. To the British and to some extent to the French, extra-European meant communication to their colonial empires via undersea cables and an increasing dominance of the British private submarine companies in both telegraphic traffic and, through their diplomatic pressure, at the ITU meetings themselves. For the Russian Empire extra-European meant Eurasia, with increasing competition over links to the Far East as well as their interest in solidifying territorial gains in Central Asia as played out in the so-called Great Game with Britain. Thus, seen as a Russian achievement, the telegraph conference “adopted the Russian proposal that short advices up to ten words in length shall henceforth be forwarded at three-fifths of the charge for full messages. The messages dispatched under this privilege must not be in cipher. The Russian proposal was intended as a compromise between the two extreme views, one represented by the Indian telegraph lines and private companies, that every word should be charged for separately, and the other held by the government departments that twenty words should be retained as the minimum length of messages.”⁵³ The other key decision with long-term consequences concerned voting rules. The Russian draft proposal, negotiated during the correspondence between Lüders and Curchod described above, specified that “where different [telegraph] administrations of the same government are each represented by a special delegation, each has the right to a separate vote, providing that a request for the separate vote has been previously made, through diplomatic channels, to the government where the last conference was held.”⁵⁴ This provision, which was accepted, meant that in effect telegraph administrations from individual colonies as well as emerging nations would have a separate vote, provided they adhered to the St. Petersburg Convention. At the time this proposition validated India’s colonial telegraph administration vote; Hungary had already been represented

 “The Telegraph Conference,” Journal of the Telegraph 15 (1 August 1875): 231.  Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 40.

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separately from Austria at the 1868 Vienna meeting, and Serbia and Romania had sent representatives to the 1871 Rome meeting. The St. Petersburg Convention also gave technical administrators the responsibility for keeping regulations and rates up to dates at future “administrative conferences” while delegates with diplomatic powers would not be called upon unless it was necessary to revise the Convention. In effect this provision subtracted the “diplomacy” from “techno-diplomacy” for future Administrative ITU conferences. The outcome of the meeting was expressed in a relatively brief and concise document, which specified the relations of the contracting parties with the users of the international telegraph, the relations of the members of the ITU to each other, the composition of the union, and the provisions concerning the application of the Convention and Regulations.⁵⁵ However, it is worth examining two interrelated items adopted at the St. Petersburg meeting, Articles 6 and 7, which have received less attention, with a view toward Russia’s concerns. Article 6 concerned acceptable parameters for “coded language.” Coded language referred to the means that both states and private companies had originated over time to safeguard the secrecy of messages and also minimize the cost of telegrams. One word was assigned to stand for a phrase or codes were developed that did not use “natural language,” either numbers or letters. Both states and private companies had created proprietary code books that senders and receivers could use to encode and decode telegrams. From the Russian point of view, given their extensive landlines, the demands on telegraph operators for accurately re-transmitting international telegrams in such codes across their great distances was both prohibitive and also subject to complaints about mistakes.⁵⁶ Therefore, a regulation for codes to be in recognizable language was essential to building volume, reliability and profitability in their trans-Eurasian telegraph traffic. Such coded language also represented a layer of security for international telegraph traffic over “foreign” soil. Article 6 should be read in conjunction with Article 7: “The High Contracting Parties reserve to themselves the power to stop the transmission of any private telegram which may appear dangerous to the security of the State, or which may be contrary to the laws of the country, to public order, or decency.” How would they know? And how would they determine what type of transnational messages might be counter to “national security,” not to mention public order and decency? In spite of the agreement in principle that states were obliged to transmit international telegrams over their lines,

 Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 28.  Sending messages via submarine cable did not have this drawback.

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by reserving the right to protect national interests, states could claim “national security” if “monitoring” transit telegraph traffic. These two articles spoke directly to ongoing Russian concerns. One worry was potential instability on the extensive borders of the empire. The all-too-recent Polish revolt of 1863 was well in mind, for the telegraph lines between St. Petersburg and Warsaw had been cut in the early days of the uprising.⁵⁷ While telegraph lines through the Caucasus had been reinforced by the military, unrest was recurrent. The Russian telegraph administrations faced great challenges in recruiting “loyal” telegraph workers from these their multiethnic and multi-confessional populations but were dependent upon them for staffing key nodes in international communications networks. These border areas were militarized during times of crisis and were always objectives of imperial co-optation or control. The Russian Empire had tackled this problem through requiring an oath of loyalty to the Russian Empire from all members of the telegraph service, forbidding the communication of a telegraph text “to any foreign person,” and legislating severe punishments for telegraph “crimes.” The ITU was well aware of these laws and in 1864, as part of a survey of legal aspects of telegraph service, detailed in Journal Télégraphique an analysis of Russian penalties and practices against telegraph “crimes.”⁵⁸ They noted that “the articles of the Penal Code relating to telegraphy are very pre-emptive for everything concerning the protection of telegraphic establishments against infringements malicious or accidental.” The punishment for premeditated acts, from destruction of property to violence against the staff, could be from three to 20 years of deportation to Siberia as well as the deprivation of rights; interruption of telegraphic communications intended to commit a crime against the state was punishable by the death penalty. The provisions applied to all employees of the Telegraph Administration, the contractors in charge of construction or maintenance of the lines, and their agents and workers. The ITU also notes that Article 60 of the legal code reserves to the Ministry of the Interior the superior surveillance of these telegraphs. The ITU concludes its analysis by stating that “in the documents which we possess we find no penalty provided for violating the secrecy of dispatches, avoiding taxes, sending false dispatches, or other potential crimes or offenses occurring in telegraphic transmission.”⁵⁹

 Schenk, “Attacking the Empire’s Achilles Heels,” 234.  “La legislation telegraphique: Part one. Legislation special des differents Etats. XII. Russie.” Journal Télégraphique 22/29 (1874): 447– 452.  Ibid., 452.

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Embedded in these laws was more than the concern over security in the face of violent eruptions or restive populations. In 1866, after the first attempt to assassinate the Russian Tsar failed,⁶⁰ the imperial government had strengthened the already significant powers of the secret police. Their task was to keep track of the numerous political groups of Russian exiles and political opposition groups, through surveillance of their communications. Within the Tsarist bureaucracy, as with most European countries at the time, there existed a so-called black cabinet, or cabinet noir. This was a secret bureau attached to the post offices whose “function was covertly to intercept, solve and translate mail between foreign diplomats and their governments.”⁶¹ During the tsarist period, especially beginning in the early nineteenth century, the black cabinet was both rarely mentioned in official memoranda but also supported and approved by the higher authorities, including the leadership of the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.⁶² Russian authorities recognized the value of monitoring telegraph traffic early in its history. A report by the influential Foreign Minister Gorchakov, mentioned above, dated October 29, 1856, noted that the spread of telegraph communication “provides an expansive new field of work for the cipher groups, and, increasing their activity tenfold, it may reach an extraordinary, still unimaginable scale. This also produced new problems and challenges.”⁶³ In the figures available for 1872– 1873, for example, the number of incoming telegrams sent to the Foreign Ministry numbered 21,107, but only 38 % were decoded and the staff numbered only between three and four. The Cipher Department was responsible for both coding messages sent from the Russian Foreign Ministry to its Ambassadors as well as decoding intercepted messages sent to diplomats in St. Petersburg. The simplest method was getting a coded text from the St. Petersburg telegraph office!⁶⁴ Thus, while “the two most successful cabinet noirs before the First World War [were] the French and the Russian,”⁶⁵ and it is highly likely that intelligence gathering was pursued by all of the members of the ITU, Russian code-breaking

 A second attempt took place in Paris, during the 1867 World’s Fair, when a Polish nationalist shot at a carriage carrying Alexander II, his two sons and Napoleon III.  Cited by Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, “Tsarist codebreatking,” 345.  Izmozik, “Chernye kabinety,” Introduction.  Ibid., 284.  Rybachenok, “Takie raznye klyuchi,” 55. Her figures on decoded telegrams were taken from a report compiled in 1903 by Sabanin, the head of the cipher section.  Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, “Tsarist codebreaking,” 344.

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and interception was not so successful as to impede the international flow of telegraph traffic, especially outside of diplomatic correspondence.

1.5 The Legacy of St. Petersburg In the area of telegraphy, Lüders’s dream of a Telegraph Museum came true with ist first exposition in 1877. Already in 1872 Lüders had the idea to create a museum and had even secured a location, requesting items for exhibition that one might imagine had been envisioned for the St. Petersburg ITU meeting. In the spirit of the time and the Russian techno-diplomatic impulse, Lüders believed that “the objects collected in the museum would give an opportunity to trace the work of the human mind that was required to create modern methods of telegraphic and telephone communication and that the museum should be a repository of objects of Russian invention in these specialties.”⁶⁶ Lüders, described by one of his contemporaries as possessing the diplomatic qualities of “exceptional patience, attention, tact and a conciliatory spirit,”⁶⁷ would be therein remembered following his death soon after the St. Petersburg conference. Despite the harshness of the imperial Russian punishments for telegraph crimes and the energetic surveillance of international telegraph traffic, the level of revolutionary agitation inside Russia and the level of agitation propaganda from abroad increased. The 1881 assassination of Alexander II effectively ended the period of the Great Reforms, intensified efforts to control information from abroad, and increased the already extensive surveillance activities. The decades following the St. Petersburg conference saw changes in Russia’s relations with imperial neighbors and in the geopolitical alignments of the region in ways that reconfigured telegraph networks. For example, as part of the 1878 settlement of the Russo-Turkish war, the Russian lines built during the war were “awarded” to Bulgaria while the new Bulgarian communications managers attempted to retain and retrain the Ottoman telegraphers who were on the losing side.⁶⁸ Thus, in addition to the representatives of Hungary, Serbia, and Romania, the telegraph administrations of Bulgaria, Montenegro and later BosniaHerzegovina joined the ITU with an independent representative before 1885. These developments add a new layer to the late nineteenth-century analysis that is cited both within the annals of international law and in interpretative his-

 “Byvshiy direktor telegrafnogo departamenta,” 497– 500.  Ibid., 500.  Ivanova, “Autobiographical Narratives of Bulgarians.”

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tories of the ITU. The three-volume history of the international administrative unions, by Russian legal scholar P.E. Kazanskii,⁶⁹ devotes an entire volume to the International Telegraph Union. It circulated in Europe through an English language abridged translation lodged in the Public Record Office and a 6-page French summary in Journal Télégraphique. Of interest here is his analysis of “colonial voting.” In complaining that Great Britain controlled 13 votes and Russia only 1, Kazanskii blamed this situation on eliminating the diplomats from the meetings.⁷⁰ But his complaint can also be interpreted in light of the changed geopolitical situation. In 1875 ITU voting practices of one state, one vote, seemed to be favorable, with Russia counting on the votes of the new, mostly Slavic states. By the end of the century the increased autonomy and resurgence of rivalries among groups and states in this region meant that their votes were no longer as dependable as were those “colonial votes” of their sea-based rivals. Analyses of Great Power diplomacy during the August 1914 crisis centered on this region illustrate how telegraph technology had accelerated diplomacy since the St. Petersburg meeting of 1875.⁷¹ Also of relevance, Kazanskii reaffirms that the ITU members are under an obligation to take measures against the contents of telegrams being divulged by telegraph officials, hence the tough Russian legal penalties for “telegraph crimes.” However, this means only secrecy from the public. The government can require the content of all telegrams that interest it.⁷² Thus the surveillance and interception of telegrams, especially in cases deemed central to national security, were able to continue in consonance with ITU regulations. International law regarding the telegraph thus was a “civilizing” discourse but also did not forbid the means of restoring order in times of conflict. For Russia this caveat had implications for its extensive practice of pan-European surveillance through the rest of the long nineteenth-century.⁷³ This analysis of telegraphy in the Russian Empire and the ITU offers several conclusions. The St. Petersburg Telegraph treaty represented an important symbolic act, arguably affirming the place of the Russian Empire among the Great Powers. Russia’s active participation also supports its contribution to the dis-

 In Russia the most cited portions were on the law of the rivers. Kazanskii’s subsequent work on the legal implications of the emperor’s role as defined by the 1906 Constitution marked him as a monarchist and was only retrieved as the pre-revolutionary past is being reconstructed after 1991.  Kazanskii, Vsemirnyi telegrafnyi soiuz, 35 – 36.  Siefert, “Chingis Khan with the Telegraph.”  Kazanskii, Vsemirnyi telegrafnyi soiuz, 52– 53.  Holquist, “Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work.”

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course on what it means to be European, as defined by Russian jurist F. F. Martens: “the necessary condition for the progress of international communication” is “the adoption and development by states of all the main elements of European civilization and culture” and conversely, its level of participation “in international communication always corresponds to the level of its Enlightenment and civicness.”⁷⁴ To the extent that Martens’ analysis, like Kazanskii’s, is constitutive of the legacy of international law and the practices of “government internationalism” that characterize this period,⁷⁵ Russia can be included among this group. Finally, reflecting on the achievements of the ITU in its first decade requires that the ITU be taken seriously among other European conferences of the period, not only the scientific and peacetime cooperation on statistics or the post, but also efforts to negotiate the rules for the conduct of war. That all these nations were able to create an international organization and realize a long-lasting treaty in a period of geopolitical tensions testifies to the importance of techno-diplomacy and the ITU.

References Astrov, Alexander. “There are More Important Things than where the Border Runs”: The Other Side of George Kennan’s Containment Theory.” In Vocabularies of International Relations after the Crisis in Ukraine, edited by Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk, 6 – 18. New York: Routledge, 2016. Balbi, Gabriele, Fari, Simone, Richeri, Giuseppe, and Spartaco Calvo. Network Neutrality: Switzerland’s Role in the Genesis of the Telegraph Union, 1855 – 1875. Bern: Peter Lang, 2014. Balzer, Harley D. “The Engineering Profession in Tsarist Russia.” In Russia’s Missing Middle Class: The Professions in Russian History, edited by Harley D. Balzer, 39 – 54. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996. Brown, Samuel. “Report on the Eighth International Statistical Congress, Held at St. Petersburg, 22nd/10th August to 29th/17th, 1872.” Journal of the Statistical Society of London, vol. 35, n. 4 (1872): 431 – 57. “Byvshiy direktor telegrafnogo departamenta, taynyy sovetnik Karl Karlovich Lyuders [Former Head of Telegraph Department, Privy Counselor Karl Karlovich Lüders].” Pochtovo-telegrafnyy zhurnal. Otdel neofitsial’nyy [Post and Telegraph Journal. Unofficial department], n. 4 (1911): 497 – 500. Cameron, Rondo. France and the Economic Development of Europe 1800 – 1914, 2nd ed. rev. Max E. Fletcher. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1961.

 Cited in Mälksoo, Russian Approaches to International Law, 44.  Herren, “Governmental Internationalism and the Beginning of a New World Order in the Late Nineteenth Century.”

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Codding, George Arthur. The International Telecommunication Union: An Experiment in International Cooperation. Leiden: Brill, 1952. Coopersmith, Jonathan. The Electrification of Russia, 1880 – 1926. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Der Derian, James. On Diplomacy: A Genealogy of Western Estrangement. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. Fari, Simone, Balbi, Gabriele, and Giuseppe Richeri. The Formative Years of the Telegraph Union. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015. Feldenkirchen, Wilfried. Werner von Siemens: Inventor and International Entrepreneur. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1994. Fickers, Andreas. “Cold War Techno-Diplomacy: Selling French Colour Television to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.” In Airy Curtains in the European Ether, edited by Alexander Badenoch, Andreas Fickers, and Christian Henrich-Franke, 77 – 100. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2013. Gerschenkron, Alexander. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective: A Book of Essays. Cambridge, UK: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1962. Headrick, Daniel R. The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics 1851 – 1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Herren, Madeleine. “Governmental Internationalism and the Beginning of a New World Order in the Late Nineteenth Century.” In The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War, edited by Martin H. Geyer and Johannes Paulmann, 121 – 144. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Holquist, Peter. “The Russian Empire as a ‘Civilized State’: International Law as Principle and Practice in Imperial Russia, 1874 – 1878.” Washington, DC: National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, 2004. Holquist, Peter. “Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work: Bolshevik Surveillance in Its Pan-European Context.” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 69, n. 3 (1997): 415 – 450. Hugill, Peter J. Global Communications since 1844: Geopolitics and Technology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Ivanova, Miglena. “Autobiographical Narratives of Bulgarians Who Served in the Ottoman Jurisdiction of Telegraphs in the Period before the Liberation.” Paper presented at the Balkanista Forum, Sofia, 2007. Izmozik. V.S. “Chernye kabinety.” Istoriia rossiiskoi perliustratsii. XVIII – nachalo XX veka [“Black cabinets.” A history of Russian postal interception. The 18th to early 20th Century]. Moscow: NLO, 2015. Jacobsen, Kurt. “Small Nation, International Submarine Telegraphy, and International Politics: The Great Northern Telegraph Company, 1869 – 1940.” In Communications under the Seas: The Evolving Cable Network and its Implications, edited by Bernard Finn and Daqing Yang, 115 – 157. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009. Jacobsen, Kurt. “Bol’shoye severnoye telegraficheskoye obshchestvo i Rossiya: 130 let sokrovishchnichestva v svete Bol’shikh politik [The Great Northern Telegraph Company and Russia: 130 Years of Accomplishment in Light of High Politics].” Otechestvennaya istoriya [National History], n. 4 (2000): 44 – 54; n. 5 (2000): 58 – 69; n. 6 (2000): 28 – 42. Karbelashvili, Andre. Pervyie telegrafnyie linii na Kavkaze [First Telegraph Lines in the Caucasus]. Tbilisi, 1988.

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Kazanskii, P. E. Vsemirnyi telegraphnyi soiuz [World Telegraph Union]. Odessa: Tipografia Shtaba Odesskogo Voiennogo Okruga, 1897. Kazansky, P. “L’Union télégraphique internationale.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 21, n. 8 (1897): 180 – 185. King, Charles. The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Kirchner, Walther. “The Industrialization of Russia and the Siemens Firm 1853 – 1890.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 22, n. 3 (1974): 321 – 357. Koskenniemi, Martii. The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870 – 1960. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Lazer, David. “The Free Trade Epidemic of the 1860s and other Outbreaks of Economic Discrimination.” World Politics, vol. 51, n. 4 (1999): 447 – 483. Lincoln, W. Bruce. The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1990. Losich, N. I. Appendix: “Direktor telegrafov Karl fon Liuders [Director of Telegraphs Karl von Luders].” Elektrosvyaz: istoriya i sovremennost’ [Telecommunications: History and Modernity], n. 4 (2007): 5 – 7. Magder, Ted. “The Origins of the International Agreements and Global Media: The Post, the Telegraph, and Wireless Communication before World War I.” In The Handbook of Global Media and Communication Policy, edited by Robin Mansell and Marc Raboy, 23 – 39. London: Blackwell, 2011. Maiorova, Olga. From the Shadow of Empire: Defining the Russian Nation through Cultural Mythology, 1855 – 1870. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010. Mälksoo, Lauri. “F.F. Martens and His Time: When Russia Was an Integral Part of the European Tradition of International Law.” European Journal of International Law, vol. 25, n. 3 (2014): 811 – 829. Mälksoo, Lauri. Russian Approaches to International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Mattelart, Armand. Networking the World, 1794 – 2000. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Menning, Bruce W. Bayonets Before Bullets: The Imperial Russian Army, 1861 – 1914. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992. “Mezhdunarodnaya konferentsiya v S-Peterburge v 1875 g. [International Conference in St. Petersburg in 1875].” Sbornik rasporyazheniy po telegrafnomu vedomstvu (izdaniye telegrafnogo departamenta) [Collection of orders for the telegraph office (edition of the telegraph department)], n.11 (1875): 157 – 164. Mitzen, Jennifer. Power in Concert: The Nineteenth-Century Origins of Global Governance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013. Neumann, Iver B. Russia and the Idea of Europe: A study in Identity and International Relations. London: Routledge, 2013. Neumann, Iver B. “Russia as a Great Power, 1815 – 2007.” Journal of International Relations and Development, vol. 11, n. 2 (2008): 128 – 151. Orlovsky, Daniel T. The Limits of Reform: The Ministry of Internal Affairs in Imperial Russia, 1802 – 1881. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981. Palmer, Alan. The Chancelleries of Europe: Hidden Diplomacy, 1814 – 1918. New York: Faber & Faber, 2013 [1983].

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Persson, Gudrun. “The Russian Army and Foreign Wars, 1859 – 1871.” PhD diss., London School of Economics and Political Science, 1999. Peters, Benjamin. How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016. Psurtsev, Nikolai D., ed. Razvitie sviazi v SSSR [Development of Communication in the USSR]. Moscow: Sviaz, 1967. Rieber, Alfred J. “Alexander II: A Revisionist View.” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 43, n. 1 (1971): 42 – 58. Rieber, Alfred J. The Imperial Russian Project: Autocratic Politics, Economic Development, and Social Fragmentation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017. Rybachenok, Irina. “Takie raznye klyuchi. Shifroval’naia ekspeditsiia MID [Such different codes. The cryptographic expedition of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs].” Rodina, n. 9 (2003): 54 – 56. Salzman, Rachel S. “Techno-Diplomacy for the Twenty-First Century: Lessons of U.S.-Soviet Space Cooperation for U.S.-Russian Cooperation in the Arctic.” Hurford Next Generation Fellowship Research Paper, n. 6 (2016). Accessed January 19, 2018. https://www.euro peanleadershipnetwork.org/…/Techno-Diplomacy-for-the-Twenty-First-Century. Saveney, Edgar. “La télégraphie internationale. Les anciens traités, traités, et la conférence de Paris.” Revue des deux mondes (1872): 360 – 384. Saveney, Edgar. “La télégraphie internationale. Les conférences de Vienne et de Rome.” Revue des deux mondes (1872): 551 – 583. Schenk, Frithjof Benjamin. “Attacking the Empire’s Achilles Heels: Railroads and Terrorism in Tsarist Russia.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (2010): 232 – 253. Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, David. “Tsarist Codebreaking: Some Background and Some Examples.” Cryptologia, vol. 22, n. 4 (1998): 342 – 353. Schweitzer, Glenn E. Techno-Diplomacy: US-Soviet Confrontations in Science and Technology. London: Springer, 2013 [1989]. Siefert, Marsha. “Chingis Khan with the Telegraph: Communications in the Russian and Ottoman Empires.” In Comparing Empires: Encounters and Transfers in the Long Nineteenth Century, edited by Jörn Leonhard and Ulrike von Hirschhausen, 80 – 110. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015. Vysokov, M.S. Elektrosviaz v Rossiiskoi imperii ot zarozhdenia do nachala 20 veka [Telecommunications in the Russian Empire from its founding to the beginning of the 20th century]. Iuzhno Sakhalinsk: Izdatel’stvo sakhalinskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2003. Wenzlhuemer, Roland. Connecting the Nineteenth-Century World: The Telegraph and Globalization. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Winseck, Dwayne R., and Robert M. Pike. Communication and empire. Media, markets and globalization, 1860 – 1930. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. Wortman, Richard. Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy from Peter the Great to the Abdication of Nicholas II. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. Zakharova, Larisa. “The Reign of Alexander II: A Watershed?” In The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 2, Imperial Russia, 1689 – 1917, edited by Dominic Lieven, 595 – 596. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Andrea Giuntini*

2 ITU, Submarine Cables and African Colonies, 1850s – 1900s 2.1 The Role of Submarine Telegraphy in the Time of the First Globalization Starting from the Eighties of the last century, the history of submarine telegraph cables has conquered a full historiographic maturity with excellent results; furthermore, it has developed through several research threads and interpretative facets, which make this discipline extremely lively. Infrastructure networks are a key element to explore political and economic international relationships, and imperialism as well, in the second half of 19th century at a global scale. Among all means of communication, submarine telegraphy is clearly representing the idea of the “global.” The process of wiring the world in the 19th century was a process steered by technophile entrepreneurs, global firms, state institutions and the military. The economic potential of the electrical telegraph as well as its impact on politics made it an object of fierce industrial competition and strict state regulation. It represented a huge part of the economic revolution of the so-called first globalization. Geopolitical and commercial factors deeply affected the ways by which the electrical telegraph was conceived and used as a new communication device. In the era of imperialism the submarine telegraphy was therefore an ideal instrument of political control; it was a sort of unofficial outpost of the empire projected into the oceans: “No spider even felt the tug of a fly – an anonymous journalist on the Chamber’s wrote in the summer of 1858 after the positive outcome of the Atlantic connection – from the remotest extremity of his filmy network more surely than our foreign minister, seated quietly in his office in Downing Street, will be able to feel the pulse of all the colonies within the course of an hour or two”¹. This specific historiography is active in several countries, constantly producing monographs and articles for academic journals attracting a growing interest from historical research as well as from the public. Over the last few years, the scholarship on submarine telegraphy has intercepted the methodological and conceptual issues linked to global history, which have significantly contributed * University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy  “The Sub-Atlantic Telegraph.” The Chamber’s Journal, September 8, 1858: 159. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-003

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to innovating the general vision, increasing reflections, and at the same time had widened the potential audience of scholars involved in this field. A massive and good level works (see references) made this argument quite popular to scholars, offering different perspectives, since the seminal works by Daniel Headrick².

2.2 Africa and Submarine Telegraphy Although an overall outlook might prompt to a positive conclusion, however a more accurate digging into this rich historiography highlights the lack of works on the telegraphic development in the African continent, whether it is terrestrial telegraphy or submarine cables. In fact, the African continent is the less explored area of the world by researchers in the history of communications, and even the many scholars of colonial Africa have dedicated few of their efforts to the analysis of these issues³. Therefore, we know little and only marginally of African question in the field of telegraphic communications, especially submarine, if compared to what the numerous published works have already shown us in relation to this field in other areas and continents. In this chapter I intend to analyse the contribution of submarine telegraphy to the economic, social, entrepreneurial and technological development of Africa: what was the relationship with the colonial dynamics, which was the position of Africa in the world arena and, especially, what was its relationship with ITU. This is my starting point: it is a story that has entirely to be written and, in this chapter, for the first time I start to frame it but without reaching a complete and definitive conclusion. My aim is, on the contrary, to opening the floor for further analysis. The reason for this scarcity of interest, which I consider decisive, is strictly linked to the point tackled just above: the lack of primary sources, which evidently, I suggest, reflects the secondary role played by submarine telegraphy in the African case: such as the reduced space in the cable companies’ agendas, the little political weight in the governmental considerations, the substantial disinterestedness by the ITU, and finally a low incidence on the continent’s economy. The lack of relevant sources is certainly one of the main reasons that

 Headrick (The Tools of Empire) can be considered as a ground-breaking analysis that has opened a new historiographic perspective. For a recent list of works on the subject, see the chapter’s bibliography. By the same author, see The Tentacles of Progress and The Invisible Weapon.  By way of example, see the recent Press, Rogue Empires.

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have so far kept scholars distant from this subject, who, until now, referred mostly to traditional sources for their explorations⁴. While this scarcity impoverishes the historiographical sketch, nonetheless it does not make Africa methodologically irrelevant. If it is true that there is a fundamental difference in the development of the research, this does not mean, of course, that the motivations characterizing the world submarine telegraphy sector do not apply in the African case-study. Ultimately, the critical-analytical tools required for a historical investigation do not change. In the African case, as in the case of the communication between Europe and the American continent, the perception of time and space changes and transformed the perceived places, which had always been considered “distant,” to places suddenly nearer, within a closer perimeter⁵. For the first time in history, time prevails over space in the sense that rather than calculating distances, as it has been done for centuries, it is “travel times” that need to be calculated; the same applies for the various possibilities of mobility of people, goods and information allowed by the new routes of communication. These new promises portray a new world order and a different vision of the world⁶. This is also true in the African case, just like in the other realities of the globe, but with a much more limited ability to change the terms of economic development and entrepreneurial opportunities. Similarly, limits exist in respect to the new dimension of information and, ultimately, to the social and cultural change. The particularly use of the planet allowed for the first time by the interconnection given by the network of telegraphic communications, which extended under seas and oceans, is also true for Africa, but with very reduced potentials. The new measure of the world, for many extents, includes also the African continent⁷. Another of my central argument is the role played by colonialism and imperialism: starting from the Nineties of the 19th century, the so-called “scramble for Africa” definitively transformed the continent into an area exploited by strong

 The available primary sources utilized in this chapter are: specialized journals, conference minutes and general statistics which have been analysed since 1870 (Statistique générale de la télégraphie dans les différents pays de l’ancien continent). However, the analysis of the ITU documents, starting from the house organ Journal Télégraphique – which regularly published a useful Nomenclature indicating the status of existing cables and allowing us to reconstruct their history – does not provide any specific image of Africa.  Kern, The Culture of Time and Space; Cairncross, The Death of Distance; Schlögel, Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit.  Conrad and Sachsenmaier, Introduction: Competing Visions of World Order.  Giovannini and Giuntini, “Spazio e misura.”

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competition – a real “battlefield” – between the great European powers. This competition also involved submarine cables in a pure logic of imperialistic rivalry. In the African case, therefore, the emphasis posed on the changing perception of the distance does not imply an alteration with respect to the other continents, but on the contrary, considering the colonial status of most of the African areas, the changing perception of the distance involved only the motherland. The African case wholly exemplifies the assumption that the global space created by communications can replace the geographic space. Nonetheless, from this perspective Africa emerges depending on the political or strategic significance and strategy that each colonial country had invested in their possessions. In the case of France, for instance, Algeria and Tunisia enjoyed an official “special treatment,” which was then transferred to Senegal but not to other colonies⁸. It is no coincidence that, starting from 1885, ITU established a formal office for the French colonies as well as for Egypt, for some of the Southern African republics, and for Portuguese colonies (indicated as a plural subject by the ITU’s administrative division)⁹. Overall, the role of the ITU appears to be decidedly marginal and substantially mediated by the great colonial powers. The African continent is not a specific arena in terms of platform of negotiation; probably, it is a unique case in the global panorama of the years between 19th and 20th centuries. In this sense, for the hegemonic role played by the colonial relationship, it is problematic to assimilate the African experience with the other world spaces in which the submarine telegraphy was successfully developed. The political-diplomatic relations between the colonial states undoubtedly represent a part of great interest in the whole story, even in broad strategic terms, but it took place outside the context of the ITU, its regulatory prerogatives and its role as the major player for setting standards. On the economic side, the African context was the least lucrative in the world, not capable of producing significant profit such as, on the contrary, the lines laid in other oceans and seas. The Africa’s case of submarine telegraphy, therefore, does not possess the characteristics to be considered a proper global business capable of attracting capitals as it happened elsewhere. Business in Africa was not profitable and in the turn of the century most of the telegraphic

 “French Cable schemes 1901– 1905,” POST 30/907, British Telecom Archive (from now on BTA), London.  Algeria joined ITU in 1866 when France did, Egypt in 1876, Natal in 1881, the Cape colony in 1882, Senegal and Tunisia in 1885, the Portuguese colonies in 1894, Madagascar in 1903, Orange in 1904. See POST 30/355 and 30/1201, BTA.

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communications were supported by public investments¹⁰. Their significance was predominantly political, also because the telegrams transmitted were above all communications among state’s departments or offices¹¹. Business as well as the media were not interested in the development of communication in Africa. The administration and management of the African cables were totally political, up to the practice of censoring messages and suspension of the telegraphic service, prerogatives that the states hold tightly in their hands. On November 17, 1899, for example, due to a governmental intervention, British companies suspended the transmission of all messages in Southern, Eastern and Western Africa. Consequently, France was totally unable to transmit secret instructions to the Madagascar government. During any major colonial crisis – Madagascar 1895, Faschoda 1898, Transvaal 1899 and Morocco 1905 – France definitely depended on the British cables. For this reason, not only the history of submarine cables in Africa is entwined with private and public supporting, but also it registered the increasing phenomenon of direct subsidies, without which the African network would never have been created. It wasn’t the logic of market that prevailed, rather the state intervention with a clear political objective, from which private companies took great advantage because they were able to operate reducing significantly their risks. Therefore, African cable tariffs were so exorbitantly high that only about a very low percentage of the continent’s population, primarily rich merchants, politicians, and newsagents, could afford to send a telegram around the globe¹². We know very well that ITU’s policy was oriented towards dropping tariffs, but they never proposed a specific African tariffs policy; the reason for this might be the fact that for the African case the aims were essentially political – id. imperial – as well as the contents of messages. Consequently, the cables which overextended along the African coasts had a central task: with their long connections that needed various piers – in reality proper intermediate stops – cables helped to connect with southern America and with the Indian continent and Oceania¹³. From this perspective, Africa

 “Proposal for the Cape Cable Submitted to H.M. Government on 25th Nov 1878 by the Eastern Telegraph Co.,” POST 30/355C, BTA; A Telegraph to South-Africa, June 1877, POST 30/355C, BTA.  “Bill 82. Select Committee Nominated,” House of Commons (from now on HC), Debate (from now on Deb.) 23 June 1868 vol. 192 cc1978 – 80; “Electric Telegraphs Committee,” HC Deb. 05 July, 1869, vol. 197, cc1214– 26; “Committee,” House of Lords, Deb. 23 July, 1885, vol. 299 cc1600 – 6; “Commons Sitting, Orders of the Day, Telegraphic Cable Communication,” HC, Deb. 10 April,, 1899, vol. 69 cc726 – 34. “Reduced rates for Government telegrams and cable landing rights to Eastern Telegraph Company (1901– 1905),” POST 30/1357, BTA.  Müller-Pohl, “Beyond the Means of 99 Percent of the Population.”  “The Cable of the Empire,” The Empire, February 20, 1901, POST 30/182, BTA.

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was a sort of “big hub” with the aim at reaching other areas of the world, but with no economic earnings. See for example, what the journal The Electrician reported in February 1901: to enable the Company with to deal with the increase of traffic from other colonies “arrangements have been made […] to continue the new direct route between Great Britain and cape Town to Australasia via Mauritius, Keeling Island and Perth”¹⁴. One of the major differences between the history of African cables and that of other areas of the world is the fact that the war played a central role in respect to the laying of the cables. This is evident from the numerous episodes, which occurred in the years described in this essay. The Eastern Telegraph Company, for instance, revealed that “although the work we have done and are still doing in connection with the war in South Africa has resulted in a temporary increase in our revenue, we prefer very greatly to rely upon the permanent increase of traffic which we have every reason to hope will result from the development of the country after the peace”¹⁵. In fact, much of the cables laid out were the result of a conflict, which demanded a better communication for war purposes. African submarine cables therefore did not result from a rational industrial strategy or from a necessity to construct a coherent network. Given the overall standardization and the subordination of the African cables to political reasons, it is reasonable to conclude that African cables did not respond to a technological need or experimentation. In every case analysed in this chapter what prevailed were the haste and the need to laid cables for the military need of patrolling. Finally, I believe that in many respects, the case of the African submarine telegraphy symbolizes the very “creation” of the continent, which begins to be perceived as such exactly from the end of the 19th century. Submarine telegraph cables have contributed significantly to the physical and ideational construction of the continent as such, unifying various dispersed colonies. This interpretation, which I propose in this chapter, is rather different from the traditional understanding of Africa in the age of imperialism. Submarine cables contributed significantly to changing the perception of Africa: from a fragmented colonial appendix of Europe to the level of autonomous continent. Thanks to submarine cables Africa was for the first time sketched on the world map, condensed as a unique geographical entity as we consider it today, but at the same time this process also confirms the paths of colonial alternative geography. Telecommunications assign to the continent a wider identity

 “Extract form Report of the Meeting of Eastern Telegraph Company,” The Electrician, February, 1, 1901, POST 30/182, BTA.  Ibid.

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that coexists with the original geographic space and was capable of including Africa into the global space created by submarine cables. In many ways, this process represents for Africa the first arrival into modernity.

2.3 In the Mediterranean Sea The first area of Africa to be connected to Europe via cable-network was the Northern one: this was an integral part of the strategy of the big telegraphic powers. The telegraphic dynamism in the whole Mediterranean, and not just for the countries bordering the sea, is an essential component for understanding the entire African case. In this sense, the Mediterranean should be understood as a primary actor in the telegraphic history and an element that mediates between the two continents, Europe and Africa. In fact, the first submarine telegraphy projects linked with the Mediterranean also touched Africa, which from this perspective was considered as a bridge to India. Especially, for Great Britain the Mediterranean lines to Egypt and Suez were functional to the more relevant Indian direction; such a perspective becomes pivotal thanks to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The project to lay a cable across the Red Sea and India required the British to cross the Mediterranean. As the crucial bridgehead by which to reach Suez and beyond to the East, Britain focused in Malta, which is situated in the middle of the Mediterranean and in the 19th century belonged to the Crown. Connecting to the small Mediterranean island did not require dependence on anyone, and thus the British established a connection entirely under their own control. Before the launching of the submarine link via Portugal, the cheapest and most adequate alternative consisted of crossing the entire Italian peninsula from North to South, thereby reaching the tip of Sicily and thence to Malta. Consequently, an unexpected Italian centrality in the context of the UK projects grew, and lasted few years. When, in 1869, the Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Company laid a cable from Porthcurno, the most western point of the British Islands, to Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malta, and finally Egypt, for a total of 2,281 miles, the game for Great Britain was over.¹⁶ In this way, the British power did not have to pass through potentially risky countries, such as Italy, with preference instead went to Portugal, which represented a good friend and controlled country. Although unable to compete with the two major European powers, both in terms

 “Overland Telegraph,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly record of geography, vol. 1, n. 4 (1879): 264– 271.

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of technology and enterprises, Italy, thanks to its geographical position at the center of the Mediterranean, plaid however a primary role in the submarine telegraphy, roughly, from 1851 to 1870. The peninsula was a sort of bridge between Europe, Africa and Asia¹⁷. From Malta, in 1861 the Malta and Alexandria Telegraph, which was the dealership arm of Telegraph Construction and Maintenance, was finally able to realize the crucial connection to Alexandria and hence to Suez and Bombay. Even the French tried to gear up in time to address the issue of the submarine telegraphy in the Mediterranean. While the case of Suez was actually the one that in the long run prevailed in terms of geoeconomic relevance, however, the first cable intended directly for an African country was designed by France. This affirmation, nonetheless, could be called into question, because for France Algeria, the destination of the first submarine telegraph cable, was perceived more as French territory rather than African colony and the motivation for the realization of the telegraph link was exclusively for the strengthening of colonial power. This was only partially positive for France, which with the Algerian cable tried to compete with the British; in reality, the technical difficulties proved to be insurmountable for a long time. The first attempt date back to 1853, when the Compagnie du télégraphe électrique sous-marin de la Méditerranée pour la correspondence de l’Algerie et les Indes, financially supported by the Paris government, launched the project of a cable communication with Algeria through the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, and offering therefore the possibility for an extension in the direction towards Tunisia and Egypt which were considered by the French to be decisive for anti-British competition. The cable laid in 1857 never worked; it was unlucky that the cable between Sardinia and Algeria which the French placed in the very depths of the sea at a point tormented by the currents. However, due to the central importance of the political and military need to communicate with their Mediterranean colonies, the French did not give up but changed the starting point of the cable. A new attempt was made at the Bay of Salpêtrière, near Toulon where a cable factory had also been established, towards Algiers; the second attempt went from Port Vendres to Algiers via Minorca, and then connected to the Spanish network, but both failed. The French were thus forced to seek an alternative route: a landline in Spain, which reached Cartagena in 1864, getting there via Port Vendres and Minorca, to Oran. North Africa therefore was de facto exploited as a functional appendix for the nascent European telegraphic networks. In the following years, communications with North Africa were further intensified: a cable to Tangier was laid in

 Giuntini, “Technology Transfer.”

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1887, and during the Moroccan war a cable was laid between Tarifa and Ceuta and between Melilla and Almeria; finally, two more cables reached Oran in 1892 and Tunis in 1893. All lines, predominantly owned by the Eastern which were generously subsidized, were politically relevant, though not in terms of financial results due to low revenues. Also, in 1880 the Ottoman Empire looked for its own space in the competition for the African submarine cables with the project connecting Jeddah with Suakin, a port city on the coast of Egyptian Sudan already linked by land with the Egyptian telegraphic system¹⁸.

2.4 West and East African Coasts The most complicated episode occurred on the West African coast: it was linked to the British aims to control the Atlantic communications, in competition but also working together with the French to contrast the German interests. The long cable which run parallel to the West coast had always been seen as functional to the connection to the cables leading to the American continent. In this case, the pin was Cape Verde Island. The most important aspect in the operation of implementing cables along the West coast was linked to South America: arriving in Brazil was in fact a major attractive element rather than Africa itself. Two directions were established since the beginning: Cape Verde on one side and Canary Islands on the other. Within the context of the global strategies which were taking place, this was a crucial cable’s battlefield, between big companies and between States. As early as 1872, the Portuguese government allowed two British companies – Construction and Maintenance (Telcon) and Falmouth – to build a cable to link Great Britain to Brazil via Portugal and Canary Islands and landing in Madeira and Cape Verde. Both companies were also allowed to build a cable between Cape Verde and the Western Coast of Africa. In 1874, the connection with Brazil was ready, linking Great Britain to South America, and thereby improving its commercial relations with Brazil and Argentina, and giving Portugal the opportunity to link the mainland to the islands of Madeira and Cape Verde¹⁹. The construction of the Cape Verde relay station – whence the Brazilian Submarine Telegraph cable to South America was starting – was quite a success for Portugal as well: it extended the Portuguese telegraph network to Madeira and to

 “Memorandum (1893),” POST 30/1202, BTA.  Ibid.

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the African colonies and it gave the country an important source of income from the transit taxes passing through Cape Verde. However, the turning-point came around the Berlin conference. In 1883, the Spanish National Submarine, a subsidiary of India Rubber created by John Pender, whose objective was to connect with South America, built a cable from Cadiz to the Canaries and two years later, with the assistance of France which provided a subsidy, arrived in Senegal. This cable was 805 miles long, and it was the first step towards the connection of West Africa. A major goal was reaching the Cape of Good Hope to complete the circumnavigation of the West coast of the continent. This was by no means a French success. Two were the ways: on the one hand Cape Verde and Portugal and, on the other Senegal, Canary and Spain. In 1885, India Rubber founded the West African Telegraph which, against British interests, created the connection between colonies and the Portuguese and French possessions on the Western African coast. The “cable king” John Pender, largely supported by the British government, founded the African Direct Telegraph Company, which laid a cable from Lagos to Gambia, both British territories; and, in 1889, the Eastern and South African Telegraph Company, which connected Luanda to Cape Town. The most challenging project conceived by the British was the line from Cape Town pointing directly to Bermuda, passing through the islands of St. Helena, Ascension and Barbados to go up to Jamaica and the British Guiana, and from there until Cartagena²⁰. The decision to implement cables in the East Coast was much more political oriented. Since the 1870s, the Parliament of Cape Colony had advanced the proposal to subsidize a line going up to Aden. According to the Journal Télégraphique, the passage should have gone through Madagascar, French Mauritius and Reunion islands, which were connected in 1885²¹. The project started thanks to the British defeat in the Zulu War in 1879, event which convinced the British – who worked in collaboration with the governments of Portugal, Natal and Cape of Good Hope – to financially support the Eastern and Southern Africa Telegraph Company. Telegraph Company. The latter was precisely created for this project, with £55,000 to construct a cable from Durban to Zanzibar and, also, to Aden (3850 km in total). Following the Zulu War of 1879, the British government agreed to subsidize the Eastern and Southern Africa Telegraph Company to the tune of £55,000 per year to connect Durban and Zanzibar to the main trunk line at Aden. From here, it was connected to the submarine cable between

 “Memorandum (1899),” POST 30/965, BTA.  “Revue de 1887,” Journal Télégraphique, January 25, 1888.

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India and Great Britain and with the isle of Mauritius; another related project, from South Africa to New South Wales, was developed at the beginning of the century²². If we should indicate an economic reason behind this initiative, it would be the interest of the mining cities – principally gold and diamonds – which were situated along the coast touched by the cable. However, this line, whose cost for telegrams was £40 in 1895, went bankrupt. The same British company later extended a cable from Zanzibar to the Island of Mauritius²³. Another military defeat caused by colonial ambitions forced the Italian government with the help of the Pirelli company to laid down a new cable-line from Massaua to Perim in the Red Sea between 1886 and 1887²⁴. Italian intervention was limited to a restricted area just for commercial reasons and it was heavily depending on British interests towards India²⁵.

2.5 The New Century The paramount moment of the new century is usually located between 1902 and 1903, when the construction of the two transpacific communications was concluded, making the globe completely wrapped in wires. A new type of competition developed in the new century both from a technological point of view and from the emergence of a new competitor, more and more equipped and aggressive even in the submarine telegraphy’s sector, which will be one of the many frictional reasons which in the long run will lead to the war. On the one hand, it became possible the prospect of wireless telegraphy, which in the course of the following years would redesign the power of submarine telegraphy. On the other hand, from the perspective of the case of Africa, it’s worth to extend the analysis and to mention the German initiative, which developed especially since the beginning of the 20th century. The resolute entry into the area by the German giant changed the balance and forced the situation to redesign all the strategies. For the two governments of Paris and London, maintaining the monopoly acquired in the telegraph field was not as easy as it had been previously. Africa becomes a battleground, which

 “Landing Right in Portugal and Portuguese East Africa (1906),” POST 30/1201, BTA.  “Copy of Contract,” POST 30/965, BTA.  Giuntini, “Pirelli and the Italian Submarine Cables Telegraphy”.  “Extracts from the Report serial no. 117 of Committee on Landing-Rights for Submarine Cables on question of proposed communication by wireless telegraphy between Britain and Italian East Africa,” POST 30/1212, BTA.

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in a few years will contribute to changing the international profile of Germany’s power. At the beginning of the new century this monopoly was broken by the German cable construction between Emden and the Canaries²⁶. Nevertheless, they did determine the Spanish prohibition of establishing an extension between the Islands and Morocco, which was exactly what Germans would like to obtain: a new link from the Canaries and Cape Verde to Western German Africa, connecting the former point to the Indian coast by an overland line crossing the Belgian Congo²⁷. In 1906, the Germans arrived in Morocco with the aim of establishing a telegraphic connection and a coal station in the Atlantic. At that point, the competition was extremely severe with the British, who did not want to concede any room for manoeuvre to the Germans. From the British side, it was necessary to approach the Spanish and the Portuguese to deny any benefit to the Germans, for whom it was crucial to enter the Atlantic market to reach South America. The Canaries represented the most appropriate direction. A direct cable connection between Germany and the Iberian Peninsula already existed, the Emden-Vigo line. It had been built in 1896 by the company Deutsche See-Telegraphengesellschaft and at the end of 1904 the Imperial Post Office forced Deutsch-Atlantische Telegraphengesellschaft (DAT) – founded in Cologne in 1899 – to buy it. Initially the Emden-Vigo cable was meant to connect Germany to North America; but the route via the Azores seemed to be more suitable to link Emden to New York. DAT had been in charge of finishing that telegraphic project. But apart from this, the Emden-Vigo cable was becoming more and more important due to its annual increase of traffic. From Vigo, the Germans planned to reach the Canary Islands, thanks to a cable made by Felten and Guilleaume, aspiring to reach Morocco and West Africa. The penetration strategy was inacceptable for the two great colonial powers, who tried in every way to obstruct it; for Germany, in addition, it was central because it represented a decisive move at a time of its international affirmation. The two Anglo-French governments then constituted a new formally Spanish company, Compañía Cablegráfica Española, with the aim of curbing the Germans, which would have the exclusive rights to lay cables from the Iberian Peninsula, the Canaries and the Spanish territories in Western Africa to any other  POST 30/1212, BTA.  “Proposal by German Government to establish telegraphic communication between Garua, Northern Cameroons and Yola (1907),” and “Proposal made to Colonial Office that section on British territory be constructed by British Government at cost of German Government, section to remain property of British Government (1907),” POST 30/1212, BTA.

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foreign area in exchange for being granted the monopoly over all the telegraph landings starting from Spanish territory to North Western Africa. The operation did not take off for the refusal of Spain; and eventually in the late 1908 the Germans opened the Emden-Tenerife. In Berlin, this achievement obtained a great relevance, they talked proudly about the worldwide German network and the link to other areas where the empire had many important trade interests. Even though the setting up of the cable had been awarded to Felten and Guilleaume, it was DAT, however, which finally laid and operated it. Two years later Paris and Berlin would connect their systems through a cable branch between Brest and Emden, sharing a Euro-African line. From 1900 onwards, Azores joined Lisbon and Cape Verde, becoming all together one of the most important crossroads on the international submarine cable networks.

2.6 Conclusions In these few pages I have tried to demonstrate the hypotheses advanced at the beginning of the chapter. In relation to submarine telegraphy’s history, the African case exists only within the context of the colonial relationship of a large part of the continent and, consequently, within the context of the colonial conflicts which mark the years here analysed. Therefore, the great game among the European powers was also based on the predominance in the communications sector, which was totally at the service of governments and that considered Africa an indispensable continent of cable passage. In practice, there is a “different” and “autonomous” telegraphic Africa for every single colonial power. The cables had an irreplaceable place during the phase of the repositioning of the Great Powers (from the last years of the 19th century until the Great War). They were a trampoline from which, ultimately, armies could be moved and other countries’ movements could be controlled. In terms of the provision of telegraph networks, at the end of the 19th century there were three large African systems. The first was the Mediterranean one, completely functional to the European needs of telegraphic connection and extremely fractioned without any overall structre. The second was the one of AdenZanzibar-Mozambique-Durban, in Eastern Africa; and the third was the one of Lisbon-Madeira to Accra, in the Gold Coast. Accra and Durban were connected straight to Cape Town, where both systems were joined. Ultimatly, the entire continent was surrounded by a long series of submarine telegraph cables. A predominantly political interpretation, as the one I adopt in this work, considerably reduces economic space, and differentiates the African history

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from the history of telegraphy in other continents. The African cables did not constitute a “business,” as it was elsewhere, and did not in any way stimulate technological experiments. This second point relies also in the fact that the years considered in this essay are characterized by a substantial general technological stagnation of the entire sector, in practice followed the “conquest” of the Atlantic in 1866. This historic watershed was the point of arrival of a long and fruitful technological experimentation, joined by the most skilled technicians and scientists of the time. This was therefore a full implementation of the methods of installation and operation of submarine cables. In the African case, submarine telegraphy did not even contribute to the creation of a local technocratic class; the main necessary technical knowledge remained in the hands of colonial officials, to whom every power entrusted the management of the telegraph infrastructure both by land and by sea. Consequently, also the question of economic and social repercussions, understood here in the broadest sense of the term, on the various countries of the continent does not lead to further or in-depth investigations, essentially registering a lack of interesting conclusive arguments. It was a substantial failure, at any latitudes, trying to introduce cables in the inlands by exploiting the landing on the coast to penetrate distant areas. Where it was attempted, it failed and led to economic crashes either for environmental conditions or for the objective difficulties of control and management. Moreover, as noted by Müller and Tworek, hostility by the local populations against the telegraph infrastructures was not infrequent: “African colonial subjects resisted Western communications and the commercial practices accompanying them. Communications systems were both sites of imperial power and often violent contestation of that power”²⁸. Hence, it remains practically impossible to properly answer how the relationship between Africa and the submarine cables influenced the development of Africa. By not recognizing Africa as an autonomous interlocutor and delegating its management to the European countries, the role of the ITU – which was basically operating rules, technical standards, and commercial rates – appears secondary. ITU’s influence was indirect and mediated by the power of the colonial countries. For instance, during the time-frame here analysed, there was no specific regulation for Africa, but on the contrary, it replicated what happened globally. In conclusion, the principal actor remained the governments of each colonial powers.

 Müller and Tworek, “The Telegraph and the Bank,” 280.

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Despite the limits listed and discussed here, the submarine telegraphy’s history has a deep and long-lasting meaning for Africa: its development favoured a new idea and perception of the continent, which grown at the international level in this period. The fact remains that European countries, in the end, used the large space available to reflect on a single logic of power and exploitation. Building imperial infrastructures thus became a prime instrument to evoke an economy of a European archetype and to control colonial societies more efficiently. In a few words, in the African case, telegraphic communications clearly tend to reinforce the strong dichotomy between inclusion and exclusion, increasing the gap between centres and peripheries through a colonial interpretative key. In the face of the globalizing dominant vision, one question therefore arises: to what extent should the affair be considered truly transnational and not much more driven by nationalism?

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Müller-Pohl, Simone, and Heidi Tworek. “The Telegraph and the Bank: on the Interdependence of global Communications and Capitalism, 1866 – 1914.” Journal of Global History, vol. 10, n. 2 (2015): 259 – 283. Müller-Pohl, Simone. Wiring the World. The social and cultural Creation of global Telegraph Networks. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Nickles, David P. Under the Wire. How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Quevedo, J. Márquez. “Telecommunications and colonial Rivalry: European Telegraph Cables to the Canary Islands and Northwest Africa, 1883 – 1914.” Historical Social Research, vol. 35, n. 1 (2010): 108 – 124. Press, Steven. Rogue Empires: Contracts and Conmen in Europe’s Scramble for Africa. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017. Schlögel, Karl. Im Raume lesen wir die Zeit. Über Zivilisationsgeschichte und Geopolitik, Frankfurt am Main: Geschichte an der Europa Universität Viadrina, 2006. Silva, A. Paula. “Portugal and the Building of Atlantic Telegraph Networks: The Role of a Loser or a Winner?” Journal of History of Science and Technology, vol. 2 (2008): 191 – 212. Silva, A. Paula, and M.P. Diogo. “From Host to Hostage. Portugal, Britain, and the Atlantic Telegraph Networks.” In Networking Europe. Transnational Infrastructures and the Shaping of Europe, 1850 – 2000, edited by Erik van der Vleuten, and Arne Kaijser, 51 – 69. Sagamore Beach, 2006. Starosielski, Nicole. The Undersea Network. Durham: Duke University Press, 2015. Tully, John. “A Victorian ecological Disaster: Imperialism, the Telegraph, and Gutta-percha.” Journal of World History, vol. 20, n. 4 (2009): 559 – 579. Wenzlhuemer, Roland. “Globalization, Communication and the Concept of Space in Global History.” Historical Social Research, vol. 35, n. 1 (2010): 19 – 47. Wenzlhuemer, Ronald. Connecting the Nineteenth-century World. The Telegraph and Globalization. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Wenzlhuemer, Ronald. “The Dematerialization of Telecommunication: Communication Centres and Peripheries in Europe and the World, 1850 – 1920.” Journal of Global History, vol. 2 (2007): 345 – 372. Wenzlhuemer, Ronald. “The Development of Telegraphy, 1870 – 1900: A European Perspective on World History Challenge.” History Compass, vol. 5 (2007): 1720 – 1742. Winseck, Dwayne R., and Robert M. Pike. Communication and Empire. Media, Markets and Globalization, 1860 – 1930. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

Richard R. John*

3 When Techno-Diplomacy Failed: Walter S. Rogers, the Universal Electrical Communications Union, and the Limitations of the International Telegraph Union as a Global Actor in the 1920s

The Great War of 1914– 1918 transformed the relationship of the United States to Europe, creating a raft of new opportunities for commerce, diplomacy, and public understanding. Among the public figures to find these possibilities inspiring was Walter S. Rogers, a liberal journalist dedicated to the cause of improving the quality of foreign reporting. Rogers was best known to the public in 1918 as the director of a New York City-based international news service that he operated for the Committee on Public Information, the government’s official news agency. Rogers fervently believed that the foreign press was systematically distorting US news by foregrounding sensationalistic atrocity stories and underreporting uplifting accounts of current events. To set the record straight, Rogers oversaw an ambitious government project to feed foreign journalists carefully curated news reports that they could then run in their own publications.¹ Rogers’s wartime experience led him to promote a journalism-centric liberal internationalism. Liberal internationalism was not new in 1918. Yet it received a boost from US President Woodrow’s Wilson eloquent paeans to freedom and democracy, as well as the high hopes with which many invested the diplomatic ne-

* Columbia University, USA  Walter S. Rogers, “Tinted and Tainted News,” Saturday Evening Post, 21 July 1917, 17; Walter S. Rogers, Testimony, 10 October 1919, International Conference to Consider Questions Relating to International Communications: Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 66th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919): 3 – 8; Creel, How We Advertised America, 250 – 260. Special thanks to Andreas Fickers, Tony Rutkowski, and James Schwoch for their expert critique of an earlier draft of this essay. For suggestions and advice, I am also grateful to Gene Allen, Gabriele Balbi, John M. Hamilton, Daniel R. Headrick, Heather Heywood, Simone Müller, Bailey Pierson, Michael Stamm, Heidi Tworek, Jonathan R. Winkler, Dwayne R. Winseck, Emilie Yu Marine Xie, Qiguang Yang, and the participants in the 2017 conference on the history of the International Telecommunication Union at the University of Luxembourg. All errors of fact and interpretation are my own. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-004

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gotiations in Paris that followed the cessation of hostilities in western Europe in November 1918.² In Rogers’s view, liberal internationalism presupposed the establishment of an international organization dedicated to providing journalists with cheap and abundant information on current events. Toward this end, Rogers hoped to combine in a single organization the regulation of the world’s cable and radio networks, two networks that had previously been regulated under separate international conventions. This new organization, in turn, would supersede the International Telegraph Union, a membership-based federation of government-appointed technical experts, based in Berne, Switzerland, that had long coordinated the regulation of international communications. In Roger’s opinion, radio networks should not, like cable networks, be licensed to private corporations.³ On the contrary, he hoped that radio networks —which, at this time, were mostly point-to-point—would be administered directly by the governments of the nations in which they were based, and configured to support print-based news media. The news outlets that Rogers had in mind were primarily metropolitan newspapers, which Rogers assumed would remain the principal medium for the circulation of information on current events. For Rogers, liberal internationalism encouraged the emergence of a thriving, uncensored, metropolitan press untainted by propaganda, an institution that in his view had flourished in the United States, but none of the other Great Powers, during the Great War. In the short run, Rogers’s project flopped. His proposal for the unification of cable and radio regulation failed to overcome the objections of its critics, and radio broadcasting in the United States emerged as an advertising driven broadcast medium, an outcome Rogers deplored. In the long run, however, Rogers’s commitment to expanding facilities for the circulation of information would find expression in the innovative frequency allocation protocols that emerged out of the 1927 Washington, DC-based International Radiotelegraph Conference. Prior to 1927, the allocation of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum had been based on political jurisdiction, a convention that empowered national governments to determine how their portion of the spectrum would be used. Follow-

 Manela, The Wilsonian Moment.  Corporate ownership and operation of network providers is often termed “private,” a convention I observe in this essay. While conventional, this designation can be confusing, since the managers of ostensibly private enterprises such as the Radio Corporation of America or the Bell System (that is, the holding company American Telephone & Telegraph, its long lines and research division, and its associated operating companies) recognized that any corporation that facilitated the production and circulation of information was a “public utility” and, as such, properly subject to federal, state, and municipal law.

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ing the conference, wavelengths would be allocated by the service they provided, rather than the jurisdiction to which they had been assigned. Jurisdiction-specific, location-based allocations favored government network providers, such as the Postal, Telegraph, and Telephone ministries in Europe and Japan. Servicespecific, application-based allocations, in contrast, encouraged technically advanced network providers, which included, in the United States, corporations, to obtain exclusive access to specific wavelengths. Ironically, given Rogers’s preference for government owned radio stations, the restructuring of the electromagnetic spectrum to favor service over location helped to entrench the very technocratic corporatism that Rogers opposed.⁴ Rogers justified his liberal internationalism in a rhetorically expansive, multi-page memorandum that he prepared at the request of US President Woodrow Wilson in February 1919, four months after the Armistice, and twenty-one months before the first regularly scheduled US-based radio broadcast. Rogers was based at this time in Paris, where he was coordinating news coverage of the US delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, a logical follow-up to the work he has performed in New York City during the war for the Committee on Public Information. “Barriers to the flow of news from nation to nation,” Rogers declared in his preamble, should be “removed in the general public interest”: “The ideal is a world-wide freedom for news, with important news going everywhere.” Under existing conditions, Rogers concluded, the unimpeded global flow of information had become an indispensable prerequisite for world peace: “The steady extension of democratic forms of government and the increasing closeness of contact between all parts of the world point to the conclusion, that the ultimate basis of world peace is common knowledge and understanding between the masses of the world. Hence the distribution of intelligence in the form of news becomes of the utmost importance.”⁵ To hasten the free flow of information across national borders, Rogers looked to the League of Nations, which, or so he hoped, would become a center for the exchange of technical information regarding radio that would work closely with whatever protocols technical experts might see fit to devise.⁶ Rogers’s expansive conception of the possibilities of the press would inform the position that he took as a delegate to an international communications conference that the victorious powers convened in Washington, DC, in October 1920. Attendance at this conference was limited to five countries: the United Kingdom,

 Schwoch, The American Radio Industries, chapter 3.  Rogers, “Memorandum on Wire and Radio Communications,” 429, 441.  Ibid., 441.

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France, the United States, Italy, and Japan. Its original rationale was to resolve a number of issues left over from the Paris Peace Conference. Of these the most pressing was the legal status of German cables that the allies had cut, and in some instances, repurposed, during the war. Yet the conference soon acquired the much more open-ended rationale of drafting the charter for an entirely new international organization—a Universal Electrical Communications Union —that would create for the first time in world history a single forum for the regulation of every form of electrically mediated communications—telegraphy, telephony, cable, and radio. No longer would cable and radio be regulated under different international conventions, as they had been in the past. ⁷ The failure of the 1920 Washington conference reveals some of the limitations of liberal internationalism. These constraints become especially evident if one views the conference through Rogers’s eyes, which it is possible to do, given the existence in the National Archives of several boxes of Rogers’s official files.⁸ Little used by historians, these papers provide a window on the challenges

 “Comité radiotélégraphique international,” Journal Télégraphique, September 1921, 178; “Aprés la conference de Londres,” Journal Télégraphique, July 25, 1922, 124.  Rogers is a neglected figure. Though he sometimes gets a walk-on role in historical accounts of US communications during the war years and its immediate aftermath, the specific nature of his contribution is typical overlooked. For one exception, see Winseck and Pike, Communications and Empire, 13, 262– 74. Winseck and Pike credit Rogers with inventing in the 1910s more-orless out of whole cloth the “free flow of information doctrine” that would become “bedrock principles of US international communications policy after the Second World War” (13). This claim overstates the novelty of Roger’s faith in the democratic potential of information, which was shared by generations of journalists, public figures, and educators, and can be traced back at least as far as the Enlightenment. In addition, it obscures the kind of information that Rogers hoped would circulate freely. Rogers had no interest in facilitating the flow of information tout court; rather, he hoped to improve the facilities for information-gathering and information-dissemination for newspaper journalists specializing in world affairs. Winseck and Pike based their argument in part on the remarkable paean to Rogers that was penned in 1943 by Columbia Journalism School dean, Carl W. Ackerman, in his annual dean’s report. In this report, Ackerman hailed Rogers as the “leading authority in the United States today on international communications in relation to the flow of news” and the “originator of the idea of international press freedom both ideologically and practically.” To drive this point home, Ackerman reprinted as “source documents” copious extracts from Rogers’s postwar writings on international communications, including Rogers’s 1919 memorandum to Wilson, which Ackerman erroneously claimed to have never before been published. Ackerman’s admiration for Rogers was informed by Ackerman’s personal experience as a journalist who had worked closely with the US government during the First World War, a circumstance that highlights an often overlooked continuity in twentieth-century US information policy: Long before the Cold War, government officials and journalists had collaborated to broadcast flattering news about the United States to the world. Report of the Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism for the Academic Year Ending June 30,

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that confronted US public figures like Rogers who had hoped in the aftermath of the Great War to expand the role of the United States in world affairs.⁹

3.1 The Rationale for a Universal Electrical Communications Union The decision to hold the 1920 conference in Washington, DC, posed for its organizers a number of challenges. Among them was the fact that the US government was not a signatory to the International Telegraph Convention, and therefore not a member of the International Telegraph Union. This was true, even though US network providers had participated in various Telegraph Union-sponsored meetings for many decades. In the case of radio, the situation was quite different. The discovery around 1900 that radio could facilitate ship-to-shore communications prompted the US government to send delegates to the Preliminary Conference on wireless telegraphy in Berlin in 1903. Though the US Congress would not ratify an international radiotelegraph convention until 1912, the US Navy had monitored international radio regulation since 1903 and would keep close watch on the deliberations in Washington in 1920.¹⁰ Rogers was well aware of the anomalous position of the United States in the realm of international communications, and worked diligently to make the proposed new organization palatable to the principal US stakeholders, and, in particular, to government officials, journalists, and merchants engaged in international trade. By far the most prominent government official in Rogers’s camp was President Wilson. Rogers had earned high praise from Wilson administration insiders for the wartime news bureau that Rogers had operated for the Committee on Public Information, leading Wilson to hail him as the “best posted man we have” on the complicated questions arising out of the disposition of the German cables seized by the allies during the war.¹¹ Rogers shared Wilson’s visceral dislike of big business and was broadly sympathetic to the determination of Wilson’s postmaster general Albert S. Burleson 1943 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943): 8; Menard McCune and Hamilton, “My object is to be of service to you.”  Rogers’s files can be found in RG 43, National Archives, Suitland, Maryland (hereafter NA).  Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, chapter 3.  Woodrow Wilson interview, 27 September 1920, in Papers of Woodrow Wilson, edited by Arthur S. Link (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966 – 1994), vol. 66, 154; Aitken, The Continuous Wave, 262– 79.

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to lower international cable rates and retain radio under tight government control. All three men were democratic statists skeptical of corporate control of communications networks and sympathetic to their regulation and even outright ownership by the government. Rogers could rhapsodize about the “illimitable possibilities” of this new medium: there was no “technical reason,” he mused, why at some point in not-too-distant future a radio message could not be intercepted in “every house in the world.”¹² Yet the future of the new medium remained in 1919 an open question, and filled Rogers and his fellow democratic statists with foreboding. The radio network that Rogers envisioned in 1919 remained a point-to-point medium, rather than the broadcast medium it would soon become. This fundamental assumption, which was rooted in Rogers’s background in and commitment to journalism—and in particular to the voracious demand of newspaper publishers for cheap, timely, and abundant information—shaped not only his approach to the Washington conference but also his later career as a director of the Institute of Current World Affairs, a philanthropic organization based first in New York City, and today in Washington, DC, that since the 1920s has provided journalists with fellowships to broaden their horizons by traveling abroad.¹³ Rogers’s proposals regarding international communications built on his conviction that both cable and radio should be configured to facilitate the work of newspaper publishers. Advantageous rates for the transmission of time-sensitive news dispatches were key and Rogers presumed that these could only be assured if an international organization, such as the proposed Universal Electrical Communications Union, had the authority to fix cable and radio rates and mandate preferential access for journalists’ time-sensitive dispatches. Each nation, in Rogers’ view, should “nationalize” its radio facilities, since private enterprise would never expand rapidly enough to meet the anticipated demand. A “laissez-faire policy,” Rogers predicted, might well lead to “slow progress, confusion, and a monopolistic control, with self-interest rather than the general good of humanity furnishing the directive motive.”¹⁴ To realize the potential of the new medium would exceed the capabilities of even the largest and most ambitious of the world’s corporations: “The working out of such a comprehensive system of radio communication, the making of schedules, the standardization of practice, and so forth, goes beyond the possibilities of private enterprise or of the interest of any one nation.”¹⁵ Should the    

Rogers, “Memorandum,” 430 – 31. “Walter S. Rogers,” Washington Post, November 1,1965; Hapgood, Charles R. Crane, 91– 92. Rogers, “Memorandum,” 431. Ibid., 431– 32.

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world’s statesmen permit this situation to persist, global commerce would be stifled, the press would remain unnecessarily “provincial,” and the “propagandist” would thrive: “If statesmanship has the vision and the organizing ability, the most widely separated communities can be made neighbors, trading with each other, interested in each other, understanding each other, learning from each other.”¹⁶ The regulation of the world’s cable network presented a different kind of challenge. Like most informed observers, Rogers took it for granted that this network, which for many years had been operated by a tight cartel of multinational corporations, had been and would remain closely allied with the British government, a circumstance that he viewed with alarm. Rogers did not, however, recommend that cable corporations be “internationalized” and put under the jurisdiction of the League of Nations, a suggestion, he conceded, that “had been made.”¹⁷ Rather, he hoped they might be run like other “public utilities”–such as, for example, telephone exchanges, gas works, and electric power stations that, or so he assumed, had traded low volume and high rates for high volume and low rates. In such a world, Rogers mused, cable rates would be set so low that, in the lucrative North Atlantic market, letter-writing would become obsolete.¹⁸ The primary exception was the Pacific, where Rogers knew on the basis of personal experience that the nation-based public utility model could never succeed. Here, and only here, he proposed the internationalization of the cable network by encouraging intergovernmental cooperation between the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, and China to provide “ample facilities at low rates.”¹⁹ To allay popular suspicion toward the new international organization, Rogers downplayed its novelty. The United States had long played a prominent role in international organizations to facilitate the circulation of information, Rogers reminded lawmakers in October 1919. A case in point was the Universal Postal

 Ibid., 442. Rogers’s journalistic boosterism won the admiration of public figures across party lines. For example, though Wilson’s successor, Warren G. Harding was a Republican rather than a Democrat, Harding had been a small-town newspaper editor—which prompted him quite understandably to hail approvingly the low cable tolls that Rogers predicted his proposed Universal Electrical Communications Union would bring. “A Universal Communications Union,” Washington Herald, November 19, 1920; “Harding Discusses Cable Tolls with Washington Correspondents,” Editor and Publisher 53 (December 11, 1920).  Rogers, “Memorandum,” 433.  Ibid., 434– 35.  Ibid., 440.

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Union, to which the United States had belonged since its founding in 1874, and for which US postmaster general Montgomery Blair had helped lay the groundwork in the 1860s during the administration of Abraham Lincoln.²⁰ The decision to incorporate the familiar words “Universal” and “Union” into the name of the new organization originated in Washington, DC. Neither of these two words can be found in the early printed draft of the convention in Rogers’s files in which the new organization is referred to merely as a “Combined Telegraph and Radio Convention.”²¹ By the time the Washington conference finished its deliberations, however, it had been officially branded the Universal Electrical Communications Union—a conciliatory gesture, very possibly of Rogers’s own devising, that linked it with an organization in which the United States had long belonged. The authorship of this early draft of the convention remains something of a mystery. In all probability, given its high level of technical detail, it had been prepared by an administrator in the British Post Office, presumably under the supervision of W. J. Brown, the British civil servant mostly closely linked with the 1920 conference.²² If Brown or someone in his office had indeed taken the lead in preparing this draft, it should come as no surprise that the word “universal” was nowhere to be found, since, in this period, British civil servants tended to associate “universal” with the British Empire, rather than the world.²³ When lawmakers asked Rogers who had originally proposed that the conference be held in Washington, he replied he did not know.²⁴ Almost certainly this was a feint.²⁵ Had Rogers acknowledged that the project had substantial British  Rogers, Testimony, October 10, 1919, International Conference, 12. The original idea for the convening of a conference to give a “general direction of the whole communication field,” Rogers added, “was based on the International Postal Union” (12).  “Draft of Combined Radio and Telegraph Convention,” Correspondence of the Secretariat, dossier 300 – 341, RG 43, NA.  “Digest of Minutes of First Plenary Meeting Preliminary Session of the International Conference on Electrical Communications,” October 8, 1920, RG 43, NA; Schwoch, American Radio Industries, 64– 65.  John, “The Public Image of the Universal Postal Union in the Anglophone World.”  Rogers, Testimony, International Conference, 12, 17.  The British provenance of the proposed amalgamation of the cable and radio conventions was an article of faith at the Radio Corporation of America, the largest US manufacturer of radio equipment. To drive this point home, a Radio Corporation of America publicist published a pamphlet in May 1921 that branded the proposed Universal Electrical Communication Union a British trick to perpetuate British hegemony in global communications by protecting the interests of British cable network providers: “The proposal to amalgamate the radio convention with the old wire convention based upon European practice came, as we understand, from the British. They are the only ones who have expressed formal approval of that principle. It is

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support, this might well have sealed its fate, given the widespread popular distrust of the influence that the British government had long exerted in the international cable business, and the looming fear that the British-based Marconi Company might dominate the still nascent radio business. The postal-electrical analogy intrigued not only Rogers, but also President Wilson. In December 1919, for example, Wilson informed the secretary of state —in a letter drafted by Wilson’s wife Edith Galt Wilson, who was filling in for the ailing president, who had been felled by a stroke—that the Post Office Department, and not the State Department, should head up the US delegation to the communications conference.²⁶ It is, thus, perhaps not surprising that, at the top of the first page of the draft convention in Roger’s files, someone penciled in the phrase “Universal Communications Union,” or that the margins of the draft include several inserts, both handwritten and typed, comparing the regulations of the new organization with those adopted by the Universal Postal Union.²⁷ If the allusions to the Universal Postal Union reassured critics, any reference to the League of Nations raised red flags. This was especially true following the rejection by the US Senate of US membership in League in November 1919. It is

obviously to their interest: they control cable communications throughout the world and naturally desire to bring radio under the same control” (italics in original). Why, the company publicist elaborated, had the organizers of the 1920 Washington conference ignored the US-government-approved EU-F-GB-I protocol of 25 August 1919? To pose the question was to answer it. The EU-F-GB-I protocol was a narrowly technical document, drafted in consultation with the corporation-friendly US Commerce Department, that had sidestepped the sensitive diplomatic issue of corporate control, making it unsuitable for the techno-diplomatic coup that Rogers and his British colleagues had tried to orchestrate: “The EU-F-GB-I Commission, as well as the Department of Commerce Committee, attempted to deal with only the technical aspects of the situation and not with diplomatic questions nor with those involving general policies.” The exclusion of corporate delegates from the 1920 Washington conference established a pattern—much resented by US corporate leaders—that carried over to the post-Commodore Hotel June-August 1921 Paris meeting of the technical committee on international radiocommunication. Despite the protestations of US corporate leaders, the US delegation to this meeting, which had been convened explicitly to refine the regulations devised in the 1920 Washington conference, did not include a single corporate representative. Memorandum of Radio Corporation of America with Reference to the Proposed Universal Communications Union (n. p. 1921), 14, 18, box 3, dossier 5 – 30, entry 66, RG 43, NA; Comité Technique de Radiocommunications Internationales (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1921): 47, ITU Library & Archives, Switzerland; Tomlinson, The International Control of Radiotelecommunications, 49.  Edith Bolling Galt Wilson to Robert Lansing, December 24, 1919, in Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 64, 228.  “Draft of Combined Radio and Telegraph Convention,” RG 43, NA.

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thus not surprising that, though the early draft of the proposed convention in Rogers’s files presumed that the organization would come under the jurisdiction of the League, in the final draft, all references to the League had been dropped. The new organization was, instead, to be a freestanding council under the jurisdiction of representatives from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan, and “four other representatives, chosen by the other signatory parties, to be selected at each General Conference of High Contracting Parties.”²⁸ The prospect that the United States might join an international communications organization had a solid base of support among US merchants engaged in foreign trade. Though the Washington conference was closed to the press, and its proceedings secret, it attracted the attention of several of the country’s most influential business groups, who signed a joint statement endorsing its objectives shortly before it convened. The venue at which the signatories met was revealing. It took place not in Washington, DC, which remained a commercial backwater, but in New York City at India House, a men’s club for merchants interested in international commerce. Among the signatories were the US Chamber of Commerce, the New York Chamber of Commerce, the Merchants Association of New York, the American Bankers Association, the American Manufacturers Export Association, and the National Association of Manufacturers. In their joint statement, the signatories expressed their support for the establishment an “International Telegraphic Communications Union”—modeled, they took care to specify, on the Universal Postal Union—that would facilitate the standardization of cable rates, ensure “free and unrestricted competition” among network providers, and guarantee that every radio broadcast station was owned by a US citizen.²⁹ The journalists’ wish list was even more specific. In an October 1920 meeting of the American Newspaper Publishers Association that was convened at the headquarters of the New York World in response to a request by Postmaster General Burleson and Undersecretary of State Norman Davies, the publishers lobbied for low and uniform rates for the transmission of news dispatches by cable and wireless, preferential high-speed access to both the cable and wireless networks, the abolition of monopoly grants for cable providers, the continuation of wireless transmission by the navy, and the establishment of an informational

 Universal Electrical Communications Union: Revised Draft of Convention and Regulations (n. p., 1922), article 17, 3.  “Recommendations of the India House Conference,” entry 72, RG 43, NA.

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clearinghouse in a major city on every continent to keep journalists abreast of the relevant technical issues.³⁰

3.2 Corporate Opposition to the Universal Electrical Communications Union The enthusiasm of journalists, government officials, and merchants active in foreign trade for the establishment of a new international organization to regulate cable and radio would be challenged, and in the end overbalanced, by the hostility toward the new organization of the managers of telegraph, telephone, cable, and radio corporations. To understand why these network providers found this new organization so threatening, it is useful to know something about international communications regulation in the decades preceding the Washington conference. The regulation of international communications in the 1920s was predicated on the venerable premise that communications networks that crossed political boundaries were best coordinated by international organizations whose voting members represented the territorially bounded jurisdictions that these networks linked. Corporations such as US telegraph giant Western Union could and did send delegates to international conferences, yet these delegates did not have voting rights and were not formal members of the International Telegraph Union, an anomaly that corporate leaders repeatedly invoked in defending their opposition to any new international organization that would perpetuate their marginalization. Spatially based norms shaped the deliberations of the International Telegraph Union, the Universal Postal Union, and the International Radiotelegraph Union. Each of these organizations derived their authority from a formal, treaty-like agreement that had been endorsed by representatives of the territorially bounded jurisdictions that had called them into being. It was in part for this reason that these organizations were all called “unions.” The International Telegraph Union and the International Radiotelegraph Union regulated international communications through conventions that their members had ratified. These conventions were by 1920 quite elaborate, and included a raft of arcane protocols devised by technical experts. The resulting protocols were inter-national, in the sense that they had been designed to accommodate the interests of member nations. One such team had drafted the first version  “Memorandum of Cable-Using Newspapers and Press Associations of America,” entry 75, box 3, RG 43, NA.

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of the proposed convention that Rogers and his colleagues debated in Washington in the Fall of 1920. The art of crafting such protocols can be called “technodiplomacy.” The hostility of US network providers toward the proposed new organization was catalyzed by their discovery that a small group of US government experts— who, of course, included Rogers—had been cooperating with their British counterparts to establish a new international organization to regulate every electrical communications medium: telegraphy, telephony, cable, and radio. The assertion that the proposed organization had been modeled on the Universal Postal Union —a circumstance that Rogers had hoped would make it seem less exotic—was for corporate network providers no comfort at all. This was because the Postal Union worked exclusively with governments—prompting corporate leaders, not altogether implausibly, to demonize the new organization as the first step in a secret campaign to nationalize the entire electrical communications sector. The realization that the new organization’s backers included Albert S. Burleson did little to allay these concerns. Burleson, after all, was an outspoken democratic statist who, as postmaster general, had vocally backed a government takeover of telegraphy, telephony, and cable, and who, under the cover of military exigency, would briefly operate all three networks under government control. Should the United States join the new international organization, or so warned the presidents of Western Union and Commercial Cable on the eve of the 1920 Washington conference, this would inevitably increase the likelihood that their corporations might find themselves subject to onerous regulations intended to further the interests of their government-owned and government-operated rivals.³¹ The hostility of corporate network providers toward the new organization boiled over in an extraordinarily contentious two-day private meeting between Rogers and several of the country’s most important communications executives that took place at the Commodore Hotel in New York City in May 1921. The frank and often heated discussions that took place during this meeting, which, fortunately for the historian, were professionally transcribed, threw into sharp relief the ideological gulf that separated Rogers’s anti-corporate democratic statism —a holdover from the now-out-of-power Wilson administration—from the increasingly self-confident technocratic corporatism of the country’s business elite. American Telephone & Telegraph executive John J. Carty complained bitterly about the exclusion of corporate-based technical experts from the 1920 Washington meeting, while RCA counsel Charles Naeve reminded his colleagues that

 “US May Partner in Wire Agreement,” Washington, DC, Evening Star, September 29, 1920.

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Rogers favored the nationalization of radio broadcasting, an outcome that had had considerable support in the Wilson administration, but that corporate leaders vehemently opposed. The proposed treaty, Naeve protested, was “patterned entirely after the League of Nations, which subordinates national interests to the views of internationalism, which do not seem to be very popular.” Will the US government support “any treaty which is based on Government ownership, as this seems to be”?³² Neither Carty nor Naeve regarded the techno-diplomacy of the Washington conference to be neutral and benign: if ostensibly apolitical experts were to define the rules of the game, they wanted their experts to be in the room. Historians today who anachronistically read the history of the interwar period backward from the post-1989 neoliberal order, rather than forward from the Great Power rivalries of the fin de siècle, sometimes discount the importance of geopolitics in the public debates over global communications during the 1920s. US corporate leaders knew better. No one who attended the Commodore Hotel meeting—or who carefully reads the transcript of the discussions that occurred—could possibly overlook the central role that contemporaries ascribed to the struggle for control in global communications between the United Kingdom and the United States, or, for that matter, glibly assume that cable, wireless, or corporations lacked a national identity. Corporate ownership of electrical network providers did not, it should be underscored, preclude all forms of government intervention. A case in point was the thorny question of government ownership. The managers of every US telegraph and cable corporation well understood that Congress had the right to purchase their assets at a mutually agreed upon valuation. For telegraph network providers, this right could be traced back to their acceptance of the National Telegraph Act of 1866; for cable network providers, to the various landing rights agreements into which they had entered.³³ The crux of the issue, that is, was not some absolute right to private property. Even so, network providers remained apprehensive about the consequences for their bottom line should the US government join an international communications organization dominated by nations in which every form of electrical communication was either owned or operated by the government or had come under tight government control. The Commercial Cable Company, explained its president, Clarence H. Mackay in 1921—in looking  “Conference between the American Delegates to the International Conference on Electrical Communications and Various Representatives of American Telegraph, Cable, and Radio Companies…” Commodore Hotel, New York, 26 May 1921, 299 – 300, 301– 302, entry 72, RG 43, NA; Schwoch, American Radio Industries, 66 – 69.  John, Network Nation, 116 – 23; Mackay, International Cable Communication, 11.

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back on the Washington conference—had no objection to the US joining the International Telegraph Union if his corporation could be protected from “unreasonable regulations, present and future” that would “not only destroy the enterprise of a competitive service but reduce the private companies to the conditions of government ownership.”³⁴ It was a time-honored American tradition, Mackay explained, in reiterating the principled antimonopolism that in the United States had long been a ubiquitous feature of public discourse, to “encourage unrestricted commercial enterprise.” In elaborating on this position, Mackay underscored that both the US government and the American people would “best be served” by “relying on the continuance of competitive enterprise,” as opposed to, say, compelling the US cable corporations to comply with rules that had been devised more for the purpose of “protecting European government telegraph systems” than for strengthening corporate network providers.³⁵ Here was one instance, of the several that could be cited, in which the time-honored US bias in favor of private enterprise, as opposed, that is, to government ownership, encouraged not only the regulatory uncoupling of international communications networks from national governments, but also the operational separation of telegraphy, cable, and radio into different organizations, outcomes broadly congruent with the longstanding commitment of US lawmakers to antimonopoly as a civic ideal.

3.3 The Legacy of the 1920 Washington Conference Writing in the first issue of Foreign Affairs in 1922, Rogers did his best to keep alive the rapidly receding idea that it would be beneficial for the country and the world if “electrical communications,” by which he meant telegraphy, telephony, cable, and radio were operated on the “same basis” as the mail. Was it “fantastic idealism” to hope that every means of communications might be operated as a public service to promote the public good, as opposed to the status quo, in which, in the United States, electrical communications remained a corporate prerogative? Rogers thought not: “A postal service handling letters generally throughout the world for two or five cents is conceived on a radically different

 Mackay, International Cable Communication, 19, 20.  Ibid., 20.

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basis from one which fixes its charges by distance and by what the traffic will bear and avoids unprofitable activities.”³⁶ Rogers’s proposal prefigured the triumph of a government-dominated liberal internationalism in which public service supplanted private profit. This project would remain unrealized, Rogers recognized, so long as US participation in international communications conferences remained constrained by the narrow, short-term profit-oriented worldview of US corporations. If the United States were to participate in future communications conferences “solely to further the immediate interests of American cable and radio companies,” Rogers brooded, he felt certain that its participation “would not be relished by those who envisage a worldwide network of communications operated on a public service basis.”³⁷ Rogers’s endorsement of a public service rationale for international communications fit well with, and had been largely shaped by, his journalistic experience. For Rogers, as for many of his fellow journalists, it was hard to distinguish the interests of the nation and the world from those of the press. Yet its appeal extended well beyond like-minded journalists, merchants, and government officials. In addition, it retained support among the many Americans who opposed private ownership of the electromagnetic spectrum, and helps explain why the 1927 US Radio Act unequivocally declared the airwaves public property, a position that would be endorsed later that year by the US delegation to the 1927 International Radiotelegraph Conference, which met in Washington, DC.³⁸ The 1927 conference established the basic principles for the allocation of global electromagnetic spectrum that remains in force today. While this outcome was heralded by US radio broadcasters, it did nothing to allay their principled opposition to US membership in the International Telegraph Union. Not until 1932 would this situation change, when, in a concession to US corporations, the International Telegraph Union relaxed its membership rules to permit corporations a more active role in the formulation of technical standards. In the years to come, Rogers’s anti-corporate liberal internationalism would recede in favor of a pro-corporate technocratic corporatism that was subtly concealed by the substitution in the organization’s official name of “telegraph” for “telecommunication,” a French neologism that had been coined by a French postal administrator several decades earlier to refer exclusively to communications networks exclusively under government control.³⁹ Though the United States never joined    

Walter S. Rogers, “International Electrical Communications,” 144– 45. Rogers, “International Electrical Communications,” 157. Schwoch, “The American Radio Industry.” John, Network Nation, 12.

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the International Telegraph Union, it would become a founding member of the International Telecommunication Union, into which the Telegraph Union was folded in 1932. The refusal of the United States to join the International Telegraph Union had few negative repercussions for US telegraph and cable network providers. In the case of radio, the situation was quite different. The successful commercialization in the 1900s of one-to-one wireless telegraphy by the British-based Marconi Corporation confronted US lawmakers with a formidable challenge. In the absence of some kind of international agreement, it seemed entirely possible that the US navy would find it impossible to communicate by wireless with its warships at sea without relying on Marconi equipment. It should, thus, not come as a surprise that the US government took part in the 1903 and 1906 Berlin radiotelegraph conferences—the world’s first—or, for that matter, that it sponsored the 1927 conference that restructured the allocation of the electromagnetic spectrum. US insiders praised the 1927 conference for hastening, as Washington lawyer Harold S. LeRoy would later explain, the “more orderly regulation of rapidly growing world radio traffic.”⁴⁰ Private ownership of the electromagnetic spectrum was rejected out of hand, a concession not only to European delegates, but also to US supporters of a broad concept of public utility—including Rogers—who saw parallels between the regulation of the electromagnetic spectrum and the regulation of municipal franchise corporations.⁴¹ Support for government ownership of the electromagnetic spectrum extended even to RCA president James G. Harbord. Every system of “electrical communication” in the United States—Harbord conceded, in an article for Foreign Affairs that he published on the eve of the 1927 conference—was “of necessity a species of public utility.” In keeping with this premise, Harbord underscored that the “ether” above US territorial limits was the property of the US people and could “only be used by license of the Secretary of Commerce.” The ownership of radio broadcast stations, however, should, at least in the United States, remain private. This was because, Harbord elaborated, under US law the US gov-

 Le Roy, “International Radiotelegraph Conference,” 86 – 87.  The relationship between municipal franchise legislation and public utility regulation is a neglected topic in US communications history. In large part, this is because of the reluctance of communications historians to recognize the continuing role in the 1920s of subnational jurisdictions in the formulation of radio regulations. Many of these regulations were shaped by the courts, which repeatedly found themselves adjudicating contests between rival radio broadcasters over the increasingly congested airwaves of the nation’s largest large cities—including, in particular, New York and Chicago.

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ernment could not interfere with the “managerial or operations functions” of an “electrical communications company” so long as this corporation conducted its affairs in accordance with the “rule of law.”⁴² Harbord’s conclusion furnished a stark reminder of the anomalous position of US network providers in international communications. Most of the world’s countries, Le Roy reflected, in summarizing the results of the 1927 conference, operated their communications networks as “Government monopolies.” The US government, in contrast, did not. On the contrary, it made a critical distinction between “government regulations”—with which US telegraph, telephone, cable, and radio corporations had no quarrel—and “management regulations,” which they emphatically opposed—since the latter were “in conflict with the traditional policy of the United States for private operation of communications.” The “strong position” of the US delegation on the “broad question of policy” with regard to government ownership, Le Roy elaborated, had two salutary effects. First, it “dampened the ardor” of European government administrators for the “intensive and stifling” regulation of the new medium; and, second, it aroused in certain countries a “lively appreciation of the advantages of freedom from bureaucratic interference in the conduct of business activities which could be more efficiently handled under private control.”⁴³ The 1927 Washington conference would long occupy a special place in the imagination of US communications experts. The protocols that had been implemented at this time, reflected State Department official Francis Colt De Wolf two decades later, would serve as a “guide for all international policing of the radio spectrum.”⁴⁴ De Wolf exaggerated: in Europe, the radio broadcasting spectrum had been allocated since 1925 by the International Broadcasting Union, a broadcaster-led organization that operated in tandem with the International Radiotelegraph Union. Even so, the protocols devised in 1927 would open the way for the first postSecond World War international communications conference, which occurred in 1947. Like the 1927 conference, this conference—which was, in fact, a series of network-specific conferences that met simultaneously—also convened in the United States, this time in Atlantic City, New Jersey, rather than Washington, DC. The Atlantic City conferences created the regulatory framework for a postwar technocratic corporatism in which the United States had firmly established itself as a dominant player on the world stage. In the interwar period, the technocratic

 Harbord, “America’s Position in Radio Communication,” 470, 473.  Le Roy, “International Radiotelegraph Conference,” 86 – 87.  Colt De Wolf, “Telecommunications in the New World,” 1282.

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dream of a borderless world had stirred the imagination of certain corporate leaders and government administrators in United States and Europe.⁴⁵ Following the Second World War, this dream, long an article of faith for US corporate network providers, would become a global norm.⁴⁶ Among the defining features of this technocratic corporatism was its revival, albeit in a decidedly less journalistically centric guise, of Rogers’s faith in the salutary potential of the unimpeded flow of information. “Statesmen must insist that intelligence may freely cross international boundaries,” De Wolf explained, in surveying the results of the 1947 meeting: “Freedom of information must be a cornerstone of the new world, so that every man in every country will be free to choose what he wants to see and hear from what men in every other country offer to show and tell him.”⁴⁷ To be sure, limits existed: member countries retained the right to block the transmission of any telegraphic dispatch, radio broadcast, or telephone call that violated their laws or threatened their national interest. Yet the presumption that the free flow of information had become a universal norm was widely shared among political and corporate leaders in the United States and its allies, and would find expression in the following year in the 1948 United Nations-sponsored International Declaration of Human Rights.⁴⁸

 The technocratic vision of a borderless world did not necessarily challenge the power and authority of sovereign governments. Yet it did accord more autonomy to corporations than the liberal internationalism of the interwar era. In thinking about the relationship of technology, corporations, and governments, I have found useful Edgerton, “The Contradictions of TechnoNationalism and Techo-Globalism.” Edgerton provides a salutary caution for those recent historians who recycle the “techno-globalist propaganda” of twentieth-century network providers. “For many of technologies invoked as being somehow essentially internationalizing,” Egerton observes, “were profoundly national in origin and use. Radio, which had a military origin, was intimately connected to national power. The development of the radio before the Great War was intimately tied to navies—indeed the Royal Navy was the largest single customer of the Marconi Company, which led the world in radio. During and after the Great War, radio and the military remained closely tied; the Radio Corporation of America, for example, was closely tied to the US state” (13).  The technocratic faith of US corporate leaders in a borderless world went back at least as the 1910s, when it helped inspire the completion by Bell of a transcontinental telephone link. John, Network Nation, 389 – 93.  De Wolf, “Telecommunications in the New World,” 1290.  Codding, “Jamming and the Protection of Frequency Assignments,” 385. To contend that the International Telecommunication Union promoted technocratic corporatism in 1947 is not to contend that this regulatory regime lacked a political agenda. Indeed, in certain ways post1947 international communications regulations institutionalized a “virtual telephone cartel.” On this point, see Cowhey, “The International Telecommunications Regime.” Too often, Cowhey

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The post-Second World War idealization of information flows is sometimes hailed as a logical outcome of Rogers’s liberal internationalism. In fact, to the extent that international communications regulations in this period ceased to prioritize the circulation of information on current events, it had more in common with the technocratic corporatism Rogers despised than the liberal internationalism he had envisioned in his 1919 memorandum to President Wilson, and that he had tried unsuccessfully to institutionalize by lobbying in the following year for the establishment of the Universal Electrical Communications Union.

3.4 Conclusion International communications regulation in the first half of the twentieth century underwent a shift from a liberal internationalism overseen by sovereign governments to a technocratic corporatism coordinated by ostensibly neutral norms. Technocratic corporatism was designed by and for a cosmopolitan elite whose allegiance to a specific territory—whether a city, region, or nation—could not be taken for granted.⁴⁹ In the years since 1947, the regulation of international communications would increasingly become the prerogative less of national governments than of multinational and, increasingly, transnational corporations. These corporations, in turn, have come to be run by a small yet influential cosmopolitan elite that champions a conception of an international political economy that has come to be known as neoliberalism. Such a political economy presumed the emergence of a borderless world in which the circulation of information, people, and goods was regulated not by spatially bounded jurisdictions, which, by virtue of the fact that they were territorially delimited, were responsive, at least, in principle, to their inhabitants, but, rather, by a cosmopolitan elite beholden to no authority other than a global market for goods and services that they largely controlled. Whether or not this twenty-first century variant on mid-twentieth-century technocratic corporatism can survive the myriad challenges that confront it, it is currently coming under increasing strain—buffeted by a resurgent nationalism resentful of cosmopolitan elites and dubious of open borders—reviving, perhaps,

observes, commentators on international communications have relied on the “cognitive frameworks” of participants to justify their rationale, while the “history of telephone systems are closer to myth than reality but nicely fit the political bargain underlying the regime” (182, 184). As a case in point, he emphasizes the “epistemic community” among telecommunications insiders that defended “national monopoly” (198).  Schot and Lagendijk, “Technocratic Internationalism in the Interwar Years.”

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the possibility in a new and different modality of the liberal internationalism that Rogers had championed in Washington in 1920 and that would help to define the possibilities and the limitations of the International Telegraph Union as a global actor in the interwar era.

References Aitken, Hugh. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio, 1900 – 1932. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Codding, George A., Jr. “Jamming and the Protection of Frequency Assignments.” American Journal of International Law, vol. 49, n. 3 (1955): 384 – 88. Cowhey, Peter F. “The International Telecommunications Regime: The Political Roots of Regimes for High Technology.” International Organization, vol. 44, n. 2 (1990): 169 – 99. Creel, George. How We Advertised America. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1920. De Wolf, Francis Colt. “Telecommunications in the New World.” Yale Law Journal, vol. 55, n. 5 (1946): 1281 – 90. Douglas, Susan J. Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899 – 1922. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. Edgerton, David E. “The Contradictions of Techno-Nationalism and Techo-Globalism: A Historical Perspective.” New Global Studies, vol. 1, n. 1 (2007): 1 – 32. Hapgood, David. Charles R. Crane: The Man Who Bet on People. Washington, DC: Institute of Current World Affairs, 2000. Harbord, James G. “America’s Position in Radio Communication.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 4, n. 3 (1926): 465 – 74. John, Richard R. “The Public Image of the Universal Postal Union in the Anglophone World, 1874 – 1949.” In Exorbitant Expectations: International Organizations and the Media in the Nineteenth and the Twentieth Centuries, edited by Jonas Brendebach, Martin Herzer, and Heidi J.S. Tworek, 38 – 69. London: Routledge, 2018. John, Richard R. Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010. Le Roy, Howard S. “International Radiotelegraph Conference.” American Bar Association Journal, vol. 14, n. 2 (1928): 86 – 90. Mackay, Clarence H. International Cable Communication. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1921. Manela, Erez. The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. McCune, Meghan Menard, and John Maxwell Hamilton, “’My object is to be of service to you’: Carl Ackerman and the Wilson Administration during World War I.” Intelligence and National Security, vol. 32, n. 6 (2017): 743 – 57. Rogers, Walter S. “International Electrical Communications.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 1, n. 2 (1922): 144 – 57. Rogers, Walter S. “Memorandum on Wire and Radio Communications.” In Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement: Written from his Unpublished and Personal Material Vol. 3, edited by Ray Stannard Baker, 427 – 442. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1922.

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Schot, Johan, and Vincent Lagendijk. “Technocratic Internationalism in the Interwar Years: Building Europe on Motorways and Electricity Networks.” Journal of Modern European History, vol. 6, n. 2 (2008): 196 – 217. Schwoch, James. The American Radio Industries and its Latin American Activities, 1900 – 1930. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990. Schwoch, James. “The American Radio Industry and International Communications Conferences, 1919 – 1927.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 7, n. 2 (1987): 289 – 309. Tomlinson, John D. The International Control of Radiotelecommunications. Ann Arbor: J. W. Edwards, 1945. Winseck, Dwayne R., and Robert M. Pike. Communications and Empire: Media, Markets, and Globalization, 1860 – 1930. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

Christiane Berth*

4 ITU, the Development Debate, and Technical Cooperation in the Global South, 1950 – 1992 4.1 Introduction In October 2017, the ITU Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU-D) celebrated its 25th anniversary. The ITU-D is one of three ITU sections established with the organizations’ administrative reform of 1992. According to the ITU Constitution, the Development Sector organizes the regional and global telecommunication development conferences as well as the development-related study groups, and is in charge of the Telecommunication Development Bureau. The Bureau coordinates all development activities with four departments and regional offices in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, the Americas, the Arab States, the CIS Countries and Europe.¹ In the anniversary presentation, the ITU lists as main successes of its development branch ICT regulation: assistance for the appropriation of new technologies, the promotion of (digital) innovation, and the use of mobile phones for improving rural peoples’ access to information and services.² The featured stories include a network for 20 rural internet centres in Thailand, as well as the equipping of rural schools with computers and broadband internet at the Comoros.³ By doing so, the anniversary page erroneously leaves the impression that the ITU Development Sector has had a short history. In fact, the ITU has worked on development issues since the 1950s. As I will argue in this chapter, the early development debates within the organization were highly controversial. I aim to demonstrate that the organization responded after the Second World War to outside pressure and demands from its new member countries. As a result of decolonization, ITU membership grew significantly, which led to an internal “shift in power and emphasis” within the organization.⁴ * University of Costa Rica, Costa Rica  The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries include ten former Soviet republics.  ITU-D 1992– 2017. Celebrating 25 Years of Achievements, accessed August 29, 2018, https:// www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Documents/ITU-D_Anniversary_Online_Booklet.pdf  ITU-D Feature Stories, Anniversary 1922– 2017, accessed August 29, 2018, https://www.itu.int/ en/ITU-D/Pages/Feature-Stories.aspx.  Codding and Rutkowski, The International Telecommunication Union in a Changing World, 29. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-005

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At that time, the ITU perceived development cooperation as the transfer of knowledge and equipment during expert missions, but lacked broader conceptual debates on development. When considered as an antenna, the ITU realized that development became an emerging topic. However, the techno-diplomacy failed over decades in finding a compromise between Global South countries and industrialized countries on the ITU institutional framework, and funding for development cooperation. I show that Global South countries met an emphatic rejection when demanding contributions from the ITU budget for cooperation projects beyond expert missions and a continuous ITU presence in different world regions. Things changed very slowly. With an increasing number of expert missions, the ITU founded a special division for development in 1960 with mainly administrative functions. In the following decade, the ITU expanded its role as global actor and supported numerous telecommunication training centres all over the world. By the early 1970s, official ITU publications narrated a success story of development as the global diffusion of technological modernity, visualized through telephone centrals, satellites, and impressive telecommunication buildings. This apparently non-political narrative remained silent on misappropriations of telecommunications for military and political purposes. It also remained silent on the double role of experts as advisors and promoters of private companies’ equipment. At the same time, development visions within the organization became more complex. While traditional narratives persisted, social aspects and visions for an equal partnership gained ground among ITU representatives. Finally, it was private companies that supported the first own ITU research project on telecommunications and development. Outside the ITU, UNESCO, the World Bank, communication researchers from Stanford University and economists made important contributions to the debate, which the ITU again joined with delay. Beginning in the 1970s, the ITU became an important arena for knowledge production on telecommunications and development. The Missing Link Report, published in 1984, promoted a vision for a global connected society through telephones. Although the report’s immediate impact remained limited, I argue that it was the predecessor for the debate on the digital divide and development cooperation. At the same time, it was a compromise document of ITU techno-diplomacy. There is only scarce research on ITU development cooperation, mainly published by ITU staff or researchers with close links to the organization.⁵ Also, historical development research has not dealt with the ITU’s role, as the organizations’ archival dossiers on technical cooperation projects are closed to

 Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union.”

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public access. Hence, this article mainly draws upon published ITU documents, grey literature and archival material from German Federal archives. It provides an overview on ITU development debates, introduces the organizations’ technical cooperation activities, and points out perspectives for further research.

4.2 The ITU “Discovering” Development in the 1950s The ITU’s history differed from the other international organizations. Founded in 1865, the organization had its own institutional tradition when the UN system came into being after the Second World War. This different history explains why the organization was a reluctant latecomer in development activities. Development was a key aim for the new system of international organizations that shaped the global post-war order. In the vision of its architects, the new independent nations especially should catch up with modern industrial societies. Early concepts of development focused strongly on economic indicators and technological progress.⁶ These development ideals had their predecessors in the 1920s and 1930s, when development also became a key term of colonial rule. Through former colonial experts working for the international organizations and bilateral projects, these same ideals influenced late colonialism and early independence. Parallel to this, the League of Nations had also launched new paradigms for international development in the 1930s that shaped post-war debates.⁷ In the 1940s, the U.S. questioned the ITU’s role as global regulator. The late war and early post-war years had witnessed a power struggle on the future control of telecommunications. The U.S. launched its political vision of freedom of communication, and proposed that a new supranational agency should replace the ITU. Strong opposition from European nations and Commonwealth countries impeded the U.S. to carry out this vision. In the end, the negotiations led to a compromise, which proposed to associate the ITU with the UN system. As a result, the ITU became a specialized UN agency in 1949.⁸ However, that same year,

 For the historiography of development, see Cullather, “Development? It’s History”; Sachs, The Development Dictionary.  Hodge, “British Colonial Expertise”; Frey, Kunkel and Unger, “Introduction: International Organizations, Global Development and the Making of the Contemporary World.”  Beyersdorf, “Freedom of Communication”; Laborie, “Fragile Links, Frozen Identities”; Tegge, Die Internationale Telekommunikations-Union.

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the General Secretariat rejected an invitation to participate actively in the UN Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance (EPTA).⁹ After this initial rejection, it took another three years before the ITU participated fully in UN assistance projects. Hence, the ITU was a latecomer in accepting the development agenda as its own mission. Contrary to the other international organizations, development formed no part of the ITU’s foundational story.¹⁰ In fact, the Union had debated on global communication and Global South regions since the late 19th century to ensure global standards as well as the interconnection of telegraph and telephone communications. However, in the late nineteenth century, the ITU considered Global South regions only as part of empires.¹¹ In the early twentieth century, ITU membership began to change: Most Latin American nations joined the ITU until the early 1930s, but unfortunately there is no research on their integration into the organization. In addition, China became an ITU member in 1920. In the post-war period, ITU membership experienced a fundamental change: the new independent nations in Asia and Africa challenged the majorities of industrial countries. Between 1947 and 1963, 42 Global South countries joined the organization. For example, in the early 1950s, Vietnam, South Korea, Cambodia, Laos, and Libya became ITU members. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, many African states followed. From 1964 to 1984, another 42 Global South states had become ITU members. In total numbers, membership had increased from 60 countries (1933) to 124 (1964) and to 160 (1984).¹² Nearly all the new member states were so-called “developing countries,”¹³ which meant they could win majorities if acting as a group. However, differences among them also existed. Consequently, support for development proposals changed according to political alliances and budgetary concerns. The division between new and old members, as well as divisions along the line of Cold War blocs, challenged techno-diplomacy from the 1940s to 1989. For more than three decades, Global South nations struggled to achieve a stronger ITU commitment to development.

 Gross, “Technical Assistance in the International Telecommunication Union.”  On early debates and attempts to relate development to ITU traditions, see Persin, “Some Reflections on Technical Assistance”; Chapuis, “The Role of an International Telecommunication Consultative Committee in Technical Assistance.”  Balbi et al., Network Neutrality.  See ITU Annual Reports, 1933, 1964 and 1984.  I mostly refer to this group as Global South countries, although they formed no homogenous bloc. The term became more common as an alternative for “Third World” countries after 1989. Garland Mahler, “Global South”; Global South Studies Center, “Concepts of the Global South.”

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For the ITU, the Global South member states, with their independent telecommunications agenda, were a challenge. The delegates from the industrialized nations had a different background and other interests. These delegates were mainly engineers or technicians interested in operating standards, signalling, and equipment specifications. By contrast, the delegates from Global South countries were mainly administrators and managers who faced the challenge of constructing telecommunication systems according to the independent nations’ needs. Consequently, their main interest was network planning.¹⁴ Among ITU elected officials, the representation of Global South nationals remained weak until the mid-1960s. According to Jean-Luc Renaud, high-ranking ITU representatives were exclusively European or U.S. nationals during the first hundred years of the organization’s history.¹⁵ There was only one exception: In 1954, Argentinian Marco Aurelio Andrada became Secretary-General.¹⁶ In the 1950s, the UN system requested that the ITU become more active in development cooperation. At the same time, the ITU established closer contacts, as it feared further international organizations would otherwise enter the area of telecommunications. In the early 1950s, there was still a long way to go until the Global South proposals on development cooperation were passed at ITU assemblies. The first debates on development took place in the early 1950s. In 1949, the delegates of Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran and Pakistan applied to UNESCO for development projects to advance national telecommunication systems.¹⁷ This inspired Gerald Gross, Assistant Secretary-General of the ITU, to request resources from the Technical Assistance Bureau of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).¹⁸ Rather

 Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 325.  Ibid., 40. Unfortunately, Renaud does not indicate the ITU positions his analysis refers to.  Marco Aurelio Andrada (born 1904 in Buenos Aires) had represented Argentina on the ITU’s Administrative Council between 1948 and 1953. He became Secretary-General in 1954. Whether his term also benefitted development initiatives remains a subject for further research. Marco Aurelio Andrada, accessed March 7, 2018, http://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/Elec tedOfficialBio.aspx?off=2  Iran and Egypt had joined the organization already in 1869 and 1876; Afghanistan in 1928 and Pakistan in 1947. Accessed August 31, 2018, https://www.itu.int/online/mm/scripts/gen sel8. Hence, there were possibly regional alliances between long-term and recent Non-western countries.  At the 1947 Plenipotentiary Conference of Atlantic City, ITU decided that the organization should transform into a specialized agency of the UN. This meant that ITU was linked automatically to ECOSOC as coordinating council between UN activities and specialized agencies. Codding and Rutkowski, The International, 22– 33. On ECOSOC, see Reinalda, Routledge History of International Organizations, 308 – 309.

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than proving a strong interest in development initiatives, this step was meant to prevent other international organizations from interfering in telecommunications. At the same time, the Technical Assistance Bureau requested that the ITU become more active in development cooperation. Until then, the ITU had only provided a list of telecommunication experts to the UN.¹⁹ Although political scientist George A. Codding characterized this step as a “landmark” for the organization’s history, the official ITU language remained very cautious and was eager not to confront the private telecommunication sector.²⁰ In 1951, Secretary-General Leon Mulatier expressed that private companies could interpret any external advice on national telecommunications as an interference. Contrary to the European countries with public telecommunication ownership, private companies had a stronger influence in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Hence, Mulatier feared that they might interpret recommendations on equipment or routes as intrusions.²¹ One year later, he outlined to the Administrative Council the conception of technical assistance prevalent at that time. Mulatier presented technical assistance as a cooperative work “designed to raise the standard of living in underdeveloped countries in the interests of the community of nations.” While he introduced “technical” as a broad term, including “all branches of economic and social activities,” the activities Mulatier envisaged for ITU cooperation were limited. Mainly, ITU assistance would cover four areas: First, the dispatch of experts to “study problems on the spot and draw up recommendations for the development of the country”; second, the provision of fellowships, which would allow local experts to “acquire further knowledge” in their field; third, the organization of seminars and lecture tours; and fourth, the supply of equipment in small quantities.²² Hence, the ITU perceived technical assistance mainly as knowledge transfer and, to a lesser degree, equipment transfer. The early cooperation with the UN Technical Assistance Bureau was formalized at the 1952 ITU Conference, when the ITU became a “participating organization” of EPTA. The 1952 Plenipotentiary Conference in Buenos Aires witnessed two resolutions on development. The first established that the ITU should continue its participation in EPTA.²³ The debate revealed conflicts among the delegates. For instance, the British delegate considered that ITU activities in technical assistance

 Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 55 – 56.  Codding and Rutkowski, The International Telecommunication Union in a Changing World, 40.  Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 57.  Doc. 1007/CA7 (1952). Quoted after Renaud, “Changing,” 60.  Document 103 E; Document 269 E; Document 318 E. Documents of the Plenipotentiary Conference, Buenos Aires 1952.

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should remain very limited. In his opinion, the Union should act mainly as intermediary between donors and “developing countries.”²⁴ These debates reflected the general opposition of industrialized countries against assigning larger budget shares to activities in Global South countries and adapting standards to their special needs. Their delegates feared that the ITU taking over financial responsibility for development cooperation would lead to higher contributions for the member countries.

4.3 From Expert Missions to National Telecommunication Development Plans in the 1950s and 1960s In general, most of the ITU development cooperation was realized in the framework of national EPTA projects and later on United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) projects.²⁵ During the first missions, telecommunication experts and telephone engineers advised middle-Eastern, Asian and African countries. Most of the experts originated from Western Europe.²⁶ The projects in the early 1950s consisted mainly of individual experts who were sent on missions, such as for the creation of an Institute of Telecommunications in Ethiopia or support for long-distance telephony in India. Up to October 1952, 33 expert mission took place while the UN provided 25 telecommunication fellowships to staff from Global South countries.²⁷ As a result of the modest ITU commitment, their number increased only slowly. Between 1953 and 1958, the ITU sent 59 telecommunication experts to 17 countries.²⁸ Projects in the late 1960s and early 1970s clearly focused on the establishment of Telecommunications Training Centres and support for national telecommunication plans.

 Document 199E. Documents of the Plenipotentiary Conference, Buenos Aires, 1952.  In 1965, the UN decided to merge EPTA and the Special Fund for Economic Development to create the UNDP. The execution of development projects remained similar.  Most experts were sent to Afghanistan (4), Iran (6), and Pakistan (9). Document 187-E. Documents of the Plenipotentiary Conference, Buenos Aires, 1952.  Document 187-E. Documents of the Plenipotentiary Conference, Buenos Aires 1952. See for a list of expert missions up to October 1952. Document 187-E, Annex I, Missions performed by telecommunication experts, 1952 Plenipotentiary Conference; E. Ferrer-Vieyra, “Report on some aspects of the Technical Co-operation Programme of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)” (Geneva, 1975), Annex I provides a list with all UNDP/ITU projects up to June 1974.  ITU, “ITU and Technical Co-operation,” 433.

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While during early EPTA activities the specialized UN agencies, among them the ITU, had a strong influence, reforms in the mid-1950s strengthened the position of the national governments.²⁹ Within the new framework, it was up to the governments to distribute resources for different areas of development politics. Telecommunication normally gained no high priority. As the governments requested the projects, the ITU’s conceptional influence remained low. Instead, the organization was mainly involved through the providing of experts. By the late 1950s, Global South nations had allied with Eastern European countries to pressure for development cooperation.³⁰ While they successfully managed to include development in the ITU Convention, their proposals for assigning financial resources to development projects beyond UN assistance were rejected. At the 1959 Geneva Plenipotentiary Conference, the delegates debated on incorporating development as an ITU purpose. Eastern European and Global South countries proposed to integrate a new paragraph on development in the Convention. Industrialized nations objected to the initial proposal to include technical assistance “in the framework of the ITU.” They were unwilling to authorize any financial commitment from the ITU budget.³¹ Finally, article 4 of the ITU Convention added the expansion of telecommunication in developing countries as one aim of the organization.³² Compared to 1952, the number of resolutions dealing with development issues had increased from two to fifteen at the 1959 conference. Nevertheless, proposals, such as the Mexican one to establish an International Telecommunication Development Bank in 1959, gained no majorities. The proposal also aimed at converting the ITU into an organization that would actively lobby for funds for telecommunication development.³³ Again, representatives from the industrialized nations opposed any plan to assign part of the ITU budget to development projects. In their opinion, this would lead to higher mem-

 Stokke, The UN and Development, 80 – 82.  During the Cold War, the Soviet Union as well as Eastern European countries tried to establish themselves as allies of non-Western countries. They frequently criticized ITU experts’ close links to private companies.  Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 75 – 76. The proposal was launched by Poland, Czechoslovakia and Mexico.  Article 4 d states that ITU shall “foster the creation, development and improvement of telecommunication equipment and networks in new or developing countries by every means at its disposal, especially its participation in the appropriate programs of the United Nations.” International Telecommunication Convention, Final Protocol to the Convention. Geneva, 1959, 4.  Document No. 260 E, Plenipotentiary Conference, Geneva, 1959.

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bership contributions.³⁴ This conflict continued over the next two decades. Parallel to the situation in other international organizations such as UNESCO, groups of Global South nations organized for collaborative actions, demanded a stronger representation in ITU positions, and insisted that the organization had to increase its global presence.³⁵ Hence, the ITU remained a conflictive arena for development initiatives, as also demonstrated by the reactions to the establishment of the ITU’s first development department. In 1960, the ITU established a special division for development cooperation within the General-Secretariat. Its early activities were insufficient to satisfy the representatives of Global South countries. They demanded an independent body, separate from the General-Secretariat, as well as an ITU development assistance fund and regional ITU offices for technical assistance.³⁶ In addition, delegates from Latin America criticized that the working party on technical assistance was dominated by members from industrialized countries. Moreover, they denounced that the department was headed by a low-ranking official, which the Colombian delegate considered an affront to the Global South countries.³⁷ Finally, the establishment of the department was merely an administrative move without the assignment of a higher priority to technical cooperation. The confrontations on development cooperation at ITU assemblies continued throughout the 1960s. Despite changing majorities in terms of membership countries, the presence of Global South delegates at ITU meetings was still weak. As national governments had to provide the travel resources, it was mainly financial limitations impeding real majorities at ITU assemblies and commissions from changing. At the 1965 Montreux Plenipotentiary Conference, Global South countries launched another unsuccessful offensive, causing intense debates. They had two important aims: first, to create an ITU technical assistance fund, and second, to establish regional ITU offices following the organizational scheme of other international organizations, such as FAO, WHO, ILO, and UNESCO.³⁸ Both initiatives failed.

 Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 66, 105 – 108.  Chloe, “Internationalization and Decentering UNESCO.”  Codding, and Rutkowski, The International Telecommunication Union in a Changing World, 285 – 286.  Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 99 – 100.  Document No. 76-E, Plenipotentiary Conference, 1965.

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4.4 ITU Experts Between Cooperation and Conflict in the 1960s and 1970s While debates at the ITU on development cooperation intensified, the World Bank entered the field as another important actor in the 1960s. Between 1962 and 1983, the Bank approved 93 loans and credits for telecommunication projects in 42 countries. The Bank also supported regional initiatives, such as the pre-investment survey for a Central American telecommunication network in 1963.³⁹ The ideas for regional telecommunication networks dated back to the 1950s, when the ITU discussed plans for Asia and Africa. However, it took over a decade before the plans for continental networks took shape. Plan commissions were set up on the different continents in the early 1960s. The continental networks should establish automatic regional telephone service all over the world and eliminate the intermediation via other continents. As a next step, pre-investment surveys were realized, financed by UNDP and regional development banks.⁴⁰ These projects became an important activity for ITU experts, whom the Bank consulted regularly.⁴¹ Hence, the global presence of ITU experts expanded significantly from the 1960s onwards. Generally, the ITU circulated a call for these positions among its member countries. Within the UN projects, the ITU submitted the candidatures with its comments to the receiving country for final decision.⁴² Many experts had professional backgrounds with large telecommunication companies, such as Siemens, Ericsson or Thomson-CSF. Between 1965 and 1972, the ITU directed 1825 expert missions to 95 countries and provided 1399 fellowships to telecommunication staff from developing countries.⁴³ In addition, ITU development projects supported the national telecommunication training centres. For example, in Latin America, the organization supported institutes in Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Ur-

 ITU, “ITU and Technical Co-operation,” 510.  ITU, Panaftel. The Pan-African Telecommunication Network. Geneva, 1979.  See the following reports: Report No. 417a-CR. Appraisal of the Fourth Telecommunications Project Costa Rica, May 21, 1974; Report No. PU-76a. Appraisal of the First Telecommunications Project of the Empresa Guatemalteca de Telecomunicaciones (GUATEL), November 12, 1971; Report No. 1261-BO. Sector Memorandum Bolivia Telecommunications, July 12, 1977.  Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 66 – 67.  Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 299 – 301; ITU, “ITU,” 439.

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uguay, and Venezuela in the 1960s and 1970s.⁴⁴ Hence, the ITU contributed significantly to the formation of regional telecommunication expert communities. Taking Latin America as an example, telecommunication development projects became more widespread as of 1966. In the early 1970s, the plan for an InterAmerican telecommunication network also advanced.⁴⁵ Pursuant to a resolution of the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission (CITEL), the ITU also supported Latin American meetings on rural telecommunications in the early 1970s.⁴⁶ The new World Bank focus on rural development probably strengthened the ITU’s engagement with rural telecommunications in the 1970s. Finally, the ITU advised Latin American governments on national development plans for telecommunication. This coincided with a general planning euphoria in international organizations and development cooperation.⁴⁷ A 1973 special dossier on development cooperation in the Telecommunication Journal highlighted the telecommunication development plan of Paraguay as a “good example.” First, in 1962, ITU experts had advised the Paraguayan government on urban telephone networks. Then, the government sought ITU assistance for its telecommunication development plan. Beginning in 1965, the ITU realized the project with experts from Federal Germany. After two years, the German experts presented a 900-page report that served as a basis for the national development plan. Federal Germany provided 20 million German marks as a loan, while the ITU supported a technical training centre.⁴⁸ The German enterprise Siemens benefited strongly from this cooperation and delivered telecommunication equipment to Paraguay in the following decades. Hence, the ITU’s choice of experts strongly influenced commercial opportunities for telecommunication firms. While the ITU presented the case as a development success story, the organization ignored that Paraguay had been governed since 1954 by the dictator Alfredo Stroessner. His regime was characterized by political repression, corruption and social control through the official party. It was one of the longestlasting Latin American dictatorships, ended by a coup in 1989. In fact, German development cooperation faded out the project in the late 1970s, after a 1978 internal evaluation had come to a devastating conclusion: the project had mainly served German export interests. It was mostly elites who had benefitted from the new installations in urban areas, which were significantly oversized. In fact, the

 Ferrer-Vieyra, E. “Report on Some Aspects,” Annex I.  The pre-investment survey was realized under the auspices of OAS and the Inter-American Telecommunication Conference (CITEL).  ITU, “ITU and Technical Co-operation,” 483.  Escobar, Encountering Development, 113 – 123.  ITU, “ITU and Technical Co-operation,” 482.

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government documentation of the national telecommunication plan consists mainly of colour photos showing spacious buildings.⁴⁹ As the ITU records on these projects are closed, it is impossible to investigate the organization’s internal evaluation of the cooperation. Critical reflections on the potential abuse of telecommunications for political surveillance are absent from ITU documents and experts’ reports on development cooperation in the 1960s and 1970s. German reports also reveal that the cooperation between experts in different Latin American countries was characterized by intense competition. In 1969, the German embassy in Guatemala complained about ITU expert Hirosaku Shiimada, who had originally worked for the Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Public Corporation. German bilateral cooperation experts lamented several times that he only promoted Japanese interests. At the same time, they acknowledged that Shiimada perceived the Germans as “annoying” technical instance mobilizing for German technical equipment.⁵⁰ Hence, experts mistrusted each other mutually. Similar to the situation in Paraguay, Siemens held a strong position in Guatemalan telecommunications. At the ITU seminars for engineers from Global South countries, the interests of telecommunication enterprises were also present. For example, a German representative attending a 1967 ITU seminar on network planning in Sweden reported that speakers privileged the crossbar switching technology used by Ericsson.⁵¹ He also observed that Ericsson representatives took part in all working groups and courted the participants from Global South countries.⁵² While ITU experts worked on new national, regional and global infrastructures of communication, they sometimes promoted national and commercial interests, leading to tensions in the expert community. In many Global South countries, telecommunication multinationals competed for expansion. To do so, the firms cooperated closely with the ITU representatives for their countries. Unfortunately, as the experts’ testimonies and reports are inaccessible, we can only analyse the ITU’s public narrative on development cooperation. In the following section, I discuss how the ITU presented its activities in

 Dr. Lotz, Inspektion Hauptbericht Teil I: Textband, Fernmeldewesen Paraguay, June 30, 1978. BArch 213/25481 Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Germany.  Botschaft Guatemala to Auswärtiges Amt, November 25, 1969; Tätigkeitsbericht Nr. 5, Fernmeldeprojekt FE 1333 – Guatemala, September – December 1969, BArch 213/18574. Bundesarchiv Koblenz.  The crossbar technology for telephone switching was developed in the United States in the 1930s. Ericsson developed a new crossbar system and introduced it to international markets in the 1950s. Jacobaeus, LM Ericsson 100 Years, 5 – 7.  Dienstreise des Dipl.-Ing. Wegner nach Stockholm zur Teilnahme am UIT-Seminar für Entwicklungshilfe. BArch 257/30684. Bundesarchiv Koblenz.

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the Telecommunication Journal in the 1970s. In particular, I analyse a 1973 dossier that provides an overview on ITU development activities, which is still featured prominently on the ITU website and hence forms part of the organization’s institutional memory.⁵³ While the articles present ambivalent concepts of development and expert training, the visual illustrations and their captions introduce a narrative of technical cooperation as a “civilizing mission.”

4.5 Between “Veritable Partnership” and “Civilizing Mission” in the 1970s In a 1973 development dossier, Secretary-General Mohamed Ezzedine Mili diagnosed a major change in ITU cooperation after 1965. What was once conceived as “technical assistance” had turned into “technical cooperation.” This implied that isolated efforts of expert missions converted into a global development strategy. Quoting a UNDP official, Mili introduced cooperation as operation undertaken “on an equal footing.”⁵⁴ The 1973 dossier contains articles that explain the ITU’s institutional links to the UN development programs, introduce the organization’s vision for expert education and provide an overview on development activities between 1960 and 1973. It is illustrated with hundreds of photos showing ITU meetings, new publications, telecommunication training centres and experts in the field.⁵⁵ While some articles clearly share Mili’s vision for a cooperation based on exchange and “veritable partnership,”⁵⁶ others stick to traditional narratives of knowledge transfer. In general, the dossier identified the lack of knowledge and of qualified staff in telecommunications as a major problem in Global South countries. Hence, training measures and education feature as principal topics. According to the authors, the technical training centres would allow local engineers to enter dialogue with people from “more advanced countries” on an equal level. The instructing experts should act as “enlightened men” and avoid authoritarian

 Focus on Development, accessed September 3, 2018, https://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/ FocusOnDevelopment.aspx.  Mili, M. “Editorial,” Telecommunication Journal, August 1973, 300 – 301.  Most photos in this issue were taken from other collections, such as the UN or the German post. The ITU first employed a photographer in 1970. Apparently, he worked in the first years mainly on the organization of the photo archives and documented the conferences and meetings before also travelling into the field from the late 1970s onwards. Information provided by ITU archivist Heather Heywood, July 2018.  ITU, “ITU and Technical Co-operation,” 465, 516.

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methods of education. As the dossier warns about blindly introducing technical solutions from industrialized countries, it documents that the belief in the superiority of external knowledge was shattered. By contrast, the visual illustrations in ITU dossiers show a clear vision of technology as part of a modern “civilizing mission.” It is probable that the journal’s editorial staff added photographs and captions that sometimes contradicted the articles’ messages. The photographs show modern buildings for telecommunication training centres, telephone exchanges, installation of lines in isolated rural zones, and satellite equipment. In most photos, Western technicians teach, explain, or show the new equipment to Global South trainees and local people. I consider that these photos communicate the idea of a superior technological knowledge introduced by white experts to the Global South countries. For example, the Belgian expert Jules Marquet explained the installation of a broadcasting transmitter to Congolese technicians in Kabinda (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Congo had gained independence from Belgian colonial rule only a few years before, in 1960. Without additional sources to shed light on the context of the photos and project work, it is impossible to analyse the character of the interactions in detail. Sometimes, it seems that the photographers included locals to provide an exotic aura to technical installations, as for example when a black woman in traditional dress observes an ITU expert testing a VHF radio between Matadi and Kinshasa in Congo in the 1960s.⁵⁷ However, we also find examples of early South-South exchanges, such as the mission of Colombian expert Santiago Quijano Caballero to Pakistan in 1954/55.⁵⁸ These images run counter to the dominant visual narrative of white experts passing knowledge on to local recipients. In general, the photographs’ captions underline the idea of a “civilizing mission” and hence introduce us to the journal staffs’ interpretation of the images. For example, the captions relate to the ideals of “rational organization” or “judicious planning,” as well as to the “excellent modern equipment” provided to Global South countries. Other captions, such as “India forges ahead,” demonstrate that the idea of bringing progress to Global South countries was still present in official ITU discourse in the 1970s. For example, another caption concluded: “Telecommunications are a vital production factor. The quick exchange of information to all places and over all distances is a prerequisite of modern productivity, and is essential to human and technical progress.”⁵⁹ The ITU is pre-

 ITU, “ITU and Technical Co-operation,” 436.  Ibid., 433.  ITU, “ITU and Technical Co-operation,” 518.

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Figure 4.1 – ITU expert Jules Marquet explaining the installation of a transmitter at Kabinda, Democratic Republic of Congo. Published in the Telecommunication Journal, n. 36 (August 1969). Source: Photo 692067, ITU Library & Archives.

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Figure 4.2 – ITU expert Boris Sisov checks the relay rack with his Somalian colleague, 1965. Source: Photo 691250, ITU Library & Archives.

sented as the key actor in linking different nations. The images illustrate this by showing planning sessions at ITU headquarters, encounters between high-ranking officials from Geneva and local administrations, as well as triumphant inauguration ceremonies for the training centres. All these examples indicate that the ITU, or at least part of its staff, had developed a new relationship to its technical assistance program. Although struggles on funding and the priority of development cooperation continued, ITU publications from that time period express pride and identification with its new global mission.

4.6 Old Disputes, New Development Concepts and ITU Research In the early 1970s, the development debates became strongly politicized. At the Non-Aligned Movement’s Meeting in Algiers in 1973, a resolution called for developing countries to break up colonial legacies within their communication chan-

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Figure 4.3 – Santiago Quijano Caballero with a Pakistani technician, 1955. Source: UN photo archives, New York.

nels.⁶⁰ In many Global South countries, telecommunication networks had been orientated to the important centres of export production and large metropoles. By contrast, the new governments of the independent nations were concerned with establishing rural telecommunication networks and breaking the influence of foreign multinationals. Consequently, the 1973 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Málaga-Torremolinos witnessed controversial debates. Although 13 resolutions on development cooperation were approved, the most important demands of Global South countries again remained unfulfilled. Neither the establishment of an organ for development independent of the Secretary-General, nor the foundation of regional ITU offices gained sufficient majorities. Some Global South countries argued that UNDP support for telecommunication projects required lengthy administrative proceedings, and so would be difficult to realize for small countries. An independent ITU technical cooperation department with suf “4th Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government of the Non-Aligned Movement.” Algiers, Algeria 5 – 9 September 1973. Economic Declaration, 88, accessed March 7, 2018, http:// cns.miis.edu/nam/documents/Official_Document/4th_Summit_FD_Algiers_Declaration_1973_ Whole.pdf; Murthy, “Non-Aligned Movement Countries as Drivers of Change in International Organizations.”

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Figure 4.4 – Inauguration of the National School of Telecommunications in Kinshasa, Congo. The construction was financed by the Federal Republic of Germany. The Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany during his inaugural speech, 1967. Source: photo 692070, ITU Library & Archives.

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ficient financial resources could support urgent short-term missions.⁶¹ The proposal for regional offices was made by the Venezuelan delegation. The supporters argued that the ITU needed decentralization. In their opinion, regional experts could respond faster to urgent needs in the member countries than experts from the headquarters.⁶² While the industrialized countries generally opposed both suggestions, the arena of Global South countries remained divided. Some delegations raised doubts as to the usefulness of one regional office for a large continent, and related to the doubling of administrative procedures, which might increase financial expenditures. Finally, delegates at the conference elected Mohamed Ezzedine Mili, a Global South national, as Secretary-General.⁶³ Parallel to this, development conceptions at the ITU became broader and included social criteria. This was part of an international trend to revise development concepts from the 1960s onwards. During the 1970s, a unified approach to social and economic development emerged. Among others, World Bank President Robert McNamara had criticized that the reliance on high economic growth rates was insufficient to alleviate global poverty. In his vision, World Bank projects needed to benefit the poor directly, for example through credits to small farmers.⁶⁴ Influenced by these global debates, the ITU included social development in the early 1970s as an aim of its technical cooperation.⁶⁵ Again, outside pressure was decisive in changing the ITU’s agenda. In 1975, the UN Joint Inspection Unit recommended to the ITU to extend its development approach. The inspection unit argued that instead of the technical missions, a commitment to social development was necessary. It also recommended that the ITU expand technical cooperation, formulate a program involving all its permanent organs, and increase its presence through field activities in Global South countries.⁶⁶

 Documents 103 E, 373 E, Documents of the Plenipotentiary Conference 1973, Málaga-Torremolinos.  Documents 83 E, 213 E, Documents of the Plenipotentiary Conference 1973, Málaga-Torremolinos; Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 2, 42– 43.  Mili was born in Tunisia in 1917. In 1957, he became the Director of Tunisian Telecommunications and participated regularly at ITU conferences. At the 1973 Conference, he was elected Secretary-General and officiated from 1974 to 1982. According to the ITU biographical sketch, Mili supported development cooperation strongly. Mohamed Ezzedine Mili, accessed March 7, 2018, http://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/ElectedOfficialBio.aspx?off=28. However, beyond these general statements, his position to non-Western countries’ initiatives needs more research.  Sharma, Robert McNamara’s Other War.  ITU, “ITU and Technical Co-operation,” 487.  Ferrer-Vieyra, E. “Report on Some Aspects”; Renaud, “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union,” 150 – 152.

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This intervention indicates the lack of conceptual development debates within the ITU. As the following paragraph shows, the organization responded extremely slowly to internal demands for more research, and denied financial support. While the experts acted as antennae and recognized development as an important topic, the ITU techno-diplomacy remained sceptical and hesitant. When the ITU became more intensively involved in development cooperation after the 1965 plenipotentiary conference, the consulting engineers working in the Technical Cooperation Department needed more information on telecommunications and development. Out of a need to provide local governments with development criteria for telecommunications, the engineers submitted a request for a study on the matter in early 1969. However, the research proposal experienced a strong delay as ITU bodies retarded decision-making and assigned no funds. In the end, the research was only realized after a group of ten private companies offered funding in 1976.⁶⁷ That same year, the ITU Administrative Council approved the initiative for a research project on the indirect benefits of telecommunications in rural areas. Shortly afterwards, the ITU approached the OECD research centre to cooperate with the project, which started in 1977. According to William P. Pierce and Nicolas Jéquier, the purpose was to “analyse the direct and especially the indirect benefits of national investments in telecommunications and to show the ways in which a telecommunication system can contribute to economic and social development.”⁶⁸ During a 1978 meeting in Paris, an expert group decided to concentrate research on point-to-point communications, mainly the telephone.⁶⁹ The research project produced a total of 18 case studies focusing on three subjects: first, the reports analysed the effects of telecommunications on different economic sectors; second, the reports discussed rural telecommunications projects; and third, the general socio-economic benefits of telecommunications.⁷⁰ They were published in the World Year of Communications 1983. Prior to the ITU, UNESCO had already discussed the connection between communications and development.

 Pierce, William and Nicolas Jéquier. “Telecommunications for Development: Synthesis Report of the ITU-OECD Project on the Contribution of Telecommunications to Economic and Social Development,” Geneva, 1983, 4.  Pierce and Jéquier, “The Contribution of Telecommunications to Economic Development,” 533.  Ibid., 4– 11. The 20 experts came from different research institutions, international organizations, telecommunication ministries, and private companies. Only five of them originated from non-Western countries.  See for a complete list: Pierce, The Contribution of Telecommunications to Economic Development. Telecommunication Journal, vol. 44, November 1977, 7.

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Given its strong interest in rural education, UNESCO had identified communications as an important channel for its development projects. During the 1960s and early 1970s, the organization was strongly influenced by Wilbur Schramm’s research on the role of mass media in development. Schramm, a communication scholar at Stanford University, had argued that modern mass media could contribute to modernizing traditional societies through the establishment of new customs and values. Especially the television, in countries where schools and teachers were lacking, could serve as a substitute.⁷¹ As a result, UNESCO started educational television projects in different world regions in cooperation with other foreign donors. In the subsequent decades, Stanford University remained an important think-tank for the debates on telecommunications and development. For example, two members of the ITU/OECD expert committee had strong links to that university. Edwin Parker was a Professor of Communication Research at Stanford University, where Heather Hudson had obtained her PhD in Communication Research. In addition, the Stanford Communication Satellite Planning Center strongly influenced the dialogue on satellite technology and rural telecommunications. Lastly, World Bank consultants published in the field.⁷² While researchers in the 1960s had focused on mass media and development, in the 1970s they realized more surveys on telecommunications. These studies can be divided into three groups: first, economists mainly discussed the correlation between telecommunications and national economic development; second, researchers realized studies on the social impact of telecommunications; and third, researchers shed light on telecommunications development projects at the micro level.⁷³ Again, UNESCO entered the debate, but with a different agenda: During the 1970s, UNESCO debates on communication became strongly politicized. Under the Senegalese Director General Amadou Mhatar M’Bow, the concept of a New World Information and Communication Order caused intense dissension.⁷⁴ In 1977, UNESCO set up the MacBride Commission to present a report on global communication systems. The report, published in 1980, challenged international organizations and national institutions to give telecommunications a higher priority.⁷⁵ In addition, the report demanded a change in rate structures that

 Lindo-Fuentes, “Educational Television in El Salvador and Modernisation Theory.”  Saunders, Warford, and Wellenius, Telecommunications and Economic Development; Wellenius, “The Role of Telecommunications Services in Developing Countries.”  Hudson et al., The Role of Telecommunications in Socio-Economic Development, 5 – 7.  Weiß, “Neue Weltinformationsordnung reloaded?.”  MacBride, “International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems,” 55, 72.

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harmed “small and peripheral users.”⁷⁶ Overall, the MacBride report considered increased communication as fundamental for quality of life and rejected more limited development visions based on the access to consumer goods.⁷⁷ Even though the U.S. had initially requested the report, the subsequent debates provoked the U.S. and Britain to leave UNESCO temporarily in 1984/85. Although the report concentrated on mass media, UNESCO had also contributed to the debates on telecommunications and development. The ITU/OECD surveys provided no definite conclusion on the relationship between telecommunications and development. Instead, they gathered research from different angles and promoted rural telecommunications through satellite technology. The ITU literature review presented the following positive effects for rural areas: First, local telephone systems facilitated the work of decentralized social services; second, local agricultural production benefitted through better information on prices, transport capacities, and the timely order of supplies; and third, rural telecommunications would increase political participation if strong local organizations existed and access to the telephone was unrestricted.⁷⁸ In many cases, technical deficiencies could also severely inhibit telecommunications’ potential for stimulating local development.⁷⁹ Finally, the ITU synthesis on the research concluded that satellite technology could offer a solution for the vicious circle of rural communications as it required less investment in line construction. This research also influenced ITU publications in the 1980s.

4.7 The Independent Commission for World-Wide Telecommunications Development and The Missing Link Report (1985) As we have seen, research on development and telecommunications had gained relevance within the ITU while conflicts over development cooperation continued. After several frustrated attempts from developing countries to find support for their plans, the 1982 Plenipotentiary Conference established a “stop valve” for the accumulated anger. It founded the Independent Commission for World-Wide

   

Ibid., 257. Ibid., 205. Ibid., 10 – 13, 20 – 24. Ibid., 20 – 24.

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Telecommunications Development to investigate new methods for expanding telecommunications at a global scale and include a proposal for the ITU’s role. Under Chairman Donald Maitland, a British diplomat, a group of 17 members started its work in late 1983. Politicians were the dominant group within the commission, among them several Ministers of Communication. With ten representatives, members from Global South countries held a majority.⁸⁰ Beyond that, the commission also included academics and high representatives of leading telecommunication companies, such as former AT&T President William M. Ellinghaus. The 17 members met five times within a year and then published their report, entitled The Missing Link. Given the short time for its mission, the commission undertook none of its own research. Instead, it sent out 700 requests to international organizations, telecommunication administrations, government officials and private companies to inquire about their current concerns and request suggestions regarding global telecommunications.⁸¹ In addition, it relied on recent investigations into telecommunications and economic development, such as the ITU/OECD surveys. The members controversially debated over different proposals for financing telecommunications investment and rejected a proposal for a new World Telecommunication Development Organization.⁸² During their meetings, they also discussed the report’s structure and draft chapters. The Missing Link was a typical piece of techno-diplomacy as it integrated different, at times contradictory positions. It preferred messages capable of achieving consensus over clear statements. For example, the commission refrained from a proposition on the relationship between economic development and telecommunications. While there were some indicators for a positive effect of telecommunications on economic growth, the causal relation could also be vice-versa.⁸³ Moreover, the report framed the contribution of telecommunications as a broad development endeavour, arguing with categories such as progress, prosperity or cultural enrichment. The ambiguous document therefore offered a comprehensive narrative that many different actors could appropriate for their own interests.

 Out of the 17 members, five came from the U.S., Europe or Japan; two from the Soviet bloc, and ten from non-Western countries. “The Missing Link: Report of the Independent Commission for Worldwide Telecommunications Development” (ITU, Genf, 1985), i – viii.  Ibid., 1.  Document 1059 E, 24 September 1984. Summary Record of the Third Meeting of the Commission. Independent Commission for World Wide Telecommunications Development 49 Z 31/1 SG, Box 1. ITU Library & Archives.  “The Missing Link,” 8 – 9.

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Generally, the report appealed to global decision-makers to give a higher priority to telecommunications. Presenting impressive figures on global gaps in access to telecommunications, the report declared the situation as “intolerable.” Among the 600 million telephones on the globe, 75 percent were situated in only nine industrialized countries. Two thirds of the global population had no opportunity to use the telephone at all. The city of Tokyo alone had more telephones than the African continent.⁸⁴ To convince decision-makers, the report used an ambitious rhetoric. The instant availability of information was a condition for “human progress” and a “prime source of cultural enrichment.” It even declared that expanded telecommunications would “make the world a better and safer place.”⁸⁵ Interestingly, the commission considered the telephone system as the infrastructure that would benefit the most people. After discussing problems such as financing, equipment production and expert training, the report recommended a list of reforms. The overall aim was to reach global access to the telephone in the early 21st century. As such, Global South countries should invest higher percentages of their GDP in telecommunication and expand rural telephone plans. However, they would still need the “goodwill and assistance” of others, mainly the industrialized countries.⁸⁶ In general, the authors argued for a combination of political interventions with market mechanisms. In their opinion, the developing countries were a large, fast-growing future market for telecommunications. In addition to investment schemes, such as additional concessionary credits, the increased global traffic would provide funds for further expansion.⁸⁷ To assure a better coordination of development cooperation, the commission suggested the creation of a Centre for Telecommunications Development. This new institution would not only conduct research, but also provide advice to Global South countries in decision-making regarding telecommunications. However, the proposal was unambitious in suggesting only ten experts as staff. Likewise, the report lacked a convincing funding proposal beyond assigning responsibility to industrialized and developing countries alike.⁸⁸ Concerning the telecommunication sector in Global South countries, the report suggested business organization accompanied by measures to strengthen their self-reliance. While different ownership models were possible, the authors

    

Ibid., 3, 13. Ibid., 3 – 4. Ibid., 5. Ibid., 65. Ibid., 53 – 54.

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clearly favoured a “separate, self-sustainable enterprise operated on business lines.” ⁸⁹ As such, planning researcher Gwen Urey has argued that the report paved the way for cooperation with the World Bank, whose telecommunication strategy turned to privatization by the mid-1980s.⁹⁰ However, the commission also took into account a memorandum by the Pan-African Telecommunication Union criticizing foreign telecommunications firms offering inadequate equipment at high prices. In response, the report recommended local manufacturing, as well as the development of research capacities in Global South countries.⁹¹ While the inclusion of self-reliance as an aim is remarkable, the report refrained from discussing problems with corruption or the abuse of telecommunication projects for political purposes.⁹² Again, techno-diplomacy had produced a consensus narrative for different interest groups. In response to the report, the ITU organized in 1985 its first World Telecommunication Development Conference in Arusha, Tanzania. The explicit purpose of the meeting was to discuss the Missing Link report in detail. The conference venue in Africa had a strong symbolic significance and facilitated the attendance of African delegates to the conference. In the end, delegates from 93 countries participated, 38 of them from African nations. They discussed intensively how to establish equal access to telecommunications by the turn of the century. Also in 1985, the ITU founded the Centre for Telecommunications Development with its own budget, based on voluntary contributions. The Advisory Board discussed its tasks for nearly two years, leading to impatience among delegates from Global South countries. In addition, the Centre suffered from severe budget constraints and lack of staff. Consequently, it had no strong impact in the following years. Its initial work was based on short-term voluntary contributions from different countries and private enterprises. As such, its permanent staff consisted of only two directors and one administrative officer. In 1987, a report on the Centre’s finances characterized the situation as “precarious.” Several representatives of Global South countries expressed their disappointment at the limited achievements. By 1989, the Centre had only completed 18 projects and shortterm missions while another 20 were under implementation. The Costa Rican member of the Advisory Board, Armando Vargas Araya, also questioned the ongoing focus on North-South cooperation with the same “old hands” that had dominated expert missions during the last twenty years. A special working group  Ibid., 38.  Urey, “Infrastructure for Global Financial Integration,” 113 – 134.  Ibid., 47– 50.  See for example the critical review: Shields and Samarajiva, “Telekommunikation, Entwicklung des ländlichen Raumes und der Maitland-Report ‘The Missing Link.’”

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on budget problems developed strategies for fundraising, but failed to assure long-term commitment from governments and the private sector. The Centre only survived during a short transition period and was incorporated into ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau in 1991.⁹³

4.8 Epilogue: From the Birth of the ITU-D to ICT for Development In 1989, the Plenipotentiary Conference recognized that development cooperation should have the same status as standardization and spectrum management. Consequently, in 1992, the new ITU structure included three main areas: 1) Telecommunication Standardization (ITU-T), 2) Radiocommunication (ITU-R), and 3) Telecommunication Development (ITU-D). However, ITU-D did not have the same importance as the other two areas in the early 1990s.⁹⁴ Nevertheless, the Centre for Development could work with a large staff of around 100 persons for the first time, most of them Global South nationals.⁹⁵ Ten years after the Missing Link report, enthusiasm had faded away. Secretary-General Terjane Pakkana considered the reports’ effects as mixed: Although government investment in telecommunication had increased, development agencies’ support remained uneven. He argued that, while the gap in access to basic telephony had narrowed, the gap in quality of telecommunications had widened, especially in access to advanced telecommunication services such as fax or emails.⁹⁶ Despite its ambitious mission, the report’s effects were limited. First, the telecommunication sector faced a challenge through digitalization, which reduced attention for other, less profitable topics. Second, the ITU Development Bureau lacked importance within the organization and hence could not convince the assemblies to assign more resources. So far, no systematic overview on ITU development activities after 1992 has been realized. My hypothesis is that the global

 CTD 6 – 5-E, September 30, 1987: Progress Report on the Activities of the Centre for Telecommunications Development, April to September 1987; Document CTD 6 – 8-E, 13 October 1987; CTD, Sixth Meeting of the Advisory Board, Geneva, 29 – 30 October 1987, Document 6 – 13-E, November 16, 1987, Box 1; CTD 12– 3-E, August 29, 1990, Twelfth Meeting of the Advisory Group, Geneva, 16 – 17 October 1990, Box 2. 49 Z 31 Centre pour le développement des télécommunications, Réunions, 1985 – 1988. ITU Library & Archives.  Tegge, Die Internationale Telekommunikations-Union, 264.  Ibid., 135 – 137.  Tarjanne, “The Missing Link: Still Missing?,” 4.

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debate on ICT for development injected urgency into ITU-D’s mission in the early 2000s. At that time, the Missing Link report also experienced an unexpected revival. When the debates surrounding the digital divide and global access to information technology began, the report turned into a “canonical text.” As media scholar and ICT expert David Souter remarked, it shared the fate of most canonical texts – that they are cited more frequently than read.⁹⁷

4.9 Conclusion In the 1950s, the ITU was very reluctant to accept the new development agenda of the UN system. Due to pressure from the new member states and other international organizations, ITU incorporated development assistance as a purpose into its Convention. However, every effort of Global South countries to establish an ITU body with substantial financial resources for development cooperation failed between the 1960s and the 1980s. The alliances for development initiatives still need additional research, as not all Global South countries formed a homogenous bloc or supported these resolutions. In the beginning, the ITU perceived its development mission mainly as knowledge and equipment transfer from the “West to the rest,” although some early South-South cooperation missions were realized. In supporting telecommunications training centres all over the world, the ITU contributed significantly to the building of local expert communities. As many ITU experts had professional backgrounds in telecommunication enterprises, they also pursued the business interests of multinationals such as Siemens, Ericsson or the Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Public Corporation. National development assistance encouraged firm representatives to apply for ITU expert positions. The firms’ perspectives on these expert missions are still unknown and require further research in company archives. Overall, the ITU became an important area for knowledge exchange on global telecommunications. In the early 1970s, the ITU followed international organizations and turned to rural development and planning. At that point, the attitude towards development cooperation had changed, at least in certain sections of the organization. Contemporary ITU publications narrate a success story with elements of a “civilizing mission”: Western experts and ITU officials spread development plans, modern equipment, and rational organization principles around the globe. This discourse is an example of the typical anti-political

 Souter, “Then and Now: What Would be the Remit of a Modern-day Maitland Commission?.”

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expert narrative of development. In official ITU publications, critical reflections on misappropriation of aid, the abuse of telecommunication by authoritarian regimes or the inappropriateness of advanced technology for poor countries are absent. The ITU still relied on its early technical assistance model, though in the late 1960s a demand for new concepts also arose within the organization. Traditional visions coexisted with demands for equal partnership and warnings to apply advanced technology without adaptations. For several decades, technodiplomacy struggled over ITU development cooperation. Although the organization had recognized the subject as relevant, internal divisions continued, superficially disguised by compromise documents. For knowledge on the history of telecommunications and development, the following actors were important: economists, communications scholars from Stanford University, World Bank advisors and UNESCO. ITU publications on development in the late 1970s and 1980s emphasized the social and economic benefits of telecommunications. The demands of the Non-Aligned Movement also influenced the debate. Political demands, such as eliminating persisting colonial influences in Asian and African telecommunications, or the need for more self-reliance in equipment production, gained ground. They also entered the Missing Link report, though it was ambiguous in its recommendations. This was typical of techno-diplomacy’s tactics to maintain room for negotiation with different actors. Despite initial enthusiasm, the short-term effects of the report remained limited. However, it led to the establishment of the World Telecommunications Development Conferences that have been held every four years between 1994 and 2014. With venues in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Hyderabad and Dubai, the map of ITU meetings has extended to the Global South and has therefore become more global.

References Balbi, Gabriele, Fari, Simone, Richeri, Giuseppe, and Spartaco Calvo. Network Neutrality: Switzerland’s Role in the Genesis of the Telegraph Union, 1855 – 1875. Bern: Peter Lang, 2014. Beyersdorf, Frank. “Freedom of Communication: Visions and Realities of Postwar Telecommunication Orders in the 1940s.” The Journal of Policy History, vol. 27, n. 3 (2015): 492 – 520. Chapuis, Robert J. “The Role of an International Telecommunication Consultative Committee in Technical Assistance.” Telecommunication Journal, vol. 24, n. 2 (1957): 32 – 36. Codding, George A., and Anthony M. Rutkowski. The International Telecommunication Union in a Changing World. Dedham, Mass.: Artech House, 1982. Cullather, Nick. “Development? It’s History.” Diplomatic History, vol. 24 (2000): 641 – 53.

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Escobar, Arturo. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World. Paperback reissue, with a new preface by the author. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 2012. Ferrer-Vieyra, E. “Report on Some Aspects of the Technical Co-operation Programme of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).” Geneva, October 1975. Frey, Marc, Kunkel, Sönke, and Corrina R. Unger. “Introduction: International Organizations, Global Development and the Making of the Contemporary World.” In International Organizations and Development, 1945 – 1990, edited by Marc Frey, Sönke Kunkel, and Corinna R. Unger, 1 – 22. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2014. Garland Mahler, Anne. “Global South.” Oxford Bibliographies Literary and Critical Theory. Gross, Gerald C. “Technical Assistance in the International Telecommunication Union.” Telecommunication Journal, September (1954): 150 – 59. Hodge, Joseph M. “British Colonial Expertise, Post-Colonial Careering and the Early History of International Development.” Journal of Modern Contemporary History, vol. 8, n. 1 (2010): 24 – 46. Hudson et al., The Role of Telecommunications in Socio-Economic Development: A Review of the Literature With Guidelines for Further Investigations. Telecommunications for development case study referred to in the synthesis report on the ITU-OECD Project “Telecommunications for development,” 8. Geneva: ITU, 1983. ITU. “ITU and Technical Co-operation: The Record.” Telecommunication Journal, vol. 40, n. 8 (1973): 398 – 538. Jacobaeus, Christian. LM Ericsson 100 Years. Volume III: Evolution of the Technology, 1876 – 1976. Stockholm: Ericsson, 1977. Laborie, Léonard. “Fragile Links, Frozen Identities: The Governance of Telecommunication Networks and Europe (1944 – 53).” History and Technology, vol. 27, n. 3 (2011): 311 – 330. Lindo-Fuentes, Héctor. “Educational Television in El Salvador and Modernisation Theory.” Journal of Latin American Studies, vol. 41, n. 4 (2009): 757 – 92. MacBride, Seán. International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems. In Many Voices, One World: Towards a New, More Just, and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order. London, New York, Paris: Kogan Page; Unipub; Unesco, 1980. Maurel, Chloe. “Internationalization and Decentering UNESCO: Representation and Influence of Non-Western Countries, 1945 – 1987.” Comparative, vol. 23, n. 4/5 (2013): 68 – 117. Murthy, Changavalli Siva Rama. “Non-Aligned Movement Countries as Drivers of Change in International Organizations.” Comparative, vol. 23, n. 4/5 (2013): 118 – 36. Persin, J. “Some Reflections on Technical Assistance.” Telecommunication Journal (1956): 50 – 53. Pierce, William, and Nicolas Jéquier. “Telecommunications for Development: Synthesis Report of the ITU-OECD Project on the Contribution of Telecommunications to Economic and Social Development.” Geneva, 1983. Reinalda, Bob. Routledge History of International Organizations from 1815 to the Present Day. London, New York: Routledge. Renaud, Jean-Luc. “The Changing Dynamics of the International Telecommunication Union: An Historical Analysis of Development Assistance.” Phd diss., Michigan State University, 1986.

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Sachs, Wolfgang, ed. The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power. London: Zed Books, 1992. Saunders, Robert J., Warford, Jeremy J., and Björn Wellenius, eds. Telecommunications and Economic Development. 2nd edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. Schmidt, E. D. “A Telecommunication Plan for Paraguay.” Telecommunication Journal, vol. 35, n. 7 (1968): 313 – 318. Sharma, Patrick Allan. Robert McNamara’s Other War: The World Bank and International Development. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. Shields, Peter, and Rohan Samarajiva. “Telekommunikation, Entwicklung des ländlichen Raumes und der Maitland-Report The Missing Link.” In Fern-Sprechen: Internationale Fernmeldegeschichte, -soziologie und -politik, edited by Jörg Becker, 271 – 95. Berlin: VISTAS, 1994. Souter, David. “Then and Now: What Would be the Remit of a Modern-day Maitland Commission?” In Maitland +20: Fixing the Missing Link, edited by Gerald Milward-Oliver, 3 – 20. Bradford on Avon: The Anima Centre Limited, 2005. Stokke, Olav. The UN and Development: From Aid to Cooperation. Indiana University Press, 2009. Tarjanne, Pekka. “The Missing Link: Still Missing? The Continuing Role of the ITU in Telecommunications Development.” Honolulu, 1994. Tegge, Andreas. Die Internationale Telekommunikations-Union: Organisation und Funktion einer Weltorganisation im Wandel. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994. “The Missing Link: Report of the Independent Commission for Worldwide Telecommunications Development.” ITU, Genf, 1985. Urey, Gwen. “Infrastructure for Global Financial Integration: The Role of the World Bank.” Telecommunications Politics: Ownership and Control of the Information Highway in Developing Countries, edited By Bella Mory, Johannes M. Bauer, and Joe Straubhaar, 113 – 134. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Weiß, Norman. “Neue Weltinformationsordnung reloaded? Eine globale Informationsordnung als Herausforderung für das Völkerrecht.” In Global commons im 20. Jahrhundert: Entwürfe für eine globale Welt, edited by Isabella Löhr and Andrea Rehling, 167 – 98. München: Oldenbourg, 2014. Wellenius, Björn. “The Role of Telecommunications Services in Developing Countries.” In Workshop on Special Aspects of Telecommunications Development in Isolated and Underprivileged Areas of Countries June 26 – 28, 1978, Ottawa, Canada, 16 – 32. Geneva: ITU, 1978.

Gianluigi Negro*

5 The Rising Role of China in the Promotion of Multilateral Internet Governance, 1994 – 2014 It is possible to argue that, at the present stage, global internet governance is mainly based on a multi-stakeholder model that includes in its concrete decision-making process not only government representatives, but also engineers, members of non-profit organizations, lobbies and individuals.¹ The most representative institution for multi-stakeholder Internet governance is the private Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which, thanks to a technical mandate, is considered “the central organization in the field of Internet governance.”² The multi-stakeholder model cannot be considered unique; in fact, Raymond and DeNardis provided five cases “of multi-stakeholder governance that vary based on the types of actors involved and the nature of authority relations between actors.”³ The two scholars also suggested five case studies analysing the main governance process of ICANN, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and the United Nations Global Compact. Besides the ITU, the other four international institutions are all regulated by multistakeholder dynamics. The ITU is not in line with this model. Although it includes international organizations, NGOs, firms, and academic institutions in its decision-making process, the main decisions on the Constitution and Convention of the ITU, as well as on treaties that regulate radio communications and international telecommunications, are reserved to the ITU’s member states. In other words, the most crucial decisions in the arena are made by ITU member states. For this reason, the ITU differentiates itself from other multi-stakeholder international organizations in the field of Internet governance.⁴ The predomi-

* University of Siena, Italy  Van Eeten and Mueller, Where is the Governance?, 2; Raymond and DeNardis, Thinking Clearly about Multistakeholder, 273.  Kleinwacher, Beyond ICANN vs. ITU?, 233.  Raymond and DeNardis, Thinking Clearly about Multistakeholder, 584.  Ibid., 599; Buthe and Mattli, The New Global Rules, 34. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-006

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nance of the member states’ contributions and their sovereign rights to determine Internet policies and regulation frames the multilateral model of Internet governance.⁵ It is a shared view that the ITU should be placed under the umbrella of this specific model mainly because of the role of the states in making the most relevant decisions. As this chapter demonstrates, among the countries supporting the multilateral model, China, which is also the most populous country in terms of Internet users,⁶ is one of the most active.

5.1 The ITU and China: A Historical Overview The relations between China and the ITU started in a controversial domestic political environment characterized by the conflicts between the Communist Party and the Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party). China joined the ITU in 1932. A Chinese delegation attended an ITU Plenipotentiary Conference for the first time that year in Madrid. It is important to note that, at that time, it wasn’t the Chinese Communist Party but the Nationalist Chinese government that signed the International Telecommunication Convention. One of the most important historical turning points in the relations between China and the ITU took place in 1947, when China was for the first time elected to the Executive Council of the ITU at the Plenipotentiary Conference in Atlantic City. Eventually, Chinese domestic tensions had important consequences also at the international level, indeed, after the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the retreat of the Nationalistic party from the mainland to Taiwan, the representativeness of China in the ITU was addressed to the Taiwanese authorities. In May 1972, the representativeness was restored to mainland China, and, from that year on, China has been managed by the Chinese Communist Party. This “normalization” process was possible because of a specific resolution adopted during the 27th session of the ITU council.⁷ Coming to the present, the growing importance of the Chinese role in the ITU is further confirmed by the appointment of Zhao Houlin as Secretary-General in October 2014, during the 19th ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, South Korea. This event was framed by People’s Daily, the official English newspaper of the Chinese central government, as “the recognition and affirmation of Chi Bauer and Dutton, The New Cybersecurity Agenda, 22.  CNNIC, 2018.  Permanent Mission of PRC to the United Nations Office at Geneva and Other International Organizations in Switzerland, China’s Relationship with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) http://www.china-un.ch/eng/zmjg/jgjblc/t85564.htm.

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na’s fast-developing information and telecommunication industry by the world,” investing China as a leading power of the international telecommunication industry.⁸ At the present stage, China is one of the most influential countries in the ITU, not only for the role played by its Secretary-General, Zhao Houlin, but also for a series of important companies and academic institutions (for a complete overview of Chinese presence in the ITU, see Annex 1). The Chinese historical experience at the ITU represents a useful example to understand that, just like the multi-stakeholder model, as in the case of the multilateral model, there are different perspectives. In his contribution for this edited volume, Dwayne Winseck reminds us that ITU membership consists of 194 countries, more than 800 private-sector entities, and 138 academic institutions. Winseck emphasizes the fact that, although non-member states could be concretely involved in the decision-making process during Study Group meetings, in the majority of cases, Study Group recommendations have to be approved by member states. Winsek’s contribution suggests avoiding a simplistic dichotomy between a multi-stakeholder model and multilateral one by proposing a hybrid regime that combines elements of both. His arguments are in line with the theoretical model proposed by Hong Shen, according to whom Chinese contribution to Internet governance in the most important international organizations such as ICANN and the ITU “will continue to demonstrate a dichotomous mixture of resistance and compliance in its strategies.”⁹ This chapter confirms Winseck’s and Hong’s visions, and focuses on the historical relationship between China and the ITU, and the most important arenas created by the ITU to provide an alternative to ICANN and the present situation of Internet governance. The first arena was the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), sponsored by the United Nations and divided in two phases (World Summit on the Information XE “World Summit on the Information Society” Society 2006). The first phase took place in Geneva in 2003, with the goal of establishing the foundations for an Information Society to reflect all the different interests at stake. The second phase took place in Tunis in 2005, and its objective was to reach agreements in the fields of Internet governance, financing mechanisms, and on the follow up and implementation of the Geneva and Tunis documents. The ITU played an important role in both phases. In fact, the necessity of establishing a dedicated arena came about during the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference

 People’s Daily, October 24, 2014, 9.  Hong, “China and Global Internet Governance,” 324.

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in Minneapolis in 1998, thanks to a proposal submitted by the government of Tunisia and put forward to the United Nations. Moreover, the ITU was designed by the United Nations to be the leading organizer in cooperation with other UN actors, as well as with other international organizations and selected host countries. The second arena analysed in this chapter is the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a multi-stakeholder forum established to discuss issues related to Internet governance. Like the WSIS, the IGF was established by the United Nations in 2006 after the WSIS’s second phase. Being the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies, the ITU plays an active role “to present its activities and encourage multi-stakeholder participants to take part in their work, thus facilitating the participation in global governance arrangements.”¹⁰ The historical analysis presented in this chapter is based on a timeframe covering twenty years. It starts in 1994, when China was officially connected to the world wide web, and ends in 2014, the year of the first World Internet Conference, organized by the Cyber administration of China, which aimed to promote both the idea of Internet cyberspace sovereignty (wangluo zhuquan) and a multilateral model at the international level. Moreover, this contribution has a double aim: ‒ The first goal is to prove that the relations between China and the ITU in the field of telecommunications and the Internet have deep roots. For this reason, the most recent attempts from China to promote an Internet governance vision based mainly on a multilateral vision should not been framed as new or revolutionary because, on the contrary, they are in line and consistent with its past. ‒ The second goal of this chapter is more theoretical and aims to demonstrate that the multilateral and multi-stakeholder models are not necessarily exclusive. The Chinese case shows that, indeed, the boundaries between the two models are blurred in the ITU arena(s). Before the analysis of the Chinese experience with the ITU, the WSIS and the IGF, I will provide an overview on the most important characteristics of the three arenas analysed in this chapter, as well as their contributions to shaping the idea of Internet governance and how they contributed to shifting the management from a technical to a more comprehensive one.

 IGF official website: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/2015/IGF.24.06. 2015.pdf.

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5.2 ITU, WSIS and IGF Internet governance can be considered quite a new research field; the definition of Internet governance was officially issued in 2005 during the first World Summit of Information Society. The official document argues that “the development and applications by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision making procedures, and programs that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”¹¹ As Kalinwatcher noted, before the official definition, the approach to Internet governance mainly addressed the regulation of the global technical management of the Internet’s core resources: domain names, IP addresses, Internet protocols and the root server system.¹² When the WSIS issued the official definition of Internet governance, ICANN, established in 1998, was already in charge of the managing the global Domain Name System, the worldwide network of databases created to map domain names to IP addresses. This system is crucial for Internet users who send and receive information. It is possible to argue that, when the Internet emerged as an alternative communication system thanks to the contributions of a series of different non-state stakeholders that developed innovative and alternative governance processes and regulations, the ITU did not face Internet issues, as confirmed by the ITU Plenipotentiary Conferences between the 1970s and 1980s, and that it never discussed Internet governance.¹³ A trend also emphasized in this book by Valérie Schafer, who noted a more peripheral ITU position during the deregulation and the growth of the Internet. Mueller and Klein noted that the ITU tried to cooperate with the Internet Society and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to create their own privatized domain name administration regime, even before the establishment of ICANN. However, this project failed because the US government decided to go at it alone.¹⁴ After a series of complaints from developing countries, China included, on the role of the US government and its relations with ICANN in managing Internet resources,¹⁵ the United Nations launched the World Summit on In-

 WSIS official website: https://www.wgig.org/docs/WGIGREPORT.pdf.  Kleinwacher, Beyond ICANN vs. ITU?, 233.  Klainwatcher, 200 Years of Negotiation, 129.  Mueller, Mathiason and Klein, The Internet and Global Governance, 239.  From 1998 to 1 October 2016, ICANN was legally linked to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the United States Department of Commerce. However, because the ICANN headquarters are located in Los Angeles and incorporated under the US juridical system, the influence of the US government still exists.

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formation Society (WSIS), supported by the ITU and many other developing countries. As already mentioned, the WSIS was a two-phase summit focused on the Information Society. The first edition took place in Geneva in 2003, and the second in Tunis in 2005. In December 2001, the United Nations General Assembly approved Resolution 56/183, which highlighted the importance of a multi-stakeholder approach that places civil society, government and private sector at the same level. This resolution invested the ITU as the leading actor to organize the event in cooperation with the United Nations and other international organizations. After the failure of the first WSIS in solving important issues such as Internet governance and funding, the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) was established to solve the core issues during the second WSIS phase in Tunis. The summit in Tunis can be considered a failure as well. One of the few official documents produced during the event was the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. Its main goal was to provide “all governments an equal role and responsibility¹⁶” in the field of DNS roots and for Internet public policy. However, neither part of this program has ever been officially implemented. The result of the second phase brought about the creation of the Internet Governance Forum, an annual event based on the idea of the multi-stakeholder approach, but with only a deliberative power. However, the role played by the Internet Governance Forum is still important, not only because it could represent an alternative in the long term to the Internet status quo, but also because it is supported by the UN and the ITU, and consequently by China.

5.3 Why China? Why History? Studying the historical relations between China and the ITU is interesting for at least three reasons. First, the role of Chinese delegations and actors in the ITU during the 2010s has been growing consistently. This trend was further supported by the election of Zhao Houlin as Secretary-General of the ITU, after a long experience as ITU Deputy Secretary-General that involved him in the coordination of the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) process. The WSIS arena is particularly important because it not only reflected “conflicts among two or more govern-

 World Summit on the Information Society, Tunis Agenda https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/ docs2/tunis/off/6rev1.html, 2005.

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ments,”¹⁷ but was also a crucial “conceptual and philosophic conflict between different stakeholders about the question how the global information society, which is based on the Internet as its main infrastructure should be governed.”¹⁸ Back to Zhao, his support of the multilateral system was clear when he proposed to make Internet Protocol address resources conform to the governmental and sovereigntist model.¹⁹ This proposal represented an alternative to the Regional Internet Registries,²⁰ which operates under ICANN. Moreover, before being appointed as the ITU’s Secretary-General, Zhao was the director of the ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau and promoted an alternative system to IPv6 address allocation based on National Internet Registry (NIR),²¹ thus bypassing the role of ICANN and referring to the Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC). Lastly, yet importantly, Zhao Houlin’s ITU manifesto is based on three keywords: vision, action and harmony. The last keyword was one of the pillars of the Hu-Wen leadership in China, which promoted the idea of a “harmonious society” (hexie shehui) during the first decade of 2000s. The Chinese contribution on key areas is also proved by the launch of the new ITU academic journal, ITU Discoveries. According to the words in this journal, Professor Jian Song from Tsinghua University, and as reported by the official ITU news website on 22 September 2017, the aim of this academic project under the ITU umbrella is to support social and economic development on a global scale, and share these ideals with the United Nations.²² The Chinese presence in the ITU is useful to understanding a more updated version of the multilateral model, based mainly on the role of member states, but more and more inclined to coordinate its activities with actors from the private sector, civil society and academia. Indeed, when this chapter was written, the Chinese presence

 Kleinwacher, Beyond ICANN vs. ITU?, 234.  Klainwatcher, Global Governance in the Information, 23.  Mueller, A Tiger by the Tail, 179; Arséne, Internet Domain Names in China, 25.  It is in an organization that manages the allocation and the registration of Internet number resources (IP addresses and autonomous systems) for a particular region. At the present stage, there are five registries (Africa; Caribbean region and Antarctica; Asia, Australia and New Zealand; Latin America; Europe, Russia, West and Central Asia).  Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is the enhanced version of IPv4. It can support very large numbers of nodes as compared to IPv4, and it is used to carry data in packets from a source to a destination over various networks. IPv6 is important for China because it would have been the country to build the largest IPv6 business application network in the world, and crucial for developing Chinese internet sectors such as big data, IoT and cloud computing.  ITU News, “Join the ITU Telecom World celebration of the launch of the new ITU Journal: ITC Discoveries” (September 22, 2017) https://news.itu.int/join-the-itu-telecom-world-celebration-ofthe-launch-of-the-new-itu-journal-ict-discoveries/ .

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within the ITU included the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), but also several companies such as Huawei and Alibaba, as well as academic institutions such as Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, and Tsinghua University (for an overview on Chinese presence in the ITU, see Annex 1). Second, China, as already mentioned above, is not only the most populous country in terms of Internet users, but has, for almost a decade already, been promoting the necessity of enhancing the idea of a multilateral Internet governance beyond Chinese borders,²³ and for this reason, is in line with the intergovernmental approach that the ITU has been supporting since it was established. Among one of the most supported tactical Chinese manoeuvres worth mentioning is the idea of cyberspace sovereignty, also known as wangluo zhuquan,²⁴ as presented in the publication The White Paper: The Internet in China, published by the Information Office of the State Council (IOSC) of the People’s Republic of China in 2010. The publication of The White Paper The Internet in China came after the decision by Google to redirect its servers to Hong Kong because, according to the words of David Drummond, at that time Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer at Google, the US company was “no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn” (2010). This decision caused a political reaction, which found important support in Hillary Clinton, at that time US Secretary of State, who, in her speech Remarks on Internet Freedom, highlighted that “countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century.”²⁵ More in detail, Hillary Clinton reminded that the US government was working on “reinvigorating the Global Internet Freedom Task Force as a forum for addressing threats to internet freedom around the world, and urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments’ demands for censorship and surveillance” (ibid.). The White Paper The Internet in China represented the official reaction to Google’s decision and Hillary Clinton’s statements: China maintains that all countries have equal rights in participating in the administration of the fundamental international resources of the Internet, and that a multilateral [italics mine] and transparent allocation system should be established on the basis of the current

 Arséne, Global Internet Governance in Chinese, 25; Negro, The Internet in China, 213.  Zeng, Stevens and Chen, China’s Solution to Global, 432.  U.S. State Government, “Remarks on Internet Freedom” (January 21, 2010), https://2009 – 2017.state.gov/secretary/20092013clinton/rm/2010/01/135519.htm.

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management mode, so as to allocate those resources in a rational way and to promote the balanced development of the global Internet industry.²⁶

That said, Chinese concerns about the Internet governance status quo found more recent confirmations. The Chinese need to enhance its role in the promotion of the multilateral model, as well as strengthen its role within the ITU, came after Edward Snowden’s leaks on the NSA and PRISM programmes in the summer of 2013,²⁷ and is also documented by academic literature. David Herold was one of the first scholars to highlight China’s contribution to global Internet governance after 2010.²⁸ Séverine Arsène contested the idea of a “Chinese Intranet,” arguing that “China is advocating Internet sovereignty domestically and promoting the interests of Chinese controlled companies abroad, which may enable them to ensure the sustainability of its self-discipline model.”²⁹ The third reason that justifies the importance of the ITU-China relationship is provided by the creation of Chinese platforms and initiatives inspired by the ITU multilateral approach. Besides episodes of counter-narrative to the multistakeholder model, like the publication of The White Paper The Internet in China, China started to develop a larger consensus on the idea of a multilateral model, and asked for a more direct involvement from the ITU in the field of Internet governance. The clearest example to this concern comes from the four editions of the World Internet Conference (WIC). The first edition was organized in November 2014 by the State Internet Information Office, gathering around 1,000 participants from Chinese and foreign Internet firms, and several government representatives mainly from Eurasian areas such as Russia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. During the first WIC, a draft of a joint statement on the idea of cyberspace sovereignty was shared among the participants. Although the WIC receives remarkable media coverage every year, as this chapter will demonstrate, China began to promote the same ideals many years before the first edition of the WIC. The historical approach applied in this chapter aims to provide the sense of continuity and the vision of the Chinese government in the field of Internet governance. In more general terms, as argued by Chan, Lee and Chan,

 Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China, “The White Paper The Internet in China” (June 8, 2010), http://www.china.org.cn/government/whitepaper/node_ 7093508.htm.  Scott, Beijing Touts “Cyber Sovereignty” http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/view point/beijing-touts-cyber-sovereignty-internet-governance; Di Salvo and Negro, Framing Edward Snowden, 18.  Herold, An Inter-nation-al Internet, 1– 19.  Arséne, The Impact of China, 5.

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the Westphalian understanding of sovereignty still weighs heavily in the Chinese official view.³⁰ This point of view is supported by the shared perspectives on governance between the ITU and the United Nations.³¹ It is also for this reason that some scholars categorized the ITU as a “hierarchical [actor] and thus not a case of multi-stakeholderism.”³² It is possible to argue that the ITU hierarchical vision on global Internet governance is in line with the Chinese multilateral approach. Nevertheless, as this and other authors from this book will show, the reality is more nuanced. This chapter in particular proves that, thanks to the most recent contributions from Chinese delegations at the Internet Governance Forum, the ITU supports a combination of multi-stakeholder and multilateral models. This trend finds evidence in the sources analysed for this research and presented in the next section.

5.4 Methodologies and Sources To provide a historical overview on the relations between China and the ITU, this chapter is based on a qualitative textual analysis, applied to three selected corpora of sources, mainly focused on the state actions with global governance norms and following the methods suggested by Ikenberry,³³ Posner,³⁴ and Schirm.³⁵ The first source is the official report of China – ITU Seminar of Strategy for Telecommunication Development co-organized by the International Telecommunication Union and the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing in 1994, accessed at the ITU Library & Archives in Geneva. This source is important because, though at that time the Internet had not yet been developed in China, it represents the first document in which China and the ITU start to develop a cooperation, both for the domestic Chinese market and international governance. The second corpus of sources is provided by official Chinese statements and transcripts archived during the first and second phases of the World Summit of the Information Society that took place in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005. The two WSIS phases are important because it was during those events that a group

     

Chan, Lee, and Chan, Rethinking Global Governance, 8. Sun, Hui and Yu, Intergovernmental Organizations and Global, 50. Raymond and DeNardis, Thinking Clearly about Multistakeholder, 599. Inkenberry, The Rise of China, 30. Posner, Making Rules for Global, 670. Schirm, Leaders Need of Followers, 212.

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of developing countries realized that the management of domain names and IP addresses was an issue related to their sovereignty and economic development.³⁶ Moreover, some governments, China included, proposed the idea of regulating the Internet in the same way as telecommunication and broadcasting. The third corpus of sources comes from the IGF material. More in detail, this research analyses official Chinese statements registered during the IGFs that took place in 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012 and 2014. The choice of this last corpus of sources has two peculiar reasons. The first reason is related to the specific mission of this arena. According to its official statement, the IGF “does not have any direct decision-making authority”;³⁷ however, it is a way to validate its role in the field of internet governance. Epstein argues that “the WSIS handed to IGF a genesis of new structures of legitimation through the Summit itself. These structures offered new forms of legitimate participation and authority to define Internet governance. They were fundamental to the shaping of the IGF as an institution and in defining its significance within the Internet policy space.”³⁸ The second reason is related to the IGF editions. This second choice was inspired by the comprehensive work “China & Technical Global Internet Governance: From Norm-Taker to Norm-Make.”³⁹ Dr Tristian Galloway provides a very detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis on the contributions of Chinese delegations at the IGFs from 2006 to 2014. According to Galloway’s research, it was during these years that China provided its more active contributions. Besides these editions, I decided to end my analysis in 2014, because it was the year of the first edition of the World Internet Conference, an event organized by the Cyberspace Administration of China with the goal of promoting topics such as national sovereignty and multilateral internet governance at the international level. It should also be noted that the first WIC edition took place the year after the Edward Snowden leaks. If, on the one hand, the analysis of these sources could provide the vision and strategies of Chinese representatives, on the other hand, it could not show the views of other actors regarding the Chinese role within the ITU. The lack of this second analysis presents a limitation for this chapter. At the time this chapter was written, I had to deal with a limited function of the ITU search

   

Kleinwacher, Beyond ICANN vs. ITU? People’s Daily, October 24, 2014, 9. Epstein, The Making of Institutions, 140. Galloway, China and Technical Global Internet, 15.

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engines regarding the World Telecommunication / ITC Policy (WTPF) and the WSIS.⁴⁰

5.6 Timeframe Although the official “restoration” of China-ITU relations took place in May 1972, the analysis of this chapter starts in 1994 and ends in 2014. 1994 is a fundamental year for the history of the Chinese Internet. There are at least four reasons that can confirm the relevance of that year: ‒ The High Energy Physics Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed the first set of web pages; ‒ The country top-level domain. CN was connected to national servers using the TCP/IP protocol; ‒ The National Computing and Networking Facility of China project launched a 64K circuit internationally dedicated to the Internet through Sprint Co., Ltd. of the United States, which successfully connected to the Internet. This event was elected as one of China’s top 10 scientific and technological events of that year, and praised as a technological achievement by the State Statistical Communique. ‒ The China Education and Research Network was officially launched. It was the first Chinese TCP/IP-based computer network connecting Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Xian. The National Computing and Network Facility of China project connected the scientific network to the Internet. As shown in the next section of this chapter, 1994 was a fundamental year, not only for the Chinese Internet at the domestic level, but also for its preliminary ideas of global Internet governance. The next section goes on with the analysis of other crucial years for Chinese global Internet governance – that is, the two WSIS editions that took place in 2003 in Geneva and 2005 in Tunis. It is important to highlight that this study also covers the analysis of some of the preparatory conferences for these two events after the failed attempt of the WSIS to take over the management of critical Internet resources in 2005. Finally, I shift my analysis to the Internet Governance Forum closer to the present day. The selection of these three sets of sources is mainly addressed to analyse the Chinese

 At the time of writing this article, some ITU search engine tools were suspended due to all the measures to increase security. Personal communication of ITU staff to the author.

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position and its role within the ITU arenas created to regulate Internet governance.

5.7 ITU in China – A Preliminary Vision of Multilateral Model The report on China – ITU Seminar of Strategy for Telecommunication Development, co-organized by the International Telecommunication Union and the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications of the People’s Republic of China, is historically important because it represented one of the first official events between China and the ITU. The seminar was held in Beijing between the 27th and 30th of June 1994. Most of the highest Chinese institutions in the field of telecommunications at that time, and the ITU, joined the event. As already noted, 1994 was a crucial year for the development of the Internet in China, especially from the point of view of infrastructure. In general, this event shows that, in the same year, Chinese officials started to consider opportunities and threats in the field of telecommunications, not only at the domestic but also at the international level, looking at the support of the ITU. The event was inspired by the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, the first UN initiative to officially recognize technical cooperation among developing countries, and considered “a vital instrument for fostering South-South development cooperation.” In more concrete terms, among other goals, the plan aimed to foster the self-reliance of developing countries … to find solutions to development problems in keeping with their own aspirations and special needs. To promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among developing countries through exchanges of experience, the sharing and the utilization of their technical resources and the development of their complementary capacities. To strength existing technology capacities in the developing countries … to promote the transfer of technology and skills appropriate to their resource endowments and the development potential of developing countries.⁴¹

It is important to highlight that the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries is an initiative supported by the United Nations, and that the ITU is directly involved in the telecommunication sector, being the United Nations’ agency for information and

 Buenos Aires Plan of Action, 10.

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communication technologies. In other words, the ITU’s influence on the development of the Chinese telecommunication sector already existed before 1994. Many of the main goals of the seminar, organized in Beijing by the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication of the People’s Republic of China and the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau, were in line with the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries. Indeed, for Chinese officials, establishing a connection with the ITU was considered the most appropriate strategy to foster national and regional telecommunication progress, and to strengthen the cooperation between China, developed and developing countries. The report China – ITU Seminar of Strategy for Telecommunication Development shows that China proposed itself as the pivot to coordinate an international debate, especially among developing countries. A second important topic that emerged from the report is the trust that China placed in the ITU. The third topic was the awareness of potential risks caused by an economic development supported by foreign countries, and the necessity of safeguarding national sovereignty. It is interesting to note that some concerns presented by Chinese officials at the seminar in Beijing in 1994 on the telecommunication sector were very similar to the ones shared more than a decade later during the two WSIS meetings. A clear example in this sense was provided by Vice Minister Zhu Guofeng, Ministry of Post and Telecommunication, H.E. Zhu, who highlighted the importance of solving the “severe imbalance in the world’s telecom and the gap between developing and developed countries in telecom networks,” suggested that the need to find ways to address telecom development in developing countries was not “only an issue posted to the telecom circles of those countries, but one that could only be solved through the join[t] efforts of the global telecom industry.”⁴² In the mid-90s, the Chinese government acknowledged its status as a developing country, and asked for a mutual understating of the telecommunication system at the global level, confirming the desire of the Chinese government to play an active role in the international arena: Due to the lack of experience, large amount of profit has been taken away by foreigners, causing infrastructure in backwards areas. Therefore, some countries and regions have strongly demanded the recovery of their ownership of operational enterprises and some requested renationalization. … to learn from each other and share experience in telecom development is exactly the objective of this seminar.⁴³

 Seminar on Strategy for Telecommunications Development 1994, 46.  Ibid.

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Under these circumstances, the role of the ITU was considered important not only because of its technical experience, but also for its capacity to develop “multilateral and bilateral programs.” The ITU should act upon the provisions of its Constitutions and provide and promote technical assistance to developing countries, making real efforts in dispatching technical experts, organizing personnel training, promoting technology transfer and helping with fund and load raising, following the principle of rationality, equity, efficiency.⁴⁴

In order to develop a better coordination in terms of international telecommunication governance, Zhu addressed specific requests to the ITU in Asia Pacific through the publication of ad hoc Asia Pacific Telecommunication handbooks, as well as the preparation of specific seminars. Beside Zhu, also Wang Zhanning, deputy director at the Department of External Affairs, expressed his advice to carry on educational programs at the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications and the Chinese Academy of Post and Telecommunication, sponsored by the United Nations Development Program.⁴⁵ One of the most important issues was to support the development of the national telecommunication sector while being aware of the possible risks to national sovereignty, and external influences caused by foreign countries, in the creation of a Chinese Internet infrastructure. These concerns were raised by Zhou Huan, at that time the Director of the Department of Science & Technology, Ministry of Post and Telecommunication, who noted how: To depend on importing equipment from abroad will not be realistic for China with such a vast territory to build the national network and will be detrimental for China to become a world leader in telecommunications …. The import of the advanced foreign equipment or joint venture must have the transfer of technology and the improvement of R&D capability as preconditions. … “Import, digestion, adoption, and innovation” are the steps to be taken to improve our work on science and technology and gain achievements of higher levels.⁴⁶

Finally, the importance of discussing the telecommunication industry at a global level, based on the principles of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, finds confirmations in the words of Li Yonglin, at that time Deputy Chief Engineer at China National Post and Telecommunication. Li shared concerns and strategies

 Ibid., 53.  Ibid., 113.  Ibid., 121.

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of the China National Telecommunications industry and cooperation in developing countries. He raised two questions. The first was related to the import of foreign telecom systems into the Chinese network. His doubts were on how to develop the national telecom industry smoothly. The second was on finding sufficient capital to equip the industry with advanced production equipment. It is interesting to note how these two questions were already considered important topics, not only in China but also in other developing countries. Li’s concerns again represent the issues of the Chinese government on national sovereignty and the role of the government in protecting its national market. All these extracts and contributions from Chinese high officials confirmed some pillars that would eventually be developed a decade later, during the WSIS first and the IGF later, which are the following: first, the trust that the Chinese Government put into the ITU as one of the most important advisors in its national development of the telecommunication industry; second, the Chinese concern on the role of international corporations and the need to safeguard a national industry regulating the telecommunication industry and its resources; third, just as important, the role of China as a leader for developing countries.

5.8 China at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) – Presenting a Multilateral Vision in a Multi-Stakeholder Arena Ten years on from the ITU Seminar of Strategy for Telecommunication Development, Internet governance became a concrete issue, as confirmed by the establishment of ICANN in 1998 and the launch of WSIS, thanks to the support of the ITU. Before analysing the Chinese role in the WSIS, it is important to reiterate that the two-phase summit was “initiated to create an evolving multi-stakeholder platform aimed at addressing the issues raised by information and communication technologies (ICTs) through a structured and inclusive approach at the national, regional and international levels.”⁴⁷ As it will be revealed in the next paragraphs, the very first official Chinese statements were not totally in line with the goal of the WSIS arena, but more oriented towards supporting its own vision of a multilateral model, already expressed in the past and in contrast to the multi-stakeholder vision proposed by the WSIS. Despite the Chinese con Hong, “China and Global Internet Governance.”

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tractionary approach, the two-phase WSIS experience is important for two reasons. First, it represents one of the first international arenas in which the Chinese government expressed its vision on Internet governance outside Chinese borders. More importantly, this phenomenon challenges part of the literature, according to which China had not promoted its vision of Internet governance aimed at reshaping global discourse on cyber governance until Xi Jinping got into power.⁴⁸ The very first contributions of Chinese delegates at the WSIS prove that the Chinese government has been promoting its vision since the early years of Internet governance discourse in the arenas under the United Nations and the ITU umbrellas. Second, although the WSIS was based on a multi-stakeholder structure, it was supported by the United Nations and the ITU, the two international organizations that the Chinese government trusted the most in the field of telecommunication industry. This phenomenon was not limited to the Chinese case. According to Kleinwatcher, the WSIS represented a good platform for a consistent number of developing countries, who expressed their dissatisfaction with the management of Internet resources, and, in more general terms, with cyberspace sovereignty and economic development.⁴⁹ What emerges from the analysis of the sources are three main considerations: First, China expressed its aversion to the Internet governance status quo. Second, the Chinese delegation tried to promote its multilateral approach as an alternative to the multi-stakeholder system. Third, during the two phases of the WSIS (but also during the preparatory conferences), China lamented the lack of attention to developing countries from Internet governance policies. Chinese contribution and approach were already made clear before the first WSIS in 2003 in Geneva, during the pre-conferences in which specific topics on Internet governance were discussed. One of the first important statements to clarify the Chinese position was delivered by Ambassador Sha Zukang, head of the Chinese delegation. During the WSIS PreCom – 1 that took place in 2002 and focused on Internet Governance, Sha confirmed the need to develop International management of the Internet, based on a multilateral model: “transparent, and democratic with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations.”⁵⁰ According to Sha, the international management of the Internet needed an equitable distribution of resources, facilitated access for all, and en-

 See also Jiang, Authoritarian Informationalism.  See note 2.  Sha, “WSIS PreConference 1.”

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sured stable and secure functioning. Great importance was again placed on the role played by the sovereign States with the responsibility to “play a leading role in the decision-making process.”⁵¹ At the same time, China’s position appeared inclined to encourage the role of intergovernmental organizations. They were asked to “continue to have a facilitating role in the coordination of Internet-related public policy issues.” Sha also took the chance to note how: The situation in which Internet governance is monopolized by one state, one cooperation, or a handful of private organizations, and while fully recognizing such governance has played its historical role; it neither facilitates further growth of the Internet, nor fully embodies the principle of equity and full representation … My delegation is of the view, that, it is of crucial importance to conduct research on establishing a multilateral [italics mine] governance mechanism that is more rational and just, more conducive to the internet development in a direction of stable, secure and responsible functioning, and more helpful to continuous technological innovation.⁵²

In one of its first statements, the Chinese delegation not only expressed a clear support for the multilateral model, but it also forwarded an indirect but fierce criticism to ICANN and the whole Internet governance system. Similarly, at the seminar on strategy for telecommunication development that took place in Beijing in 1994 and during the first WSIS meeting in Geneva, the Chinese position confirmed its interest in developing countries, highlighting the role played by governments in the development of the information society. On December 10, 2003, Wang Dong, Minister of Information Industry, stated that: The developing countries should, through their own efforts, explore development modes of the information society that suit their own national conditions, and China will work unremittingly towards this end. We call on the developed countries to fulfill their obligations to render active and effective the help in providing capital, technologies and human resources to enable the developing countries to keep up with the pace of development of the global information and network. … We appeal for more participation and coordination by intergovernmental organizations with such issues as internet-related public policies to create a favorable international environment of the Internet.⁵³

The second WSIS registered a clearer position from the Chinese delegation, which took the chance to comment also on the work done by the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), another United Nations initiative based on the multi-stakeholder approach, launched after the first WSIS. The main

 Ibid.  Ibid.  Wang, “Statement by the Minister of Information Industry.”

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goal of the WGIG was to “investigate and make proposals for actions, as appropriate, on the governance of Internet by 2005.”⁵⁴ The Chinese delegation contributed to the consultation process of the WGIG, represented by Hu Qiheng, Adviser for the Science and Technology Commission of the Ministry of Information Industry of China, and former Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Hu Qiheng delivered a speech during the Consultation Meeting on the establishment of the WGIG. Although the private sector and civil society were asked “to cooperate [with governments] to jointly develop the Internet and promote … a sustainable development of the Internet,” the role of national sovereignty related to Internet governance was emphasized and, according to the Chinese view, (should have been) assured under a United Nations framework. Internet governance and the administration of domestic Internet falls within the sovereignty of each country. Considering a conscientious government represents the interest of the state and its people, any private sector or civil society could not do better in this regard, so we should emphasize that governments and inter-governmental organizations play a leading role in Internet governance. Finally, we think the current biggest problem facing the Internet is the absence of a legitimate entity for the international Internet governance. Our opinion is that a governance entity, generated through democratic procedure under the UN framework, would implement Internet governance according to the principle of freedom, democracy and equality.⁵⁵ In February 2005, the Chinese delegation commented on the WGIG Draft working papers on Internet governance issues, confirming its support for the WGIG, but also showing some concerns already expressed during the first WSIS, emphasizing national sovereignty and proposing a new model for managing Internet resources. Once again, the Chinese delegation expressed the need to implement a more solid multilateral approach, raising for the second time a criticism of the Internet governance status quo, implicitly contesting ICANN’s role and its power in the administration of Internet resources. Furthermore, the Chinese delegation lamented the lack of participations and the rights of developing and least-developed countries, as well as the United Nations and the ITU in the decision-making process regarding global Internet policies. If the WGIG’s mission was to promote the equal participation rights of all the sovereign governments in the decision-making process regarding the Internet public policies,

 WGIG official website: http://www.wgig.org/docs/India-Comment.doc.  Hu, “Speech on the Consultation Meeting.”

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for Chinese representatives, the only way was to search for solutions further on an international institution based on multilateral mechanisms. For instance, the papers “The administration of Internet names and IP addresses” and “administration of root server system” can be integrated into “the administration of Internet resources,” and the WGIG should add “the administration mechanism of global Internet resources” into the inventory. We recommend giving “the administration mechanism of the global Internet resources” the highest priority over other public policy issues.⁵⁶ The statements from the Chinese delegations during the two-phase WSIS not only shared the same concerns raised during the China – ITU Seminar of Strategy for Telecommunication Development held in Beijing ten years before, but also anticipated some key points raised ten years later by President Xi Jinping at the second edition of the World Internet Conference (WIC), during which the idea of cyberspace sovereignty (wangluo zhuquan) was presented. In general terms, the idea of cyberspace sovereignty reflects the ITU’s multilateral model. Indeed, according to the Chinese vision, every country is asked to control its own domestic Internet, interferences from other countries are not allowed, and every country is called upon to safeguard its own Internet infrastructure and information system.⁵⁷

5.9 China and IGF – A Multilateral Model with some Multi-Stakeholder Characteristics After the WSIS’s failure in taking over ICANN’s role and its management of Internet resources, the Internet Governance Forum, a new United Nations and ITU arena without deliberative power, was established. Excluding some exceptions, China started to modify its normative approach, changing it into a more constructive dialogue with the international community, and started to become more open to undertaking, at least on a narrative level, some principles of the multi-stakeholder model. Although the Internet Governance Forum does not have a direct impact on the Internet governance debate, it is important to highlight that it is still the United Nations’ main body in the field of Internet governance, and, for this reason, is also connected to the ITU’s activities. China has been quite active at IGF meetings; Galloway’s research confirms that the Chinese presence at IGF meetings  China’s comment to WGIG: https://www.wgig.org/docs/Comment-China.doc.  Arséne, Global Internet Governance in Chinese; Negro, The Internet in China.

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had, until 2014, been constant.⁵⁸ There are three important considerations that shine a light on the role of the Chinese delegation at the IGF. The first is the contribution of Chinese scholars and other members from civil society; the second is the reference to some domestic Chinese politics used to justify the promotion of the multilateral model; and the third is the reference to other developing countries, as in the case of BRICS, to present its strategy in a more coordinated way. One concrete example of the importance of domestic policies took place during the second IGF edition in 2007, when Huang Chengqing, at that time Secretary-General of the NGO Internet Society of China (ISC), shared the success story of an anti-spam policy that contributed to the decreased circulation of spam from 16 % in 2006 to 4.5 % in October 2007. Commenting on its experience, the Chinese delegation not only emphasized the role of the government in solving particular issues of Internet governance, but it also used this specific example to emphasize the role of governments in facing other internet governance thanks to the contribution of the private sector and civil society, and highlighting the need to develop an intergovernmental platform.⁵⁹ The reference to BRICS was registered in 2012, the year that marked the second highest presence in terms of Chinese delegates in the history of the IGF.⁶⁰ On that occasion, the Foreign Ministry of China, at the workshop Localization of Data and its Implications for Economic Development, supported the statements of a Brazilian delegate who lamented the delay of the IGF in supporting developing countries.⁶¹ A second interesting contribution came from Prof. Hong Xue, moderator of the workshop Law Enforcement via Domain Names: Caveats to DNS Neutrality, who compared the policies, laws and practices in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa with respect to DNS filtering. This was the first BRICS discussion at the IGF with a direct Chinese contribution.⁶² Apart from this softer approach, it is also true that, since the first IGF edition to that in 2014, China also took the chance to direct some criticism at how the IGF operates. The most concrete example took place in 2009 when Gao Xinmin, Vice President of the ISC, contested the effectiveness of the IGF in supporting developing countries, lamenting not only the lack of a dedicated budget provided by the United Nations, but also the missed reform of the IGF with the launch of dedicated organizations under the ITU framework aimed at resolving the increas-

 Galloway, China and Technical Global Internet.  Chen, “Security Session.”  Galloway, China and Technical Global Internet, 85.  IGF 2012 https://www.ccdcoe.org/sites/default/files/documents/IGF-121109-Baku2012.pdf, 201.  Ibid., 145.

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ing issues related to Internet governance.⁶³ Because of these reasons, China even doubted the renewal of its support to another five-year mandate for the IGF. However, in the end, China did renew its support to IGF. In more general terms, the Chinese narrative and contributions at the IGF have showed a more persuasive narrative strategy from Chinese delegations, aimed at promoting a multilateral model with a higher involvement of other actors – scholars and NGOs in particular – in the decision-making process.

5.10 Conclusions This chapter showed the relationship between China and the ITU from 1994 to 2014 in the field of Internet governance. The main findings, based on the analysis of the historical sources, are the following: first, the safeguarding of the existing international order (addressing the particular importance of the role played by the United Nations and its agency, the International Telecommunication Union); second, the attitude to provide alternative options for reforms; and third, a dominant force to foster the creation of regional communities among developing countries. This article also confirms that China attaches importance to intergovernmental organizations supporting multilateral institutions, like the ITU, trying to pursue the goal of building “an inclusive international society in which nation states of diverse cultures, ideologies and politico-economic systems can coexist in peace and harmony.”⁶⁴ At the same time, it has two main findings. First, it contextualizes the idea that, at the present stage, Xi Jinping and the Chinese leadership’s “ambition is not just for independence from foreign technology, but is to write the rules of and for global cyber governance.”⁶⁵ On the contrary, statements from the Chinese delegations at the Seminar on Strategy for Telecommunications Development, during IGF and the two-phase WSIS, found consistency and coherence in providing a Chinese strategy in the field of global Internet governance. The Chinese case is interesting because, in these last 20 years, China has been contributing to the launch of an ITU role and an ITU multilateral system in the discussion on Internet governance. It is worth mentioning that the Internet

 IGF 2009 http://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/documents.  Chan, Lee and Chan, Rethinking Global Governance, 15.  Sacks, “Beijing Wants to Rewrite the Rules of the Internet.”

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was not on the agendas of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conferences in the 1970s and 1980s.⁶⁶ The second finding shows the evolution of the Chinese narrative, especially at the IGF. The presence of Chinese scholars and NGO representatives at the ITU are important not only to enhancing Chinese credibility through academic perspectives and concrete case studies, but they are also useful to proving a direct involvement of civil society in the promotion of a multilateral model within multi-stakeholder arenas. In other words, Chinese contributions in the ITU arenas have had the effect of toning down the differences between multilateral and multi-stakeholder models.

Annex 1 China ITU Profile at 23 July 2018 ITU – R (Recommendations) aimed to constitute technical standards developed by the Radiotelecommunication Sector of the ITU. Their implementation is not mandatory. ITU – T (Telecommunication Standardization Sector) assemble expert to develop standards which act as defining elements in the global infrastructure of information and communication technologies (ICTs) ITU – D (Development sector) fosters international cooperation and solidarity in the delivery of technical assistance and in the creation of development and improvement of telecommunication and ITC equipment and networks in developing countries. ROA Recognized Operating Agency. Any individual, company, corporation or governmental agency which operates a telecommunication installation intended for an international telecommunication service or capable of causing interference with such a service.

 WSIS official website: https://www.wgig.org/docs/WGIGREPORT.pdf, 129.

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SIO Scientific Industrial Organization Name Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), BEIJING Alibaba China Co. Ltd., Hang Zhou Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat), HONG KONG Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, BEIJING China Great Wall Industry Corporation, Beijing China Head Aerospace Technology Co., Beijing China International Telecommunication Construction Corporation, Beijing China Mobile Communications Corporation, BEIJING China Telecommunications Corporation, BEIJING China Tower Corporation Limited, Haidian District, Beijing China Unicom, BEIJING Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Chongqing Chongqing University, Chongqing Companhia de Telecomunicações de Macau S.A.R.L., MACAU DaTang Telecommunication Technology & Industry Holding Co. Ltd, BEIJING FiberHome Technologies Group, WUHAN Guangdong DAPU Telecom Technology Co. Ltd., Dongguan Hisilicon Technologies Co. Ltd., Shenzhen Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., SHENZHEN Hubei University, Wuhan Hutchison Global Communications Ltd., TSING YI – HONG KONG Institute of Acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Institute of Computing Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, NANJING Nokia Shanghai Bell Co. Ltd., SHANGHAI

ITU-R

ITU-T

ITU-D

ADMIN / REGULATOR SIO ROA

X X Academia

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Categories

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X

UNIVERS,RSRCH SIO / MANUFACTURER SIO

X X

X

ROA / SERVICE PROVIDER ROA / MOBILE OPERATOR ROA

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ASSOCIATE SG X Academia

X Academia

X ASSOCIATE SG ASSOCIATE SG X Academia X

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Continued Name

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Shenzhen OLYM Information Security Technology Co. Ltd., Shenzhen StarTimes Software Technology Co. Ltd., Beijing SZ DJI Technology Co. Ltd., Shenzen Tsinghua University, BEIJING Academia Wangsu Science & Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Zhejiang University, HANGZHOU Academia ZTE Corporation, SHENZHEN, GUANGDONG X

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Source: ITU membership / Member States Lists / Entities by country https://www.itu.int/ online/mm/scripts/gensel9?_ctryid=1000100502&_ctryname=China SIO Scientific and Industrial Organization ROA Recognized Operative Agency SG Study Group

References Arséne, Séverine. “Global Internet Governance in Chinese Academic Literature.” China Perspetives, vol. 2 (2016): 25 – 35. Arséne, Séverine. “Internet Domain Names in China.” China Perspectives (2015): 25. Arséne, Séverine. “The impact of China on Global Internet Governance in an Era of Privatized Control.” Paper presented at the Chinese Internet Research Conference, Los Angeles, United States, May, 2012. Bauer, Johannes M., and William H. Dutton. “The New Cybersecurity Agendas, Economic and Social Challenges to a Secure Internet.” World Bank’s World Development Report. Oxford: Oxford Global Security Project, 2015. Büthe, Tim, and Walter Mattli. The New Global Rulers: The Privatization of Regulation in the World Economy. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2011. Chan, Lai-Ha, Lee, Pak K., and Gerald Chan. “Rethinking Global Governance: A China Model in the Making?” Contemporary Politics, vol. 19, n. 1 (2008): 3 – 19. Chen, Chengqing. “Security Session.” Internet Governance Forum. Rio de Janeiro, 14 November, 2007. “China’s Comment to WGIG on Draft Working Papers Identifying Issues for Internet Governance.” Geneva, 11 February, 2005. CNNIC. “The 40th Statistical Report on Internet Development in China.” Beijing, 2018.

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Di Salvo, Philip, and Gianluigi Negro. “Framing Edward Snowden: A Comparative Analysis of Four Newspapers in China, United Kingdom and United States.” Journalism, vol. 17, n. 7 (2016): 805 – 822. Epstein, Dimitry. “The Making of Institutions of Information Governance: The Case of the Internet Governance Forum.” Journal of Information Technology, vol. 28 (2013): 137 – 149. Galloway, Tristan. “China & Technical Global Internet Governance: From Norm-Taker to Norm Maker?” PhD diss., Deakin University, 2015. Herold, David Kurt. “An International Internet: China’s Contribution to Global Internet Governance?” A Decade in Internet Time: Symposium on the Dynamics of the Internet and Society. Oxford Internet Institute, 2011. Hong, Shen. “China and Global Internet Governance: Toward an Alternative Analytical Framework.” Chinese Journal of Communication, vol. 9, n. 3 (2016): 304 – 324. Hu, Qiheng. “Speech on the Consultation Meeting on the Establishment of the UN Working group on Internet Governance.” Geneva, 23 – 25 November, 2004. Ikenberry, G. “The Rise of China and the Future of the West: Can the Liberal System Survive. Foreign Affairs, vol. 87, n. 1 (2008): 23 – 37. Internet Society of China. “Anti-Spam in China and Governance Mechanism.” Geneva, 18 April, 2005. Jiang, Min. “Authoritarian Informationalism: China’s Approach to Internet Sovereignty.” SAIS Review of International Affair, vol. 30, n. 2 (2010): 71 – 89. Kleinwächter, Wolfgang. “200 Years of Negotiation on Cross-Border Communications. From Intergovernmental Treaties to the Multistakeholder Model for the Governance of the Internet.” Towards Equity in Global Communication?, edited by Kaarle Nordenstreng, and Richard C. Vincent, 123 – 158. New York: Hampton Press Communication Press (2016). Kleinwächter, Wolfgang. “Beyond ICANN vs ITU? How WSIS Tries to Enter the New Territory of Internet Governance.” Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies, vol. 66, n. 3 – 4 (2004): 233 – 251. Kleinwächter, Wolfgang. “Global Governance in the Information Age.” Development, vol. 46, n. 1 (2003): 17 – 25. Mueller, Milton. “China and Global Internet Governance: A Tiger by the Tail.” Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace, edited by John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain Ronald Deibert, 177 – 194. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011. Mueller, Milton, Mathiason, John, and Hans Klein. “The Internet and Global Governance: Principles and Norms for a New Regime.” Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations, vol. 13, n. 2 (2017): 237 – 254. Negro, Gianluigi. The Internet in China. From the Infrastructure to a Nascent Civil Society. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017. Posner, Elliot. “Making Rules for Global Finance: Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation at the Turn of the Millennium.” International Organization, vol. 63, n. 4 (2009): 665 – 699. Raymond, Mark, and Laura DeNardis. “Multi-stakeholderism: Anatomy of an Inchoate Global Institution.” International Theory, vol. 7, n. 3 (2015): 572 – 616. Schirm, S.A. “Leaders in Need of Followers: Emerging Powers in Global Governance.” In Power in the 21st Century: International Security and International Political Economy in a Changing World, edited by J.F. Kremer, K. Kronenberg, and E. Fels, 211 – 236. Berlin: Springer, 2012.

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Seminar on Strategy for Telecommunications Development. Beijing: International Telecommunication Union and Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications of the People’s Republic of China, 1994. Sha, Zukang. “Statement by Head of the Chinese Delegation.” WSIS PreConference 1. Geneva, 1 – 5 July, 2003. Sun, Hui, and Yu Yu. “Guoji zhengfu zuzhi yu quanqiu zhili. [Intergovernmental Organisations and Global Governance].” Tongji University Journal (Social Science section), vol. 15, n. 5 (2004): 48 – 53. The Buenos Aires Action Plan. Buenos Aires: United Nations, 1978. Van Eeten, Micheal J.G., and Milton Mueller. “Where is the Governance in Internet Governance?” New Media & Society, vol. 15, n. 5 (2013): 720 – 736. Wang, Xudong. “Statement by the Minister of Information Industry, People’s Republic of China at the WSIS.” Geneva, 2003. Zeng, Jinghan, Stevens, Tim, and Yaru Chen. “China’s Solution to Global Cyber Governance: Unpacking the Domestic Discourse of ’Internet Sovereignty.” Politics & Policy, vol. 45, n. 3 (2017): 432 – 464.

Dwayne Winseck*

6 Is the International Telecommunication Union Still Relevant in “the Internet Age?” Lessons From the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has been an important but fairly obscure entity since its inception in 1865. In the run up to the World Communication International Telecommunications Conference (WCIT) held in Dubai in December 2012, however, a well-orchestrated campaign of critics thrust it into the limelight. According to this campaign, the ITU—an agency forged in the era of telegraphs and telephones—posed an existential threat to the open internet as it tried to expand its mandate in “the Internet Age.” The preparations to revise the ITU’s international telecommunications regulations (ITRs) had been hijacked, the critics alleged, by an odd assortment of authoritarian countries, legacy telecommunications operators, and the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) who were bent on imposing international control over the internet. Op-eds to this effect appeared The New York Times ¹, The Wall Street Journal ², and The Guardian,³ among many others, warning of “mission creep” as the ITU sought to replace, in their view, the nimble and democratic “multi-stakeholder” model of internet governance with the ITU’s cumbersome, state-centred “multilateral model of internet governance.” According to the critics, the ITU did not—and should not—have any role in internet governance. The United States led the charge against the ITU, but it was not alone. The US position was especially formidable, however, given that the usual animosities between AT&T and Verizon, on one side, for example, versus Google on the other, and public interest and consumer groups (e. g. the Centre for Democracy and Technology, Public Knowledge, ISOC, etc.), on another, fell away in the face of a purported common enemy: the ITU. This unity of vision was also captured by a Congressional Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on “Interna*   

Carleton University, Canada Cerf, “Keep the Internet Open.” McDowell, “The UN Threat to Internet Freedom.” Kiss, “Who Controls the Internet?”

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tional Proposals to Regulate the Internet,” where a who’s who list of powerful voices lined up to denounce the ITU. The first to do so was Philip Verveer, the Coordinator for International Communication and Information Policy and head of the US delegation to the 2012 WCIT. His predecessor, and old hand at past ITU Conferences, David Gross, was next, but now as the leader of the World Conference on International Telecommunications Ad Hoc Working Group that represented AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, Google, Intel, Microsoft, News Corporation, Oracle, Telefonica, Time Warner Cable, Verisign and Verizon. Robert McDowell, a commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission at the time, argued that the proposed changes to the ITU’s rules were an attempt to impose “a topdown, centralized, international regulatory overlay [that] is antithetical to the architecture of the Net, which is a global network of networks without borders” (p. 6). Sally Wentworth,⁴ from the Internet Society, and Google’s “Chief Internet Evangelist,” Vint Cerf, argued along similar lines.⁵ The Committee’s Chair, Republican Congressman Greg Waldman, set the tone for the hearing from start to finish with his opening statement: … if we are not vigilant, … a United Nations forum in Dubai … just might break the Internet by subjecting it to an international regulatory regime designed for old-fashioned telephone service.⁶

The US spoke with an exceptionally strong and unified voice, but this was not, however, a case of the US against the rest of the world. This could be seen from the fact that whereas consensus had ruled the day at ITU’s conferences for a hundred and fifty years, the 2012 WCIT Conference ended in an impasse. While eighty-nine countries agreed to the revised International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs), fifty-five did not. The United States, Australia, Canada, the twenty-eight members of the European Union, and Japan led the revolt.⁷ Instead, the campaign against the ITU and the 2012 WCIT can probably be better understood as a telling moment when advocates of the multistakeholder model of internet governance, a model that many commercial interests, technical experts, civil society groups, the US and other capitalist democracies have sup-

 Cerf, “Testimony to the Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing.”  Ibid.  United States Energy and Commerce Committee, “International Proposals to Regulate the Internet–Transcripts.”  Roughly fifty countries did not vote on the revised regulations because, for one reason or another, they were ineligible to do so. International Telecommunication Union, “Signatories of the Final Acts.”

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ported for decades, tried to strike back against the rising tide of support for a more state-centred, multilateral model of internet governance. This latter approach is being promoted by those who are critical of the unaccountable power of business interests, technology experts, and countries like India, China, Russia and Brazil which—each in their own way–seek to counter the US and western capitalist countries’ dominance of internet governance.⁸ Seen from this angle, the 2012 WCIT was a microcosm of an emergent clash between the multistakeholder view of a global internet and what Eli Noam⁹ refers to as a “federated internet” that seems increasingly realistic as ownership of critical internet resources become more multipolar in nature, and shared and contested by an increasing number of state and non-state actors. In response to the mounting tide against the prevailing model of internet governance, critics who wanted to retain that model leveled three main charges to make their case that the ITU was unfit for purpose and that it posed an mortal “threat to the Net”: (1) the ITU is a state-run telecommunications club; (2) it has never had a role with respect to the Internet but it and authoritarian countries were bent on changing this at the 2012 WCIT; and (3) the ITU was serving as a Trojan Horse for authoritarian states and legacy telephone companies that were seeking to impose a new Web 3.0 Model—controlled national internet– media spaces—over the open internet. From this latter angle, authoritarian states—Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria—were using the ITU as a vehicle to turn their closed models of national internet spaces into a global standard. One critic after another pointed to a smoking gun that purported to reveal the ITU’s end-game in this respect: a conversation between then ITU SecretaryGeneral Hamadoun Touré and Russian President Vladimir Putin, where the latter waxes on about the need to establish “international control of the internet through the ITU.”¹⁰ The ITU was in search of a new mission at a time when technology was passing it by, so it was claimed. Obviously, the inference was that Touré was keen to comply because doing so would help to keep the agency alive, critics alleged. In crude terms, Touré was cast as being a stooge of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, an unflattering portrait to be sure but also a gauge of just how nasty the politics of WCIT had become. This chapter assesses those charges and offers a rebuttal to them. It does so not as an uncritical defense of the ITU but rather a lament for the missed opportunity that the WCIT offered to seriously think about the fundamental precepts of  Powers and Jablonski, The Real Cyber War.  “Towards the Federated Internet.”  United States Energy and Commerce Committee, “International Proposals to Regulate the Internet-Transcripts,” 10, 28, 45.

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liberal internationalism and the relationship between the internet, markets, states and people on the global stage at this still fairy early time in the 21st Century. It does so by drawing on original research in the ITU’s online archives, documents and policy position papers from governments, industry (e. g. the US-based International Telecommunications Ad Hoc Working Group, Google, the European Telecommunications Network Operators), multi-stakeholder organizations (e. g. the Internet Society (ISOC), and civil society groups, the relevant scholarly and policy literature, and op-eds in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian. The chapter’s basic argument is that each of the allegations just outlined were so historically inaccurate that proper questions about what the scope of the ITU’s activities have been with respect to developments in communication technology, corporate interests, and the internet in the past, and what they should be in “the internet age,” were lost. The chapter unfolds in four parts. The first part shows that private corporate interests have played a significant role in the ITU’s affairs since its founding. The next section shows that the ITU was forced to come to terms with the much expanded role for “the market” with the demise of the telecommunications monopoly era in the 1980s and 1990s, and as it was outflanked by a shift in policy making authority to the World Trade Organization’s Basic Telecommunications Agreement in 1997, on one side, and to the multi-stakeholder model of internet governance, on the other. The third part shows that despite its diminished stature, the ITU has still played an active role—albeit a contested one—with respect to the technical infrastructure and governance of the internet, even if its objectives sometimes failed to carry the day. These points are echoed elsewhere in this volume by Schafer¹¹ in relation to the ITU’s support for the X25 technical standards for data communications in the mid-1970s that lost out to the TCP/IP standard as the basis of the internet, and by Negro,¹² in regard to the ITU’s failed bid to gain control of the domain name system, much to the chagrin of countries like China at the time. Despite having its ambitions clipped, however, the ITU has still carved out a complementary role for itself within the multi-stakeholder model by creating the Internet Governance Forum in 2005 and the Broadband Commission five years later as well as by promoting the development of national broadband policies and internet exchange points (IXPs) that have helped to improve affordable internet and mobile phone use, especially in developing countries. The chapter concludes by arguing that while the ITU’s critics invoked the

 Schafer, “The ITU Facing the Emergence of the Internet” in this book.  Negro, “The Rising Role of China in the Promotion of Multilateral Internet Governance” in this book.

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spirit of internet freedom and liberal democracy, they ignored a critical tension between nation-states’ long-standing rights under the ITU’s Constitution and the ITRs to monitor, block and cut-off communications for reasons of upholding public decency and national security versus people’s rights to communicate with one another freely and privately that are also set out in the same documents. These competing rights first appeared in the Austro-German Telegraph Union in 1850 and were transposed into the ITU’s Constitution and ITRs upon its creation in 1865¹³, where they remain to this day. The dystopian portrait of the ITU painted by critics opposing it, however, distracted attention away from these conflicting values completely. Consequently, while speaking in the spirit of “internet freedom,” the ITU’s critics did nothing to bring telecommunications regulation and internet governance better into line with the democratic norms that they professed to promote. Given this, the chapter concludes that the potential to rebuild the institutional footings of liberal internationalism that have been at the heart of the ITU since its inception so as to better fit the realities of the 21st Century and the “internet age” were squandered, precisely at a moment when they were needed most as illiberal forces gathered on the horizon, and in whose haze we now stand.

6.1 Corporate Interests Have Played a Significant Role at the ITU Since the 1870s It’s important to begin this story by remembering that the ITU admitted private companies into its fold at the Vienna Conference in 1868. The companies first attended the ITU’s Rome Conference in 1871– 72, and from this time forward their influence was increasingly felt on the operations of state-owned telegraphs within countries and the work of member states at the ITU. Initially, France and Russia took a cautious view of the scope of the private companies’ role and urged their colleagues to restrict their activities to just the work of committees and not the Plenary Assemblies where decisions were made, while Britain and the Netherlands, however, advocated for a more liberal view that would allow the companies to participate in all the ITU’s activities, albeit without voting privileges—a right that was held by governments alone, then and now. Britain and the Netherland’s position ultimately won the day, and private companies have

 Fari, “Telegraphic Diplomacy from the Origins to the Formative Years of the ITU” in this book.

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played a substantial role in the ITU ever since, and especially as a part of national delegations to the Union.¹⁴ The biggest such corporate interests in the 1870s included several affiliates of the British-based colossus, the Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies. Two United States-based firms—Western Union and the Commercial Cable Company —also took part in the ITU’s work at the 1885 and 1890 Conferences for the first time, respectively (and continued to do so thereafter). The number of firms attending the ITU’s Administrative Conferences in St. Petersburg (1875), London (1879), Berlin (1885), Paris (1890), Budapest (1896), London (1903) and finally, before World War I, Lisbon (1908) continued to climb. By 1910, there were more than fifty countries and thirty-one companies that had signed the ITU Convention.¹⁵ In 1908, the United States agreed to the International Radiotelegraph Convention. However, it was not a member of the ITU at the time, and it was not until 1949 that the US agreed to the telegraph and telephone conventions.¹⁶ While some scholars claim the United States stayed aloof from international communication policy debates until that time,¹⁷ it actually assumed a larger role from a much earlier date than this suggests. The U.S. announced its first anti-monopoly, free trade (reciprocity) in submarine telegraphs policy in 1869, for example. The Secretary of State at the time, Hamilton Fish, shared the policy document with twenty-three members of the ITU, while President Ulysses Grant touted it as an example of how his administration was simultaneously promoting international submarine telegraphs while also challenging the exclusive cable concessions upon which early monopolies in transatlantic communication had been built. Louise Renault, the French doyen of international law circles, key figure at the Institute of International Law, and an author of some of the ITU’s founding documents, praised the policy as being “très compréhensif.”¹⁸

 International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union”; Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 23 – 27; Fari, “Telegraphic diplomacy from the origins to the formative years of the ITU.”  There were no Diplomatic Conferences held for the next fifty years, only Administrative ones. The latter could revise the ITU’s Regulations and Tariffs but not its Constitution or Convention.  Hill, The New International Telecommunications Regulations and the Internet, 4.  John, “When Techno-Diplomacy Failed.”  Fish was also an associate of the Institute of International Law, and presumably knew Renault and his close friend and associate, Tobias Asser, a Dutch lawyer, both of whom wrote some of the ITU’s founding documents. Clark, International Communications, 140 – 41; Koskienemmi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, 105.

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The United States government and US-based companies also began to play a greater role in world communications after Russia invited both to attend the St. Petersburg Conference in 1875. Western Union and the Postal Telegraph Company declined the invite, but the United States Charge d’Affaires in St. Petersburg, Montgomery Schuyler, did attend. His report afterwards criticized the conference for its conservative ways, but he encouraged both the companies and his government to participate in future Conferences, and that’s what they did.¹⁹ Western Union took part in the ITU’s work for the first time in 1885 (Berlin), while the Commercial Cable Company joined it and two-dozen other private companies at the next Conference in Paris in 1890. After St. Petersburg, the United States government sent observers to Paris (1890), London (1903), Lisbon (1908) and Paris (1925), while hosting the 1927 Radio Conference in Washington.²⁰ Its representative to the Lisbon Conference in 1908, Charles Page Bryan, the Minister to Portugal at the time, was greeted with applause, and was optimistic that the United States would soon join the Union.²¹ While Page disagreed with the attempt yet again by some members to promote the adoption of a uniform telegraphic code (it was the third time such a proposal had been floated in as many conferences), he thanked the delegates for “agreeing to let him participate in the work of the Conference.”²² He then praised the ITU, observing that: … The work done …persuaded me that the country I have the honor to represent has an interest in joining the Telegraph Union, so am I going to write immediately in this meaning to my Government. Allow me, Sir, to express my admiration for the distinguished manner in which you conducted the work of the Conference.²³

WWI delayed the next scheduled Conference but once the War ended, the United States and the US-based companies resumed where they had left off. The US, for example, organized two post-War conferences outside the auspices of the ITU— the Preliminary International Conference on Electrical Communications in 1920 and the 1927 Radio Conference held in Washington—both of which aimed to unite the ITU and International Radiotelegraph Union into a single Universal Electrical Communication Union, a step that eventually did occur when the

 Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 27, 42; International Telecommunication Union, “Convention (1875),” 266.  Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 42– 43; International Telecommunication Union, “Convention, (1890).”  International Telecommunication Union, “Convention (1908),” 622.  Ibid., 1119.  Ibid.

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two agencies were combined to form the International Telecommunication Union in 1932. According to Codding, the conferences forged a template for international communications regulation for the next quarter-of-a-century. AT&T, the Commercial Cable Company, Postal Telegraph Company, RCA and Western Union were active in both conferences and attended the Paris Conference in 1925 as well, and others that followed in 1932 and 1947.²⁴ The natural monopoly view of telecommunication also became the norm in most countries thereafter until the 1980s and 1990s. That configuration of power and authority, however, has since been undone. In fact, the great battle between the market and the state was fought and won decisively in favour of “the market” in the 1980s and 1990s, notably during the last revisions to the ITRs in 1988 and the Plenipotentiary meeting the year later. Other subtle changes to the ITRs and Constitution at the time conveyed the same message. For example, “private operating agencies” – code for private telecommunications carriers – were first recognized by changes to the first Article of the ITRs in 1988. A new Article 9 was also adopted for “special arrangements” that allowed competitors to skirt around national telecommunications monopolies—if the countries at both ends of the line agreed. The idea that the “market rules” was further entrenched in 1998 when the ITU’s Convention was revised to baldly state: “that the development of the Internet is essentially market-led and driven by private and government initiatives.”²⁵ NGOs also started to become more active at the ITU and references to their work begins to pepper its documents from this point onwards.²⁶ Cooperation between the ITU and non-state actors was also expanded with the two WSIS conferences (World Summit on the Information Society) that gave rise to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in 2005. Today, the ITU’s membership consists of 194 countries and over 800 private-sector entities (532 telecommunications companies, 174 associate members (i. e. ISOC, W3C, etc.) and 138 academic interests—although still, only national governments vote in its affairs. The United States had fought to marketize telecommunications for decades as it sought to harmonize conditions at the international level with those that it had been fostering at home since the 1950s. Those efforts paid off in the 1980s

 Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 26 – 43, 111– 12; Winseck and Pike, Communications and Empire, chapter 8.  International Telecommunication Union, “International Telecommunications Regulations, Final Acts,” Res. 102.  International Telecommunication Union, “International Telecommunications Regulations, Final Acts,” Res. 101– 103,133 and 408, 412, 415 – 6, 475 and 478.

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and 1990s as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Australia and the European Union (after 1992, with the European Community moving in this direction before that), amongst others, liberalized their telecommunications markets. Consequently, the multilateral framework developed under the auspices of the ITU for more than a century was upstaged by a trade regime centred on the World Trade Organization’s Basic Telecommunications Agreement in 1997 and country-to-country trade deals and flanked by the multistakeholder model of Internet governance.²⁷

6.2 The ITU’s Responses to the Internet By the 1990s the ITU’s position had been diminished from what it once was. This did not mean, however, that it played no role with respect to internet governance, in contrast to the claims, for example, of a paper by two Google lawyers that argued that “modifications to the … ITRs are required before the ITU can become active in the Internet space.”²⁸ Google’s so-called Chief Internet Evangelist, Vint Cerf, assumed the same thing when he scolded the ITU for trying “to expand its regulatory authority to include the Internet.”²⁹ Robert McDowell, the FCC Commissioner, also heaped scorn on the ITU, asserting that only authoritarian and pariah governments “argue that the current definition [of the ITU’s mandate] already includes the Internet.”³⁰ In more measured terms, the internet governance expert Milton Mueller also agreed that the ITU’s authority did not cover the internet, but for reasons that derived from the finer points in United States’ telecommunications policy.³¹ These finer points of US telecommunications policy go back a half-century, although with close analogues in the EU and other jurisdictions. According to Mueller, the line dividing basic telecommunication services from enhanced information services in the United States had been developed through the trilogy of FCC Computer Inquiries that distinguished basic telecommunications (i. e. public networks and carriage) that would be regulated as common carrier services, on

 Cowhey, “The International Telecommunications Regime”; Noam and Drake, “The WTO Deal on Basic Telecommunications”; Winseck, “The Geopolitical Economy of the Global Internet Infrastructure.”  Ryan and Glick, “The ITU Treaty Negotiations,” 3.  Cerf, “Keep the Internet Open,” 2; Cerf, “Testimony to the Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing.”  McDowell, “Testimony to the Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing,” 1– 2.  Mueller, “Threat Analysis of ITU’s WCIT (Part II): Telecommunications vs the Internet.”

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the one hand, from computer-based information services on the other, that would largely be unregulated. These distinctions were then trampolined onto the world stage via the just-mentioned bilateral and multilateral trade deals, and this meant that as far as the ITU’s authority was concerned, basic telecommunications fell within its jurisdiction while enhanced information services like the internet were out—at least if you agreed with this view. In the eyes of some, this policy approach has been “wildly successful,” and has fueled the growth of the Internet.³² Eli Dourado, a research fellow at the free market think tank, the Mercatus Centre at George Mason University, argued that nobody was thinking about the internet back in 1988 when the ITRs were last updated and, consequently, “no internet traffic is …. governed by the ITRs. This would change that,” he said, in relation to the changes being proposed at the 2012 WCIT.³³ This way of conceptualizing things, however, was never as straight-forward as the ITU’s critics seemed to assume. In fact, the distinctions between “basic” and “enhanced” services have been mired in litigation and protracted political battles ever since their adoption. The Supreme Court’s Brand X ruling in 2005, for example, argued that FCC’s broad authority allowed it to draw the lines as it saw fit. While this deference to the regulators’ expertise was probably wise, it also left the question in a highly politicized and precarious context whereby the definition of internet access could swing wildly between the two poles depending on which political party was in power. This is just what happened. Broadband internet access services (but not internet content, apps or services) have been reclassified four times over the last decades: before 2002, they were assumed to be common carriers. Between 2002 and 2015, the situation flipped when the FCC reclassified “the Internet” as an enhanced service on the grounds that the carriage and content aspects of the internet were indivisible, and so should be treated together as an unregulated information services (and because this seemingly technical argument fit with First Amendment protections against speech/content regulation and American views of free speech). In the second Obama Administration, things changed again when the FCC restored the common carrier title to internet access services in its 2015 landmark network neutrality ruling, but that, too, was short-lived because the Trump Administration FCC

 The history of these distinctions in the US is well told by Robert Cannon, the FCC’s long-serving Senior Counsel for Internet Issues and Director of the Washington Internet Project when he wrote the piece cited below. Mueller, “Threat Analysis of ITU’s WCIT (Part II): Telecommunications vs the Internet,” 305; Cannon, “The Legacy of the Federal Communications Commission’s Computer Inquiries,” 305.  Dourado, Personal correspondence with the author.

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reversed these strong common carrier/network neutrality rules less than two years later.³⁴ In terms relevant to the ITU and the 2012 WCIT, the chorus of critics cherrypicked the US history and took it for granted that the “information services” label that was in place at the time their campaign was in full-swing applied to how the ITU should also treat broadband internet access. And if that was the case, then just like the FCC, anything to do with basic internet access would be beyond the reach of the ITU. They also conveniently left out the hotly contested and highly context specific nature of the US position, as well as the fact that some of the ITU’s critics, notably Google, struck a stance in the US that was opposite to the one that underpinned their campaign against the ITU. The argument that the ITU did not have authority over internet access was fundamentally flawed, however, for several other reasons. First, the United States’ telecommunication policy is not global telecommunication and internet policy, and nor should it be. In Canada, for example, policy makers have held firm: broadband internet access is and always has been a common carrier service. In the European Union, too, while the goalposts have shifted over time as policy makers pushed to expand competition beyond “value added services” and more deeply into basic transmission networks and services, one thing also held fast: telephone, internet access and mobile wireless networks are treated as basic transmission services and regulated as such—a view that was reaffirmed in 2015 when the EU revised its commitment to common carriage/net neutrality.³⁵ India, Chile, Brazil and other countries have adopted similar stances as well amidst the heated debates over net neutrality. In sum, beyond the US, the treatment of broadband internet access as a basic telecommunications service, and its regulation as such, is common.³⁶ That the ITU would follow a similar path is, thus, not controversial, although it is worth repeating that its authority does not extend to the content, applications and other services delivered over the internet. A second consideration is at play here as well: namely, how telecommunications is defined. While the United States can define telecommunications as it

 A clear account of what net neutrality and common carriage are in the US context, and a brief history and explanation of these swings between the two ways to define broadband internet access services in the US is provided by Gilroy, as cited immediately below. Federal Communications Commission, “Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet”; Federal Communications Commission, “Restoring Internet Freedom”; Gilroy, “Access to Broadband Networks.”  Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, “BEREC Guidelines on the Implementation by National Regulators of European Net Neutrality Rules.”  European Union, “Regulation 2015/2120: Measures Concerning Open Internet Access.”

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sees fit, the ITU has historically adopted a broad definition of telecommunications as being: “Any transmission, emission or reception of signs, signals, writing, images and sounds or intelligence of any nature by wire, radio, optical or other electromagnetic systems.”³⁷ A plain reading of the definition suggests that it includes internet access, and this is exactly the stance that the ITU has taken. Historically, and third, the ITU has long leaned on this expansive definition to take a broad view of its mandate and morphed with the times. Originally called the International Telegraph Union, the agency added telephones to its remit in the 1880s, expanded its regulations to cover telephony in 1903, folded the radio regulations of the International Radiotelegraph Union into those of the ITU in 1932, and responded to new telecommunications services as they evolved. The change in name to the International Telecommunication Union was first proposed at the Washington Conference in 1927 and implemented in 1932 to better reflect the changes that had taken place. Throughout its history, the ITU’s Constitution, Decisions, Resolutions and Recommendations (DRRs), and the ITRs have actually made a virtue out of the development and use of new technologies, and its ability to flexibly adapt to new realities as they emerge.³⁸ Given this, it would be a real mystery to discover a line drawn in the sand between telecommunications before the internet and after, with the ITU confined strictly to the stuff that came in the past. Reflecting such realities, the ITU has been keen to carve out a distinct role for itself in relation to the internet since, at least, 1996, and earlier if we look back to its members’ infatuation with integrated broadband networks and data communications in the 1970s and 1980s as the key cornerstones upon which the future of information societies was seen to depend, even if the internet had not yet become a household name.³⁹ However, being part of the internet’s history does not mean the ITU was successful in all of its endeavours. For example, its tendency to see the convergence of telecommunications and computing from a vantage point of telephone and telegraph history, as Valerie Schafer observes, led it to recommend a new protocol for data transmission in 1976—the X25 standard—that was based on virtual circuits rather than the TCP/IP protocol that was adopted by ARPANET and the internet at the time, and which came to underpin the Web in the 1990s. Consequently, and at this early critical juncture,  International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union (2015 Constitution, Annex).”  Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, chapter 1; Hill, The New International Telecommunications Regulations and the Internet, chapter 3.  Mansell, The New Telecommunications.

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the ITU’s embrace of a failed technical recommendation led to its more peripheral status just as the commercial internet was taking off, and just as the shift towards a greater role for competition and the market in the 1990s was also leading it to it lose ground to a new institutional authority in telecommunications and internet policy: the WTO, as mentioned above.⁴⁰ The ITU suffered another blow in 1996 when it joined forces with the Internet Society (ISOC) in a bid to shift control over the international domain name system from the United States to the ITU.⁴¹ “The U.S. squashed” the effort “like a bug,” Mueller states with approval, however, and two years later created ICANN.⁴² The US was supposed to transfer control over ICANN to the international community by 2002 but this did not happen until 2016—a move that likely contributed to the perception that the US was at least in part to blame for the battles that have intensified ever since to challenge its perceived hegemony over critical internet resources as well as the multi-stakeholder internet governance model more generally.⁴³ Two years after the 1996 dispute over the domain name system, however, the ITU renewed its cooperation with ISOC, the IETF, W3C and the ICANN in a bid to establish a bigger role for itself “with regard to international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet and the management of Internet resources, including domain names and addresses.”⁴⁴ This time the ITU had more success, assuming as it did a more significant role during both phases of the World Summit on the Information Society in 2002 and 2005, respectively, the management of IP addresses (2009 – 2010), and as part of the UN Committee on Internet Related Policies (2011). The two phases of World Summit on the Information Society saw unprecedented levels of participation by academics and civil society groups within the ITU as they tried to imagine the frontiers of global internet policy. At the end of this process a new entity was born, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), under the direction of the United Nations. The IGF’s first five-year experimental period was renewed for five more years in 2010 and again in 2015 for another ten years.⁴⁵ In a joint effort with UNESCO, the ITU also created the Broadband Com-

 Schafer, “The ITU Facing the Emergence of the Internet.”  Mueller, “Threat Analysis of ITU’s WCIT (Part I). Historical Context”; Negro, “The Rising Role of China in the Promotion of multilateral Internet governance.”  Mueller, “Threat Analysis of ITU’s WCIT (Part I). Historical Context.”  Denardis, Global War for Internet Governance.  International Telecommunication Union, “International Telecommunications Regulations, Final Acts,” Res. 102.  United Nations General Assembly, “Outcome Document of the World Summit on the Information Society,” paragraph 63.

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mission in 2010 in an effort to move broadband internet issues higher up the international policy agenda, do comparative analysis of internet adoption, affordability and use amongst its member countries, advise governments on national broadband policies and to promote the construction of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), especially in developing countries—more on which to come below.⁴⁶ In sum, while there is no doubt that the ITU’s role has been diminished over time, the idea that is has had no place in global internet policy is false.

6.3 Proposed Changes to the ITRs Were About Economics and Interconnection Versus Internet Censorship and Control While the critics of the ITU’s WCIT in 2012 painted a dire portrait of an international agency and its rogue member states as being on a mission to control and censor the internet, the fact of the matter is that the changes considered in Dubai were mostly about economics and interconnection issues.⁴⁷ Four key areas stood out in this regard: (1) Article 9 of the ITRs that allow “special arrangements” between communication network operators; (2) the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ (ETNO) push to change Articles 2 through 4 of the ITRs in ways that would have been fundamentally at odds with common carrier/net neutrality principles;⁴⁸ (3) proposals to add anti-trust concerns to the ITRs; and (4) new subsections added to Article 6 that amounted to a nascent “global consumer bill of rights” for mobile services. The fate of the “Special Arrangements” clause in Article 9 at the 2012 WCIT was crucial because it allows companies to build, lease or otherwise cobble together connections outside the ITU rules. Basically, Article 9 allows companies like Netflix, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple to lease capacity from competitive carriers such as Akamai, Amazon Web Services, Tata, Limelight, etc., that bypass the incumbent carriers’ long-distance lines, although they still depend on the latter’s last mile links to subscribers—where monopolies and duopolies still rule the roost. It also allows large internet companies to build their own content distribution networks (CDNs) that bypass international carriers al International Telecommunication Union, “Press Release: ITU and UNESCO Announce TopLevel Global Broadband Commission.”  Mueller, “Threat Analysis of ITU’s WCIT (Part II): Telecommunications vs the Internet.”  European Telecommunications Network Operators, “Revision of the International Telecommunications Regulations.”

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together while interconnecting with one another and carrier-ISPs at local internet exchange points (IXPs) and data centres in major cities around the world. Such arrangements take the giant internet companies’ enormous traffic off of the public telecommunications network for much of the distance carried before bringing it back onto the public network once it is close to their end users’ location. In these relationships between CDNs, IXPs and the “last mile” of the public internet, the market, custom, and contracts rule. Indeed, 99 % of international internet traffic is organized on the basis of peering arrangements done through little more than a handshake.⁴⁹ Some developing country governments and ETNO did propose a new section to the ITRs (Article 3.7) that could have undermined these arrangements.⁵⁰ The language of that proposal directed Administrations (national telecommunications regulators) to … take appropriate measures nationally to ensure that all parties … involved in the provision of international Internet connections negotiate and agree to bilateral commercial arrangements … that take into account the possible need for compensation between them for the value of elements such as traffic flow, number of routes, geographical coverage and cost of international transmission, and the possible application of network externalities, amongst others.⁵¹

The ETNO proposal also spoke of the need “to ensure an adequate return on investment in high bandwidth infrastructures” and directed carriers and ISPs “to negotiate commercial agreements to achieve a sustainable system of fair compensation for telecommunications services and, where appropriate, respecting the principle of sending party network pays.” ⁵² The basic idea behind the proposal was that companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix and Facebook should not bypass the carriers’ networks and pay their fair share of costs to upgrade network capacity to accommodate the demands they put on them. ⁵³ This terrain is complicated, but for simplicity sake, if you agree with common carriage / network neutrality, this was one of the worst additions to the

 Weller and Woodcock, “Internet Exchange: Market Developments and Policy Changes”; van der Berg, “Internet Traffic Exchange.”  European Telecommunications Network Operators, “Revision of the International Telecommunications Regulations.”  International Telecommunication Union, “Anticipated Final Draft of the Future ITRs.” Emphasis added.  European Telecommunications Network Operators, “Revision of the International Telecommunications Regulations.” Emphasis added.  Hill, The New International Telecommunications Regulations and the Internet, 39 – 40.

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ITRs proposed, for several reasons. For one, at its essence, the ETNO proposal was a bid to redo the ‘international bypass’ debates that its members had fought and lost in the 1980s. The plea, as Mueller put it, was a blatantly protectionist bid to benefit the incumbents that had no place in the ITRs.⁵⁴ Second, it was an attempt to take the “fee-for-carriage” regime that applies to broadcasting (i. e. cable and satellite television distribution) and superimpose it on the internet, thereby abandoning the principles of common carriage/network neutrality that underpin the internet. Many critics of the ITU, however, did not want to argue on this terrain, however, because they were also implacably hostile to the values of common carriage/net neutrality within their home countries. Consequently, they skirted the net neutrality framing of the issue by casting it as a as a tax issue. Technology journalist (and self-professed libertarian) Declan McCullagh joined with a strident critic of the ITU, Larry Downes, for example, to do just this when they condemned the proposal as a European bid to tax Facebook and Google as a way to finance their grandiose broadband internet projects.⁵⁵ However, even the EU members of the ITU broke ranks with ETNO on this point. Furthermore, the proposed additions to the ITRs (Art. 6.1.3a) explicitly ruled out the idea of a tax on internet traffic. The anti-tax framing, combined with barely concealed anti-Europe jingoism, also assumed the rhetoric of American- and Internet-exceptionalism that casts the US as the champion of “internet freedom” against ‘old Europe’ where supposedly heavy-handed state intervention stifles competition, technological innovation and people’s freedoms. This kind of rhetoric girded much of the effort to discredit the ITU rather than dealing honestly with the complex issues at hand.⁵⁶ In many ways, such commentary was little more than ideology masquerading as analysis. At its core, the ETNO proposal embodied the assumption that Netflix, Google, Facebook, Apple and other bandwidth intensive services should pay for carriage, a stance that was already flourishing in Australia and New Zealand at the time, while gaining momentum in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. The problem with the proposal, however, is that dominant internet access providers—many of whom were ETNO’s core members—especially those that also own broadcast and pay television services, were increasingly relying on the fee-for carriage model and data caps while exempting their own services from such arrangements. This fortified their role as gatekeepers, of course, and, consequently, their ability to stymie would-be rivals. The superficial appeal that the internet

 Mueller, “Threat Analysis of ITU’s WCIT (Part III): Charging You, Charging Me.”  McCullagh and Downes, “U.N. Could Tax US-Based Websites, Leaked Docs Show.”  Hill, The New International Telecommunications Regulations and the Internet, 15 – 16, 65 – 67.

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giants should pay their ‘fair share’ also ignored the arrangements described earlier with respect to CDNs, IXPs, and the “last mile.” In simple terms, the internet giants were already building CDNs or paying others to carry their traffic as close to their users as possible, thereby relieving the incumbents of the burden they claimed to be incurring and, thus, not free-riding on the carriers’ infrastructure. The fact that ETNO and developing countries’ appeals were misguided was underscored by the fact that, in the years ahead, the ITU and the OECD turned to promoting IXPs, especially in Africa where such facilities were scarce and, consequently, the cost of international transit (versus peering) exorbitant and a big barrier to internet adoption. Where the advice was acted on, expensive interconnection and transit deals between incumbent carriers were replaced by peering arrangements. As a result, costs, and therefore prices, plunged, much to the benefit of mobile phone and internet use across the African continent—and other regions where this approach has been followed.⁵⁷ Finally, the issues at stake had been articulated a decade earlier by then CEO of internet services at the “old” AT&T, who snorted that “AT&T didn’t spend $56 billion to get into the cable business to have the blood sucked out of our veins.”⁵⁸ In other words, having just bought the nation’s biggest cable television operators, AT&T was not about to have that investment harmed by people getting programming over the internet “for free.” The same disparaging view of internet services “free-riding” on the carriers’ pipes was brought up again by the “new” AT&T in 2005 when its CEO, Ed Whitacre put the matter this way: … How do you think they’re [Google, MSN, Vonage, others] going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe …. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using?⁵⁹

Adding Article 3.7 along the lines that ETNO wanted would have justified the “mechanism” Whitacre was seeking, and perhaps given it added momentum by lending it the ITU’s seal of approval. The proposal also looked like a bid to reverse the outcomes of the heated debate over “international bypass” that had been put to rest in 1998 when the ITU embraced market rule. In the end, ETNO’s proposal was rejected but the door left open just a crack to address concerns about “fair compensation.” Instead, the thrust of the revisions adopted

 Song, “Africa’s Telecom Infrastructure in 2017.”  Quoted in Lemley and Lessig, “The End of End-to-End,” 26.  Fisher, “SBC: Ain’t No Way VoIP Uses Mah Pipes!.”

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stressed the importance of internet peering and building IXPs to improve the quality and lower the cost of international internet connectivity.⁶⁰ This was consistent with the multi-stakeholder view that ISOC, among others, has pursued, with support from the ITU, to improve internet connectivity in Africa, Latin America and Asia. As a result, levels of internet connectivity have soared and costs plummeted in the last decade, as just mentioned—even if much still needs to be done.⁶¹ While efforts to enshrine the pay-to-play internet model were at war with Article 9’s focus on competition, other proposals aimed to add new language on competition and consumer rights issues. Recognizing that market concentration in mobile wireless and broadband markets is still extremely high around the world,⁶² one proposed addition advised that “[w]hen evaluating significant market power and its abuse, national competition authorities should take into account international market share and international market power.”⁶³ Another proposal hinted that the ITU might include a “global consumer bill of rights” for mobile services by gently sketching guidelines to cover international roaming charges for mobile services and the need to avoid the issue of billing shock and sky-high international roaming charges.⁶⁴ Despite the fact that regulators elsewhere were already taking steps to tackle such issues,⁶⁵ both proposals came to naught. That fate, in turn, suggests that the technocratic and market fundamentalist views that have defined global telecommunications and internet policy for the last three decades still rule. In other words, decisions were made by technical and economic experts, corporate interests and government officials, and justified on the relatively narrow grounds of technical expertise. As a result, the broader values and politics at stake in these issues were eclipsed by the ‘rule of experts’.

 International Telecommunication Union, “Anticipated Final Draft of the Future ITRs,” Article 3.7; Hill, The New International Telecommunications Regulations and the Internet, 97– 98.  Navarro, “IGF: Notes and Links around Community Networking”; Song, “Africa’s Telecom Infrastructure in 2017.”  Noam, ed., Who Owns the World’s Media?  International Telecommunication Union, “Anticipated Final Draft of the Future ITRs,” Article 6.8.  International Telecommunication Union, Article 6.12– 6.18.  European Commission, “Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/2286: Application of Fair Use Policy,” 46 – 61.

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6.4 The ITU and the “Right to Communicate” Versus Nation-States’ Rights to Monitor, Block and Suspend Information Flows Since the 1850s So far, I have argued that the charges made by critics of the ITU’s 2012 WCIT were overblown and often incorrect. This did not mean, however, that there was nothing to worry about. There was (and is). However, there might also have been victories for global internet governance, if the ITU’s history and contemporary role had been taken seriously and had the agency itself made firmer commitments to adopting only guiding principles that meet a minimum standard of liberal norms for governing markets, human rights, a free press, and freedom of expression. To some extent, the ITU already does this by anchoring its activities in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Article 19, in turn, stakes out a bold right to communicate and for the free flow of information, and that right includes the internet.⁶⁶ The ITU actually pledges allegiance to such values at several places in its Constitution, the ITRs, and resolutions. For instance, its Constitution refers to people’s right to use international telecommunication services.⁶⁷ The preamble to the revised ITRs calls on: “Member States to affirm their commitment to implement these Regulations in a manner that … upholds their human rights obligations.”⁶⁸ Another recommendation states that “Members of the Union should facilitate the unrestricted transmission of news by telecommunication services.”⁶⁹ Critics of the ITU, however, were unmoved, arguing that: (1) such human rights declarations are irrelevant—little more than a fog of rhetoric that (2) obscure practices opposite the values claimed, and/or (3) serve as a license for state-controlled telecommunications monopolies to rule the internet in their interest. I agree with point two, and the concluding section of this chapter lists several areas within the ITU framework that clash with the right to communicate

 La Rue, “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression.”  International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union (Constitution and Convention),” Article 33.  International Telecommunication Union, “International Telecommunications Regulations, Final Acts.”  International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union (Convention (Kyoto),” Rec 2.

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and privacy. Even then, however, the critics’ assertions still miss their mark because, if the ITU really is irrelevant, there would have been no need for their campaign against the ITU to begin with. Words matter. Copyright lawyers and politicians refer to Article 19 to legitimize their actions. Some internet equipment manufacturers also take pains to stress that their gear is designed to be respectful of human rights.⁷⁰ Scholars and rights monitoring groups like Freedom House, Index on Censorship and Reporters Without Borders also use communication rights as a measure to rank order countries against international standards of freedom of expression, with criteria specific to the internet playing a big part in such assessments. In other words, the language and actions of the ITU help to create the terrain upon which the politics of internet governance takes place. The rhetoric of rights, therefore, reflects not just high-minded words, but values, and those values, in turn, make a mark on the real world. The ITU’s commitments to universal human rights, however, sit uneasily with other aspects of its framework that embody nation-states’ nearly unbridled authority to monitor, suspend and cut communications that “appear dangerous to the security of the State or contrary to its laws and to public order or to decency.”⁷¹ These powers were first asserted by European governments in the 1850s as part of their drive to squelch popular rebellions, and adopted by the Austro-German Telegraph Union and Western European Telegraph Union at the time, before being folded into the ITU when these entities merged in 1865.⁷² The supremacy of national security has been kept ever since in Articles 34, 35 and 37 in the ITU’s Constitution, as the extracts below illustrate: Member States reserve the right to stop … the transmission of any private telegram which may appear dangerous to the security of the State or contrary to its laws, to public order or to decency.⁷³

 Ericsson, “Submission to the Public Consultation by the European Commission on the Online Distribution of Audiovisual Works in the EU.”  International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union (Constitution),” Art. 34(1).  International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union (Constitution and Convention),” Art. 34; see also Fari, “Telegraphic diplomacy from the origins to the formative years of the ITU.”  Emphasis added, International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union (Constitution),” Art. 34(1).

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Member States also reserve the right to cut off… private telecommunications which may appear dangerous to the security of the State or contrary to its laws, to public order or to decency.⁷⁴ Each Member State reserves the right to suspend the international telecommunication service, either generally or only for certain relations and/or for certain kinds of correspondence.⁷⁵ Member States agree to … ensur[e] the secrecy of international correspondence[, but] … reserve the right to communicate such correspondence to the competent authorities in order to ensure the application of their national laws or the execution of international conventions to which they are parties.⁷⁶

One proposal by the United Arab Emirates aimed to replicate these measures in three new clauses to be added to the ITRs, allowing such norms to do doubleduty as both high-level Constitutional principles and day-to-day regulatory guidelines.⁷⁷ The United States opposed the move. However, this was not because it sees telecommunications as part of a global commons to be protected from the harsh geopolitical realities of the world but because the ITU’s Constitution already reflects the fact that national security concerns trump everything, and because it would not be unduly constrained by global norms anyway. The United States’ response to the UAE proposal was clear: “we support retaining these provisions in the CS [Constitution] and do not agree with … duplicating them in the ITRs.”⁷⁸ Despite the rhetorical power of the United States global-internet-freedom-asforeign-policy, the more pressing conviction of official policy is that, at least since 2003, it has considered the internet to be the fifth domain of war, alongside land, sea, air and space.⁷⁹ Consequently, it has refused to be drawn into proposals by Russia (mostly), China, and others to adopt a global covenant on “demilitarizing cyberspace.” In a similar vein, it also rejected a proposal to add a sprawling new section to the ITRs on cybercrime, national security and cyberwar

 International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union (Constitution).”  Emphasis added, International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union (Constitution).”  International Telecommunication Union, “Collection of the Basic Texts of the International Telecommunication Union (Constitution),” Art. 37.  International Telecommunication Union, “Anticipated Final Draft of the Future ITRs,” Art. 7.3, 7.5 and 7.6.  United States, “CWG-WCIT12 Contribution 99: United States of America’s Proposals for the Review of the ITRs.”  Clinton, “Remarks on Internet Freedom.”

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issues at the 2012 WCIT.⁸⁰ Moreover, the “demilitarization of cyberspace” Rubicon had already been crossed by 2012, with Russia widely believed to be behind the cyberattacks against Georgia in 2008 and in light of the Obama Administration’s admission that it played a role in the Stuxnet attack against Iranian nuclear facilities.⁸¹ Seen from this angle, overtures to “network defense and response to cyberattacks” had zero chance of adoption in Dubai, and they weren’t.⁸² Beyond these concerns, there was a laundry list of many items with potentially very big implications. Take, for example, the draft of Article 8 A just discussed. Beyond the questions of network security, it started innocently enough by referring to “confidence and security” and the need to garner trust in online spaces, but then followed up with a list of proposals about network security, data retention, data protection, fraud and spam that appear to have been anything but innocent. Russia spearheaded the proposal, with support from China. The latter tells us in the notes accompanying the proposals that new tools and rules are needed to: … protect the security of ICT infrastructure, misuse of ICTs, respect and protection of user information, build a fair, secure and trustworthy cyberspace … [with] new articles on network security in the ITRs.⁸³

There was also a list of other items included in the proposed new Article 8 A that aimed to deal with child online protection, fraud, user identity, and so on. One by one, these measures seemed reasonable, and most countries were already dealing with them on their own and often in cooperation with one another.⁸⁴ Several other measures were less benign, however. For one, the issue of anonymity and privacy was implicated by proposals that would have required subscribers to telecommunications services to have a “real identity.” That comported well with laws in countries like China that require people’s online identity to be tied to their “real-name” identity but given that identifiability is the first step to regulating behaviour, the proposal was a concern. ISOC, for instance, condemned the proposal for requiring carriers to take a “very active and inappropriate role

 Congressional Research Service, “Information Warfare and Cyberwar”; International Telecommunication Union, “Anticipated Final Draft of the Future ITRs,” Art. 8 A.  Broad, Markoff and Sanger, “Isreali Test on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay.”  International Telecommunication Union, “Anticipated Final Draft of the Future ITRs,” Art. 8 A.1.  International Telecommunication Union, “Anticipated Final Draft of the Future ITRs.”  International Telecommunication Union, Art. 3.6, 6.10, 8 A.7, 8 A.8.

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in patrolling newly defined standards of behaviour on telecommunication and internet networks and in services.”⁸⁵ Other proposals were cast as furthering privacy values by limiting data collection, retention and disclosure by telecommunication operators but were immediately hemmed in by the inviolate nature of the national security norms described above.⁸⁶ Events since the 2012 WCIT, including in liberal democracies, reinforce the need to reign in governments’ strong inclination to apply extensive surveillance and security measures to the internet but rather than offering anything that would have helped in that regard, the proposed changes to the ITRs increased pressure on telecommunications providers and ISPs to maximize rather than minimize the amount of personal data they collect, retain and disclose to state authorities. Ultimately, however, those proposals were also dropped. There were two proposals, however that appeared to further the goal of internet content regulation. The first of these seemed innocent enough but was construed by critics as anything but: a proposed addition to the ITRs that would urge countries to adopt “national [anti-spam] legislation,” “to cooperate to take actions to counter spam,” and “to exchange information on national findings/actions to counter spam.”⁸⁷ Many critics saw this as the thin edge of a wedge leading to greater internet content regulation, but this hardly seemed to fit the case. For one, recommendations were made to limit this prospect by explicitly excluding “meaningful … information of any type.”⁸⁸ Also consider the fact that Australia, Canada, China, South Africa, the US, twenty-eight members of the EU, and many countries in the Americas and APEC regions have worked on similar such measures—individually and collectively—since 2004, and with much help from the OECD and ITU (and in cooperation with telecommunications operators in each country). While few concerns have been raised about these efforts, the ITU’s critics were apoplectic, asserting that the proposal to regulate spam via the ITRs was a prelude to a free speech catastrophe. Australia, Canada, Portugal and the United States, among others, all opposed the proposal. Ultimately, this proposal was dropped as well.⁸⁹

 Internet Society, “CWG-WCIT12 Contribution. Internet Society Comment on the WCIT Preparations,” 6.  International Telecommunication Union, “Anticipated Final Draft of the Future ITRs,” Art. 3.6, 8 A.1, 8 A.3.  International Telecommunication Union, Art. 8b; also see Art. 2.13, 4.3a, 8 A.5, 8B.  International Telecommunication Union, Art. 2.13.  International Telecommunication Union, Art. 8.

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While criticism of the “anti-spam” measure seemed misplaced, other proposals justifiably set-off alarm bells from this author’s point of view and some of the civil society groups that did try to take part in the 2012 WCIT as much as they could. Indeed, ISOC, for instance, identified a proposal to add a new section to the ITRs, Article 8 A, that seemed to approve of internet content regulation. The worst examples of this came in two places in the proposed new Article 8 A.4 put forward by Russia. The first example appears in a passage that reaffirms people’s right to use international telecommunications services but then clips that right by adding the caveat: “except in cases where … [they] are used [to] … interfer[e] in the internal affairs or undermin[e] the sovereignty, national security, territorial integrity and public safety of other states.”⁹⁰ In the next clause, a proposed new measure would have trumped people’s right to communicate when telecommunications-internet facilities were used “to divulge information of a sensitive nature.”⁹¹ The idea that the “sensitive nature” of information could be the criteria against which the right to communicate would be set has no basis in free speech philosophy and would have given nation states free reign to crackdown on whistle-blowers.⁹² Like each of the other proposals just reviewed, this one was also dead-on-arrival.

6.5 Concluding Thoughts on the ITU and Global Internet Governance in Dark Times So, what to make of the outcomes of the 2012 WCIT and the future prospects for the ITU? In some ways, the vocal opposition and the “revolt of the 55 countries” scuttled efforts to adopt significant changes to the ITRs. Indeed, as the ITU itself reacted to the opposition, it took on a defensive stance that meant not much of substance was added to the ITRs, for better and for worse. Some modest achievements were obtained, however, and more than a few disastrous steps averted. On the positive side of the ledger, by expanding Article 9’s “special arrangements” measures, the 2012 WCIT bolstered efforts to foster competitive markets. This also furthered the construction of IXPs. ETNO’s “pay-to-play” model of the internet was also rejected and while this decision hardly turned on the issue of common carriage (net neutrality), the result at

 International Telecommunication Union, Art. 8 A.4.  International Telecommunication Union, Art. 8 A.4.  Benkler, “WikiLeaks and the Protect-IP Act.”

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least did not damage that value. On the opposite side of the ledger, however, the failure to adopt the limited anti-monopoly and consumer bill of rights proposals indicates that market fundamentalism is still alive and well. This comports well with the historical account provided in this chapter showing that the ITU came to terms with private interests and “the market” a long time ago. With respect to other allegations made by the ITU’s critics, however, there really was no new threat of a global internet tax on the horizon in Dubai. Assertions that a proposal to regulate spam opened the door to internet content regulation also seemed far-fetched. Regardless, it too was rejected. Other proposed changes, however, were terrible: i. e. the call for a “real ID” policy, others that harmed privacy in the name of advancing it, and others that would have sacrificed people’s communication rights on the altar of national security. None of these illiberal proposals, however, were adopted. At the end of the day, however, even had the most repressive of the proposed changes to the ITRs been approved, this would not have bound the whole world to a single dystopic internet model. It would, however, have blessed the ongoing efforts of individual countries to build their own closed national Web 3.0 internet spaces. In fact, Russia, China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and so on were already barreling down that path, building semi-autonomous, national Web 3.0 spaces on the basis of (1) the systematic use of filtering and blocking to deny access to restricted websites; (2) national laws that give such methods an explicit legal footing while fostering national champions who take on roles assigned to them by the state, and (3) state-driven internet-media-communication campaigns (propaganda) that flood the public sphere with government-sanctioned viewpoints.⁹³ Anglo-European countries have taken some such steps too, albeit only to a degree and in a manner fundamentally different than the countries just listed. Illiberal proposals, however, did threaten to add a fourth layer–international norms steeped in 19th Century views of state security, and this would have been a new departure—but they were rejected. While critics might want to claim victory for some of these outcomes, such a claim is undercut by the fact that their charges were typically so historically inaccurate and laced with hyperbole that it was hard to distinguish when they were “crying wolf” from the clear-cut cases like those just noted when the wolf really was at the door. Instead of giving them credit for much, the worst proposals are probably better seen as having collapsed because the ITU’s normative compass itself is rooted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and because its interests in the Internet Governance Forum, Internet Protocol manage-

 Diebert and Rohozinski, “Control and Subversion in Russian Cyberspace.”

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ment, the promotion of IXPs, spectrum policy, and so on, means that it also has a material stake in steering clear of measures that undermine its legitimacy, and thus its future. All of this leaves us with an unanswered question: since the most odious proposals were rejected, why did fifty-five countries refuse to sign the latest ITRs? Given the rhetoric of the time about “internet freedom” and the supposedly more democratic multi-stakeholder model of internet governance, perhaps they thought that condemning the WCIT might be a good way to finish what most of the same countries had started in the 1990s by pushing power away from the ITU to the WTO and the multi-stakeholder model. In addition, the ITU failed to build legitimacy amongst a wider constituency despite having made strides in the direction as it engaged more with civil society groups and academics. However, going into the WCIT in Dubai, the Centre for Democracy and Technology and thirty-one other groups wrote a highly critical letter to ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré challenging the ITU and its members’ delegations to open up the review of the ITRs to much wider public consultation, thereby indicating that whatever steps the Union had taken were not enough. A Wikileaks-style site was also set up to disclose documents that had been leaked to it by ITU insiders, revealing many more documents far sooner than would likely have otherwise been the case, and one that seemed to catch the ITU flatfooted.⁹⁴ These criticisms—explicit in the CDT letter, and implicit in the WCITleaks site—also underscored the view that, despite the change it has embraced over the past decadeand-a-half, the ITU was still taking a constrained and, essentially, technocratic view toward public participation and input in its affairs. In addition, while the civil society groups remained relatively weak at the ITU, it is also likely that the countries for whom the ITU’s multilateral model has the greatest appeal as an alternative to the perceived hegemony of the US and other capitalist democracies over the internet—e. g. China, Russia, Turkey, etc.—were becoming more assertive as their own semi-autonomous national Web 3.0 model became more firmly entrenched. Moreover, with the American-based internet giants having escaped significant regulation at the time, they, and Google especially, likely feared the possibility that the ITU might reinforce the viability of alternative approaches to internet governance. That prospect from their perspective, we can speculate, had to be stopped dead in its tracks. Finally, we might also wonder if the “revolt-of-of-the-55” was not so much a triumph of liberalism over illiberalism but of market fundamentalism over the

 WCITLeaks.org, “Bringing Transparency to the ITU”; Hill, The New International Telecommunications Regulations and the Internet, 65 – 67.

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thin norms of liberal internationalism imperfectly embodied by the ITU since its inception. In this regard, while there is much to offer within the multilateral approach to liberal capitalist internationalism laid down first in the 19th Century, and embodied par excellence in the ITU—the world’s first institution of this kind—little effort was made by the “group of 55” to reform it in ways that might actually make it fit for purpose in the “internet age.” Instead, where rational discourse about possible futures was needed, a campaign of critics and their ill-informed views stole the spotlight, leaving little room to talk about what reforming the ITU might actually look like, so as to shake off its undeniable layers of technocratic and corporate elitism. If that was the case, then this was a missed opportunity because, now more than ever, it might be better to build upon the legacy of liberal internationalism laid down in the late-19th and 20th centuries, and exemplified by the ITU, rather than burning it all down. If such a reversal was to occur, then the future of the ITU could indeed be bright.

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United States Energy and Commerce Committee. “International Proposals to Regulate the Internet-Transcripts.” Author, May 31, 2012. Available: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/ CHRG-112hhrg79558/pdf/CHRG-112hhrg79558.pdf. WCITLeaks.org. “Bringing Transparency to the ITU,” August 30, 2018. http://wcitleaks.org. Weller, Dennis, and Bill Woodcock. “Internet Exchange: Market Developments and Policy Changes.” Paris: OECD, 2012. Available: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/science-and-tech nology/oecd-digital-economy-papers_20716826. Wentworth, Sally. “Testimony to the Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing, ‘International Proposals to Regulate the Internet’,” May 31, 2012. Available: https://archivesenergy commerce.house.gov/sites/republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/files/Hearings/CT/ 20120531/HHRG-112-IF16-WState-WentworthS-20120531.pdf. Winseck, Dwayne. “The Geopolitical Economy of the Global Internet Infrastructure.” Journal of Information Policy, vol. 7 (2017): 228 – 67. Winseck, Dwayne, and Robert Pike. Communications and Empire: Media, Markets, and Globalization, 1860 – 1930. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.

Part II ITU as an Arena of Techno-Diplomatic Negotiations for Emerging Technologies

Simone Fari*

7 Telegraphic Diplomacy From the Origins to the Formative Years of the ITU, 1849 – 1875¹ 7.1 Introduction Narrative accounts of the formation of the International Telegraph Union (ITU) often convey a sense of teleological progress from the emergence of a new technology – in this case, of electric telegraphy in particular and telecommunications in general – to the creation of an institution that regulated the international use of this technology in large parts of the world. Today, the predominant historiographical perspective regards the ITU as a technical expert organization; this is the functionalist interpretation, using the International Relations Studies terminology.² In this chapter, I argue that, while the ITU traditionally represented a forum for technical exchanges between experts, its approach was state-centred, and its core features and regulations were set by diplomats representing the interests of their countries. In other words, the rationalist approach – as defined in International Relations Studies – matters.³ Telegraphic multilateralism was born as a technical need: communications could overcome any border, but to do it, people had to use the same machine, the same language, the same code and the same protocols. In other words, international telegraphy needed technological and normative standardization. For this reason, at the beginnings of the 1850s, some countries started signing international agreements and, for the same reason, many scholars wonder if telegraphic multilateralism and the ITU, its successor, have a technocratic nature. In this paper, following the Collins English Dictionary definition, technocracy is

* University of Granada, Spain  This paper is largely based on the elaboration of the primary and the secondary sources studied and partially explained in the book Fari, The Formative Years. The chapter is a re-interpretation of this previous study on the field.  Some examples of the dominant approach: Grossi, “Le Rôle International”; Grossi, “Technologie et Diplomatie Suisse”; Horrenberger, “L’Union Internationale”; Laborie, “Globalizing the Telegraph”; Cowhey, “The International Telecommunications Regime”; Lyall, International communications.  For a general overview of functionalist and rationalist interpretations, see Weiss, “Institutionalised Cooperation.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-008

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conceived as “a theory or system of society to which government is controlled by scientists, engineers, and other experts.” Generally, the supporter of technocratic nature of the ITU do not consider the evolution of telegraphic multilateralism and, in particular, the twenty-five years that separated the first agreements and the foundation of the ITU in 1865. In the 1850s, only the United Kingdom and the United States left the management of telegraph service in the hands of private companies. All other countries directly managed telegraph service as a public monopoly. Thus, international telegraph standardization was foremost a “national problem” that had to be solved by national governments through their representatives. Section 1 describes how the evolution of telegraphic multilateralism in the pre-ITU period (1848 – 1865) established some long-running features that would influence the structure and the content of the ITU. Only three of the 61 articles of the 1865 ITU constitutive Convention – the arrival point of telegraphic multilateralism – were completely new, while the other articles were taken from previous international agreements. In other words, in 1865, the ITU represented a new container for old content. Nevertheless, the three new articles posed three new challenges for telegraphic multilateralism, as explained in section 2. During the first decade (1865 – 1875), two bodies characterized the structure of the ITU: the conferences, a periodic body; and the Bureau International des Administrations Télégraphiques (simply Bureau hereafter), a permanent body. Without any doubts, the formal members of the ITU were the nation-states, but who represented them during the conferences? Until 1875, ITU conference participants were the plenipotentiary representatives of ITU state members, but, usually, they were also the chiefs of their respective national telegraph services. In other words, the national representatives were both diplomats and technical experts. Besides, since 1871, the participation of submarine companies was allowed without voting rights. What was the common denominator among the diplomats representing the nation-states and the managers representing the private companies? As explained in section 3, the defence of a dominant market position and the consequent business interests were really the gravity centre of the ITU, and technology was not. Indeed, the concluding section 4 explains the marginal role of technological issues during the conference debates, while tariffs and normative homogenization took the lion’s share. The interpretation showed here is neither rationalist nor functionalist. On one hand, I support the strong role played by nation-states in the consolidation of the ITU’s structure (rationalist interpretation), but, on the other hand, I recognize the role played by technical needs at the very beginning of telegraphic multilateralism (functionalist interpretation). Nevertheless, I argue that the stronger

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forces shaping the ITU’s structure and content until 1914 were related to liberal capitalism, a principle shared and promoted by national governments and private companies.

7.2 The Telegraph Multilateralism 1848 – 1865 The European telegraph service became available to the public between the late 1840s and the mid-1850s.⁴ It may seem surprising, however, that the first international treaties go back to 1848 – 49, and in many cases actually anticipate the setting up of a national telegraph service.⁵ Many ITU history scholars identify the Treaty of Vienna, signed between Prussia and Austria on 3 October 1849, as the first international agreement in telegraphy.⁶ From then until the mid-1850s, Austria, Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria all signed bilateral agreements to increase access to communication. These overlapping bilateral treaties ignoring network relations were addressed with the creation of the Austro-German Telegraph Union (AGTU) on 25 July 1850.⁷ Initially formed by this nucleus of nations, it was first expanded to include the other German states linked telegraphically and politically to Prussia, and then to all states which came more generally into Austria’s area of political influence (the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the duchies of Modena/Reggio Emilia and Parma/Piacenza, as well as the Papal States).⁸ Between 1850 and 1854, when the international telegraph network was growing by leaps and bounds, all the main European states felt the impelling need to join, as witnessed by the countless bilateral treaties recorded between neighbouring states. Nevertheless, as emerged in the case of the German-speaking network, bilateral agreements by themselves were not enough to keep pace with the rapid expansion, which called for multilateral regulations and norms simultaneously recognized by a number of states.⁹ And in fact, already in Paris in

 Huurdeman, The Worldwide History of Telecommunications, 48 – 85.  On the speed of the development of international telegraphy, see: Clark, International Communications, 90 – 91.  Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 13; Reindl, Der Deutsch-Österreichische Telegraphenverein; Wobring, “Die Integration der europäischen.”  Neumann, Recueil des Traités et Conventions, 196 – 243.  The only exception was Holland, which joined AGTU because of close commercial and economic ties with the Austro-Germanic area. L’Union Télégraphique Internationale, 3.  Scholars of international relations have always debated the precise definition of multilateralism. In this study, it is used in its widest and most usual sense, as an agreement between three or more states. For an interesting discussion, see Ruggie, Multilateralism Matters.

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1852, France, Belgium and Prussia as representative of AGTU had met to sign a telegraph convention. When the delegates from Belgium, France and Prussia, again representing AGTU, met in Berlin to renew the Paris Convention, the implicit understanding was to create a common area for telegraph exchange. The basis of the project was the approval of lower telegraph tariffs, applicable over all territories belonging to the signees.¹⁰ Prussia, however, did not approve of the change, pushing the non-AGTU members (Belgium, France, Piedmont, Spain and Switzerland) to meet in Paris in December 1855 to create the Western Europe Telegraph Union (WETU).¹¹ The two unions were far closer in spirit than is held by much literature,¹² as is also witnessed by the constant iteration of identical norms in the treaties they turned out. The 1855 Paris Convention, for example, was a clone of the Berlin Treaty of June of the same year between Belgium, France and Prussia, which was, in turn, faithfully based on AGTU’s most recent version. Yet in spite of the substantial homogeneity in regulations, it has to be said that the myriad of bilateral and multilateral agreements formed what has appropriately been called a “diplomatic imbroglio.”¹³ This is because the only way to regulate telegraph communications in Europe was by simultaneously applying bilateral treaties with neighbours and mixed multilateral agreements (e. g. those between France, Belgium and Prussia), as well as the conventions of the particular union of which the state was a member. It was the Swiss government that first supported the invitation of AGTU countries to the WETU Conference in Turin, 1857.¹⁴ This conference was a first attempt to merge the two telegraph unions, led by the Swiss government promot-

 Légation de France en Suisse à le président de la Confédération Suisse docteur Furrer, 18 octobre 1855, in Archive Fédérale Berne, (afterwards AF), Fond E 52, Archive-Nr. 440, Band nr. 2.  “Une sorte d’union télégraphiques entre la Belgique, l’Espagne, la France, la Sardaigne et la Suisse, union télégraphique à laquelle, nous le savons déjà, se ralliera bientôt la Toscane par un acte d’adhésion, et dans laquelle seront admis successivement tous les États de l’Europe qui voudront en faire partie.” Paris International Conference sitting, 5 décembre 1855, in AF, Fond E 52, Archive-Nr. 440, Band nr. 2.  A part of literature presented AGTU and WETU as contrasting organizations: Carré, “Archéologie d’une Europe des télécommunications”; Codding and Rutkowski, The International Telecommunication Union; Descalzi, “Creación y desarrollo,” 388 – 389; Meyer, L’Union International des Télécommunication, 2– 3.  The expression “imbroglio diplomatique” is borrowed from Durand Barthez, Union Internationale des Télécommunications, 33.  Légation de S.M. Le Roi de Sardaigne en Suisse à Monsieur Fornerod président de la Confédération, Berne 30 novembre 1856, in AF, Fond E 52, Archive. Nr. 441.

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ing its neutral diplomatic position. Austria did not take part because of the rising tension with Piedmont (the Second Italian War of Independence would break out within two years),¹⁵ thereby forcing a change in strategy. The decision was taken to site the following conference in Berne – a second attempt to merge the rules of the two unions – only after holding the Brussels mixed meeting some months earlier, involving Belgium, France and Prussia (June 1858). It can therefore be deduced that, once Swiss diplomacy had realized it was impossible to get Austria to take part directly in a wider union, it decided to go ahead with the process of standardizing the norms of the two existing unions. The Berne Convention was therefore almost a carbon copy of Brussels and, to ratify conditions leading to a substantial standardization of telegraph regulations, Switzerland organized yet a third conference at Friedrichshafen with AGTU members.¹⁶ So, by 1858, a European telegraph space had been effectively organized, though without any formal consecration.¹⁷ There were, however, two further obstacles to overcome before the Unions could come together. The first was that Piedmont and Austria were enemies in the Italian Wars of Independence, while the second was the pressure applied by the WETU countries to adopt a more economical tariff system.¹⁸ Tariffs were, indeed, to remain a delicate subject even after the Paris Convention, while the problem of Austria’s isolation was resolved diplomatically by Switzerland, which intervened directly with France to get Austria invited to the 1865 Paris event.¹⁹ Austria’s participation

 The Swiss Post Department had a clear idea of why the negotiations failed: “Nous avons bien de croire que les raisons qui ont empêché l’Autriche d’accéder à l’invitation de la Sardaigne étaient d’une nature essentiellement politique et resalaient de la situation tendue qui existait entre les deux pays,” Département des Postes et des Travaux publics de la Confédération Suisse au Conseil fédéral Suisse, Berne 17 août 1857, in AF, Fond E 52, Archive. Nr. 443, Band nr. 2.  Balbi et al., “Bringing together the two large electric currents that divided Europe.”  Explicit here are the words of the Journal Télégraphique: “La Convention de Paris [1865] n’a donc fait que consacrer dans la forme et avec un grand progrès de rédaction ce qui avait été fondé en pratique pour les traités de 1858.” They refer to the Brussels and Berne Conventions, which both took place in 1858, in the footnote to the article “Le traité de l’Union générale des postes et la Convention internationale des télégraphes,” in Journal Télégraphique, vol. 35 (1874): 575 – 580.  Van der Herten, Bart, and Verhoest, “La contribution belge”; Saveney, “La télégraphie internationale.”  Le Département des Postes Naeff au Conseil Fédérale, 16 juillet 1864, AF, Fond E52, Archive nr. 502; Brunner à Curchod, 11 août 1864, AF, Fond E52, Archive nr. 502 ; Curchod à Brunner, lettre confidentiel, 26 septembre 1864, AF, Fond E52, Archive nr. 502; Conseil Fédéral à Kern, 18 novembre 1864, AF, Fond E52, Archive nr. 502; Kern à CF, 28 novembre 1864, AF, Fond E52, Archive nr. 502; AF, Fond E52, Archive nr. 502, Brunner à Curchod, 9 décembre 1864. For a summary of the entire episode, see: Balbi et al., Network Neutrality, 88 – 97.

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in turn opened the doors of the Union to Turkey and Russia, allowing the network to expand eastwards, which proved essential for future links with the possessions in Asia. So, the 1865 Paris Conference brought the journey to an end by establishing the formal constitution of a telegraph union of European states. To sum up, between 1848 and 1865, political and diplomatic forces led the telegraphic multilateralism. The nature and the structure of the different kinds of agreements and unions were not determined by the technical skills of many representatives, most of whom were the chiefs of their respective national telegraphs. On the contrary, how were technicians involved in the elaboration of ITU norms after all?

7.3 Old Contents and New Challenges On a structural level, the ITU was profoundly different from its two predecessors because it was born as a single organization mandated to deal with the international telegraph service. On a theoretical level at least, the scale of the new union was to be worldwide, because it was born with the aim of including all the countries desiring to join, and without any form of discrimination. Substantially then, thanks mainly to the post-1865 presence of Russia and Turkey, the ITU embraced a far wider network than AGTU and WETU. But, though the container was indeed much bigger and had an immense potential for expansion, its organizational structures and regulations were tied to what had been put into practice over the previous twenty years. The norms contained in the Paris Convention were, however, the most apparent affirmation of how the past was taken on board. Only three of the 61 articles (1, 57 and 61) were completely new. First of all, the Paris Convention took over the five basic principles of international telegraph communication sanctioned by the first Vienna Convention in 1849:²⁰ 1) freedom of correspondence for all citizens;²¹ 2) the right to confidential correspondence;²² 3) the right of all coun-

 Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 13.  “Les Hautes Parties contractantes reconnaissent à toutes personnes le droit de correspondre au moyen des télégraphes internationaux,” art. 4, Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865.  “Elles s’engagent à prendre toutes les dispositions nécessaires pour assurer le secret des correspondances et leur bonne expédition,” art. 5, Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865. The subject of the privacy of correspondence is fundamental to all point-to-point communications and marks one of the substantial differences between telecommunications and one-to-

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tries to apply the norms only to international correspondence;²³ 4) the duty to suppress telegrams against public order and morality;²⁴ and 5) the right of every state to suspend international communications when and where deemed necessary.²⁵ As general principles, they answered the dual need of liberal regimes to respect the individual freedom of their citizens, and at the same time safeguard national sovereignty. The same Convention had also divided telegrams into three categories: 1) government business; 2) official service; and 3) private. Priority went to government telegrams, followed by those on official service, and private ones bringing up the rear.²⁶ The same regulation had already been adopted in all agreements after Vienna (1849).²⁷ Lastly, regarding technology, the Paris Conference called for standardization only in terms of adopting the Morse telegraph and code,²⁸ which had already been accepted as the international telegraph by AGTU in 1852 and by WETU three years later.²⁹ As we can easily understand, the norms established during the telegraphic multilateralism and consolidated in the Paris Convention were more the results of the political and ideological backgrounds of the time than the expression of a technical brainstorm. Nevertheless, the three innovations at Paris 1865 posed challenges for the future. Articles 1, 57 and 61 concerned functional aspects of the ITU: 1) technical standardization; 2) the need for a permanent body; and 3) relations with private

many mass media, which are based on the public nature of their communications. See Balbi and Kittler, “One-to-One and One-to-Many Dichotomy.”  “Également animés du désir d’assurer aux correspondances télégraphiques échangées entre leurs États respectifs les avantages d’un tarif simple et réduit, d’améliorer les conditions actuelles de la télégraphie internationale, et d’établir une entente permanente entre leurs États, tout en conservant leur liberté d’action pour les mesures qui n’intéressent point l’ensemble du service,” preamble to Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865.  “Les Hautes Parties contractantes se réservent la faculté d’arrêter la transmission de toute dépêche privée qui paraîtrait dangereuse pour la sécurité de l’État, ou qui serait contraire aux lois du pays, à l’ordre public ou aux bonnes mœurs, à charge d’en avertir immédiatement l’expéditeur,” art. 19 Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865.  “Chaque Gouvernement se réserve aussi la faculté de suspendre le service de la télégraphie internationale pour un temps indéterminé, s’il le juge nécessaire, soit d’une manière générale, soit seulement sur certaines lignes et pour certaines natures de correspondances, à charge d’en aviser immédiatement chacun des autres Gouvernements contractants,” art. 20, Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865.  Art. 7 & art. 11, Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865.  Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 13.  “L’appareil Morse reste provisoirement adopté pour le service des fils internationaux,” art. 3. Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865.  Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 13 – 20.

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companies. All three cases only gave rise to exploratory manoeuvres because the norms in themselves were intrinsically weak. Article 1 provided for ITU members to commit themselves “as far as possible” to laying wider diameter wires along international lines to guarantee a rapid and reliable service.³⁰ In the Convention project, it had been mandatory (all countries must adopt iron wire 5 mm in diameter), though the opposition of many delegates had it changed to being optional.³¹ Article 57 regulated the exchange of reciprocal communications regarding all modifications to the network.³² The intermediary was to have been the country which had organized the most recent conference, but the difficulties arising in the period 1865 – 1868 again brought to the fore the possibility of flanking the conferences with a permanent body.³³ Lastly, article 61 proposed extending the Convention norms to private companies working on members’ territories, guaranteeing a tariff reduction as compensation.³⁴ This meant private companies being accepted into the ITU only in a secondary capacity and having to abide by the various governmental decisions. As can be seen, all three norms were in the early stages, underscoring the need to regulate the area but at the same time revealing ITU’s functional limits.

 “Les Hautes Parties Contractantes s’engagent à affecter au service télégraphique international des fils spéciaux, en nombre suffisant pour assurer une rapide transmission des dépêches. […] Les villes entre lesquelles l’échange des correspondances est continu ou très actif seront successivement et autant que possible, reliés par des fils directs, de diamètre supérieur et dont le service demeura dégagée du travail des bureaux intermédiaires,” art. 1, Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865.  Verbaux de la 1ère Séance de la Commission des délégués spéciaux 4 mars 1865, in Documents de la Conférence Télégraphique Internationale de Paris, 115.  “Les Hautes Parties contractantes, afin d’assurer, par un exchange de communications régulières, la bonne administration de leur service commun, s’engagent à se transmettre réciproquement tous les documents relatifs à leur administration intérieure et à se communiquer tout perfectionnement qu’elles viendraient à y introduire,” art. 57, Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865.  The French had already proposed in Paris 1865 the creation of a permanent commission. Nevertheless, as in the case of the single tariff, the other delegates found it excessive. Verbaux de la 9ème Séance de la Commission des délégués spéciaux, 22 mars 1865 in Documents de la Conférence Télégraphique Internationale de Paris, 216 – 217.  “Les Hautes Parties contractantes s’engagent à imposer, autant que possible, les règles de la présent convention aux compagnies concessionnaires de lignes télégraphiques terrestres ou sous-marines, et à négocier avec les Compagnies existantes une réduction réciproque de tarifs, s’il y a lieu,” art. 61, Convention Télégraphique Internationale de Paris 1865.

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7.4 The Consolidation of ITU (1865 – 1875) 7.4.1 The Membership During the period 1865 – 1875, those classified as effective members of the ITU had joined by giving official notice of adhesion and signing the Convention, the main document drawn up at each conference. Since the Convention followed pre-ITU customs and had the standing of an international treaty, the Paris Convention was signed by the diplomatic delegates from all states present and then ratified by the national legislative bodies. The Convention’s status as an international treaty was contained in article 56, which provided for it to be reviewed by the diplomatic representatives of all the states meeting periodically by means of an international conference.³⁵ The article was left unaltered in the following Conventions of Vienna 1868³⁶ and Rome 1871,³⁷ but during the 1875 St. Petersburg Conference the decision was taken to approve a definitive version. The result was that, post-1875, no modifications were made to the Convention’s text, and only dispositions of an administrative nature, such as tariffs and regulations, were implemented. It also followed that those taking part were now the administrative representatives of the member states, and so had none of the plenipotentiary powers of diplomats.³⁸ Identifying sovereign states or administrations as union members was no mere question of terminology, but had extremely important practical implications. The right to vote in the conferences was strictly linked to a clear-cut definition of what a union member was. From 1865 to 1875, voting rights were grant-

 “La présente Convention sera soumise à des révisions périodiques, où toutes les Puissances qui y ont pris part seront représentées,” art. 56, Convention télégraphique internationale de Paris 1865.  “La présente Convention sera soumise à des révisions périodiques, où toutes les Puissances qui y ont pris part seront représentées,” art. 62, Convention télégraphique internationale de Vienne 1868.  “La présente Convention sera soumise à des révisions périodiques, où toutes les Puissances qui y ont pris part seront représentées,” art. 61, Convention télégraphique internationale de Rome 1872.  “Le tarif et le règlement prévus par les articles 10 et 13 sont annexés à la présente Convention. Ils ont la même valeur et entrent en vigueur en même temps qu’elle. Ils seront soumis à des révisions où tous les États qui ont pris part pourront se faire représenter. A cet effet, des Conférences administratives auront lieu périodiquement, chaque Conférence fixant elle-même le lieu et l’époque de la réunion suivante”; “ces Conférences sont composées des délégués représentant les Administrations des États contractants.” Art. 15 & art. 16, Convention télégraphique internationale de St. Pétersbourg 1875.

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ed each time at the opening of a conference, and at both Paris and Vienna each member country had the right to a single vote.³⁹ In Rome, however, Great Britain was given two votes, one for the home country and the other for British India.⁴⁰ In order to prevent other states with colonial possessions taking excessive advantage of multiple votes, the Russian organizers of St Petersburg 1875 suggested reforming the system.⁴¹ In particular, they proposed allocating extra votes according to the extent of telegraph networks, a provision that would obviously give an advantage to very big countries like Russia itself. The proposal was mediated by the Bureau, which submitted it to the opinion of the other administrations.⁴² An ample debate followed, from which there emerged both different projects on voting and different ideas on how an ITU member should be defined.⁴³ Generally speaking, those in favour of multiple votes could be defined as “functionalist” because they tended to consider the single telegraph administrations as ITU members, and therefore found it fitting to allocate votes in proportion to the size of the networks and the administrators’ capacity to run them. Some, like Russia, felt it was right to give votes according to the kilometres of lines,⁴⁴ while others like Italy would have preferred a criterion which took into account the quantity of international telegrams⁴⁵ or, like Spain, called for a complex system of diverse indicators, such as the number of offices, the sum of domestic and international telegrams, and the extent of the lines.⁴⁶ Those asking for a single vote could be defined as “rationalist” because they held that only sovereign states could be legitimately considered Union members. Several of them were consequently against colonies and private companies obtaining member status. As in many other cases, a process of mediation between the different opinions took place by way of voting. Initially, Curchod, the director of the Bureau, sent a confidential letter to the Russian Administration to give his opinion on modifications to the voting criterion at the conferences.⁴⁷ Louis Curchod was a Swiss engineer who, after a brief career (1852– 57) in the Swiss telegraph central administration, was appointed as director of Swiss telegraphs in 1857. As a

 Documents de la Conférence Télégraphique Internationale de Rome, 263.  Ibid., 263.  International Telecommunication Union (henceforth ITU)-Correspondance de Bureau (henceforth corr.), feuille n. 29/1, 18 décembre 1873.  ITU-Corr., feuille n. 29/2, 10 janvier 1873.  ITU-Corr., dossier n. 29, 1873.  ITU-Corr., feuille n. 29/1, 18 décembre 1873.  ITU-Corr., feuille n. 29/17, 6 juin 1873.  ITU-Corr., feuille n. 29/12, 27 février 1873.  ITU-Corr., feuille n. 29/22, 11 juillet 1873.

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high officer and after, as director of Swiss telegraphs, he participated at many of the pre-ITU conferences. He was elected director of the Bureau in 1868, resigning the year after for economic reasons. After a brief period as secretary of a private cable company, he returned as the head of the Bureau in 1871 and held the position until his death in 1889. In spite of his technical background, Curchod could count on a long experience in telegraph multilateralism; for this reason, he was considered an authentic expert in telegraph diplomacy. Curchod held that it would be inappropriate to allocate more than one vote per state, but if the administrations taking part were favourable, the ruling would have to be applied in administrative and not diplomatic conferences. Therefore, Curchod’s idea was to hold a final diplomatic conference, in which it would be decided that following conferences would be administrative only.⁴⁸ The conclusion was to abandon the idea of multiple votes proposed by Italy, Russia and Spain and simply allocate one vote to each administration, while also approving a colonial vote. Colonial telegraph administrations were in fact considered separate entities, and as such had a right to take an active part in the conferences. This line was followed by the Bureau in drafting the project of the Convention⁴⁹ and, after thorough discussion, it was approved⁵⁰ and inserted in the St Petersburg Convention.⁵¹ The issue of the colonial vote and its affirmation after 1875 needs to be interpreted as a sign of the progressive changes in the political balance within the ITU. Once again, the episode revealed the priority of international policy over technical reasoning (the rationalist approach over the functionalist one). A further sign of the gradual shifting of political weight within the ITU was to be seen in the increasing numbers of private companies present, always

 “Le but qu’on se propose en donnant, dans les Conférences administratives, une voix délibérante à chaque administration distincte est de profiter de l’expérience et de lumières de chacune d’elles et surtout de les mettre à même de faire valoir leurs opinions,” ITU-Corr., feuille n. 29/25, 28 septembre 1873.  Project de Convention télégraphique internationale, in Documents de la Conférence Télégraphique Internationale de St Petersburg, 121– 128.  The subjects of the correspondence leading up to the drafting of the convention project anticipate the debate. The delegates defended more or less the same positions they had held in their correspondence with the International Bureau. See also ibid., 277– 287.  “Ces Conférences sont composées des délégués représentants les Administrations des États contractants. Dans les délibérations, chaque Administration a droit à une voix, sous réserve, s’il agit d’Administrations différentes d’un même Gouvernement, que la demande en ait été faite par voie diplomatique au Gouvernement du pays où doit se réunir la Conférence, avant la date fixée pour son ouverture, et que chacune d’entre elles ait une représentation spéciale et distincte,” art. 16, Convention télégraphique internationale de St Petersburg 1875.

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reined in by the ITU, which kept true to its original policy and insisted on only admitting sovereign states as full members.⁵² Yet, the ever-growing role of submarine cable companies in the construction of a global telegraph network meant that they could not be safely ignored.⁵³ At the Paris Conference 1865, one of the two Italian delegates, Giovanni Minotto (a high officer in the Italian Telegraphs), proposed introducing an amendment to the article on the norms of adhesion to the ITU (no. 59) to extend the right to private companies.⁵⁴ Followed by others, Julien Vinchent, the Belgian delegate, felt it was formally unacceptable and spoke against it.⁵⁵ Vinchent was the chief of Belgian Telegraphs, an engineer and, like Curchod, had participated at many of the pre-ITU conferences. Minotto also proposed imposing surcharges on companies not complying with the Convention’s international rules.⁵⁶ In this case too, Vinchent and the majority of the delegates disagreed and held it was inappropriate to use any kind of force against administrations that did not recognize the Convention.⁵⁷ On the contrary,

 The 1858 Berne Conference allowed private companies to join the convention with the proviso that they were represented by a sovereign state during proceedings. “Les compagnies télégraphiques seront également admises sur leur demande à adhérer à la Convention. Dans ce cas elles ce poussant ce faire représenter à la Conférence par les délégués de l’un des États Contractants à leur choix,” art. 1, Convention Télégraphique de Berne 1858.  For a parallel study on the role of private companies within the ITU, see McCormick, “Private sector influence.”  “Sur ce même article 59, M. le Délégué de l’Italie propose un nouvel amendement. Il demande qu’on substitue au premier et au troisième paragraphe de l’article 59 les deux paragraphes suivants : “Les compagnies concessionnaires de lignes télégraphiques seront admises à adhérer à la présente Convention. Cette adhésion emportera, de plein droit, accession à toutes les clauses et admission à tous les avantages stipulés par la présente Convention ; mais le tarif de l’article 30 ne s’appliquera aux correspondances des adhérents que s’ils adoptent des taxes proportionnelles sur leurs lignes,” Documents de la Conférence Télégraphique Internationale de St Petersburg, 218.  “M. Vinchent répond à M. le Délégué de l’Italie qu’en ce qui touche puisse être admise à adhérer à une convention internationale. Il ne voit pas d’ailleurs la difficulté dont M. le Chevalier de Minotto se préoccupe, les différents États s’étant en général réservé le droit d’imposer à leurs concessionnaires les dispositions réglementaires du service international,” ibid., 219.  “M. le Délégué de l’Italie avait proposé d’établir d’avance les conditions qui seraient faites par les États signataires de la Convention aux États non adhérents et aux compagnies privées qui refuseraient d’en accepter les clauses : les taxes fixées par la Convention ne seraient pas applicables à la correspondance de ces États et de ces compagnies, et la Convention déterminerait la quotité des surtaxe dont leur correspondance serait frappée,” ibid., 218.  “M. Vinchent, répondant par avance à la proposition corrélative que M. de Minotto a reportée sur l’article 60, se déclare d’ailleurs formellement opposé à l’insertion de toute mesure coercitive à l’égard des compagnies. Il signale les graves embarras que l’on pourrait se créer dans l’avenir,

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the 1872 Rome Conference ended on an extremely ambivalent note. Article 64 indeed openly favoured the submarine cable companies over the private land companies, which were obliged to accept the Convention if they operated within a member state. And yet, the submarine cable companies had manifested their desire not to be subject to the Convention’s rules. A prelude, indeed, to a new balance of power between state administrations and private companies. During the four years between the conferences in Rome and St Petersburg, the submarine cable companies increased considerably in importance and industrial concentration, thanks above all to British businessman John Pender, who took over and merged many of these companies.⁵⁸ Acquiring and preserving a monopoly over a given area therefore became an element of sharing and cohesion between public administrations and submarine companies.⁵⁹ In fact, the battle-line between private and government interests in Rome seemed to almost fade away in St Petersburg. There was only one communication against private companies, but in this case too, German delegate Heinrich von Stephan, chief of the postal-telegraphic service and one of the founders of the Universal Postal Union in 1874, pointed to defending monopolies both for governments and private cable companies, comparing the latter to some beautiful girls.⁶⁰ Furthermore, when Jules Despecher, delegate for the Pender company

en présence de compagnies qui seraient dans l’impossibilité réelle d’abaisser leurs tarifs,” ibid., 219.  Hugill, Global Communications since 1844, 25 – 52.  Müller-Pohl, “Working the Nation State.”  “Par un heureux emprunt des expressions de la littérature française classique, l’on a dernièrement ici comparé avec beaucoup d’esprit les Compagnies des câbles à des belles. M. Stephan s’associe de grand cœur à cette comparaison, qui lui permet de se prévaloir d’un fait, que personne ne voudra contester : c’est que le cœur de l’homme a toujours un faible pour les belles et il prend la liberté de rappeler au souvenir de l’assemblée que dans la présente Conférence, les représentants des États ont bien montré qu’ils ne faisaient point exception à cette loi universelle à la quelle tout le sexe masculin est soumis. Mais, une des qualités principales de la beauté, un de ses attraits mystérieux, réside dans la rareté. Maintenant, M. Stephan le demande, est-ce que les Compagnies n’ont pas un peu perdu de cet attrait de la rareté ? Et cependant, on en veut toujours davantage! Les chercheurs de concessions de nouveaux câbles poursuivent les Gouvernements; c’est ce que tous les Directeurs généraux des télégraphes réunis dans cette enceinte reconnaîtront unanimement, à la seule exception de leur collègue de la Suisse, puisque le territoire helvétique ne touche pas à la mer; ce qui est, dans le cas présent, un véritable avantage. […] Si des conjonctions tellement accidentelles et fragiles peuvent amener de tels résultats, il faut bien avouer qu’un système qui les provoque ne correspond plus aux rapports existants à notre époque. Car voici ce qui peut arriver encore. Il se produit une rupture du câble, et tout-àcoup la masse entière des télégrammes se précipite sur les lignes du pays qui offre l’intermédiaire naturel et dont la voie est réellement la plus courte. L’Administration de ce pays, à qui ce

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Eastern Telegraph, declared his desire to join the Convention, he asked it to extend to private companies the anti-dumping norm, which had for many years protected state administrations from competition. His proposal was seconded by James Anderson,⁶¹ a highly esteemed expert in the economy of communications. Anderson held that reducing international tariffs was detrimental in that it would not produce the corresponding increase in traffic that had happened with the domestic service.⁶² Vinchent backed Despecher by holding that the anti-dumping law was extended automatically to all ITU members, so that signing the St Petersburg Convention meant automatically accepting it.⁶³ Despecher then confirmed Eastern Telegraph’s adherence, and implicitly that of the submarine cable companies, to the “great telegraph family.”⁶⁴ Using the anti-dumping norm to defend the monopoly turned out to be sufficient to unify the aims of

travail avait été tout-à-fait enlevé par la voie détournée, n’a plus le nombre suffisant de fils et d’employés à sa disposition, et pourtant elle doit faire face à cet encombrement subit qui se présente résulte évidemment des perturbations dans son service régulier. Trouve-t-on juste de détourner le transit entier d’un pays qui constitue la route directe? Trouve-t-on équitable qu’il doive se contenter du rôle indigne de pis-aller qu’on lui impose? M. Stephan pense que le raison et plus encore le sentiment des membres de cette assemblée ne leur permettront pas de répondre à ces questions autrement que par un non,” Documents de la Conférence télégraphique internationale de St. Petersburg, 495 – 497.  “L’expérience a établi en télégraphie deux axiomes qu’on ne devrait jamais perdre de vue, surtout dans les questions de concurrence entre exploitations privées. Le premier, c’est que toute réduction de tarif a pour résultat immédiat de réduire les recettes. Le second, généralement moins bien compris, c’est que les réductions n’ont pas sur le développement de la correspondance internationale ou s’il s’agit de la correspondance à l’intérieur d’un État ou d’une grande ville. Cette différence d’analogie existe à un plus haut degré encore pour la correspondance extra-européenne. Aucune augmentation très notable dans le nombre des dépêches ne peut résulter d’une réduction, d’autant moins que pour cette nature de correspondance la réduction ne peut jamais être que peu considérable relativement au total,” ibid., 556.  Anderson had already given an account of his convictions in Anderson, Statistics of Telegraphy.  “M. Vinchent explique qu’en se prononçant pour l’accession à la Convention. Il va sans dire que l’on comprend par là l’adoption complète de ses règles et de ses principes, en matière de tarification comme ailleurs. La disposition relative á la non-concurrence ne vise, il est vrai, que les changements de taxes introduits hors des Conférences pour des voies existantes; mais l’esprit de la Convention est évidemment que les mêmes principes servent de guide pour la fixation des tarifs des voies nouvelles,” Documents de la Conférence télégraphique internationale de St. Petersburg, 565.  “En faisant acte d’adhésion à St. Pétersbourg, les Compagnies vont entrer dans la grande famille télégraphique. Elles sentiment, dès lors, qu’une protection égale doit s’étendre sur tous les membres de la famille, et garantir les Sociétés privées come les États,” ibid.

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private companies and public administrations.⁶⁵ This unity of purpose may well be identified as a basic characteristic of the ITU, which led it to back an economic-managerial status quo in the telecommunications market.⁶⁶

7.4.2 The Delegates In the terms of the time, both the diplomats and administrators taking an active part in the conferences represented the telegraph administrations of the member states. Yet the terms leave many questions hanging: 1) Were the participants operating on behalf of their governments or were they abiding by criteria of general efficiency? And 2) Were they to consider themselves diplomats, technicians or simply managers? A couple of significant episodes give food for thought about the role of the delegates. In Rome 1871, Cyrus West Field, one of the main promoters of the first transatlantic cable along with Morse, wrote to the delegates and invited them to come to an agreement to stop cables being cut in times of war. Vinchent interpreted the common feeling when he answered that the ITU could only deal with administrative issues, not questions of international politics.⁶⁷ In the same way, in St Petersburg, when the chair announced that some inventors desired to present their prototypes, they were told that the conference did not deal with technological innovations.⁶⁸ Evidently, the delegates did not see themselves

 “Les modifications prévues au paragraphe 4 de l’article de la Convention devront avoir pour but et pour effet, non point de créer une concurrence de taxes entre les voies existantes, mais bien d’ouvrir aux public à taxes égales autant de voies que possible et les combinaisons nécessaires seront réglées de telle manière que les taxes terminales des Offices d’origine et de destination restent égales, quelle que soit la voie suivie,” Art. XIV, Règlement de service international, annexé à la Convention Télégraphique Internationale de St. Pétersbourg.  Cowhey, “The International Telecommunications Regime.”  “A cette occasion, M. Vinchent attire l’attention sérieuse de la Conférence sur la situation toute spéciale faite aux Administrations télégraphiques qui seules peut-être parmi tous les autres services publics, ont la faculté de traiter directement les questions internationales qui les intéressent le plus. Cette situation, il importe de ne pas la compromettre et, pour cela, il faut éviter de sortir du domaine purement administratif et de se lancer, sous forme de vœux ou autrement, dans des délibérations qui, par leur nature politique appartiennent à un autre ordre d’idées,” Documents de la Conférence Télégraphique Internationale de Rome, 247.  “M. le Président donne connaissance de deux communications qu’il a reçues, l’une d’un industriel belge recommandant un moteur destiné à remplacer les piles, et l’autre du sous-directeur à l’institut météorologique de Copenhague appelant l’attention de la Conférence sur un nouvel appareil rapide de son invention. Sur l’observation que la Conférence n’est pas une réunion de techniciens chargés de l’examen des inventions ou perfectionnements, le Bureau de la

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as either diplomats or technicians in the narrow sense, but more as in the role of government officials. At the St Petersburg Conference, there emerged a more precise definition of the conferences as “meetings of experts,” where experts were perceived as: “intelligent men, ready to be lit up by debating and to modify their opinion following the considerations that they hear being developed.”⁶⁹ Thus, in theory, they were telegraph managers, and as such were meant to give their professional opinions. Though this idea was widely shared, it was met with some highly articulate opposition. For example, according to Swiss delegate Bernhard Hammer: The concept of the Conference as a meeting of experts is, furthermore […] an incomplete concept, for there are the delegates and the first among them, who, while not being experts on telegraphs, have not fewer qualities for defending and upholding the interests of their countries with their words and votes.⁷⁰

These contrasting views of the conferences as meetings of experts on one side and government delegates on the other were aired and re-aired throughout the following sittings,⁷¹ right up to the point when Hammer questioned the very concept of administrative conferences: M. D’Amico said they were simply administrative conferences. But, in these conferences, the delegates will not only have to deal with questions of service where experience is precious, but also the interests of their countries, as in the discussions over tariffs.⁷²

présidence est invité à répondre à ces communications, en faisant connaître qu’il ne peut leur être donné suite,” Documents de la Conférence Télégraphique Internationale de St Petersburg, 561.  “Hommes intelligents, prêts à s’éclairer par la discussion et à modifier leur opinion suivant les qu’ils entendent développer,” ibid., 295.  “La conception de la Conférence comme une réunion d’experts, est, d’ailleurs […] une conception incomplète, car il y a des délégués, et lui-même tout le premier, qui, tout en n’étant pas des experts au point de vue télégraphique, n’en ont pas moins qualité pour défendre et soutenir les intérêts de leur pays par leur parole et par leurs votes,” ibid., 296.  “M. Brunner trouve que cette proposition ne répond pas à la conception des Conférences qui doivent être considérées comme des réunions d’experts. Il craint qu’une semblable innovation n’ait des conséquences fâcheuses et il voudrait connaître les motifs qui ont inspiré les auteurs de l’amendement. [M. Hammer] Quant à la conception de la Conférence comme une réunion d’experts, elle n’est point complètement juste, car les délégués n’apportent pas seulement le concours de leurs lumières, mais ils ont aussi la défense des intérêts qu’ils représente. Pour deux États, ces intérêts peuvent être d’une nature toute différente, tandis que pour deux Administrations d’un même État ils sont plus naturellement semblables,” ibid., 511– 512.  “M. D’Amico dit qu’il s’agit simplement de Conférences administratives. Mais dans ces Conférences les délégués n’auront pas seulement à s’occuper de questions de service où les expé-

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In reality, their role as experts also meant representing their governments. All the delegates were de facto top officials of their respective public administrations, and as such presumably great experts on the service they headed, as well as loyal servants to their governments’ briefs. Some of them, like Curchod or Vinchent, had a technical background as engineers, whereas others, like Ernesto D’Amico, chief of Italian Telegraphs, and Heinrich Stephan, had a cultural background in law. The attention to detail and precision with which delegates like Curchod, Vinchent, D’Amico and Charles Brunner, chief of Austrian telegraphs, took the word to improve technical and managerial aspects of the international service reveals by itself their high level of competence. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that they were very much creatures of their times and often moved in response to political briefs, which were always prioritized over technical matters. The tendency to defend one’s own government’s interests was clear in all the debating, though there were some incidents that made it emerge more sharply. When, in Vienna in 1868, Curchod was elected Bureau Secretary, and then in St Petersburg managed to put in the hands of the Bureau (and therefore his) the entire conference process for approving norms, it was obvious that he was following his government’s instructions. As were those aimed at giving Switzerland a position of prominence by means of an adroit use of its much-acclaimed neutrality.⁷³ In the same way, German delegate Colonel Theodore Meydam’s, a former engineer in the Prussian Army, spoiling for trouble and continuous communications on all matters in Rome 1872 were strategies designed to reflect Germany’s power after its recent unification. Then there is the more discreet case of the Italian delegates (Minotto and D’Amico), who between 1865 and 1875 followed their government’s brief attentively and promoted the interests of the submarine cable companies whose international lines crossed the peninsula and brought in a great deal of important revenue to the Italian coffers. The ambivalent role of the delegates must be taken into consideration in any analysis of the conventions, regulations and tariffs. Concerning the most fundamental issues (tariffs, private company membership, anti-dumping norms), the delegates followed to the letter the guidelines laid out by their governments, whereas in working out more technical and marginal norms, they relied mostly on their own managerial experience. To sum up, the ITU was certainly not a technocratic organization, but also not a completely rationalist one in the hands of national governments.

riences sont précieuses, mais aussi, comme dans la discussion des tarifs, des intérêts de leur pays.,” ibid., 513.  Fari, Balbi and Richeri, “The Bureaucratisation of the Telegraph Union.”

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7.5 Conclusive Remarks About the Roles of Technology and Capitalism On the one hand, specialist literature has concentrated its studies on the Telegraph Union as a supranational political organization, and has generally taken little notice of aspects concerning the standardization of the service.⁷⁴ On the other hand, as a first examination of primary sources shows, technical standardization appears to have been considered the least important of the Union’s main functions. For example, only two of the 63 articles of the 1865 Paris Convention concerned telegraph technology,⁷⁵ while most of the articles in the Convention and its regulations dealt with homogenizing general norms. The delegates appear to have been more at ease working on standardizing the rules for communication than delving into the technical means for its implementation. The fact that more space and time were taken up by the standardization of norms can be easily explained by the nature of the Union. As we have seen, the delegates drawing up and approving the conventions were mainly the heads of the individual national administrations dealing with the everyday running of their lines. So it is not surprising that they prioritized the standardization of general norms over the materials and technologies needed for transmitting and receiving international telegrams, in spite of their “technical” backgrounds (many of them had initially trained as engineers). The reasons behind the scarce importance attributed to technical standardization are also to be found in the technological level of the telegraphs of the time, which by the mid-sixties had almost all reached a high level of international standardization, with both the lines and the apparatus tending to converge on the models reputed to be most efficient.⁷⁶ Though issues over general norms took up the most space in the conventions and rules, more words were spent in the 1865 – 1875 conference debates on tariff uniformity than either standardizing general norms or technology.⁷⁷ The considerations determining the calculation of international charges were of utmost importance for two reasons: 1) the revenue from these public administrations went

 Some exceptions in this sense, though not specifically dealing with the ITU, are: Wenzlhuemer, “The History of Standardization”; Genschel and Werle, “From National Hierarchies”; Burtz and Hummel, “Standard Setting in International Telecommunications.”  Convention télégraphique internationale de Paris 1865.  Fari, “Financing Telegraph Infrastructure.”  See for example Paris 1865: Documents Diplomatiques de la Conférence Télégraphique Internationale de Paris, 143 – 210.

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to the state; and 2) the governments were responsible to their citizens, especially the business class,⁷⁸ for guaranteeing access to a public service at acceptable prices. It followed that a certain ambiguity was caused by the fact that ITU membership was only granted to states running the telegraph service. Their administrations were therefore in the position of both running the service and checking on how it was run. A further complication was that, while all states enjoyed an income from the international service, the needs of small countries in centrally strategic positions such as Belgium and Switzerland were totally different from those of great empires such as Russia and Turkey, which were enormous and straddled the margins of ITU territory. The differences were such that they brought about an ongoing dialogue, worked out compromises between the interests of the parties involved, and often gave rise to thought-provoking discussions, further enriched and complicated by the arrival of Great Britain and of private companies. Thus, the ITU’s tariff policy was the result of a far more complex process than agreeing over the standardization of both norms and technology. A major difference was that the tariff norms had not been handed down from the preITU Conventions, but were the fruit of debates and the compromises that emerged during the course of the conferences. In addition, the fact that the tariffs were generated through discourse and deliberation meant there was no regular, predefined course to follow. In this way, the policies they were theoretically following somehow got lost along the way. For example, in spite of all the talk about tariff reductions, international charges stayed at far higher levels than domestic charges until the Second World War. Then, while European tariffs seemed almost comatose, extra-European charges (mostly in the submarine companies’ hands) were rapidly simplified and considerably lowered by the ‘charge per word’ system. The multiple compromises between state administrations and private companies were the main reasons for the complexity of the tariff system and the notable contradictions it gave birth to. For example, the administrations defended the principle of free competition (the cheapest route), but at the same time created a cartel agreement (the anti-competition norm). They wanted to keep twenty-word telegrams in Europe, but, at the same time, payment by word for the extra-European area. They spoke for a gradual reduction in telegram prices, but, at the same time, regularly approved tariff tables with prices creeping up  In most of the European states during the period, the governments were nominated by parliaments elected by limited male suffrage excluding the lower classes. In almost all of Europe, therefore, the governments were the expression of the middle and upper classes, and government decisions were strongly influenced by their economic interests.

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between conferences. So, ITU tariff policy is emblematic of its compromising nature and shows the full complexity of governing political and economic dynamics in a state of continuous tension. In other words, we could claim that, concerning tariffs, the ITU was both a political arena and an antenna. Nevertheless, concerning the standardization (both technological and normative), the ITU was more a political arena – where national government strategies matter – than an antenna. In conclusion, I can affirm that the ITU has neither a technocratic nature nor a strictly political one. Instead, it could be said that the ITU, like all telegraph systems of the time,⁷⁹ was the expression of a capitalistic compromise between national states and big business to defend the acquired market position with an implicit cartel and their consequent entry barriers.

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 Winseck and Pike, Communication and Empire.

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McCormick, Patricia K. “Private Sector Influence in the International Telecommunication Union.” The Journal of Policy, Regulation and Strategy for Telecommunications, Information and Media, vol. 9, n. 4 (2007): 70 – 80. Meyer, Victor. L’Union Internationale des Télécommunications et son Bureau. Bern: typewritten, ITU’s Library, 1946. Müller-Pohl, Simone. “Working the Nation State: Submarine Cable Actors, Cable Transnationalis and the Governance of the Global Media System, 1858 – 1914.” In The Nation State and Beyond. Governing Globalization Processes in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, edited by Isabella Löhr and Roland Wenzlhuemer, 101 – 123. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2013. Neumann, Léopold. Recueil des Traités et Conventions conclus par l’Autriche avec les puissances étrangères, depuis 1763 jusqu’à nos jours. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1859. Reindl, Josef. Der Deutsch-Österreichische Telegraphenverein und die Entwicklung des deutschen Telegraphenwesens 1850 – 1871. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1993. Ruggie, John Gerard, ed. Multilateralism Matters: Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Saveney, Edgar. “La télégraphie internationale.” Revue des deux mondes (1872): 360 – 384. van der Herten, Bart, and Pascal Verhoest. “La contribution belge à la création des réseaux internationaux de communication du XIX siècle.” In Les réseaux européens transnationaux XIXe-XXe siècle: quels enjeux?, edited by Michelle Merger, Albert Carreras, and Andrea Giuntini, 33 – 47. Nantes: Ouest Éditions, 1995. Weiss, Norman. “Institutionalised Co-operation on International Communication: The International Administrative Unions as a Means of Governing Processes.” In The Nation State and Beyond. Governing Globalization Processes in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, edited by Isabella Löhr and Roland Wenzlhuemer, 65 – 82. Berlin-Heidelbeg: Springer, 2013. Wenzlhuemer, Roland. Connecting the Nineteenth-Century World. The Telegraph and Globalization. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Wenzlhuemer, Roland. “The History of Standardization in Europe.” European History Online (EGO), Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz 2010 – 12 – 03. Available: http://www. ieg-ego-eu/wenzlhuemer-2010-en. Winseck, Dwayne, and Robert Pike. Communications and Empire: Media, Markets, and Globalization, 1860 – 1930. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007. Wobring, Michael. “Die Integration der europäischen Telegraphie in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts.” in Internationalismus und Europäische Integration im Vergleich, edited by Christian Neutsch and Guido Cornelius Thiemeyer, 83 – 112. Baden-Baden: Fallstudien zu Währungen, Landwirtschaft, Verkehrs- und Nachrichtenwesen, 2007.

Maria Rikitianskaia*

8 The International Radiotelegraph Union Over the Course of World War I, 1912 – 1927 In 1906, the International Radiotelegraph Union (IRU) was set up as the first international arena for discussing matters related to radio communications. From an organizational point of view, its formation was rather peculiar. The IRU broadly referred to the group of countries that adhered to the Radiotelegraph Conventions but administratively it was actually a semi-independent structure within the International Telegraph Union (ITU). The IRU never had its own administration, only a section within the ITU Bureau. This chapter investigates how the negotiations, communication, and regulations of the IRU changed over the course of World War I. First, the paper focuses on the WWI period, aiming to shed light on this under-researched time in the history of the ITU from the angle of radio development. Even though the figures and actors involved in discussions on radio differed from those concerned by telegraphy, the IRU was still under the umbrella of the ITU and used the same channels and patterns of communication, such as the official ITU monthly periodical Journal Télégraphique. Knowing this helps us to reconsider the actions and role of the ITU as it was confronted with one of the most deadly conflicts in global history, and to assess its reaction to the ongoing changes in radio technology. WWI is frequently acknowledged as having had a major influence on the transformation of radio.¹ In examining the war and its aftermath, the paper will cover the period between the two international radio conferences held during this time: the 1912 London conference (which established the major rules governing international radio use) and the 1927 Washington conference (which dealt with the consequences of the war and regulated radio broadcasting). Second, the paper traces the international network of actors in radio development from the 1910s to the 1920s. The history of radio in the 1910s is frequently approached from a national political perspective, highlighting the competition between different countries and companies, especially between the Marconi Company of British–Italian origin and other companies. Analyzing the IRU, however, pro-

* USI Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland; London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom  Barnard, Studying Radio; Hugill, Global Communications since 1844; Hilmes, Network Nations. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-009

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vides a new perspective, revealing how radio developed through international collaboration and knowledge transfer as the ITU attempted to facilitate communication between various national government agencies, commercial companies, and private individuals.

8.1 International Radiotelegraph Union: Functions and Allegiance with the ITU In 1903, Germany invited delegates from ten countries to take part in the Preliminary Conference on Wireless Telegraphy in Berlin and discuss matters of radio technology. At this conference, the first international regulations on radiotelegraphy were drafted and the decision was taken to continue the discussions at the International Radiotelegraph Conference, also in Berlin, in 1906. The Radiotelegraph Union was set up as one of the outcomes of the 1906 Berlin conference. The name was similar to that of other unions of the time, such as the Postal Union and the Telegraph Union, and the word “union” actually referred to a collective effort to unite the communication networks. When it came to the subject of communications, international collaboration was required because of the transnational character of radio and the way it easily crossed national borders, forcing transnational interaction. Where state borders were close, transmissions across borders occurred regularly. Radio was also an essential communication tool for ships, which travelled in an international space per se. The 1906 conference suggested associating the radio arena with the already existing ITU. This loyalty to the Telegraph Union was not surprising. Questions regarding radio had already been discussed at telegraph conferences in the 1890s, and the delegates of the first radio conferences also contributed to telegraph regulations. For instance, J. J. Perk, the Dutch Minister of Colonies and the delegate from the Dutch East Indies, attended the conferences in Paris (1890), Budapest (1896), London (1903), and Lisbon (1908), as well as other non-radio conferences². Furthermore, some articles in the Telegraph Conventions also concerned radio communications, and as a result the conventions were sometimes falsely considered as “radiotelegraphy conventions.”³ The ITU was therefore the main international institution for radio even before the radiotelegraphy conferences took place.

 ITU Library & Archives 1913b, 102.  Bureau des longitudes, “Electro-Optique (Suite).”

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The main administrative body of the ITU was, and still is, the Bureau. After the Berlin conference in 1906, it was decided to divide the Bureau into two independent sections, telegraphy and radiotelegraphy—a process which took some time and effort⁴. The radiotelegraphy component was tasked with gathering and disseminating information among state members of the Radiotelegraph Union in between conferences. The IRU was therefore never actually established as an organization; instead it formed its own administrative unit as part of the ITU Bureau. Even if some authors refer to these sections as two different organizations⁵, in fact, the radio and telegraph administrations shared the infrastructure, materials, and resources of the ITU Bureau, which was located in Bern. In 1932, at the Madrid conference, the two sections officially merged, as predicted by the French delegate as early as 1906⁶.

8.2 Methods and Sources The current study is primarily based on a historical analysis of three categories of archival sources. First, the corpus of documents from the 1912 and 1927 international conferences (proposals, minutes, and conventions) allow for an analysis of the most significant changes in the international arena. Second, the correspondence register helps in tracing the key topics and actors from 1912 to 1927. The correspondence register is a handwritten internal IRU document that includes information about each letter or notice sent or received by the organization, including the name of the sender (or recipient), date, town/ city, and a brief explanation of the content. Researchers have overlooked correspondence registers as a historical source⁷; however, recent studies emphasize that these registers preserve important information both in the entries themselves and in the margins⁸. Correspondence about radio was often sent to the Union in an attempt to obtain recent information about technological developments, by accessing or purchasing statistics, circulars, and recent issues of the official magazine. This information usually ended up in various publications, reviews, and national archives, which meant that it was not only sent once but became an object of constant reproduction and reappropriation. Because corre-

 ITU Library & Archives 1915a, 38.  Meyer, L’Union Internationale Des Télécommunications et Son Bureau.  ITU Library & Archives 1906b, 71.  Sherwood, “Strikes! African Seamen.”  Valderhaug, “Recordkeeping in Local Government in Norway 1950 – 2000”; Allinson, “The Process of Audit and Control.”

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spondence with many actors was regular and ongoing, the Registres de correspondance: radiotélégraphie allows us to reconstruct and analyze the network of actors surrounding the IRU, which can be seen as a knowledge infrastructure, a concept which has been defined as a “robust internetworks of people, artifacts, and institutions which generate, share, and maintain specific knowledge about the human and natural worlds.”⁹ In the fifteen correspondence books (1912– 1927), the overall number of unique pieces (messages, letters, and invoices) sent and received during these years by the IRU totals 34,954. The main reason for analyzing these documents was to identify key actors and topics in technodiplomacy about radio, as well as to identify the development of these actors and topics. Finally, the analysis involves exploring these key topics and actors in more depth by using supplementary information, particularly from the Journal Télégraphique, Marconi Archive, BT Archive, and others.

Figure 8.1 – The volume of IRU correspondence about radiotelegraphy, 1912 – 1927. Source: based on the ITU Library & Archives Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie, 1912 – 1927.

Figure 8.1 shows four periods in the overall dynamic. This periodization is based on two factors: the quantity of correspondence symbolizing the falling or rising interest in international regulations and collaboration (see Figure 8.1) and an analysis of the topics and issues discussed in the correspondence and on the pages of Journal Télégraphique. The first period (1912 – 1913) shows the rise of correspondence about the International Radiotelegraph Conference in London in

 Edwards et al., Knowledge Infrastructures.

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1912 and a following intense exchange of information in 1913. The second period, which corresponds to WWI, shows a steady decrease in the volume of annual correspondence, averaging about 1,700 – 1,800 pieces per year, with the lowest in 1917 when the number of pieces was only 1,160. The third period, 1919 – 1923, shows a rise in correspondence, reflecting the need for information in the aftermath of WWI. Finally, from 1924– 1927, the volume of correspondence plummeted, dropping to just over 1,700 letters per year, where it then stabilized. The two biggest peaks frame the war, signifying the rise of international collaboration: firstly after the 1912 conference and secondly in 1920, indicating attempts to deal with the consequences of the war. Although there was a slight fall in correspondence during the war, the volume remains similar to that before 1912 and after 1924 and therefore cannot be seen as particularly atypical. The following four sections discuss these periods in more depth.

8.3 Transnational Actors Around the IRU Radio history has frequently been described from a national perspective, with the emphasis on competition between inventors, investors, and companies for national and global markets. The economic history of radiotelegraphy has long been characterized as a “commercial war” between companies¹⁰, especially between the German company Telefunken and the Marconi Company of British– Italian origin. This confrontation frequently serves as a lens for researchers to examine the development of radio both on a global scale¹¹ and in a particular national setting¹². But in reality the situation was more complicated: an analysis of the IRU’s work in the early 1910s demonstrates that radio was developing transnationally by means of international agreements, transnational actors, collaborations, and joint networks. The work of the IRU emphasizes the transnational perspective of radio communications. The first technodiplomatic negotiations aimed to regulate radio as a shared common good. Radio would facilitate integration and enhance communication between nations; it was seen as “a young and vigorous science.”¹³ Experts talked about radiotelegraphy in virtually utopian terms at these international meetings; it could “contribute to the extent and proliferation of relations

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Baker, A History of the Marconi Company, 96. Hugill, Global Communications since 1844. Miñana, La Introducción a Las Radiocomunicaciones En España. ITU Library & Archives 1913b, 101.

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among nations, to the greater good of mankind”¹⁴. The main purpose of the 1912 International Conference was to turn radiotelegraphy into a transnational communication network that could help nations communicate easily. The IRU correspondence register indicates that many figures involved in the history of radio acted transnationally. Thus, from 1912– 1914, the Marconi Company communicated with the IRU from London, Rome, New York, Buenos Aires, and Paris. The Eastern Telegraph Company kept in contact from London and Madrid. Siemens was communicating from Woolwich, Kent, and Berlin. Telefunken, in turn, had offices in Berlin, New York, and Newton St. Loe. The Commercial Cable Co. communicated from The Hague and New York. These are just some examples of the extensive IRU network, but many more could be found¹⁵. Moreover, sometimes separate branches of the same company sent the same requests to the IRU, almost as if these branches did not share information with each other. This indicates that the radiotelegraph market was in fact organized globally, and even a history of one company cannot be grasped exclusively through the lens of a national framework. Furthermore, the beginning of the 1910s was also symbolic of the growing number of collaborations and agreements between commercial companies. One of the most notable examples is the 1911 establishment of the Deutsche Betriebsgesellschaft für drahtlose Télégraphie (Debeg), of which 55 % was owned by Telefunken and 45 % by Marconi.¹⁶ The establishment of this company eased the growing tension between the two corporations. With the formation of Debeg, ships were able to communicate with each other, regardless of the type of radiotelegraph system employed. The Journal Télégraphique noted the decision in favor of this international collaboration “with satisfaction”¹⁷. In addition to Debeg, another collaboration is also worth noting: in 1913, the Marconi Company and Telefunken established the Société Anonyme de Télégraphe sans Fils (SA TSF) in Belgium.¹⁸ Moreover, in the early 1910s, the conclusion of international agreements fostered the development of coherent transnational networks; examples include the radiotelegraph network of time signals and weather forecasts. The London 1912 Conference on Radiotelegraphy and the 1912 International Time Conference subsequently organized a transnational network of radiotelegraph stations that introduced regular transmissions of time signals in a standardized format¹⁹. The sim-

     

ITU Library & Archives 1913, 45. ITU Library & Archives 1912; ITU Library & Archives 1913c; ITU Library & Archives 1914. Huurdeman, The Worldwide History of Telecommunications, 273. “Revue Télégraphique de 1911,” 3. Headrick, The Invisible Weapon. “Scientific Time Signals,” 299.

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ilar initiative of uniting radio communication networks also concerned weather forecasts, which were scheduled to be broadcast at a particular hour²⁰. Both of these radiotelegraph networks—time signals and meteorological reports—asserted the regularity of transnational broadcasting aimed at a global audience. Overall, in the early 1910s, radiotelegraphy played an essential role as a communication tool that encouraged transnational interactions; transmissions were made possible by collaboration between different companies or national radio stations. Nations focused on building radiotelegraph stations around the globe, in their homelands and colonies, and collaborative agreements governed communications between them. Radio was to become a coherent transnational network, one that could be used for the public good. The delegates of the 1912 London conference were in no doubt that the Washington conference in 1917 would be a perfect arena to discuss these possibilities in further depth but by then, the war had started.²¹

8.4 Effects of the War, Including the Involvement of New Actors From the very beginning of WWI, radiotelegraphy proved to be a powerful national weapon. The governments involved in WWI were aware that they had to restrict access to this mode of communication to avoid any risk of it being hijacked by ill-intentioned parties. To maintain control over the transmission of messages, European governments in turn issued orders requesting that private stations be dismantled for the war effort. Under international conventions, radio was restricted not only by the warring parties but also in neutral countries to prevent belligerents from gaining any advantage over radio communications by making use of stations located in neutral territory²². For the duration of WWI, international collaboration was put on hold, and many international conferences were deferred or even cancelled. The International Congress of Telegraph and Telephone Engineers (Congrès international des ingénieurs des télégraphes et des téléphones) was set to take place in Bern in September 1914 but was postponed to a “more favorable time,” which was mistakenly believed to be the spring of 1915²³ Given the disruptions to infrastructure immediately

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“Il Telegrafo Senza Fili e La Meteorologia.” “Conférence Radiotélégraphique Internationale de Londres.” ITU Library & Archives 1906a; ITU Library & Archives 1913a. “Revue Télégraphique de 1914.”

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after the outbreak of war, even the 195 copies of the papers prepared by the British delegation for this meeting in Bern did not reach their destination—they were stopped at Ghent and then returned to London²⁴. The International Telegraph Conference which had been due to take place in Paris in 1915 was also postponed at the French government’s request. The International Radiotelegraph Conference slated to take place in Washington in 1917 never occurred. With the closure of public stations and the rise of military ones, the IRU’s regulations were becoming irrelevant for an increasing number of stations. This is why, on a legal level, the IRU had to distance itself from the war. The communications and networking around the IRU from 1914– 1915 were predominantly focused on gathering the latest information about radiotelegraphy. Keen to find out how other nations were using radio technology, countries requested lists of stations and statistics. However, the ITU Bureau was not always able to provide relevant information about the current state of affairs in radiotelegraphy because the countries involved in WWI did not share information. The statistics of 1914, for example, did not include data about the number of radio stations in most European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy²⁵. The Journal Télégraphique endeavored to remain neutral and distant from political conflict. It was suspended from July 1914 for five months and reinstated in January 1915. It referred to the war only as “the political events in Europe,” and no specific content about the war was included in the 1915 issues. In this international arena, the war seemed not to be a legitimate topic. Only a small note in the January 1916 issue offered a glimpse into the war. The editors wrote the following: Last year, the war continued in Europe. This is not a period that is likely to stimulate the development of international relations. It is therefore not surprising that this journal contains no significant news related to telegraphy.²⁶

Notwithstanding the shortage of information, the IRU never interrupted its activity, serving as an “antenna” for news about radiotelegraphy. The Bureau maintained its networks, communicated information, and continued to operate. From 1914 to 1915, the Journal Télégraphique preferred to publish information about inventions of previous years that it had to hand. Information coming from the ITU was often issued roughly two years after the actual events had occurred because a good deal of time was needed to compile and analyze the different national data. This is why for 1914 and 1915, the ITU could use previously

 BT Archives 1914.  ITU Library & Archives 1915b.  “Revue Télégraphique de 1915” 1916, 3.

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collected material and explain the absence of current news about developments in radiotelegraphy by referring to them as “mediocre.”²⁷ Even though technically the network of actors involved in the IRU remained the same, there were drastic changes happening to those outside the IRU’s focus. In particular, some companies changed “nationality” during the war. One example is the Siemens Brothers Company, which was a prominent player in international discussions about radio.²⁸ Although it was a branch of the German electrical engineering firm Siemens & Halske, it was de facto operating from Woolwich, a district of London. Apart from cables and telephone, for which it was well known, Siemens Brothers also produced the radio devices. In 1901, it was one of three suppliers to the British Admiralty of an order of 54 wireless telegraphy sets made to the admiralty’s own specifications and system.²⁹ When the war started and British men were mobilized, many German corporations based in the UK experienced problems maintaining their reputation. Customers refused to invest in companies whose main interest was German and were frustrated by the fact that they had to use products and devices with the engraving “made in Germany.”³⁰ Even though the companies tried to convince the public that they were completely British based, there was another problem: the risk of espionage. These and other factors were the driving force behind the acquisition of these companies, and Siemens was no exception. A revision of all Siemens’ equipment was undertaken, revealing that the level of telephone and radio equipment was quite advanced and could serve the British nation well.³¹ In 1917, the Siemens Brothers Company was sold to the British buyer, Messrs. C. B. Crisp & Co. Throughout WWI, Siemens lost forty percent of its capital and most of its foreign assets, and almost all of its patent rights were expropriated. This shows how some of the stakeholders around the IRU changed their “nationality” throughout the war. Another change in the IRU network was the inclusion in its agenda of issues relating to the “extra-European” area. This need to draw attention to what was going on beyond Europe reflected the fact that major inventions were taking place outside the European political arena, confirming the spread of the radiotelegraph as a truly transnational technology. An increasing number of countries en-

 “Revue Télégraphique de 1915” 1916, 1.  Siemens Brothers. 1913. “D. 19. N. 799.” In Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives. 1914. “D. 4. N. 165 – 167.” Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives. 1915. “D. 4. N. 74.” Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives.  “The Admiralty Have Just Ordered…”  Marconi Archive, 1916b.  Marconi Archive, 1916a.

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gaged in international collaboration with the IRU. Many countries adhered to the 1912 regulations after the conference, as follows: Mexico (in 1913), Panama (1914), Guatemala (1914), Colombia (1914), Bolivia (1915), Peru (1915), Cuba (1918), Iceland (1919), Venezuela (1920), Ecuador (1920), China (1920), and many colonies that did not appear in the IRU as participating countries³². Figure 8.2 illustrates the different trends in the dynamics of correspondence with European and extra-European countries; this graph demonstrates that the drop in correspondence during the war years occurred mostly within European countries. In European countries, the fluctuation around the overall trend line is considerable, especially during WWI. In non-European countries, by contrast, the deviation from the general trend line is not so marked, even though it corresponds to a general pattern. The war affected less the correspondence with the extra-European countries then the one with the European figures, as the latter witnessed significant drop in the years 1916 – 1917. Overall, during this period, the proportion of extra-European material was higher than usual, and the presence of extra-European countries in correspondence with the IRU was more prominent. Moreover, commercial companies gradually moved their businesses from the risky and unstable European arena to more neutral territories. Thus, Telefunken was able to protect itself from tremendous losses by transferring its reserves to Holland and developing its subsidiaries in Argentina, that proclaimed neutrality because of a decision made by Argentinian President Victorino de la Plaza. During the war, radiotelegraphy developed rapidly in Argentina. In 1916, Argentina established stable communications between Buenos Aires and New York City.³³ In 1918, the radiotelegraph station set up by the Ministry for the Navy in Puerto San Julián opened to public service, which substantially reduced the time needed to transmit messages between the extreme south of the continent and Buenos Aires. With the opening of radio stations at Punta Delgada, the coast of Patagonia was also put into radiotelegraphic communication.³⁴ During the war, radio stations in this extra-European area were seen in relation to their connection to the global radiotelegraph network. For instance, in February 1916, the newly established radiotelegraph station in Tahiti was notable for its ability to communicate with different parts of the world: California, Australia, South America, and Asia³⁵. In September 1916, a successful project between Funabashi (Japan) and San Francisco took place, which implied the organ-

   

“L’Union Radiotélégraphique.” “Nouvelles Installations de Télégraphie sans Fil.” “Argentine.” “La Station Radiotélégraphique Côtière de Tahiti (Océanie).”

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Figure 8.2 – The volume of IRU correspondence about radio with European and extra-European actors, 1912 – 1927 (The data include only 200 of the most prominent cities sending and receiving correspondence; for the lowest there are just eight items of correspondence during 1912 – 1927.). Source: based on ITU Library & Archives Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie, 1912 – 1927.

ization of transpacific communication.³⁶ Because transatlantic communication was already in use, the connection between Funabashi and San Francisco meant that radiotelegraphy was now able to cross the entire globe. The war therefore changed the configuration of the various actors—some changed location or even “nationality,” and extra-European actors were brought into the international arena. As radio in Europe became more closely linked with military technology and inventions were supported and strictly controlled by European governments, the understanding of radio changed: it was now generally accepted that it would develop within a national framework, and its transnational character only applied in the context of cooperation between specific nations.

8.5 Turbulent Times and Coping with Change The rapid and incessant development of radiotelegraphy, as well as the technical progress achieved in the final years of the war, showed that the existing interna-

 “Radiotélégraphie Transpacifique.”

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tional regulations were no longer adequate. For example, call signs, which were formed by using combinations of three letters according to the 1912 regulations, were notoriously insufficient because the number of radio stations had grown enormously. Some offices had to resort to the use of four-letter codes, even though this was not prescribed in the existing international regulations.³⁷ This was one of many aspects of radio that indicated the need for a revision of the existing international agreements. The first attempts to discuss the future of radio arose as early as 1919. The war had brought attention to the need for an international code of signals. Therefore, in November 1919, representatives from the United Kingdom, France, and Italy gathered in London to discuss opportunities to establish international codes.³⁸ Although this meeting was an unofficial gathering of various state representatives, it nevertheless showed the need to establish a more detailed and nuanced international framework for radio communications. From 7 to 13 July 1920, Paris hosted a meeting of European administrations to discuss international communications. This European conference on international communications touched upon the issues of radiotelegraphy that laid the groundwork for the global agenda of later international IRU conferences. At this meeting, the administrations decided to consider radiotelegraphy as a transnational technology, similar to the view held in the 1910s. Radiotelegraphy was seen as the most used telecommunication channel, especially for international communications. It was acknowledged to be “the fastest and therefore the most frequently used route” for communications. In particular, radiotelegraph was “increasingly preferred” for international communications. The use of a land route, such as a wired electric telegraph, was even referred to as “exceptional”³⁹. One of the issues discussed was whether the sender would have the opportunity to indicate the preferred means of telecommunication when sending a message. The initial proposal was to use a particular indication “radio,” if the sender preferred to use the radiotelegraph, but the delegates decided that instead of “radio,” it would be more reasonable to adopt the mark “wire” for wired electric telegraphs, because wired communications were a rarer case. In the autumn of 1920, at the invitation of the US administration, representatives of the US, UK, Italy, Japan, and France held the Preliminary International Conference on Electrical Communications in Washington, DC. The initial aim was to determine the disposition of German cable lines that had been ceded

 “L’Union Radiotélégraphique.”  “Code Radiotélégraphique International.”  ITU Library & Archives 1926, 240 – 41.

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to the Allies by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919⁴⁰. The agenda also included more general issues relating to international communications, including radiotelegraphy. The ITU Bureau had contributed to preparations for the meeting by sharing material on radiotelegraphy that had been prepared for the cancelled 1917 Washington conference.⁴¹ The name of the meeting (electrical communications) emphasized the fact that all types of communication should be treated equally regarding their contribution to the international communications network. The agenda included discussing the improvements that should be made “to contribute to the organization and operation of the global electrical communications network.”⁴² At this conference, radiotelegraphy was therefore treated not as a unique means of communication but rather as an integral part of a global electrical communications network. This conference gave rise to the idea of merging the two international arenas of telegraph and radio into one. The delegates asserted that discussions on telegraphy, telephony, and radiotelegraphy should be held in a shared arena, and the management of the telecommunications sector should adhere to the same general regulations. As a result of this meeting, a draft convention was drawn up containing provisions for both telegraphy and radiotelegraphy.⁴³ The subsequent meetings took place in Paris and Riga in the summer and autumn of 1922, respectively. A group of experts pursued the international collaboration established at the Washington conference and discussed future regulations in further detail. In all their proposals, they considered radiotelegraphy in connection to the international telecommunications network. One of the questions dealt with was the attempt to include Russia in the global system of communications regarding radiotelegraphy operating fees⁴⁴. The results of these discussions were passed on to the ITU Bureau. In 1922, the ITU Bureau sent out a draft of the new convention to all the governments, which were invited to draw up proposals for any changes that they wished to introduce. Other meetings were also expected to follow; however, meetings on these suggestions continued to take place outside the larger international ITU arena. In April 1923, Mr. Salandra, the Italian representative to the Council of the League of Nations, issued a memorandum to other countries in

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National Archives of the United States. “Inauguration Du Monument Commémoratif de La Fondation de l’Union Télégraphique.” “Revue Télégraphique de 1922.” “Conférence Internationale Sur Les Communications Électriques.” “L’Union Radiotélégraphique.”

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the League of Nations expressing Italy’s ongoing request to convene an international radiotelegraph conference.⁴⁵ The Council of the League of Nations decided to have the Italian memorandum examined by a committee of specialists composed of the directors of the British, French, and Italian telegraph services. They met for the first time on 16 July in London at the office of the League of Nations. At this meeting, the delegates agreed that a universal international conference should be held to manage both telegraphy and radiotelegraphy services. However, it was noted that the French government was organizing an international conference on telegraphy, which could be an appropriate arena to discuss these questions. On 13 November 1923, the same British, French, and Italian experts met once again in Geneva. They agreed that an international conference on radiotelegraphy should be held as soon as possible, hopefully in the spring of 1924. Many documents had already been prepared for the conference, such as the drafts of the program and the convention; however, nothing definite was decided, and the ITU Bureau received no formal communication to convene the conference.⁴⁶ These meetings saw the preliminary discussions about the future of radiotelegraphy, and most of them followed the rhetoric of the 1910s. A suggestion was made to incorporate radiotelegraphy into the global telecommunications system and to build a coherent radio space, and experts in the field attempted to treat radiotelegraphy as a point-to-point communications network that could be useful for transnational purposes. However, these transnational issues raised more problems about regulations, which could not have been predicted in the early 1910s but became relevant after the war. Governments had learned the importance of maintaining control over radio waves after experiencing the forced closure of stations. European countries in particular were suspicious about the possible use of radio by spies and raised concerns about the transnational management of radiotelegraphy by private individuals. For example, a broad discussion arose on the issue of how to deal with licenses for reception and transmission by foreigners.⁴⁷ In the US, licenses for transmitting radio stations were issued only to US citizens, while in the UK, these licenses were granted irrespective of nationality.⁴⁸ The understanding of radiotelegraphy as taking place within a transnational communication space contradicted the need to restrict and limit radio communications in the event of an emergency in the country, and this incongruity was not easy to resolve.    

“Revue Télégraphique de 1923.” “Revue Télégraphique de 1923.” ITU Library & Archives 1925a. Department of Commerce Washington, “D. 40. N. 25.”

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8.6 The IRU Serving Nations Discussions about the future of radio continued, but no international radiotelegraphy conference occurred. As a result of the changing conceptions of radio and delays in the IRU’s work, a new international organization emerged. On 15 April 1925, the IRU received a letter from the newly opened Union International de Radiophonie, known in English as the International Broadcasting Union (IBU), notifying the IRU about its creation: the IBU, as stated in the letter, aimed to regulate public transmissions and announced two upcoming conferences in London and Geneva⁴⁹. In the absence of any international conferences and because of increasing delays in information from the IRU, the IBU had a chance to take its place in the international arena. In 1925, the radio station Marconi sent a letter to the IRU requesting an appointment with Arthur R. Burrows regarding the IBU⁵⁰. The meeting took place on 26 June 1925, and the central topic became the reasons for organizing the IBU conference. The memorandum written by Captain Peter Eckersley served as the basis of discussions⁵¹. The primary concern was interference in national broadcasting services, which could be avoided if some stations changed their wavelengths; the memorandum also described radio as a communications tool that required an international dimension, not in order to create a united global communications space but to properly organize separate national services. American experiments proving that 1,500 miles was the minimum distance required between two radio stations to avoid interference were used to guide the changes. In Europe, 60 stations were mapped according to a relatively complicated frequency plan. It was proposed to equip them with wave meters that would be calibrated using uniform calibration signals sent by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (see Figure 8.3). The IRU was reserved in its reaction to these new developments, simply acknowledging acceptance of the letter and its possible publication in the Journal Télégraphique. In internal documents, however, the issue of broadcasting received much more attention. In 1925, the IRU correspondence register introduced a new category specifically devoted to radio broadcasting⁵². Previously, the topic of broadcasting was covered in other categories, such as those for the inaugura-

   

Office International de Radiophonie, “D. 40. N. 5.” Radio Station Marconi, “D. 40. N. 6.” Eckersley, “D. 40. N. 8. Situation in Europe as Regards Wave-Lengths.” ITU Library & Archives 1925b.

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Figure 8.3 – Broadcasting stations in Europe, 1926. This map was submitted as an appendix to the documents on the formation of the IBU (Union International de Radiophonie, “Stations de Radiodiffusion.”).

tion of radio stations or changes to the current infrastructure, but in 1925 broadcasting was seen as a topic that was now worth separating. The IBU stated that its aim was to establish a connection between different broadcasting companies from Europe and potentially from other continents⁵³. The IBU was seen as a society of broadcasting, and the BBC was one of its flagship companies. The approach was therefore an entirely Europe-centered one. However, there was still a problem with the definition of “radio.” Radiotelegraph, radiotelephony, radio broadcasting, other radio communications: What was the technology that this organization wanted to regulate? Apart from the aspiration to facilitate communications between commercial companies, this union of “radiophony” had difficulties defining the actual field it was aiming at. The IBU’s French name was Union Internationale de Radiophonie, so it used the term “radiophony” to describe this new practice of audio broadcasting. Even more notable is the fact that the document that laid down the basis of this

 Office International de Radiophonie, “D. 40. N. 5.”

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union, Eckersley’s memorandum, did not mention words such as “radio” or “broadcasting,” specifically avoiding any names and referring to radio only as “wavelengths”⁵⁴. Although the IBU became an important, growing organization, it did not take the place of the IRU. The IRU’s networking potential and its more general approach to radio communications maintained its position as a fundamental point of reference for any regulation in the sphere of radio. Typically, relations between the IBU and the IRU were limited to exchanging small amounts of information: the IBU would send reports to the IRU, the IRU would acknowledge receipt of them and publish them in the Journal Télégraphique. The first international conference about radio regulations after WWI took place in Washington, DC in 1927, ten years later than initially planned. The fact that it did not take place right after the war, even though many countries had requested it, could be interpreted as a paradigm change. In the aftermath of the war, governments struggled to manage the radio industry. Definitions of radio were once again called into question with the rapid growth of radio broadcasting, and international collaboration jeopardized national security. New technologies and devices entered the markets steadily, resulting in a constant reappropriation and reinterpretation of the technology. Moreover, the IRU’s reputation had been affected by its inability to provide requested information promptly. The IRU did not receive any notifications about the opening of most radio stations, and many were not covered by the Radiotelegraph Conventions.⁵⁵ Indeed, the world had changed quickly. The new convention drawn up at the Washington conference encapsulated all the fears and doubts about the development of radio and referred to most of the changes in the industry. First, this conference drew an essential line under the period of interpretative flexibility of radio. One of the most important regulatory steps was the definitions of the field. The very first article of the convention—and the most important one—introduced strict definitions of the concept. The article was so important and controversial that when drafting it, a special subcommittee was set up to evaluate the terminology that was used most often throughout the plenary meetings. Initially, the article was called “article zero”⁵⁶. The first lines of this article introduced the most important term—“radioelectric communication” or “radio communication”—as the wireless transmis-

 Eckersley, “D. 40. N. 8. Situation in Europe as Regards Wave-Lengths.”  “Revue Télégraphique de 1923.”  ITU Library & Archives 1928a, 124.

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sion of writing, signs, signals, facsimiles, and sounds of all kinds by means of Hertzian waves.⁵⁷ Further definitions included the terms radio station, fixed station, mobile station, land station, mobile service, and others. There were some significant differences between previous conferences and the conventions that can be seen in this new document. First, the entire notion of radiotelegraphy was no longer related to the sea. Even the definition of a mobile station did not mention any ships, despite the fact that in the 1910s, sea vessels were the only vehicles equipped with mobile stations. The convention also introduced the term “aircraft station,” and the expression “on or over the high seas” indicated the possibility of placing radio transmitters on aircraft.⁵⁸ The convention also proposed a definition for “international service.” Radio communication across national borders or in neutral international territory, such as a sea, was considered as an international service. Furthermore, if an internal or national radio communication service was capable of interfering with other radio transmissions outside the limits of these countries, it was also considered an international service⁵⁹. This definition highlights a new understanding of radio technology and radio stations. In contrast with the 1912 conference, which had referred to radio stations by using their location, such as “coastal stations,” at the 1927 conference their location was no longer seen as important. The range of the transmitter was considered, but its whereabouts was not. Second, the number of delegates and viewpoints presented at the 1927 conference had substantially increased, so the discussions had to be moderated by giving representatives permission to speak. There was also a wider variety of different actors. Moreover, this conference raised the issue of voting and the role of colonies. The vast majority of states were in favor of the granting of a single vote to each sovereign country, including the Dominions. However, this simplistic solution suppressed the voices of the colonies and protectorate countries, even though some of them had belonged to the Telegraph Union for more than 40 years⁶⁰. Furthermore, this IRU conference also emphasized the important role of private companies, which were involved in the preparation of documents.⁶¹ Because the radio spectrum had begun to have economic value, it was no longer viewed as a common good to be shared by different nations; in-

    

ITU ITU ITU Fis, ITU

Library & Archives 1928b. Library & Archives 1928b, 11. Library & Archives 1928b. “Les Conférences Télégraphiques et Radiotélégraphiques de Madrid.” Library & Archives 1928b.

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stead, it was a common good to be sold, manipulated, and used⁶². After the 1925 Telegraph Conference, the 1927 Washington conference also established the International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR). The third important point concerns radio broadcasting. The 1927 document was also one of the first IRU documents to separate radiotelegraphy from radio broadcasting. Article 13 of the convention decreed that the ITU Bureau should publish two separate documents: a list of broadcasting stations and lists of all fixed, land, and mobile stations with an accompanying call sign from the international series.⁶³ Moreover, the article introduced the term “broadcasting service,” which was defined as “a service affecting the dissemination of radiotelephonic communications intended to be received by the public, either directly or through the medium of relay stations.”⁶⁴ Here, it is important to note the word “radiotelephonic” being used to refer to music, sound, and voice transmission; it also indicates that the separation between radio and radiophony was based on an understanding of sound practices, in contrast with Morse-coded transmissions. This discrepancy could be interpreted as a creation of a radiophonic culture⁶⁵ that evolved from the “beeps” of Morse-coded time signals into a particular listening practice. The conference also divided the radio spectrum regarding the use by broadcasting stations of frequencies that interfered significantly with other radio communication services. All broadcasting stations operating on frequencies below 300 kc/s (wavelengths above 1,000 m) were required to be removed no later than a year after the regulations came into force.⁶⁶ The conference also marked a turning point in the regulation of radio for domestic use. Although very cheap and accessible, spark devices occupied a broad frequency band and hence caused disturbances. The new convention restricted these old types of transmitters, thereby allowing more space for new technologies. By implementing these regulations, the IRU also restricted and determined the scope of activity of the IBU. In particular, one of the outcomes of the IRU conference was the allocation of specific wavebands for broadcasting. Negotiations were held on the issue of dividing the sphere of influence and keeping the field under control and well regulated. Decisions were made without consulting the IBU, and despite the IBU’s frustration they had to be respected. The IBU tried to come up with alternative projects but failed to implement them because of     

Streeter, Selling the Air. ITU Library & Archives 1928b. Ibid. Holl, “Radiophonie. Forschungen Für Ein Kommendes Radio.” ITU Library & Archives 1928b.

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a lack of support from government officials.⁶⁷ Overall, although the IBU became an important organization, it did not take the place of the IRU. The IRU’s networking potential and its more general approach to wireless communication remained a fundamental point of reference for any regulation in the sphere of radio. Overall, the regulations adopted at the 1927 Washington conference had a tremendous effect on other international agreements and regulations. For instance, regarding the question of radio and aviation, the modification of the use of wavelengths by aircraft stations resulted in the amendment of the aerial Paris Convention of 1919.⁶⁸ The idea of radiotelegraphy had changed beyond recognition, from a borderless world to a system of national broadcasting. This was the new “language of national responsibility”⁶⁹ that had emerged after and because of WWI.

8.7 Conclusion To conclude, WWI had a huge impact on the key issues, actors, and ideas concerning radiotelegraphy. The changes brought about by WWI resulted in a 1927 amendment of the international regulations and also adjusted the position of the IRU, along with the international arena itself. The most significant change was to the idea of Eurocentricity. Radio regulations had historically been Eurocentric, and this also applied to the radiotelegraphy part of the ITU, which was initially formed by the US and nine European countries. The war was significant because the period of European radio silence forced the IRU to expand its focus from the European political space to other parts of the world. The actors involved in the IRU network became aware of significant achievements and local radio development in various countries, and this demonstrated that radiotelegraphy could serve as a communication tool to connect distant countries in the absence of a coherent cable telegraph network. The IRU itself experienced a lack of credibility after the war, especially because it could not accumulate relevant information about recent changes and provide data quickly enough. The IBU was formed in response to the new understanding of radio as a broadcasting technology. However, the IRU managed to maintain its position in international technodiplomacy because of its well-estab-

 Lommers, Europe – On Air, 88.  MacKenzie, ICAO: A History of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, 15.  Potter, Broadcasting Empire, 49.

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lished global connections and more general approach to regulating all radio communications. The IRU regained its position in 1927 with the conference in Washington, where European actors agreed on new regulations without consulting the IBU. Overall, during the war, the IRU changed its position from a facilitator of transnational communications to an umbrella organization bringing together disparate national spheres of interest. Paradoxically, the expansion of the IRU’s networks and the inclusion of extra-European actors were accompanied by the rise of national interests in radio, a phenomenon that was being witnessed all over the world.

References Allinson, Caroline. “The Process of Audit and Control – A Comparison of Manual and Electronic Information Systems.” Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, vol. 27, n. 2 (2004): 183 – 205. “Argentine.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 1 (1918): 16. Baker, William John. A History of the Marconi Company. London: Methuen, 1970. Barnard, Stephen. Studying Radio. London: Oxford University Press, 2000. BT Archives. “POST 30/2921B International Telegraph Union Informal Conferences of Technical Experts,” 1914. BT Archives. “POST 30/3089 A International Telegraph Conference, Paris in 1915, Part 2,” 1915. Bureau des longitudes, “Electro-Optique (Suite).” In Annuaire Pour l’an 1916 Publié Par Le Bureau Des Longitudes, 454. Paris: Gauthier-Villars et Cie, 1916. “Code Radiotélégraphique International.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 11 (1919): 183. “Conférence Internationale Sur Les Communications Électriques.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 12 (1922): 259. “Conférence Radiotélégraphique Internationale de Londres.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 8 (1912): 170 – 72. Department of Commerce Washington. “D. 40. N. 25.” In Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives, 1925. Eckersley, Peter Pendleton. “D. 40. N. 8. Situation in Europe as Regards Wave-Lengths.” In Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives, 1925. Edwards, Paul N., et al., Knowledge Infrastructures: Intellectual Frameworks and Research Challenges. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan School of Information, 2013. Fis. “Les Conférences Télégraphiques et Radiotélégraphiques de Madrid.” In Bulletin d’informations, de Documentation et de Statistique. Ministère Des Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones, vol. 1 (1933): 13 – 21. General Post Office London. “D. 40. N. 22.” Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives, 1925. Headrick, Daniel R. The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851 – 1945. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

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Hilmes, Michele. Network Nations: A Transnational History of British and American Broadcasting. New York, Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. Holl, Ute. “Radiophonie. Forschungen Für Ein Kommendes Radio.” Historische Anthropologie. Kultur – Gesellschaft – Alltag, vol. 22, n. 3 (2014): 426 – 435. Hugill, Peter J. Global Communications since 1844: Geopolitics and Technology. Baltimore, London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Huurdeman, Anton A. The Worldwide History of Telecommunications. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. “Il Telegrafo Senza Fili e La Meteorologia.” Rivista Delle Comunicazioni (1911): 983 – 85. “Inauguration Du Monument Commémoratif de La Fondation de l’Union Télégraphique.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 12 (1922): 238 – 244. ITU Library & Archives. 1906a. “Convention Radiotélégraphique Internationale (1906).” In Documents de la Conférence Radiotélégraphique Internationale (Berlin, 1906), 343 – 51. ITU Library & Archives. 1906b. Documents de La Conférence Radiotélégraphique Internationale (Berlin, 1906). Berlin: Le Département des Postes de l’Empire d’Allemagne. ITU Library & Archives. 1911. Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie, 1911. ITU Library & Archives. 1912. Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie, 1912. ITU Library & Archives. 1913a. “Convention Radiotélégraphique Internationale, Protocole Final et Règlement de Service y Annexés (Londres, 1912).” In Documents de La Conférence Radiotélégraphique Internationale de Londres. Berne: Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique. ITU Library & Archives. 1913b. Documents de La Conférence Radiotélégraphique Internationale (Londres, 1912). Berne: Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique. ITU Library & Archives. 1913c. Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie, 1913. ITU Library & Archives. 1914. Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie, 1914. ITU Library & Archives. 1915a. L’Union Télégraphique Internationale (1865 – 1915). Berne: Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique. ITU Library & Archives. 1915b. Statistique Générale de La Radiotélégraphie Dressée d’après Des Documents Official. Année 1913. Berne: Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique. ITU Library & Archives. 1925a. “Circular No. 186.” ITU Library & Archives. 1925b. Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie, 1925. ITU Library & Archives. 1926. Documents de La Conférence Télégraphique Internationale de Paris, 1925, Tome II (Paris, 1925). Berne: Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique. ITU Library & Archives. 1928a. Documents de La Conférence Radiotélégraphique Internationale de Washington 1927. Tome II (Washington, 1927). Berne: Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique. ITU Library & Archives. 1928b. International Radiotelegraph Convention of Washington, 1927 and General and Supplementary Regulations (Washington, 1927). London. “L’Union Radiotélégraphique.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 7 (1922): 124 – 126. “La Station Radiotélégraphique Côtière de Tahiti (Océanie).” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 2 (1916): 47. Lommers, Suzanne. Europe – On Air: Interwar Projects for Radio Broadcasting. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.

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MacKenzie, David. ICAO: A History of the International Civil Aviation Organisation. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto, 2010. Marconi Archive. 1916a. “Correspondence and Papers Concerning the Status of Various Firms and Industries during the War, 1910 – 18.” University of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Marconi 3163. Marconi Archive. 1916b. “Papers Concerning the National Status of the General Electric Company, 1914 – 16.” University of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Marconi 3152, 20 – 25. Meyer, Victor. L’Union Internationale Des Télécommunications et Son Bureau. Berne, 1946. Miñana, Jesús Sánchez. La Introducción a Las Radiocomunicaciones En España (1896 – 1914). Madrid: Fundación Rogelio Segovia para el Desarrollo de las Telecomunicaciones Ciudad Universitaria, 2004. National Archives of the United States. 43.2.11 Records of the Preliminary International Conference on Electrical Communications, 1920. “Nouvelles Installations de Télégraphie sans Fil.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 12 (1916): 262. Office International de Radiophonie. “D. 40. N. 5.” In Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives, 1925. Potter, Simon J. Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922 – 1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Radio Station Marconi. “D. 40. N. 6.” In Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives, 1925. “Radiotélégraphie Transpacifique.” Journal Télégraphique, vo. 9 (1916): 216. “Revue Télégraphique de 1911.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 1 (1912): 1 – 4. “Revue Télégraphique de 1914.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 1 (1915): 1 – 4. “Revue Télégraphique de 1915.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 1 (1916): 1 – 3. “Revue Télégraphique de 1922.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 1 (1923): 1 – 3. “Revue Télégraphique de 1923.” Journal Télégraphique, vol. 1 (1924): 1 – 4. “Scientific Time Signals.” The Wireless World, August (1913): 299. Sherwood, Marika. “Strikes! African Seamen, Elder Dempster and the Government 1940 – 42.” Immigrants & Minorities: Historical Studies in Ethnicity, Migration and Diaspora, vol. 13, n. 2 – 3 (1994): 130 – 145. Siemens Brothers. 1913. “D. 19. N. 799.” In Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives. Siemens Brothers. 1914. “D.4. N. 165 – 167.” Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives. Siemens Brothers. 1915. “D. 4. N. 74.” Registres de Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. ITU Library & Archives. Streeter, Thomas. Selling the Air: A Critique of the Policy of Commercial Broadcasting in the United States. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 1996. “The Admiralty Have Just Ordered…” The Engineer, vol. 6 (1901): 666. Union International de Radiophonie. “Stations de Radiodiffusion Emettant Sur Des Longueurs d’onde de 200 a 600 M.” In Correspondance: Radiotélégraphie. 40. ITU Library & Archives, 1926. Valderhaug, Gudmund. “Recordkeeping in Local Government in Norway 1950 – 2000.” Archival Science, vol. 3 (2003): 205 – 212.

Christian Henrich-Franke* and Léonard Laborie**¹

9 Technology Taking Over Diplomacy? The ‘Comité Consultatif International (for) Fernschreiben’ (CCIF) and Its Relationship to the ITU in the Early History of Telephone Standardization, 1923 – 1947 9.1 Introduction

The ITU today is synonymous with technical standardization. Yet, until the incorporation of the International Consultative Committee for Telephony (CCIF) in 1947, the ITU did little in terms of technical standardization. Of course, since the very beginning, technology and standardization were at stake in ITU discussions. As early as 1865, the founding members of the so called Union Télégraphique Internationale (hereanafter in English International Telegraph Union) agreed in Paris on the Morse system to be the common standard on international lines. But this was de facto already the case, and the members also soon rejected the idea of creating an international school for telegraphists, fearing losing control over technical sovereignty.² Standardization at that time was more an ex post result of each participant’s practices and preferences. This changed dramatically with the CCIF. This chapter will discuss the establishment of the CCIF and its ‘independent’ history up to 1947. It is argued that the CCIF was intentionally formed apart from the ITU, and became a birthplace for a specific “Culture of Standardization” of telecommunication equipment and infrastructure. This culture claimed independence from politics, shaped standard-setting, and subsequently impacted ITU governance and institutional arrangements. One core issue of this culture

* University of Siegen, Germany ** CNRS, France  Research for this article was made possible by a ANR/DFG funded research project on ‚Infrastructures, infrastructural cooperation and the continuity of European Integration: The European Postal and Telecommunication Union (1942– 1944)’ (ANR-16-FRAL-0013 – 01).  Balbi, Fari and Richeri, “A common technical culture of telegraphy”; Laborie, “Organisations internationales, normalisation et circulations techniques au XIXe siècle.” https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-010

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was indeed the engineers’ conviction that their own standard-setting was superior to all other kinds of standard-setting, e. g. by national delegates at international telecommunication conferences, invested with representative power. Selfclaimed independency from politics and diplomacy, which didn’t share the language of “pure” technical rationality, since then turned out to be a constituting element for international regulation and standardization of telecommunication. But was the birth of the CCIF indeed the sign of technology taking over diplomacy in that particular field of international telecommunication regulation? Was the framing of the CCIF itself totally free from politics? To answer these questions, we worked on this institution’s archival traces (mainly printed materials stored in the ITU Library & Archives in Geneva), but also on the French and German archives (Post and Telecommunication administrations, and Foreign Offices). As the American company AT&T proved to be both a relevant and a shadow actor, we also investigated its archives in the US. In contrast with earlier research by George Codding,³ or more recently by Carl Jeding,⁴ which had a strong focus on US and British perspectives and actors, we will put emphasis on Germany and France.⁵ Both were key players for the CCIF’s development up to its incorporation into the ITU. Franco-German competition regarding technology, institutions and power was among the most important reasons behind the setting up of the CCIF in its original design.⁶ In the beginning, the CCIF was called Comité consultatif international de téléphonie à grande distance en Europe, hence in French. When the initials CCIF were forged in the early 1930s, it oddly enough came to stand for Comité consultatif international (still in French), and the F for Fernschreiben (telephony, in German). This linguistic ‘smash’, or ‘synthesis’, rather, illustrates both the centrality of French and German actors and their capacity to move beyond formative tensions. The following development sets the institutional, professional and technological stage for international telephony in the early 1920s (part 2). It then contrasts the techno-diplomacy that shaped the CCIF as a new arena outside the International Telegraph Union in the aftermath of the First World War (part 3) with the strengthening of a “standardization culture” within this setting, which put the classic International Telegraph Union claim of apolitical rationality on a

 Codding, The International Telecommunication Union. A mere 10 pages only are originally devoted to the CCIF.  Jeding, Co-ordination, Cooperation and Competition.  For earlier works on the CCIF, see Valensi, “Le développement de la téléphonie internationale”; Carré, “Archéologie d’une Europe des télécommunications.”  Petzold, “Deutsch-französische Rivalität und Zusammenarbeit bei der Errichtung des europäischen Telefonnetzes nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg.”

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new level (part 4). Parts 5 and 6 show how this culture was at play in a radically new political context (compared to the interwar period) during the Second World War and then the foundation of the United Nations system in its aftermath, and how this culture was then incorporated into the ITU. Part 7 draws a conclusion.

9.2 Telephony in Europe up to the Early 1920s 9.2.1 Regulating International Telephony within the International Telegraph Union As already developed in this book, the origins of cross-border cooperation in the broader field of telecommunication – here the telegraph – date back to the mid19th century. 20 European states founded the International Telegraph Union on May 17, 1865. Just 10 years later, the International Telegraph Union established a governance structure that separated politicians and experts.⁷ Henceforth, the governments solely discussed the basic rules of cross-border communication in the International Telegraph Union convention, while the national telecommunication administrations’ experts negotiated operational and tariff standards at so-called “administrative conferences.” The results of these negotiations were codified within the so-called “telegraph regulations” which did not require any governmental ratification. The separation of experts from politicians and diplomats triggered a process that subsequently transformed telegraph regulation into a technocratic subject, negotiated by heads of national monopoly administrations in contact with managers from large private cable companies. Standards, especially regarding operational and tariff issues, were negotiated by experts from national monopoly administrations within a sphere under their direct and sole control. While telegraphy was a national monopoly in all International Telegraph Union member countries, telephony was operated by private and public operators alike since its early developments at the end of the 1870s.⁸ This complicated any international regulation, which was, incidentally, limited also by the fact that telephony was for decades mainly a local (urban) business, due to techno-

 Balbi, Fari and Richeri, “The Bureaucratisation of the Telegraph Union.”  Ambrosius and Henrich-Franke, Integration of Infrastructures in Europe in Comparison, 59 – 63. On international telephony regulation, see Chapuis, “The CCIF and the development of international telephony” and “History of regulations governing the international telephone service.”

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logical and economic reasons.⁹ Telephony was subsequently incorporated into the institutional framework for telegraphs, however, more as an appendix to the telegraphs. Telegraph experts dominated the International Telegraph Union and considered the experts of the new telephone technology and telephone regulations as second class. The first multilateral telephone regulations were laid down in Berlin in 1885. In 1903, a distinct “telephone commission” met for the first time in the framework of a International Telegraph Union administrative conference. It wrote chapter 17 of the telegraph regulation, dealing with international telephony. But an independent telephone regulation did not come into being until 1932 – precisely when the International Telegraph Union became the International Telecommunication Union, and when the United States became a member of the organization. To sum up, the International Telegraph Union up to the early 1920s mirrored its name: the focus regarding actors as well as rules and working procedures was on the telegraph. The telephone was just a second class annex to the telegraph. Over that, the International Telegraph Union hardly studied detailed technical standards, but rather negotiated administrative and tariff matters.

9.2.2 Professionalization of Engineering The decades up to the 1920s were also shaped by the professionalization and specialization of the poly-technical or the engineers’ education, which turned out to be a key issue for the development of cross-border telecommunications, particularly with regard to telephony. Across Europe and the US, national technical colleges and universities expanded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This involved the foundation of new universities and colleges, as well as a differentiation of engineering sciences into more disciplines and specializations. Experimental research and teaching replaced the older style of theoretical education. The amalgamation of mathematical, theoretical and experimental research resulted in a new type of researcher, respectively an engineer with a professional education. Referring to the Prussian example, it can be illustrated how rapid the development took place. The first title “Diplom-Ingenieur” was granted in 1899 and was followed by the rights to confer doctorates in the 1920s.¹⁰

 Calvo, “The shaping of urban telephone networks in Europe, 1877– 1926”; John, Network Nation, 349.  Buchheim and Sonnemann, Geschichte der Technikwissenschaften.

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The professionalization of engineering became noticeable even in the case of telecommunication. First, specialized schools and professional organizations emerged within the different nation states. In the case of France, for instance, the Ecole supérieure des télégraphes was founded by state initiative in 1878, and, in 1913, the Association des ingénieurs télégraphistes (Association of Telegraph Engineers) was officially entrusted.¹¹ Second, the telecommunication administrations and equipment industry established research and examination offices filled with engineers. In Germany, the Reichspost established a first office in 1888. This was transformed into the Telegraphentechnisches Reichsamt in 1920 (since 1928: Reichspostzentralamt), which already had a staff of 1560 persons – the majority of them engineers.¹² It was a department intended to study and examine telecommunication equipment in cooperation with the industry, such as Siemens and Halske, which had its own large-scale facilities. Third, technical literature increased remarkably. In Germany, the journal Europäischer Fernsprechdienst (European Telephone Service) was established in 1924, and the Handwörterbuch des elektrischen Fernmeldewesens (Handbook for electronic telecommunication) from 1929 discussed on 1700 pages all aspects of telecommunication.¹³ Internationally, the International Telegraph Union issued the Journal Télégraphique since 1869. To sum up, the interwar period was a “tide turn” in telecommunication engineering and brought about a self-image of technical engineer, as was the case with telephone engineers.

9.2.3 The Development of Telephone Technology up to the 1920s As already mentioned, the telephone provided for decades mainly short-distance connections. In Europe, as in the US, the market was primarily local. Long-distance telephony was a technological challenge for operators and was always very expensive for users. In Europe, international telephony was limited to a small number of lines between neighbouring capitals, including the connections between Paris and Brussels (1887), London and Paris (1891), and London and Brussels (1903). These connections were sometimes established before national interurban lines. They were easier to lay down and potential users seemed

 Atten, “Les ingénieurs des télécommunications (1844– 1999): un grand corps?”  Reichspostzentralamt, Das Reichspostzentralamt.  Feyerabend, Handwörterbuch des elektrischen Fernmeldewesens.

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more in demand. In any case, the overhead cables were often prone to damages, and their capacities limited. For this reason, and due to regulations that saw in them a way to finance the building of national lines, international phone calls were extremely expensive. Telegraph engineers, and even more telephone engineers, expressed the need to share and discuss the results of rapidly evolving technologies. Not to regulate international telephone rates or rules of operation in the first place, but to identify best practices and compare technical solutions, particularly in terms of long-distance communication. Due to signal attenuation and distortion, longdistance telephony was indeed a technological frontier. This situation contrasted greatly with telegraphy, which, almost from the beginning, allowed for signal circulation over very long distances, even undersea. With the “speaking telegraph” instead, very specific, highly sophisticated technologies were necessary to reach locations further away. In 1903, the telephone commission at the International Telegraph Union conference asked for the gathering of a forum of telephone experts in between the conferences, where they would exchange information, and debate without engaging their own institutions. The conference rejected the proposal, for “political reasons” a French politician regretted later.¹⁴ Central administrations staffed with postal and telegraph experts, he argued, wanted to keep telephone experts under control. The forum finally came to life, expanded to include telegraphy. Two international meetings of the Conférence internationale des techniciens des télégraphes et téléphones de l’Europe took place in Budapest in 1908 (14 countries represented) and Paris in 1910 (18 countries, with John Carty representing the US company Bell).¹⁵ A third meeting was scheduled in Bern. Although the French, German and Austrian governments had signed a convention in July 1914, in the midst of severe diplomatic tensions, allowing for telephone service between Paris and Vienna via German lines, the outbreak of war reconfigured the European network and made it impossible to gather the third meeting.¹⁶ Like in many other technological areas, the First World War resulted in an enormous number of innovations in the telecommunication sector. The electronic tube became essential for the telephone. Bell Laboratories had developed a tube amplifier already in 1912, which facilitated long-distance telephony between New York and Baltimore since 1913, and later enabled a transcontinental com-

 Comptes rendus de la deuxième conférence internationale des techniciens des télégraphes et téléphones de l’Europe, 62.  Laborie, L’Europe mise en réseaux, 198 – 201.  Ibid., 201; Craemer, “Das europäische Fernkabelnetz.”

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mercial service inaugurated in January 1915. In 1916, similar innovations were made by Siemens and Halske in Germany, and the Marconi Company in Great Britain. Based on such innovations, the warring states established a number of long-distance overhead lines for military purposes, such as between Berlin and Constantinople.¹⁷ Being similar in effect, the emerging new connections were very heterogeneous in their technical details, combining in various ways systems like the Pupin-cable, electronic repeaters and, later on, also carrier frequency devices. In addition, other technical components like (semi‐)automatic switching devices were improved by different companies with different national backgrounds. Already among the largest problems at national level was the connection of different geographical parts of the telephone network (local, regional and national lines), which were often different in their technical characteristics. After the end of the First World War, telephone networks were enlarged across Europe. In most countries, telephone networks, or at least long-distance lines, became nationalized. The military backed any effort to develop long-distance lines, as they had proved crucial during the war. In that context, a strong national cartel between the telecommunication administration and the equipment industry emerged in Germany. The Reichspost, Siemens, AEG and others all cooperated within the Deutsche Fernkabelgesellschaft (German long-distance cable association) founded in 1921.¹⁸ The ambition was twofold: giving impetus to the construction of a national high-tech infrastructure that could put the country at the centre of the emerging European network, and protecting the national market from foreign competitors. In France, a new private corporation based on American capital and technology was founded under direct governmental supervision, the Lignes Télégraphiques et Téléphoniques (LTT).¹⁹ France needed to develop an integrated trunk line system to overcome its relatively backward telephone equipment. It chose US technology to become independent from German products. The same American interests, namely International Western Electric (a company gathering Western Electric’s subsidiaries on the European market, Western Electric being a branch of AT&T, best known as the Bell Company), owned a French switching equipment manufacturer, Le Matériel Téléphonique. In other countries too, networks expanded with solutions providing both protection of local equipment manufacturers and possibilities of connecting across borders through gateways. Of course, national systems were not built solely by national companies. On the contrary, different companies were  “La téléphonie à grande distance en France.”  Schröter, “The German Long Distance Telephone Network as a Large Technical System.”  L’épopée des LTT, lignes télégraphiques et téléphoniques; Bouvier, Connexions électriques, 228. John and Laborie, “‘Circuits of Victory’.”

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enmeshed in concession agreements or sub-companies. Siemens and Halske, for example, built the French inland line between Lyon and Bordeaux in 1927. Nevertheless, it was the national administrations who decided on technical specifications in the national telephone networks. At the beginning of the 1920s, it was only a matter of time before the enlarged national telephone networks posed the question of developing long-distance liaisons at continental scale, instead of the more limited neighbouring connections. On the demand side, international business complained about the lack of connectivity. London could barely be in touch by telephone with people situated further away than a relatively small zone extending from Antwerp to Brussels and Paris. On the supply side, by the mid-1920s, engineers calculated that only 17 % of technologically feasible international connections were in service in Europe.²⁰ Chicago had been telephonically linked to Boston since 1892, whereas any such long-distance connection hardly existed in Europe by 1926.²¹ Which country would be central in the new network, and which would be on the margin? “The European telecommunication program is like a huge viaduct, the successive arches of which would be built by the various states of Eastern, Central and Southern Europe. Only one arch would be lacking: the one it belongs to France to build,” warned the French PTT Secretary of State in 1922.²² Emulation between countries accelerated the development of a larger continental network. In another way, so did the example of the telephonically linked-up US, spanning from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast, through which engineers could dream of a European network turned into a peace and community-building instrument, able to make the peoples of the continent feel and live closer together.²³ One could have imagined that the International Telegraph Union would take the lead in planning and coordinating the emergence of such a network. It did not. Instead, this happened within another framework.

 Gill, “La téléphonie internationale en Europe.”  “Téléphonie internationale.”  “Le programme européen des télécommunications ressemble à un immense viaduc dont les arches successives seraient construites par les divers États de l’Europe orientale, centrale, méridionale. Une seule arche y manquerait : celle qu’il appartient à la France d’édifier.” Laffont, “La crise du téléphone.”  Martin, “La téléphonie à grande distance en Europe.”

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Figure 9.1 – European long-distance lines in 1922. Source: Europäischer Fernsprechdienst, 4, 1923, p. 18.

9.3 The Founding of the CCIF as an Independent Actor: A Techno-Diplomatic Issue 9.3.1 Institutional Options for a European Network The interconnection of national networks in Europe was a difficult matter due to the differences in technical equipment, operational rules and maintenance. It typically took months to make such a connection happen, and even years to build direct through-lines crossing one or several intermediary countries to con-

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nect non-border territories – when it was not considered a “hopeless endeavour.”²⁴ It was clear for all the engineers involved that a series of bilateral or multilateral agreements could only lead to a messy patchwork of more or less incompatible provisions. The most influential answer to the question of a European telephone network was given by Frank Gill, British chief engineer of the US London-based International Western Electric Company.²⁵ As did other observers, Gill contrasted the situation in Europe with the great developments of long-distance telephony in North America. He saw three options for overcoming a clear lack of coordination and realizing a transnational telephone network in Europe. In his own order of preference: ‒ A private company as European service provider (and one could suspect he had the International Western Electric Company specifically in mind), on top of national service providers and able to decide independently on the planning and technology to be used; in later discussions, the International Sleeping-Car Company (CIWL) would sometimes appear as an inspiration for such a company.²⁶ ‒ A joint venture of European public operators as European service provider, with capital sharing and governance power distributed in proportion to national assets, which could also independently decide on the planning and technology. ‒ A common committee to study network capacities, technology and issue recommendations. Such a committee was intended to subsequently harmonize national networks and to put all decisions in the hands of national telephone administrations and providers. “The third alternative is frankly one of a temporizing nature, being intended only to cover a study of this difficult problem,.” according to Gill. Regarding the three options on the table, both a private company or a publicly owned transnational service provider were out of question, because most national telecommunication administrations wanted to maintain their monopolies. They did not want to subordinate national telephone services under binding European rules and regulations. In particular, the French administration did certainly not want the German telecommunication administration or industry to become a powerful actor within a European service provider. Therefore, the only

 Ibid., 265.  Gill, “Future of Long-distance Telephony in Europe.”  See for instance Walter, “Téléphonie internationale.”

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imaginable solution was an international consultative committee to study and discuss nonbinding technical solutions for the interconnection of the national telephone networks in Europe. Neither Switzerland nor the International Telegraph Union took any initiative, maybe because the international organization focused on the quantitatively dominant and more global telegraph flows, and on the issue of its own re-foundation.²⁷ It therefore left the way open for initiatives from outside. A first step in that direction was taken by the French telecommunication administration and especially two of its leading figures, Alfred Dennery, the founder and director of the administration’s research department, and one of its most promising and polyglot member, the young engineer Georges Valensi.²⁸ Valensi later recalled that Dennery had asked him to translate Gill’s article when it was published, and to express its own view on the matter. Valensi just could not think of a private company overtaking transnational lines: “I replied that the proposal did not seem very realistic in so far as telephony was a public service which in every country had to remain under government control and the organizations and equipments that existed in European countries were extremely diverse.”²⁹ A first preliminary meeting with a limited number of participants from six countries (Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain and Switzerland) met in Paris in March 1923.³⁰ It was tasked with exploring the best institutional solution for developing long-distance telephony in Europe. Neither Germany nor Austria nor Turkey had been invited. With industrial rivalries and the ongoing diplomatic crisis in the Ruhr, which incidentally froze the development of the German longdistance telephone network toward the Western part of the Reich and Europe,³¹ it was not time for cooperation between former wartime enemies. Compared to the pre-war era, the war and post-war developments gave a specific diplomatic twist to the need for telephone engineers to meet and discuss technical options. French delegates, in accordance with French diplomacy, wanted technology to cement a new European order, on which Paris had to keep a strong grip. If a new organization was to be created, it should be based in Paris, not in Berlin, the European capital city holding by far the largest number of international telephone connections with other European cities, or even Bern, where the International Telegraph Union had its seat up to 1947 before moving to Geneva. If technical standards had to be cast, they should not advantage the Ger    

John, “When Techno-Diplomacy Failed” in this book. Laborie, “Georges Valensi (1889 – 1980): Europe Calling?” 198 – 201. Valensi, “Brief history of the CCIF,” 416. Comité technique préliminaire pour la téléphonie à grande distance en Europe. Craemer, “Le réseau téléphonique allemand comme partie du futur réseau européen,” 4.

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man industry, but the equipment manufacturers from the former allied countries. The delegates agreed on the need and opportunity to create a new permanent institutional framework following these lines. Some German voices immediately protested against a foreseeable americanization of the Old Continent, a process violating the fundamental cultural, economic and political diversity of Europe, and undermining in particular “German science and technology.”³² In France too, some industrialists voiced against a move toward greater control over European telephony by American interests; standardization came too early they said, at the advantage of first movers and at the disadvantage of companies exploring alternative technologies. It was impossible in these conditions to develop a national industry independent from American technology.³³ Having the seat of the new organization in Paris was a “satisfaction stérile.”³⁴ Later, some members of the French Parliament denounced an inconspicuous subversion (“mise en tutelle progressive de divers Etats” in French) and “colonization” going on through standardization behind the doors of non-democratic, technofinancial standardization committees.³⁵ On the other side of the Atlantic, Western Electric was on the contrary very happy with the ongoing dynamic, forecasting it taking a 75 % share of the 100-million-dollar market that Europe represented.³⁶ Even Gill, who regretted an “initial mistake” in the fact that the experts in 1923 self-censored in wrongly acknowledging that “the financial and executive control of the international telephone system in each country must remain in the hands of the Minister responsible to Parliament,” was delighted: “I am not unduly depressed by it, because it seems to me that the great thing is to get these people together, to have them study the matter and to have them working diligently towards a solution.”³⁷

 Wagner, “La téléphonie à grande distance,” 7– 8.  Letter from Général Anthoine (head of the newly formed Société industrielle de crédit pour la télégraphie et la téléphonie), to Paul Laffont, PTT Under-Secretary of State, 11/06/1923. Archives du ministère des Affaires étrangères (later AMAE, La Courneuve), Unions, 1950.  Note, without title, date or author. AMAE, Unions, 1950.  Philip, Les téléphones publics français et l’industrie américaine, 41, 55 – 56.  Dubois, The Foreign Business of the Western Electric Company, August 1923, 17– 18. ATT Corporate Archives (Warren, NJ) [ATTA], 126 – 02– 02– 01.  Gill, Frank (International Western Electric), to F. A. Stevenson (ATT), 24 January 1924. ATTA, 82– 02– 02– 01.

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9.3.2 An Independent Engineer Committee Following on the 1923 meeting, it was again the French administration that invited a larger group of national administrations’ responsible engineers to a meeting in Paris for a week at the end of April 1924 to establish the already agreed upon Comité Consultatif International des Communications Téléphoniques à Grande Distance en Europe (then abbreviated CCI). This time, former war enemies were invited to join – once the rules had been settled, so to speak. From the outside, Gill warned that “the Germans are coming here with the intention of kicking up a row, and endeavouring to reverse or alter some of the decisions already arrived at,” adding that “we expect they will attack the standard mile, the standard instrument, and the figures for loading coils, as well as some of the references to repeaters which might be read as meaning Western Electric, but all this is conjecture.”³⁸ Gill and Valensi agreed that Western Electric should not be represented in Paris though. Instead, Valensi would make a trip to Bell and Western Electric headquarters in the United States a few days before the meeting to exchange views and fix some issues regarding the future of European telephony. In order to prepare for his visit, American partners at AT&T and Western Electric were asked to rely on the 1923 recommendations: “Bearing in mind S. & H. [Siemens & Halske] objections, any argument for criticism should be mentioned and if possible the technical calculations given supporting or disproving the statements. Captain Valensi feels that this is very important in view of Dr. Craemer’s article and other propaganda, which may unduly influence the views of representatives from the Central and Northern Administrations at the proposed conference.”³⁹ Nineteen countries sent delegates to Paris – more or less the same countries, mutatis mutandis, which founded the International Telegraph Union 60 years before. If, among other things, the delegates finally and rather easily set themselves the goal of compiling a plan for a European cable network for long-distance telephony up to 1929, some decisions indeed proved more difficult to adopt. The reconciliation under the auspices of scientific and technological rationality could still suffer from vivid tensions. When the discussion came to the definition and naming of the transmission unit for instance, consensus kept out of reach. The British, backed by AT&T, promoted the “transmission unit” and the “bel” or “decibel” (paying homage to Alexander Bell), while the Germans had another proposal, the “absolute natural unit” and the “neper.” Unable to settle the

 Gill, Frank (International Western Electric) to Frank Jewett (ATT vice-president), 18 February 1924. ATTA, 82– 02– 02– 01.  Byng, Memorandum of conversation with Captain G. Valensi in Paris.

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case, the CCIF recognized both and recommended the use of one or the other of these two standards.⁴⁰ The CCIF was a new international organization, with its seat and General Secretary in Paris. However, delegates decided it to be provisory until the next International Telegraph Union conference, where discussions should take place regarding its formal recognition.⁴¹ This happened in 1925, during the Paris telegraph administrative conference. Delegates debated over three proposals: keeping the CCIF as it was, that is, as an independent and non-official organisation; leaving any regulation regarding telephony outside the International Telegraph Union; or creating a new department at International Telegraph Union headquarters in charge of research on telephony, telegraphy and radiocommunications.⁴² Delegates finally agreed to formally recognize the CCIF as it was, with its own internal rules, agenda and finance, and at the same time to urge International Telegraph Union’s members to conform as much as possible to the CCIF recommendations, which should be forwarded to the International Telegraph Union and published by its Journal Télégraphique. The CCIF was hence founded without an intergovernmental agreement, and stayed independent from the International Telegraph Union, which formally recognized it as a provider of standards. As a matter of fact, any member country belonging to the International Telegraph Union could become a member of the CCIF. This intermediary status resulted from a number of reasons, which can all be seen as political, and some clearly diplomatic: ‒ Independence allowed for greater control by its French main promoter. Being apart from the International Telegraph Union was the best way to disconnect the General Secretary from the international bureau, which probably had the disadvantage, at least from France’s perspective, of being driven from and by the Swiss administration. ‒ Connection with the International Telegraph Union, on the other hand, prevented any integration into the expanding League of Nations, which showed interest in the CCIF through its own Organization for Communications and Transit.⁴³ A stronger connection to the League of Nations would have excluded all non-members from participation – in 1925, this would have still meant the exclusion of Germany,⁴⁴ and later of the USSR, which joined the CCIF in 1929.     

Chapuis and Amos, 100 years of telephone switching, 276. Valensi, Le comité consultatif international téléphonique (CCIF), 3. Fossion, “Le comité consultatif international téléphonique,” 339. “European Telephony as Affected by the International Telephone Committee – ”C.C.I.”.” Response of the Reichspost to the French invitation, in: Bundesarchiv Berlin, R4701/34082.

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Independence enabled cooperation in a different way and with different partners: through permanent and parallel working groups instead of periodical and more political large conferences; by opening up the pool of experts to engineers from the equipment industries, who could participate with a consultative voice to the working groups (this was agreed as early as 1924), and from private telephone companies, which could attend plenary assemblies (this was agreed in 1928); the CCIF was not global as the International Telegraph Union had become but restricted to Europe; at the same time, the CCIF was keen to create a connection with US players, whose government was not yet a member of the International Telegraph Union. It allowed for US participation as long as the US wasn’t a member of the International Telegraph Union. AT&T sent observers and then accepted the invitation to become a formal member of the CCIF at the 1930 plenary assembly, for a mix of operational, political and strategic reasons: to standardize burgeoning intercontinental telephony, to show goodwill in international cooperation so that the US government kept out of this business, and to have an eye on European developments in telephony.⁴⁵ In a more professional and transnational perspective, it can be hypothesized that independence also enabled the CCIF to discuss technical standardization comparatively independently from telegraph issues and other non-technical considerations dealt within the International Telegraph Union framework.

In this framework, some countries including Germany proposed time and again to normalize the CCIF, connecting it to the International Telegraph Union as a special office or merging all three CCIs,⁴⁶ and to make the voting power in the CCIF dependent on the length of the telephone network to limit French influence.⁴⁷ Valensi and France had to fight and manoeuvre repeatedly to save the CCIF General Secretary’s position and location.⁴⁸ In 1932, the new international

 Invitation received by Company to join the CCI. Memorandum, 21 February 1929. ATTA, 432-0401-02.  CCIT with T for telegraphy, established in 1925, and CCIR with R for radiocommunication, established in 1927, were created on the model of the CCIF but without the same autonomy and structure; it is probably because the T was already taken by the CCIT that the F was chosen for telephony in 1932.  Internal correspondence between the Reichspost and the German Foreign Office, Bundesarchiv Berlin, R4701/34084.  Note sur l’organisation du CCIF rédigée en vue de la conférence télégraphique internationale de Madrid (septembre 1932). ITU Library & Archives (Geneva), Valensi collection.

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telecommunication convention drafted in Madrid formally included the CCIF in the telephone regulations, but with only very marginal changes to its original setting – notably its initial name. The CCIF was then, more than ever, under the ITU’s umbrella, being both independent from and part of it.

9.4 The CCIF in the Interwar Period: The Birthplace of a New Culture of Standardization 9.4.1 The CCIF at Work Having been successful in making Paris the centre of international telephony, the political tensions were, to a large extent, relieved. The CCIF satisfied a number of needs: the standardization of long-distance telephone equipment was left to engineers, all recommendations were non-binding for national administrations, and the telephone became independent from the telegraph. Viewed from the engineers’ perspectives, the CCIF was intended to open up a framework for national telephone engineers to discuss suitable technical solutions for the construction of a European telephone network. Therefore, the CCIF was, from the beginning, shaped by the apolitical attitude of its members. The French administration and the General Secretary, Valensi – a key institutional entrepreneur – subsequently even treated the German telecommunication engineers as equal partners.⁴⁹ Besides all political endeavours, the abandoning of German engineers made no sense from a technical point of view. In general, the political rivalries of the 1920s and 1930s, which were a strong burden for the League of Nations, hardly mattered within the CCIF once it had taken up work on the European telephone network. A coherent generation of telecommunication engineers now coordinated the extension of this network. At the beginning, some engineers were afraid of discussing technical content in a foreign language, namely French.⁵⁰ They soon discovered, however, that apart from linguistic communication, the content-related communication was much easier. The language of engineering was easily formulated into mathematical formulas.

 Already the reports from the CCI meetings in 1925 and 1926 revealed discussions on an equal footing in technical questions. See: Bundesarchiv Berlin, R4701/9813.  Craemer, “Fortschritte und Zukunftsaufgaben des internationalen Fernsprechdiensts.”

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The working procedures of the CCIF were formalized in 1926, and General Secretary Valensi turned out to be the central coordinator of its activities.⁵¹ A reporting system and centralized documentation by the General Secretary were introduced, which had a standardizing effect on national vocabulary, classifications and national denominations for technical components. The CCIF set up a number of working groups to discuss technical details and to issue recommendations. Within these working groups, the respective chairmen issued questionnaires to gather different standpoints and opinions, which were then discussed at the working groups’ meetings. In contrast to the 19th century, when national administrations’ delegates met primarily at administrative conferences held with a few years’ interval, the CCIF and its working groups brought engineers into permanent and direct contacts. Some of them specialized in processes of regulation and standardization within international organizations. Being limited in number, the engineers easily built up friendly connections outside of their professional duties. Even the equipment industries’ engineers and representatives of other international organizations, such as the International Electrotechnical Commission or the International Broadcasting Union, were admitted as participants. Telephone lines were of importance to other media, including wired radio and the exchange of radio programmes between different radio stations. Standard-setting within the CCIF impacted not only telephone services but also several other media, including broadcasting and maritime navigation. Also for that reason, a usual CCIF plenary assembly meeting brought together 105 telephone experts from all over Europe already in 1930.⁵² The industry even used the meetings to exhibit and demonstrate new technologies. In 1928, the CCIF was equipped with its own laboratory in Paris, where the engineers were able to commonly study and discuss technical issues. With the laboratory, the French PTT administration made the next important step in making France and Paris the centre of international telephony. The laboratory enshrined the European master reference system for telephone transmission, which was offered by the US company AT&T as a copy of its own American one – hence telephone apparatus from Western Electric plugged into a milelong line (not a one-thousand-metre-long line, as a German expert concerned with European normative power complained earlier).

 “Die zweite alleuropäische Fernsprechkonferenz in Paris,” Das Fernkabel: Mitteilungen über Kabelanlagen für den Nachrichtenverkehr im In- und Ausland, 9 (1925): 47– 50.  Laborie, L’Europe mise en réseaux, 226 – 229.

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9.4.2 Elements of the ‘Culture of Standardization’ The CCIF was the birthplace for a specific ‘Culture of Standardization’ among the engineers negotiating the European telephone network. “We are not here an official body, but a meeting of colleagues whose feelings of good fellowship are likely to facilitate the task. Therefore, the different delegations are invited to correspond directly with each other often. They can do it very simply and without the formalities that might result from the intervention of Administrations,” stressed Henri Milon, hosting the first meeting of the CCIF in 1924.⁵³ If we take into consideration that the CCIF study groups met frequently between the annual plenary assemblies, it becomes evident that the CCIF turned out to be a breeding ground for an international (telephone) engineer network. In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, it became ever more obvious that the CCIF was a meeting place for ‘friends’ with shared interests and belief systems. In 1929, the German PTT director, Peter Craemer, who criticized the CCIF in 1923/24, underlined in his opening speech to the CCIF plenary meeting in Berlin that “there is hardly any international organization where cooperation is shaped by such an enthusiasm for the common goal”⁵⁴. This subsequently resulted in personal relations and friendships across national borders, which often took shape at an increasing number of social events and sightseeing that surrounded the meetings. Reports and articles give an impression of an ever denser engineer network. Two issues were at the core of this ‘Culture of Standardization’ and style of negotiating technology. First, technical networks were intended to be inter-connectable rather than interoperable to protect national markets and producers. This meant that technically different networks were connected at the national borders without replacing the existing equipment with new equipment that could be operated within different national networks. A key issue in that context was the restriction of keeping recommendations to more general (technical) characteristics without becoming too detailed.⁵⁵ At the same time, the engineers  “Nous ne sommes pas ici un corps officiel, mais une réunion de collègues dont les sentiments de bonne camaraderie seront de nature à faciliter la tâche. Par conséquent, les différentes délégations sont invitées à correspondre directement souvent entre elles. Elles pourront le faire très simplement et sans les formalités qui pourraient résulter de l’intervention des Administrations.” Comité consultatif international des communications téléphoniques à grande distance en Europe, Paris, 28 avril – 3 mai 1924, 58.  Craemer, “Fünf Jahre CCI. Ein Willkomm zur 6. Vollversammlung in Berlin,” 101– 102.  “Subsequent realization that too great detail in certain specifications was restrictive and might tend to favor one manufacturer at the expense of others led to a change in viewpoint, the Committee considering that in many cases it could be most effective by limiting its recommendations to desirable overall characteristics of performance. This procedure would still allow

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pushed themselves to effectively connect the national networks. Second, the conviction of the engineers’ autonomous regulation’s superiority shaped the institutional arrangements. Independency from politics and diplomacy, which did not share the language of technical rationality, turned out to be a constituting element. Both elements had their roots in the 19th century regulation at International Telegraph Union administrative conferences. Within the CCIF, however, the ‘Culture of Standardization’ became a kind of dominating transnational belief system within an expert community that exceeded the level of pure professional contacts. Therefore, the ‘Culture of Standardization’ was able to shape the design of European telecommunication institutions throughout the 20th century.

9.4.3 A European Telephone Network Besides being a breeding ground for a cross-border network of engineers, the CCIF was also a catalyst for the establishment of an effective European telephone network in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1924, the technical differences and interconnection gaps between national networks was so large that one could not speak of a ‘European network’. In 1930, however, the standardizing impact of the CCIF recommendations enabled the telephone engineers to draft a plan for an overall European network, which effectively interconnected the national networks.⁵⁶ Especially the harmonization of the different geographical parts of the telephone network allowed for ever more direct cross-border connections. Cables became increasingly effective and were able to host more telephone calls over longer distances. The Pupin Method II, which the CCIF recommended for the first time in 1929, allowed the double use of cables at lower power rates and with a higher speed of transmission. Telephone calls since the second half of the 1930s were able to be transmitted to over 14,000 km away. The CCIF raised new questions to increase the service quality and to decrease costs for long-distance calls, including direct calling, languages, tariffs, capacities etc. One milestone was CCIF recommendation No. 41, which merged different tariff rules and brought about a high level of unification regarding tariff structures and tariff compilation. The increasingly entangled engineer network was also a product of a rapidly advancing technology. The professionalization of engineering and the expanding an appreciable leeway for initiative in the determination of characteristics for the component parts.” Memorandum, 18/07/1935. ATTA, 450-05-01-09.  Höpfner, “Die Brüsseler Tagung des Zwischenstaatlichen Beratenden Ausschusses für den Fernsprechverkehr vom 16. bis 23. Juni 1930.”

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Map 9.2 – European long-distance lines in 1930. Source: Europäischer Fernsprechdienst, 29, 1932, p. 162.

number of laboratories raised ever more questions, which needed to be studied and discussed. The CCIF recommendations increased from a 42-page document in 1924 to a 1100-page document by 1938. The large number of questionnaires, which the administrations prepared for the ongoing work, increased knowledge on technologies and different national telephone systems’ characteristics. The CCIF recommendations, though having a non-binding normative character, were adopted by the telecommunication administrations and the equipment industry around the world. National governments across Europe tolerated this style of standardization throughout the 1930s for a number of reasons. First, national telephone markets and equipment producers kept protected from foreign competitors. Second, diplomats and ministers lacked the engineering knowledge to assess the technical issues. Third, telephone networks, telephone services and the number of users grew quickly.

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Besides successful standard-setting, the negotiations within the CCIF were not completely free from tensions. Mostly, differences in opinion resulted from the simple fact that some countries like Germany were ‘transit countries’ that had to manage a large number of international calls, whereas more peripheral countries like France didn’t share the same amount of transit traffic.⁵⁷ Therefore, issues like the competences to switch and manage transit calls were often disputed within the CCIF along the lines of different geographical locations within the overall European network. Another source of conflicts were the different stages of national networks’ technical developments.

9.5 The CCIF in the Second World War: Continued Cooperation Besides Warfare When Germany invaded France in April 1940, the CCIF stopped all its ongoing activities. Valensi hid the CCIF records and laboratory, and was dismissed himself soon after by the new Vichy regime, on account of his being a Jew.⁵⁸ Just a few weeks later, the ITU’s international bureau in Bern also cancelled the Administrative Telegraph and Telephone Conference, which was scheduled in Rome in 1942. For the telephone engineers, this was hardly traceable. They saw themselves as an apolitical community with an apolitical duty and, therefore, tried to continue the standardization of a European telephone network. Already in November 1940, Italian and German engineers proposed to call in an expert group to continue the work of the CCIF, as long as the CCIF officially suspended its activities. They wanted to avoid the development of telephone equipment taking different directions because of a lack of cooperation. This would have meant reverting to the situation prior to the CCIF’s existence. For political reasons, however, the engineers had to compromise with the political authorities, especially with the German Foreign Office, which demanded the founding of an official international organization – the European Postal and Telecommunications Union (EPTU), established in 1942 following a conference in Vienna.⁵⁹ Within the EPTU’s working group for telecommunications, the telephone engineers were

 The debate on transit countries and traffic is a long-term debate in telecommunication history. Similar reflections were made in the case of wired telegraphy and, precisely, during the first conferences of the Telegraph Union (see Balbi et al., Network Neutrality).  He was, however, reintegrated in September 1941 “in virtue of exceptional services rendered to France.” Archives nationales (Pierrefitte-sur-Seine), F 90 20548.  Henrich-Franke and Laborie, “European Union for and by Communication Networks.”

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able to continue the standardization of the European telephone network. Here, some technical standards designed before the war were put to work. Remarkably, even France and Germany subsequently cooperated. France had not been invited to the conference in Vienna. From 1943 onwards, however, some French engineers informally joined the working groups established within the EPTU. The EPTU, which continued its work up to September 1944, enabled the expert community and the ‘Culture of Standardization’ to survive the war. Doing so, it even, in a way, facilitated a quick restart of the CCIF’s activities already in October 1945, and a similar quick restart of European international telephone services right after the war.

9.6 Challenging ITU: The Founding of the United Nations and the Incorporation of the CCIF In October 1945, the CCIF had already started working and “carried on a normal amount of activity through its Commissions and meeting of the Plenary Assemblies.”⁶⁰ As such, the United States and the USSR government agreed to call in a preliminary conference of the ‘big five’ in Moscow in September 1946, to discuss the future organization of international telecommunications and clarify the relationship of the ITU and the United Nations (UN). Finally, in spite of different forms of resistance and arguments, the ITU was incorporated into the overarching political framework of the UN as specialized agency in 1947. It was adapted to the more complex international system of the 20th century, including a stronger political supervision and mandatory institutional rules. The ITU was inextricably linked to the UN, albeit very loosely. A report by the Austrian telecommunication administration concluded that “despite the incorporation of the ITU into the organizational framework of the UN,” the ITU could carry on “dealing with practical aspects of international telecommunications.”⁶¹ The CCIF, together with the other two CCIs, became a part of the ITU’s bureaucracy, albeit a very independent one. The CCIF and its common laboratory moved from Paris to Geneva in 1948, but the CCIs were only modestly changed. Only the administrative structure of the ITU’s headquarters would be made available for them and, therefore, the CCIs were made permanent bodies of the ITU. The UN was excluded from the technical studies and the work carried out within

 Codding, The International Telecommunication Union, 195.  Report by the Austrian PTT-Ministry on the integration of telecommunications in Europe, 16th January 1952. Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (Berlin), B81– 64.

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the CCIs. Remarkably, this was exactly the institutional design which the Reichspost had proposed for the CCIF in 1925. The ‘culture of standardization’ remained the basic guideline for the negotiations within CCIF because the members of the ITU (especially the engineers in the CCI) strongly opted for it. The key argument was still the engineers’ conviction that their own independent standard-setting was superior to all other kinds of standard-setting, and independency from politics and diplomacy was a prerequisite for this.

9.7 Conclusion The CCIF was important for the ITU and international telecommunication cooperation, as it shifted emphasis towards the standardization of technical equipment. It put the independent ‘apolitical’ ruling of international telecommunication among experts on a new level, as it was less diplomatic and more technological than before. In contrast to the International Telegraph Union/ ITU, the CCIF was solely an engineers’ meeting place. Only a provisory organization up to its full recognition by the telegraph conference held in Paris in 1925, the CCIF stood outside the ITU, but was linked to it up to its full incorporation in 1947. The creation of the CCIF and its intermediary status regarding its affiliation to the ITU was the political result of techno-diplomatic negotiations. Once formed, the CCIF then became what we would call an ITU sub-arena, embodying a new balance in the techno-diplomatic mix. The CCIF united engineers in a dense expert network and equipped them with a strong normative belief system about the standardization of telephones in Europe and the world. Within the CCIF, a typical style of standardizing technology emerged (a ‘Culture of Standardization’), impacting the ITU and the telecommunication sector in general for many decades. The institutional design of the CCIF was not only transferred to the other means of telecommunications (telegraph/CCIT and radio/CCIR), but also to the European PTT organizations established since 1942. Organizations like the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunication Administrations (CEPT, 1959) were shaped by the CCIs’ working procedures and the ‘Culture of Standardization’. They were also institutionally linked to the CCIs. Almost 20 years after he had retired from the ITU in 1956, Georges Valensi wrote a short two-page paper on the history of the CCIF. If there was one thing to take from it, he concluded, it was that “loyal consultation among people of the

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same profession (who like their profession) can overcome difficulties of all kinds and is beneficial for mankind.”⁶² Two new elements came up with the CCIF: (1) Independency from political supervision: the independency from politics and diplomacy, which didn’t share the language of technical rationality, turned out to be a constituting element for international regulation and standardization of telecommunication since then – even within the ITU after 1947. Compared to the 19th century, the professionalization of engineers and the increasing importance of technical standardization changed the perception of ‘political’ and ‘technical’ in the engineers within the CCIF. The negotiation of regulations, done at ITU conferences by higher staff from the administrations, was now perceived as (more) ‘political’, whereas technical research by engineers and the (scientific) discussion about technical equipment for transnational telephony within the CCIF became ‘technical’. The CCIF subsequently introduced a clear distinction between ‘administrative conferences’ of the ITU and CCIF meetings, which also mirrored the growing gap between diplomats and engineers. This shows the changing nature over time of what is defined by the actors as political and technical. In the second half of the 20th century, the CCITT and the CCIR even technically prepared the ITU’s administrative conferences for telecommunication and radio. (2) A transnational engineer network, shaped and held together by a particular style of negotiating technology (standardization culture). This culture survived 1947 and shaped the standardization of telecommunication equipment throughout the 20th century. It is remarkable that the CCIF built up a transnational European network very successfully, when political tension in Europe reached its peak, the Great Depression disconnected economies, and the European governments were unable to prevent a catastrophe like the Second World War. However, whether this was the case because ‘technology took over diplomacy’ within the CCIF and International Telegraph Union/ITU is a difficult question to answer. Indeed, technology took over diplomacy in some ways when engineers decided to form a new international committee of their own and get installed in the driving seat, instead of experts in the form of diplomats and administrators for international relations negotiating bilateral or multilateral conventions. But this was very much a matter of politics in the first place, and did not happen in a vacuum. Many political choices were made that shaped the committee. Within the CCIF, however, a new “culture of standardization” evolved and a great deal of effort was put towards achieving a neutralized technology.

 Valensi, “Brief history of the CCIF,” 417.

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References Ambrosius, Gerold, and Christian Henrich-Franke. Integration of Infrastructures in Europe in Comparison. Berlin: Springer, 2015. Atten, Michel. “Les ingénieurs des télécommunications (1844 – 1999): un grand corps ?” In Les ingénieurs des Télécommunications dans la France contemporaine. Réseaux, innovation et territoires (XIXe – XXe siècles), edited by Pascal Griset, 17 – 32. Paris: CHEFF, 2013. Balbi, Gabriele, Fari, Simone, and Giuseppe Richeri. “The Bureaucratisation of the Telegraph Union.” Storia Economica, vol. 61, n. 2 (2013): 377 – 394. Balbi, Gabriele, Fari, Simone, and Giuseppe Richeri. “A common technical culture of telegraphy: the Telegraph Union and the significance of technological standardization 1865 – 1875.” 2012 Third IEEE History of Electro-technology Conference (HISTELCON) (2012): 1 – 4. Balbi, Gabriele, Fari, Simone, Richeri, Giuseppe, and Spartaco Calvo. Network Neutrality: Switzerland’s Role in the Genesis of the Telegraph Union, 1855 – 1875. Bern: Peter Lang, 2014. Bouvier, Yves. Connexions électriques: Technologies, hommes et marchés dans les relations entre la Compagnie générale d’électricité et l’Etat, 1898 – 1992. Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2014. Buchheim, Gisela, ed., Geschichte der Technikwissenschaften. Basel: Springer, 1990. Calvo, Angel. “The Shaping of Urban Telephone Networks in Europe, 1877 – 1926.” Urban History, vol. 33, n. 3 (2006): 411 – 433. Carré, Patrice. “Archéologie d’une Europe des télécommunications.” Revue française des télécommunications, n. 70 (1989): 72 – 83. Chapuis, Robert, and Joel Amos. 100 years of telephone switching. Part 1. Amsterdam: North Holland Publication, 1982. Chapuis, Robert. “The CCIF and the Development of International Telephony” and “History of Regulations Governing the International Telephone Service.” Telecommunications Journal, n. 43 (March 1976): 184 – 197 and 203 – 205. Codding, George A. The International Telecommunication Union. An Experiment in International Cooperation. Leiden: Brill, 1952. Comptes rendus de la deuxième conférence internationale des techniciens des télégraphes et téléphones de l’Europe. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1910. Craemer, Peter. “Das europäische Fernkabelnetz.” Das Fernkabel: Mitteilungen über Kabelanlagen für den Nachrichtenverkehr im In- und Ausland, n. 4 (1923): 3 – 24. Craemer, Peter. “Le réseau téléphonique allemand comme partie du futur réseau européen.” Das Fernsprechen im Weitverkehr. Deutsche Beiträge zur Frage des Europäischen Fernsprechnetzes. Berlin: Reichspostministerium, November 1923. Craemer, Peter. “Fortschritte und Zukunftsaufgaben des internationalen Fernsprechdiensts.” Europäischer Fernsprechdienst, n. 6 (1927): 3 – 12. Craemer, Peter. “Fünf Jahre CCI. Ein Willkomm zur 6. Vollversammlung in Berlin.” Europäischer Fernsprechdienst, n. 12/13 (1929): 101 – 102. Feyerabend, Ernest, ed., Handwörterbuch des elektrischen Fernmeldewesens. Berlin: Springer, 1929.

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Fossion, Henri. “Le comité consultatif international téléphonique (son origine; son évolution).” Journal des télécommunications, vol. 5, n. 12 (1938): 337 – 343. Gill, Frank. “La téléphonie internationale en Europe.” Journal de la Chambre de commerce internationale, n. 18 (1928). Gill, Frank. “Future of Long-distance Telephony in Europe.” Electrical Communication, vol. 1, n. 2, (1922): 8 – 26. Henrich-Franke, Christian, and Léonard Laborie. “European Union for and by Communication Networks: Continuities and Discontinuities during the Second World War.” Comparativ, vol. 28, n. 1 (2018): 82 – 100. Höpfner. “Die Brüsseler Tagung des Zwischenstaatlichen Beratenden Ausschusses für den Fernsprechverkehr vom 16. bis 23. Juni 1930.” Europäischer Fernsprechdienst, n. 19 (1930): 289 – 298. Jeding, Carl. Co-ordination, Cooperation and Competition. The creation of Common Institutions for Telecommunications. Uppsala: S. Academiae Ubsaliensis, Studies in Economic History (55), 2001. John, Richard R. Network Nation. Inventing American Telecommunications. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010. John, Richard R. “When Techno-Diplomacy Failed: Walter S. Rogers, the Universal Electrical Communications Union, and the Limitations of the International Telegraph Union as a Global Actor in the 1920s.” In History of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Transnational Techno-Diplomacy from the Telegraph to the Internet, edited by Gabriele Balbi and Andreas Fickers, 55 – 75. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020. John, Richard R., and Léonard Laborie, “‘Circuits of Victory’: how the First World War Shaped the Political Economy of the Telephone in the United States and France.” History and Technology, vol. 35, n. 2 (2019): 115 – 137. Laborie, Léonard. “Organisations internationales, normalisation et circulations techniques au XIXe siècle. Sur l’échec d’un projet d’école internationale de télégraphie.” In Les savoirs-mondes. Mobilités et circulation des savoirs depuis le Moyen Age, edited by Gonzalez Bernaldo Pilar and Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, 261 – 273. Rennes: PUR, 2015. Laborie, Léonard. “Georges Valensi (1889 – 1980): Europe Calling?” In Materializing Europe. Transnational Infrastructures and the Project of Europe, edited by Alexander Badenoch and Andreas Fickers, 198 – 201. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010. Laborie, Léonard. L’Europe mise en réseaux. La France et la coopération internationale dans les postes et les télécommunications (années 1850-années 1950). Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2010. “La téléphonie à grande distance en France.” Annales des postes, télégraphes et téléphones, vol. X, n. 3 (1921): 492 – 500. Martin, M. G. “La téléphonie à grande distance en Europe.” Annales des postes, télégraphes et téléphones, vol. X, n. 2 (1921): 263 – 270. Petzold, Hartmut. “Deutsch-französische Rivalität und Zusammenarbeit bei der Errichtung des europäischen Telefonnetzes nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg.” In Frankreich und Deutschland. Forschung, Technologie und industrielle Entwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, edited by Yves Cohen and Klaus Manfrass, 263 – 280. München: Beck, 1990. Philip, Jean. Les téléphones publics français et l’industrie américaine. Nancy: Levrault, 1929. Reichspostzentralamt, ed., Das Reichspostzentralamt: Ein Erinnerungsbuch, Berlin, 1929.

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Schröter, Harm. “The German Long Distance Telephone Network as a Large Technical System, 1919 – 1939, and its Spin-offs for the Integration of Europe.” In Innovations in the European Economy between the Wars, edited by François Caron, Paul Erker and Wolfram Fischer, 83 – 105. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995. Valensi, Georges. Le comité consultatif international téléphonique (CCIF), 1924 – 1956. Geneva: CCITT, roneotyped 1957. Available: http://search.itu.int/history/Histo ryDigitalCollectionDocLibrary/12.16.75.fr.pdf Valensi, Georges. “Le développement de la téléphonie internationale. Histoire du Comité consultatif international téléphonique (CCIF), 1924 – 1956.” Journal des télécommunications, vol. 32, n. 1 (1965): 9 – 17. Valensi, Georges. “Brief History of the CCIF.” Telecommunication Journal, vol. 41, n. 7 (1974): 416 – 417. Wagner, K. “La téléphonie à grande distance.” Das Fernsprechen im Weitverkehr. Deutsche Beiträge zur Frage des Europäischen Fernsprechnetzes. Berlin: Reichspostministerium, November 1923: 7 – 8. Walter, H. “Téléphonie internationale.” Journal de la Chambre de commerce internationale, n. 11 (1926): 12.

Heidi Tworek*

10 A Union of Nations or Administrations? Voting Rights, Representation, and Sovereignty at the International Telecommunication Union in the 1930s On December 9, 1932, the president of the Spanish Republic, Niceto Alcalá Zamora, congratulated the assembled delegates at the end of a three-month international conference in Madrid. He was happy with the results. “We have created here a telecommunications union,” he stated, “in a spirit of cordiality, justice, and conciliation.”¹ Delegates signed the Convention, regulations, and protocols of the new International Telecommunication Union. As with any signing ceremony, the genial atmosphere masked spirited debates beforehand. The Madrid conference was convened for one main purpose: to fuse the International Telegraph Union (created in 1865) with conventions on radiotelegraphy. The International Telegraph Union officially became the International Telecommunication Union on January 1, 1934. The 1932 Convention defined “telecommunication” as “any telegraphic or telephonic communication of signs, signals, writing, facsimiles and sounds of any kind, by wire, wireless or other systems or processes of electric signaling or visual signaling (semaphores).” The idea to fuse the conventions had emerged at the Washington conference on radio in 1927. Delegates adopted a resolution to “examine the possibility of combining the International Radiotelegraph Convention with the International Telegraph Convention.”² In 1932, 100 countries, 100 companies, and about 450 representatives attended the Madrid conference to do just that. Representatives would review around 1500 proposals on tariffs and technicalities.³ The biggest technological concerns

* University of British Columbia, Canada  Procès-verbal de la dixième assemblée plénière des conférences télégraphique et radiotélégraphiques réunies et séance de clôture de la conférence radiotélégraphique, December 9, 1932, Conférence radiotélégraphique internationale de Madrid (1932). Tome II, 238. Henceforth known as Conférence Tome II. I am very grateful to Natasha Williams for excellent research assistance as well as Andreas Fickers and Simone Fari for comments on this chapter.  “Les Confe´rences te´le´graphique et radio-te´le´graphique internationales de Madrid,” 329. On 1927, see Schwoch, “The American Radio Industry and International Communications Conferences, 1919 – 1927.”  “A` la veille de la Confe´rence de Madrid,” 153. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-011

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were coded language and telegraph tariffs; the commission working on those issues convened the most sessions. But another issue really set the conference alight: voting rights. Countries like Switzerland believed the issue was “inflammatory” and could even provoke “a separatist element, a germ of disunion.”⁴ Behind the boring bureaucracy, debates about issues like voting rights and language were about more than technicalities. They were about power, representation, and the meaning of sovereignty itself. The Madrid conference challenges assumptions about international organizations as basic as the idea that every nation has always received one vote. Membership in international organizations was contested, and sovereignty not clearcut. By focusing on voting rights and other forms of representation at the Madrid conference, this chapter explores how states, colonies, and companies understood communicational sovereignty in the early 1930s. The very creation of the International Telecommunication Union was not nation-state based. In multiple meetings and in a special commission on the subject, delegations debated who exactly was allowed to vote to create the new organization. Would it only be independent nation-states? Or colonies like under the International Telegraph Union? Or just particular colonies? What about communications firms? These questions were obviously about power: imperial nations whose colonies could vote too would obviously wield greater influence within the union. They also created competition between colonial powers about whose colonies mattered most. Countries like the Netherlands, Portugal, and Belgium argued most strongly that colonies be included as a way to increase their clout. These nations might not have been communications heavyweights, but they were still fought for representation. At Madrid, representation was a multi-faceted question. It was not just about colonies, but also about companies and financial considerations. The final resolution had more to do with politics than international law. No international legal doctrine had come to the same conclusions about sovereignty as the ITU conference. No legal doctrine would allow certain countries like Germany two votes. The questions were less about law than separating notions of sovereignty and jurisdiction to protect imperial interests. Voting rights did not come from political and legal sovereignty as recognized by the League. Instead, they came from recognizing the active participation of a colony like the Dutch East Indies combined with active support from smaller empires like Portugal and Belgium. The com-

 Propositions reçues avant la conférence et publiées sous forme de suppléments, Documents da la conférence radiotélégraphique internationale de Madrid (1932). Tome I, 852– 3. Henceforth known as Conférence Tome I.

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promise final resolution seemed to recognize that communicational sovereignty could be separated from political independence. States played with sovereignty on the international level for political gain; representation at international organizations was similarly varied. While voting rights might seem technical, they highlight the different approaches to representation, jurisdiction, and sovereignty within the international realm in the interwar period. Independence meant something very different at the ITU versus the League of Nations. The ITU also adds to the scholarship that looks beyond the League to understand international interactions in the interwar period. Multi-national enterprises crossed borders as did civil society and religious organizations like the Salvation Army.⁵ While the debates at the ITU raise questions about sovereignty, they also raise questions about the nature of the ITU. What type of organization was it really? Was it akin to the League that was comprised of nations? Or was it, as the Dutch East Indies would argue, a union of administrations rather than a union of nations? There is much scholarship on the intellectual history of sovereignty.⁶ Other work has examined sovereignty through liminal territories like the sea, imperial borderlands, or islands.⁷ The interaction between law and empire has shown how international law could justify imperialism and conquest.⁸ This literature has yet to examine how the intersection between law and empire was crucial in creating international organizations beyond the League.⁹ Communications was as much about the technological and regulatory frameworks as content. And those frameworks were as embedded in debates about sovereignty and imperialism as the mandate system.¹⁰ Concrete issues like voting rights show how these debates played out in practice and how multi-faceted sovereignty could be. The problem of votes was legal and political. Assertions of “technical” procedures could hide very political aims. Andreas Fickers has described this dynamic as “techno-political diplomacy” or “the inscription of political and symbolic cap-

 De Grazia, Irresistible Empire; Gorman, The Emergence of International Society in the 1920s; Gorman, International Cooperation in the Early Twentieth Century.  Ben-Dor Benite, Geroulanos and Jerr, The Scaffolding of Sovereignty; Fitzmaurice, Sovereignty, Property and Empire, 1500 – 2000; Lorca, “Sovereignty beyond the West”; Shinoda, Re-Examining Sovereignty.  Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire; Rüger, “Sovereignty and Empire in the North Sea, 1807– 1918.”  Benton, A Search for Sovereignty; Benton, “AHR Forum: Law and Empire in Global Perspective. Introduction.”  On the League and legalism, see Wertheim, “The League That Wasn’t”; Wertheim, “The League of Nations.”  Pedersen, “The Meaning of the Mandates System”; Pedersen, The Guardians.

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ital into debates over technical standards.”¹¹ The same held true for debates over voting, which in turn would determine technical standards. The voting rights debate was protracted and proved hard to solve. Despair over voting rights spread into other issues. By mid-November, the Belgian delegation started to wonder about the utility of a single Convention at all, given that the attendees could not even agree on a voting system.¹² By the end of the Madrid conference, however, the delegations had muddled through to a solution. But their discussions had raised serious questions about the reality of sovereignty and power in the realm of communications.

10.1 Voting Rights at the Madrid Conference A timing conflict prevented the Spanish president from opening the conference. Instead, Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Azaña Díaz, later the second and final president of the Spanish Republic, gave the inaugural speech. Azaña Díaz noted that delegates would have to surmount “technical, commercial, and also political difficulties.” But he also tried to inspire delegates to cooperate through some surely dull days ahead, reminding them that “these international collaborations are exactly the sort that give human life its real meaning and raise the moral level of the peoples.” Indeed, “progress and world civilization depend on fraternal collaboration between all peoples.”¹³ The actions of the ITU at conferences in the early 1930s were part of a broader interwar belief among officials and professionals like engineers that international institutions and technical agreements could ease interwar political tensions.¹⁴ But lofty rhetoric hid internal power struggles over representation that were very much about hard power and getting one’s way. Both the International Telegraph Union and the International Radiotelegraphy Convention had struggled with the issue of voting rights. For the International Telegraph Union, article 16 of the Convention signed at St. Petersburg in 1875 determined that every administration had the right to a vote if they sent separate delegations to an ITU conference. This included colonial administrations even if another government decided other political matters for the colony. Those guide-

 Fickers, “The Techno-Politics of Colour,” 96.  Nineteenth session, Sous-commission 1 de la commission de la convention (mixte), Conférence Tome II, 349.  Procès-verbal de la séance inauguration, September 3, 1932, Conférence Tome II, 6.  For a similar sentiment amongst e. g. engineers, see van Meer, “The Transatlantic Pursuit of a World Engineering Foundation.”

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lines had governed ITU voting since 1875 (see Simone Fari’s chapter on the debate up to 1875). By the 1920s, there were far more colonies than there had been in the 1870s, and thus far more votes for certain imperial powers. In the interim, Africa had been almost completely colonized. Colonies were also more integrated into global communications networks. The International Radiotelegraphy Convention signed in Washington, DC in 1927 similarly foresaw a role for colonies. The preamble to the Convention listed almost every colony as a separate party to the Convention, including the Belgian Congo, India, and the Dutch East Indies. The preamble even separated colonies such as Portuguese East Africa and Portuguese West Africa.¹⁵ At Washington, however, the contracting countries could not agree on a voting system. They delegated to the United States (the conference host) to figure out the issue diplomatically after the conference. By the time of Madrid, however, the issue remained unresolved. Different approaches to voting rights caused tension from the start. Should colonies have votes? Would they ever vote independently from their empire? Or were colonies and protectorates just proxies to provide imperial powers with more votes? These were not idle discussions. Voting rights enabled territories to act as members on commissions and vote as contracting parties to the Convention. As delegates discussed the issue throughout the conference, they were also voting on important and difficult matters, like telegraph tariffs. Any disputed or close votes at the conference could turn on the number of votes accorded to colonies because votes in the plenary assembly had to pass by an absolute majority.¹⁶ Many votes at Madrid would be debated because the voting process remained uncertain until the end. Some questions requiring a vote – and even the plenary assembly itself – had to be postponed until a resolution to voting rights was found.¹⁷ Various countries had submitted proposals and suggestions about voting reform prior to the conference itself. The issue was discussed at the start of the Madrid conference in the second plenary assembly, with the aim of resolving the question as early as possible before discussing the details of merging the radio and telegraph conventions. Italy and the UK believed that the St. Petersburg Convention did not apply in Madrid because St. Petersburg voting rights were only for administrative matters, not rewriting an entire Convention. The United States put forward a proposal that it had submitted prior to the conference. Ironi International Radiotelegraphy Convention, 1927, 9 – 10.  Article 22, Règlement interieur de la conférence radiotélégraphique internationale de Madrid, 1932, Conférence Tome II, LI.  Commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 49 – 50.

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cally, for a country that was not a member of the League of Nations, the American proposal relied upon League definitions of sovereignty. The Americans believed that voting rights should only be conferred on mainly autonomous countries. The U.S. defined autonomy through two criteria: being a member of the League or sending delegations to international conferences. The delegations had to be independent, meaning that they were not under the purview of any other delegation. Perhaps rather conveniently for its ally, Great Britain, the American proposal really only foresaw independent votes for British colonies or dominions like Australia, South Africa, or Canada.¹⁸ Although the U.S. suggested League membership as a criterion for voting, the ITU was not a subordinate organization of the League. Indeed, the ITU predated the League by over 50 years. Although the ITU was not officially an agency under the umbrella of the League, it was intimately tied to the organization. The ITU headquarters were in Berne, not far from Geneva. The two organizations also coordinated their policies. The League had an Information Section, headed by the Frenchman Pierre Comert. That section hosted a Conference of Press Experts in 1927. Among other issues, the conference agreed upon resolutions about different types of press telegrams, such as urgent press telegrams or tariffs. The League in effect attempted to regulate press telegrams without the ITU’s presence. The American proposal on ITU membership in turn drew on the League’s understanding of sovereignty and membership. The Madrid conference also intersected with growing interest at the League of Nations in communications and communications infrastructure. The League sought to use new media to communicate directly with a “world public.”¹⁹ It established an International Educational Cinematograph Institute in Rome in 1928; it convened a first conference of press experts in 1927. The League’s initiatives in cinematography, communications, and conferences in the late 1920s coincided with the zenith of optimism for using international initiatives to preserve peace. The International Broadcasting Union had a similar philosophy and worked closely with the League.²⁰ The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 pledged that signatory states would not use war to resolve disputes between them. By the early 1930s, League of Nations officials implicitly believed that communications infrastructure and media could foster peace and truth amongst members. The League of Nations Assembly passed a resolution in September 1931 to con Procès-verbal de la deuxième assemblée plénière des conférences télégraphique et radiotélégraphique réunies, September 6, 1932, Conférence Tome II, 69. On ideas about self-rule for the dominions and later Commonwealth, see Bell, The Idea of Greater Britain.  Akami, “The Limits of Peace Propaganda.”  Lommers, Europe – On Air.

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sult the press about the “spread of false information which may threaten to disturb the peace or the good understanding between nations.” By September 1932, 16 nations and two international associations of journalists had replied with suggestions for the Third Conference of Press Experts in Madrid in 1933.²¹ Similar discussions also occurred at the International Broadcasting Union. These projects of moral disarmament occurred simultaneously to efforts at the World Disarmament Conferences from 1932 to 1934 to remove physical weapons. Although the U.S. was not a member of the League, American journalists had participated in the League’s conferences of press experts and the American delegation may have used a criterion from the League to confer legitimacy on their proposal. When the American proposal was put to a vote, 42 delegations voted for it. Most countries found the proposal fine. Only 4 voted against it and objected vehemently: Portugal, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Even such a clear vote seemed insufficient to participants. After all, any decisions at the conference relied upon accepting voting processes. Without a legitimate voting procedure, no decisions at Madrid could achieve international acquiescence. It was clear that one session would not resolve these tensions. The conference created a special commission to discuss the subject and find a unanimous resolution.²² The commission was comprised of the two countries that had created proposals, Italy and the United States, along with Britain, France, and the Dutch East Indies. The commission discussed the issue at length in meetings from September to November 1932. They considered not just the American proposal, but also others suggested before and during the conference. The Italian proposal had received considerable attention. Italy proposed that considerably more colonies be allowed a “deliberative voice” at the new ITU than the American proposal. On top of British colonies and dominions, Italy added the Dutch East Indies, Morocco, and Tunisia as well as colonies and protectorates of Belgium, Spain, the United States, France, Great Britain, Japan, Italy, and Portugal. Others could qualify if they paid a financial contribution to the ITU Bureau and were represented by a distinct delegation at ITU conferences.²³ Italy’s proposal, it seemed, would find more acceptance among colonial powers just like itself: little communications clout, but colonial votes as a route to a voting bloc.

 Tworek, “Peace Through Truth?”  Procès-verbal de la deuxième assemblée plénière des conférences télégraphique et radiotélégraphique réunies, September 6, 1932, Conférence Tome II, 39 – 43.  Propositions reçues avant la conférence et publiées sous forme de suppléments, October 1, 1932, Conférence Tome I, 880.

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Non-colonial delegations found it absurd that imperial powers accumulate more votes, when colonies would only vote like the metropole. China emphasized that colonies were simply part of contracting governments’ vote. Colonies, protectorates, or anything similar, China asserted, were “only the citizens” of empires.²⁴ Some Latin American nations like Argentina agreed and argued that only independent nations should have a vote.²⁵ Greece proposed that only sovereign states could be contracting parties to any convention.²⁶ It seemed legally impossible that colonies could operate with legal autonomy. Colonies might be able to sign, but that was only under guidance from the “real” sovereign power – the metropole. The home of the League, Switzerland, took that organization as the benchmark to measure a state’s independence; this followed the Americans’ lead. It had been a mistake, the Swiss delegation argued, to allow colonies to act as contracting parties to conventions, like at St. Petersburg. The conference at Madrid could correct this misinterpretation and exclude colonies from being contracting members to the new convention, because they did not have complete autonomy to decide whether they could join or not.²⁷ Host of the ITU’s headquarters since its creation in 1865, Switzerland had constructed its national identity since the mid-nineteenth century around the idea that it was a neutral land perfectly suited to host international organizations.²⁸ It made sense for Switzerland to focus on nation-states both because it possessed no colonies and because the League now seemed the most important model organization. After several weeks of discussion, however, Switzerland changed its mind to support Italy’s idea to allow certain colonies a vote.²⁹ The active participation of a colony – the Dutch East Indies – seemed to show that a delegation’s participation was more important than their independent political status. The Dutch East Indies had impressed Switzerland with its contributions and active role in the conference. It had convinced Switzerland that a colony could be a legitimate member of the ITU. Part of an empire often forgotten, the Dutch East Indies was the most active colonial participant at the Madrid conference. For the Dutch East Indies, participation at the ITU was a particularly important issue, because control over com-

 Proposal to alter article 41, Conférence Tome I, 96.  Seventh session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 463.  Second session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 439.  Propositions reçues avant la conférence et publiées sous forme de suppléments, Conférence Tome I, 828 – 30.  Balbi et al., “Swiss Specialties”; Balbi et al., Network Neutrality.  Seventh session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 463.

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munications had become so central to Dutch empire over the past few decades. The Dutch were also deeply concerned about a system dominated by AngloAmerican cable companies and had worked to create a different world with radio. The Boer War had sparked many of these fears, particularly about British censorship of content carried over submarine cables.³⁰ In 1904, the Dutch Telegraph Administration had established a joint cable company with the Germans, Deutsch-Niederländische Telegraphengesellschaft, to link German and Dutch colonies in the Pacific with the American Pacific cable in 1904. These efforts had often dovetailed with German operations into the 1920s. Wireless and radio were particularly important to the Dutch, because their colonies were so far-flung and thus expensive to connect with cables. During World War I, the Dutch had technically remained neutral. But in 1917, they allowed the Germans to erect a wireless tower on Java in the Dutch East Indies as part of the German plan to create a world wireless network to bypass Anglo-American cables. Technical difficulties meant that the tower on Java never worked reliably during the war. Although the Germans never completed their world wireless network, the German engineers working in Java remained after the end of the war. In 1919, those engineers would fulfil a contract signed by the German Post Ministry and German wireless company, Telefunken, for Telefunken to deliver three large wireless stations to Java.³¹ In the 1920s and 1930s, the Dutch remained invested in wireless and radio as the simplest way to connect the Netherlands to the distant Dutch East Indies.³² At Madrid, the Netherlands were willing to relinquish all other colonial votes, except for the Dutch East Indies, its largest and most important colony. The Netherlands found it fundamentally “unjust” to provide votes only to countries with complete political independence. Many colonies “possess autonomy in the ITU’s domain,” the Dutch argued.³³ This was not an anti-colonial argument or an attempt to increase independence. It was a way to get more votes. The Netherlands left the heavy-lifting on this issue to its most persuasive colony: the Dutch East Indies. The colony pursued multiple strands of argument for its seat at the table. It actively participated in the conference: it made more proposals about the ITU’s new regulations than any other colony. It was the only colonial member of the special commission tasked with investigating the issue of voting rights. It also argued definitions, starting with the League’s definition of sovereignty. The Lea   

Kuitenbrouwer, War of Words. Tworek, “How Not to Build a World Wireless Network.” Kuitenbrouwer, “Radio as a Tool of Empire.” Fourth session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 449.

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gue allowed “any fully self-governing state, dominion or colony” to be a member. The Dutch East Indies declared that, in the realm of communications, it was a self-governing colony. It even questioned whether it made sense to follow the League’s rules at all, because the ITU was a fundamentally different type of body. The ITU was not necessarily a union of nations like the League; it was a union of administrations.³⁴ The Dutch East Indies used arguments about the subtle layers of sovereignty to convince others that it deserved a vote. This meant defeating the Greek analysis. Greece believed that colonial territories could have a “deliberative voice” at conferences if they had signed the convention, but that they should not be accorded a vote.³⁵ The Greeks separated voice and vote. The Dutch East Indies sought to unite them. It claimed that the question of votes was “not a political question nor a question of plurality of voices.” It was about whether individual ITU members with a deliberative voice also had the authority to regulate and legislate about telegraphy, telephony, and radio on their own territory. This should be sufficient, the Dutch East Indies believed, for ITU voting rights; it was “not necessary that a country be entirely sovereign in other domains” in order to be recognized as a “contracting party” in telecommunications.³⁶ Sovereignty could be split, in the eyes of the Dutch East Indies: administrative and legislative authority over telecommunications in the international realm could be separated from other elements of political and economic independence. Portuguese colonies participated less but made a similar argument to the Dutch East Indies. They argued that the financing and administration of telecommunications were highly decentralized. Colonies deserved a vote to represent their particular concerns, because “the interests of metropolitan administrations and colonies are not always the same; sometimes they are in opposition.”³⁷ Portugal believed that the St. Petersburg Convention had provided the precedent for its colonies to retain representation. Portuguese colonies had attended telegraphy conferences since 1894 and Portugal did not want them to lose their colonial votes now. The colonial voting system was particularly advantageous for empires like Portugal with disparate colonies as this provided more votes than contiguous territory. Like the Dutch, Portuguese colonies were often far-flung and could not be connected by cables landing only on Portuguese colonial territory.

 Third session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 446.  Propositions reçues avant la conférence et publiées sous forme de suppléments, Conférence Tome I, 827– 28.  Ibid., 795.  Ibid., 832. Portugal did propose the compromise that colonies would only get a vote if they disagreed with their colonial administration. This was not discussed at length.

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The Portuguese had become interested in radio too as a way to connect colonies; retaining as many votes as possible seemed critical to influence the development of the new medium.³⁸ Belgium agreed with Portugal that colonies could have different points of view. Like Portugal and the Netherlands, Belgium had long invested in wireless for its colonies. Prior to World War I, the colonial administration in the Congo had erected wireless towers to communicate more effectively across the enormous territory. These towers were so successful that the German consulate in Brussels sent numerous reports on them back to Berlin so that German colonial officials could learn from Belgian technical prowess.³⁹ Wireless in the Congo continued to matter after World War I. In Madrid, Belgium argued that the administration of the Congo was “totally distinct” from the metropole.⁴⁰ It would simply be unfair to force colonies to vote with their metropoles if they had divergent opinions. The Belgians declared that no delegation had advanced “any tangible proof that colonial voices had any pernicious influence on the atmosphere of the congress or conferences.”⁴¹ The Belgians even threatened to leave the ITU if Congo’s vote was removed.⁴² After these interventions from Portugal, Belgium, and the Netherlands, other colonial powers came to similar conclusions. Japan wanted as many colonial votes as any other imperial power. As the commission’s sessions progressed, Japan demanded a separate vote for Korea.⁴³ France wanted to stick with the Italian proposal that accorded votes to Tunisia and Morocco. French and Japanese arguments drew on analogies within the communications world, specifically with the Universal Postal Union (UPU). France argued that all colonies had voices at the UPU, while Japan noted that Korea had a separate vote at the UPU. France understood that the two organizations looked to each other for rules and regulations: the last Postal Congress had only used a provisional voting structure because it was waiting to see how the Madrid conference resolved the issue.⁴⁴ Fighting for colonial votes was a fight for a louder voice in all debates over international communications.

 For the history of Portuguese radio after Madrid, see Ribeiro, “Censorship and Scarcity.”  See letters in Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde R1001/7199.  Procès-verbal de la deuxième assemblée plénière des conférences télégraphique et radiotélégraphique réunies, September 6, 1932, Conférence Tome II, 41.  Propositions reçues avant la conférence et publiées sous forme de suppléments, Conférence Tome I, 841.  Sixth session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 460.  Eleventh session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 488.  Ibid., 489.

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Dominions were always another matter. Both the American and Italian proposals had allowed votes for British dominions, India, and Ireland. At the very start of the debate, Britain had even offered to renounce voting rights for its colonies in the hope that others would do the same.⁴⁵ This was possibly a somewhat cynical gesture, because Britain knew that its dominions like Canada or Australia would receive voting rights and probably vote with Britain. The appearance of multi-faceted support for particular standards or regulations strengthened Britain’s position. No wonder it was happy to support the American voting proposal. The question of colonies versus dominions proved particularly fraught between Britain and France. In one discussion, Britain complained that France had used 5 colonial votes the day before in a vote over telegraph tariffs, while Britain could only use one. (This ignored the dominions which had voted with Britain).⁴⁶ Political debate over voting was stopping the conference from progressing in other technical realms. France, meanwhile, thought that the American proposal was only fair for the British Empire and no one else. Like Switzerland, France had come to see the Dutch East Indies as the paradigmatic participatory colony. France pushed Britain, asking “is a dominion more autonomous, from a technical point of view, than the Dutch East Indies, for example?”⁴⁷ The answer, France implied, was obviously no. During these arguments over representation, voting rights were put to the vote multiple times. A first vote asked whether the right to vote should be reserved only for independent countries. That failed to pass with 5 votes for and 11 against. Only Germany, Greece, Mexico, Poland, and the USSR had voted for the proposal.⁴⁸ Poland and the Soviet Union later claimed that they had misunderstood and thought India plus dominions were counted as independent.⁴⁹ Germany and the Soviet Union would soon be placated with extra votes to stop their opposition to the compromise proposal that the special commission would suggest. At the Madrid conference only, each country technically had one vote. There were two exceptions: Germany and the Soviet Union who had “the right to one extra vote.”⁵⁰ This was ostensibly, according to the official minutes, to acknowl-

 Procès-verbal de la deuxième assemblée plénière des conférences télégraphique et radiotélégraphique réunies, September 6, 1932, Conférence Tome II, 40.  Third session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 442.  Fifth session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 457.  Fourth session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 452.  Fifth session, Commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 454.  Article 21 § 2, Appendix, International Telecommunication Convention, 35.

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edge “a special place for non-colonial powers due to their importance.”⁵¹ Because each colonial power gained one or more extra votes through their colonies, the delegations implicitly acknowledged, Germany and the Soviet Union would have to be compensated to acquiesce to a system that disadvantaged them. The ITU’s voting system would be more political than legal. The Soviet Union had a famously anti-colonial stance, emerging from the longer history of anti-colonialism within Marxist thought. The Soviet Union initially proposed that no colonies or protectorates should receive votes because this merely bolstered the position of European colonial powers. The delegation pointed out that colonies could only join the ITU with the approval of their colonizer.⁵² While praising the work of colonial delegations, the Soviets remained wary of approving votes for colonies. It held this position even though this meant that the Soviet Union would only receive one vote (despite being comprised constitutionally of multiple republics). The appearance of an anti-colonial stance was more critical for Soviet delegates than accruing more votes.⁵³ At the very end of deliberations, the Soviet Union tried a last-ditch maneuver to ask for a vote for each of its seven republics. It did not work.⁵⁴ Germany was similarly opposed to certain colonies or groups of colonies holding voting rights.⁵⁵ This made sense for a country that had lost all its colonies after World War I. Germany seemed to want to shape the ITU Convention. That would be far harder if colonial votes accorded more weight to imperial powers. Successive Weimar governments and civil servants were heavily invested in international organizations and influencing their procedures to carve out space for national room for maneuver within international conventions. Germany’s strong participation in international conferences after it joined the League of Nations in 1926 was a means to that end. German participation at the 1927 Conference of Press Experts is one example.⁵⁶ Madrid was no exception. While Germany realized it could not stop colonies getting a vote, its protests and eager participation did secure the nation an extra vote.

 Eleventh session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 492.  Fourth session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 451.  On Soviet attitudes to communications, see Zakharova, “Des Techniques Authentiquement Socialistes?.” On the importance of information for the Soviets, see Holquist, “‘Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work.”  Thirteenth session, Commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 504– 5.  Propositions reçues avant la conférence et publiées sous forme de suppléments, Conférence Tome I, 850 – 51.  Tworek, “Journalistic Statesmanship.”

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The final resolution of November 10, 1932 was a compromise. This was true for basically all resolutions at purportedly technical conferences. What the 1932 conference laid bare was “the complex interplay of technical expertise, international law, and political interests,” as Andreas Fickers and Pascal Griset have put it for debates over radio frequency in the International Broadcasting Union.⁵⁷ In 1932, no proposal could receive unanimous support. After votes on all the various proposals, the most popular was an odd mixture. It reduced colonial voices compared to previous ITU conferences, but still retained those that seemed most autonomous.⁵⁸ The Dutch East Indies’ enthusiastic participation in the conference had paid off. Article 21 of the Madrid regulations gave votes to groups of colonies from Britain, Belgium, France, the US, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, while the Dutch East Indies, India, the dominions, Morocco, and Tunisia had their own votes. Colonial powers were allowed to vote on behalf of their colonies.⁵⁹ Germany and the Soviet Union each received two votes. Finally, the voting method would only be used for Madrid and not form the basis for future conventions. The issue of voting rights was never constrained just to that topic. It extended to broader questions, like accession. If colonies could not join the ITU independently, how could they receive independent votes? Britain and France argued that they could not add their colonies to the ITU without the colony’s permission. France claimed it “did not have the right to force one of them to enter the Union.”⁶⁰ While some colonies received voting rights, none had full independence over accession. Article 5 of the final Convention regulated the accession of colonies and protectorates. Contracting governments could choose whether to include their colonies when signing the Convention or later. The governments could also choose whether to include colonies individually or as a group. The colonies (or group of colonies) could then accede separately to the ITU. Colonies and protectorates’ membership was thus a combination of permission from the metropole and a potentially independent choice on how to accede.⁶¹ The Convention also drew from broader understandings of international organizations in the interwar period. The League of Nations Charter devoted multiple articles to discussing membership and procedures for leaving the organization. The ITU’s 1932 Convention worked along the lines of the League of Nations Charter. Article 10 allowed the right to denounce the Convention. The denunciation would come into effect one year after the notification. Like leaving     

Fickers and Griset, Communicating Europe, 137. Tenth session, Commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 484. Conférence Tome II, L. Fourteenth session, Commission sur le droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 511. Article 5, International Communication Convention, Madrid 1932, 6.

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the League, the denunciation only affected the denouncing government. For many looking back in 1945 as they debated the United Nations Charter, the very mention of procedures to leave the organizations had been a mistake. In the eyes of delegates at the San Francisco conference to devise the UN Charter in mid-1945, exit procedures had made the organization like a tennis club, something that could be joined and left with little effort. In fact, the delegates at San Francisco decided not to even draw up procedures for leaving the UN. This would show that the UN was committed to international membership forever.

10.2 Corporations, Language, and Other Forms of Representation The most rigorous debate on voting rights circled around colonies. But there were two other important aspects of representation at the ITU: economic considerations and companies. At the very start of the Madrid conference, smaller member-states like Czechoslovakia and Denmark argued that they were at a disadvantage because they could not afford to send delegates for months at a time, particularly with the economic crisis unleashed by the Great Depression. This had constrained their resources and made it more difficult to participate fully in international conferences. Czechoslovakia asked that committees be staggered to enable countries to send fewer delegates who could attend the specific sessions relevant to them. Denmark suggested that the conference discuss the important questions at the start; then even governments with constraints could be present for those issues.⁶² Larger states like Britain and Germany dismissed these suggestions. Their resources provided power even in their ability to participate in discussions. As the conference neared its end in November, many delegates were required to return home. Only major powers could afford to remain and determine the final outcome of questions like voting rights or tariffs. These hidden economic considerations tipped the balance in favor of colonial powers. Representation went beyond countries and colonies. For the United States, companies were equally important. The U.S. had not joined the telegraph convention because corporations, particularly Western Union, operated and owned telegraph lines.⁶³ This meant that the U.S. could not sign the telegraph

 Première assemblée plénière (de la conférence télégraphique), September 5, 1932, Documents de la conférence télégraphique internationale de Madrid (1932). Tome II, 28 – 29.  John, Network Nation.

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convention because the convention assumed state-held powers over telegraphy that the American government simply did not possess. The American corporatist approach to communications meant that the American delegation demanded representation for firms at the new ITU. At the same time as a special commission discussed voting rights for colonies, another sub-commission on the Convention debated the role of private communications companies. These discussions built on dynamics as old as the ITU itself, as Simone Fari explores in his chapter. Submarine cable companies had long attended ITU conferences as observers and had shaped outcomes by their presence.⁶⁴ Here, the sub-commission debated whether corporations should be allowed a deliberative or consultative voice in plenary assemblies and commissions. In other words, were companies allowed to shape outcomes by participating in discussions or simply allowed to be consulted? Canada wanted companies to have a consultative voice, while Britain wanted to ensure that European corporations would be represented as well to counterbalance the American companies. Meanwhile, the USSR worried that companies would get votes. The United States went further. It argued that companies needed to be as fully included as nation-states, because in certain countries (principally the U.S.), governments did not run telecommunications systems. The United States even proposed that private companies should be allowed full participation if they represented a country whose government did not operate the communications networks governed by ITU rules. i. e. if telegraph operated privately, a company could represent the United States rather than the U.S. government.⁶⁵ The final rules compromised to include multiple categories of representation. Article 1 of the rules of procedure for the convention foresaw three groups that could attend. First, “delegates” were people sent by governments. Second, “representatives” were people sent by private corporations and had to be recognized by a contracting government. Third, “observer-experts” were people from radio communications companies or other international organizations.⁶⁶ This rule’s tripartite division effectively allowed contracting governments to elevate certain firms into the second category over the third. Still, at least half of all contracting governments had to approve the participation of firms and organizations.⁶⁷ Not all companies were created equal at the ITU.

 Müller, “Beyond the Means of 99 Percent of the Population,” 99.  Fourth session, Rapport de la sous-commission 1 de la commission de la convention (mixte), Conférence Tome II, 293 – 5.  Annex C, article 1, International Communication Convention, Madrid 1932, 31.  Article 2, ibid.

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The role of corporations had real effects on the shape of the final Convention. The United States and Canada wanted companies involved. The two nations were not party to the telegraphic conventions because those regulations assumed that governments controlled domestic telegraphy. Only if the new Convention applied to governments that did not control all communications networks could Canada and the United States sign.⁶⁸ To sign, they wanted corporations to have representation. In the end, the final Convention fudged the issue to enable the United States to sign. While there was a single Convention, it included reservations protocols. Article 2 of the Convention noted three sets of regulations to which members had to adhere: telegraph regulations, telephone regulations, radiocommunication regulation. The Convention did not see the three technologies as inextricably interlinked. Governments could choose to accede to one of the sets of regulations. They need not accede to all in order to be a signatory of the Convention. Even expenses for the Bureau were divided between radio versus telegraphy and telephony (article 17). The Americans could thus include additional protocols to exempt them from various regulations. This retained U.S. communications companies’ autonomy from telegraph regulation by the ITU. International organizations like the ITU have never existed without business interests. Voting rights and representation were intertwined with linguistic rights. French had been the ITU’s official language. Prior to the conference, the United States proposed that English become an equal language to French because English was “the main language in the world of communication.” Britain wanted to include English for “practical reasons.”⁶⁹ At the start of the Madrid conference, the United States again requested that English be an official language. Canada suggested that both English and French be made official languages, following the conventions of the League. Others, like the Soviet Union, proposed that English be allowed in discussions, but not classified as an official language.⁷⁰ The Soviet Union’s compromise held the day: both English and French were allowed in discussions, but official documents were all produced in French.⁷¹ Meanwhile, Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America and the Caribbean found the question of official languages as important as voting. Cuba countered that Spanish should be an official language too and made its speech at the open-

 First session, Rapport du comité de la commission de la convention (mixte), Conférence Tome II, 261.  Proposal for article 42, Conférence Tome I, 97– 98.  Première assemblée plénière de la conférence radiotélégraphique et de la première assemblée des conférences télégraphique et radiotélégraphiques réunies, Conférence Tome II, 27– 28.  Article 21 of the Convention, International Communication Convention, Madrid 1932, 13.

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ing plenary assembly in Spanish.⁷² Cuba and Argentina argued that Spanish was spoken in 22 countries, necessitating official Spanish translations. Other countries swiftly jumped on board, requesting that German, Portuguese, and Italian be included too. In the end, the Spanish president of the conference intervened to stop the inclusion of his own native tongue. Asking participants to remember the enormous investment of time and money into translation, he tried to turn languages into a pragmatic rather than political questions. It was not about “privileging one language,” he argued, but rather “a practical question.”⁷³ Like voting rights, language was about representation and power. But where colonial powers succeeded, Latin American countries failed. Only after World War II would Spanish become an official language at the United Nations and become a potential language of techno-diplomacy. Even the very name of the new union tied up with the question of representation. The German delegation cited an analogy with the Universal Postal Union to suggest that the ITU should change its name to the Universal Telegraph Union. The German delegation claimed that the future union could claim to be universal because of its coverage, even if certain countries were not signatories. The German delegation also thought that the word “telegraph” could serve as a general term for all current and future modes of telecommunication. The Belgians wanted to change name to International Telegraph and Telephone Union to emphasize what they saw as the two most important technologies. France suggested the name International Telecommunication Union.⁷⁴ International won the final vote. The word “universal” seemed “vague and general,” while international was more precise.⁷⁵ The union now regulated the exchange of electrical information at a distance. The name was meant to reflect that rather than generalize the term telegraphy. It also reflected a community of nations, rather than administrations. The name contrasted with the Dutch East Indies’ vision of a union of administrations as well as the American vision of a union of countries and companies.

 Procès-verbal de la sixième assemblée plénière des conférences télégraphique et radiotélégraphiques réunies, December 2, 1932, Conférence Tome II, 99 – 100.  Ibid., 102– 3.  Conférence Tome I, 23 – 30.  Thirteenth session, Rapport de la commission mixte du droit de vote, Conférence Tome II, 506.

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10.3 Conclusion “Is this Convention perfect?” asked the Journal Télégraphique in December 1932. “Obviously not,” the journal concluded. But “it represents incontrovertible progress.”⁷⁶ Perhaps that was true for a few years. But the Convention could not fulfill Azaña’s high hopes for international cooperation. Between Madrid and the Convention’s entrance into force in 1934, the Nazis had taken power in Germany, Japan had left the League of Nations, and the Great Depression had continued to wreak economic havoc. The Nazi government walked out of the disarmament conference (and left the League itself) in late 1933. The U.S. scuppered the World Economic Conference in London in 1933. The 1930s would see increasing competition on the airwaves, signal jamming, and black radio. The ITU as an organization would survive World War II. Arguments about representation would too. At the first ITU conferences after the war, the American delegation sought to reshape the organization around the principle of freedom of communications. This would be stymied, ironically enough, by a coalition of the very countries whose voting rights the Americans had secured at Madrid: British dominions and Commonwealth countries.⁷⁷ Representation at the ITU mattered. As delegations were well aware, voting procedures had political ramifications. It meant the chance to determine how an organization would develop standards and regulations. Institutions and standards are sticky; they are hard to change once created. Delegates understood this and fought hard to create a world where their colonies could ensure greater representation for particular points of view. Ironically, winning the voting debate meant arguing that colonies were more independent. Debates at the ITU remind us that sovereignty and jurisdiction are multi-faceted and hard to define. Colonies or dominions could, European imperial powers argued, have communicational sovereignty, even if they were not otherwise politically independent. Procedures and representation can also reveal particular nations’ investment or influence in international conventions. At the ITU, colonial powers and particular colonies argued that colonies had independent jurisdiction over their communications, even if they were otherwise politically subordinate to the metropole. This fiction mattered for voting rights and, at least theoretically, created space for later decolonization and independence.

 “Les Confe´rences te´le´graphique et radio-te´le´graphique internationales de Madrid,” 329.  Beyersdorf, “Freedom of Communication.”

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The American delegation at Madrid knew from the start that combining two conventions would require “much good will and patience” as well as a “spirit of cooperation.”⁷⁸ The spirit of cooperation was a colonial one. Though now forgotten, the resolution over voting rights shaped the very foundations of the ITU.

References Primary Sources “A` la veille de la Confe´rence de Madrid. La fusion des Conventions te´le´graphique et radiote´le´ graphique.” Journal télégraphique, vol. 64, n. 6 (June 1932): 153 – 156. Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde R1001/7199. Conférence radiotélégraphique internationale de Madrid (1932). Tome II. Berne: Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique, 1933. Available at http://search.itu.int/history/ HistoryDigitalCollectionDocLibrary/4.41.51.fr.201.pdf. Last access July 2, 2018. Documents da la conférence radiotélégraphique internationale de Madrid (1932). Tome I. Berne: Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique, 1933. Available at http://search. itu.int/history/HistoryDigitalCollectionDocLibrary/4.41.51.fr.200.pdf. Last access July 2, 2018. Documents de la conférence télégraphique internationale de Madrid (1932). Tome II. Berne: Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique, 1933. International Communication Convention, Madrid 1932. http://search.itu.int/history/Histo ryDigitalCollectionDocLibrary/5.5.61.en.100.pdf. Last access July 2, 2018. International Radiotelegraphy Convention, 1927. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1928. Available at http://search.itu.int/history/HistoryDigitalCollectionDocLibrary/5.20. 61.en.100.pdf. Last access October 26, 2018. International Telecommunication Convention. London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1933. Available at http://search.itu.int/history/HistoryDigitalCollectionDocLibrary/5.5.61.en.100. pdf. Last access July 2, 2018. “Les Confe´rences te´le´graphique et radio-te´le´graphique internationales de Madrid.” Journal télégraphique, vol. 64, n. 12 (December 1932): 329 – 332.

Secondary Sources Allen, David. “International Exhibitionism: The League of Nations at the New York World’s Fair, 1939 – 1940.” In Exorbitant Expectations: International Organizations and the Media in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, edited by Jonas Brendebach, Martin Herzer, and Heidi Tworek, 90 – 116. New York: Routledge, 2018.

 Première assemblée plénière de la conférence radiotélégraphique et de la première assemblée des conférences télégraphique et radiotélégraphiques réunies, September 6, 1932, Conférence Tome II, 26.

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Akami, Tomoko. “The Limits of Peace Propaganda: The Information Section of the League of Nations and its Tokyo Office.” In Exorbitant Expectations: International Organizations and the Media in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, edited by Jonas Brendebach, Martin Herzer, and Heidi Tworek, 70 – 90. New York: Routledge, 2018. Armitage, David. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Balbi, Gabriele, Fari, Simone, Richeri, Giuseppe, and Spartaco Calvo. Network Neutrality: Switzerland’s Role in the Genesis of the Telegraph Union, 1855 – 1875. Bern: Peter Lang, 2014. Balbi, Gabriele, Fari, Simone, Calvo, Spartaco, Richeri, Giuseppe. “Swiss specialties: Switzerland’s role in the genesis of the Telegraph Union, 1855 – 1875.” Journal of European Integration History, vol. 19, n. 2 (2013): 207 – 225. Bell, Duncan. The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860 – 1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. Ben-Dor Benite, Zvi, Geroulanos, Stefanos, and Nicole Jerr, eds., The Scaffolding of Sovereignty: Global and Aesthetic Perspectives on the History of a Concept. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. Benton, Lauren A. A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400 – 1900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Benton, Lauren A. “AHR Forum: Law and Empire in Global Perspective. Introduction.” American Historical Review, vol. 117, n. 4 (2012): 1092 – 1100. Beyersdorf, Frank. “Freedom of Communication: Visions and Realities of Postwar Telecommunication Orders in the 1940s.” Journal of Policy History, vol. 27, n. 3 (2015): 492 – 520. De Grazia, Victoria. Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005. Fickers, Andreas. “The Techno-Politics of Colour: Britain and the European Struggle for a Colour Television Standard.” Journal of British Cinema and Television, vol. 7, n. 1 (2010): 95 – 114. Fickers, Andreas, and Pascal Griset. Communicating Europe: Technologies, Information, Events. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Fitzmaurice, Andrew. Sovereignty, Property and Empire, 1500 – 2000. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Gorman, Daniel. International Cooperation in the Early Twentieth Century. London; New York: Bloomsbury, 2017. Gorman, Daniel. The Emergence of International Society in the 1920s. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Holquist, Peter. “Information Is the Alpha and Omega of Our Work’: Bolshevik Surveillance in Its Pan-European Context.” Journal of Modern History, vol. 69, n. 3 (1997): 415 – 50. John, Richard R. Network Nation: Inventing American Telecommunications. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010. Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent. “Radio as a Tool of Empire. Intercontinental Broadcasting from the Netherlands to the Dutch East Indies in the 1920s and 1930s.” Itinerario, vol. 40, n. 1 (2016): 83 – 103. Kuitenbrouwer, Vincent. War of Words: Dutch Pro-Boer Propaganda and the South African War (1899 – 1902). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.

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Lommers, Suzanne. Europe – On Air: Interwar Projects for Radio Broadcasting. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012. Lorca, Arnulf Becker. “Sovereignty beyond the West: The End of Classical International Law.” Journal of the History of International Law, vol. 13, n. 1 (2011): 7 – 73. Meer, Elisabeth van. “The Transatlantic Pursuit of a World Engineering Federation: For the Profession, the Nation, and International Peace, 1918 – 48.” Technology and Culture, vol. 53, n. 1 (2012): 120 – 145. Müller, Simone M. “Beyond the Means of 99 Percent of the Population: Business Interests, State Intervention, and Submarine Telegraphy.” Journal of Policy History, vol. 27, n. 3 (2015): 439 – 464. Pedersen, Susan. The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pedersen, Susan. “The Meaning of the Mandates System: An Argument.” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, vol. 32, n. 4 (2006): 560 – 82. Ribeiro, Nelson. “Censorship and Scarcity: Controlling New and Old Media in Portugal, 1936 – 1945.” Media History, vol. 21, n. 1 (2015): 74 – 88. Rüger, Jan. “Sovereignty and Empire in the North Sea, 1807 – 1918.” The American Historical Review, vol. 119, n. 2 (2014): 313 – 338. Schwoch, James. “The American Radio Industry and International Communications Conferences, 1919 – 1927.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 7, no. 3 (1987): 289 – 309. Shinoda, Hideaki. Re-Examining Sovereignty: From Classical Theory to the Global Age. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: MacMillan Press, 2000. Tworek, Heidi J. S. “How Not to Build a World Wireless Network: German–British Rivalry and Visions of Global Communications in the Early Twentieth Century.” History and Technology, vol. 32, n. 2 (2016): 178 – 200. Tworek, Heidi J. S. “Journalistic Statesmanship: Protecting the Press in Weimar Germany and Abroad.” German History, vol. 32, n. 4 (2014): 559 – 578. Tworek, Heidi J. S. “Peace Through Truth? The Press and Moral Disarmament through the League of Nations.” Medien & Zeit, vol. 25, n. 4 (2010): 16 – 28. Wertheim, Stephen. “The League of Nations: A Retreat from International Law?” Journal of Global History, vol. 7, n. 2 (2012): 210 – 32. Wertheim, Stephen. “The League That Wasn’t: American Designs for a Legalist-Sanctionist League of Nations and the Intellectual Origins of International Organization, 1914 – 1920.” Diplomatic History, vol. 35, n. 5 (2011): 797 – 836. Zakharova, Larissa. “Des techniques authentiquement socialistes? Transferts et circulations dans les télécommunications entre l’URSS et l’Europe (années 1920 – années 1960).” Critique Internationale, vol. 66, n. 1 (2015): 19 – 35.

Anne-Katrin Weber, Roxane Gray, Marie Sandoz, with the collaboration of Adrian Stecher*

11 ITU Exhibitions in Switzerland: Displaying the “Big Family of Telecommunications,” 1960s – 1970s

Figure 11.1 – Drawing from the ITU Telecom competition “Youth at the Electronic Age” of 1979. Source: ITU Library & Archives. Image no. 790352

11.1 Introduction From the Telegraph Union (TU)’s early history, Switzerland played a key role within the institution. Thanks to its reputation as a politically neutral country, * University of Lausanne, Switzerland https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-012

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its geographic centrality, its technical expertise, as well as its proven economic liberalism, Switzerland was chosen by the member states to supervise and organize the operations led by the TU through the Bureau International des Administrations Télégraphiques. ¹ The office, staffed with Swiss personnel, was set up in Bern under the direct administration of the Swiss Post Department. Given this situation, the Swiss government had direct influence over the Union’s economic and administrative issues. Furthermore, Switzerland’s role grew from a largely administrative actor to a driving force on the decision-making level by 1875, when the member states permitted the office to formulate compromises in cases of differing opinions on policy matters.² While Switzerland’s position within the organization remained stable until the Second World War, the Union experienced various administrative transformations due to technological changes in the telecommunication sector. The invention of the telephone by the 1870s, the development of radio systems, which became a complementary medium to cable-bound telegraphy by the early 1900s, and the first television demonstrations in the mid-1920s³ not only captured the public imagination, but also increased the need for new regulations. In 1932, the International Telegraph and the International Radiotelegraph Conferences held in Madrid brought together delegates from 68 countries and representatives of 64 non-voting businesses and other political federations and associations.⁴ Over three months, the participants discussed and finally signed a new International Telecommunication Agreement. They also expanded the Radio Regulations to include new sectors and constituted the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as the legal successor to the Telegraph Union.⁵ In 1947, Switzerland’s leading role in the ITU was circumscribed when the ITU became a United Nations agency, with its offices moving from the Swiss capital to Geneva. Prerogatives formerly in Swiss hands henceforth fell within the purview of the UN, while the budget and human resources were brought in line with UN policies. Under the leadership of the US, ITU members reformed the agency, including its organizational structure and the process for electing new mem-

 Balbi et al., Network Neutrality, 87– 113.  Ibid., 177– 206.  See Schanze, Handbuch der Mediengeschichte, 252– 274.  Such as the representative of the international shipping federation, or the representative of the Norwegian Ship-owners Association; even a representative of the Vatican was present at the conference.  See Tegge, Die Internationale Telekommunikations-Union.

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bers.⁶ During the next years, the ITU changed from a Europe-focused to a global organization, within which Switzerland played a less prominent role.⁷ Most emblematical of this change, in 1950, a non-Swiss was for the first time elected as Secretary-General.⁸ In short, while Switzerland assumed a major role during the Union’s first decades, the country lost privileges during the post-war period when the ITU became part of the UN. This chapter suggests that Switzerland therefore had to readjust its relationship with the ITU, and proposes to analyse one major arena that served to (re) negotiate the role of Switzerland within the Union; that is, the industrial exhibitions and public fairs organized in Switzerland by the Union. Focusing on the early history of ITU fairs in the 1960s and 1970s, it studies different exhibitions held by the ITU in Swiss cities, and examines the events’ functions from the perspective of the host country, Switzerland, and the host institution, the ITU. What privileges were obtained by Switzerland as the host country of these events, and which goals were pursued by the ITU? In what ways did these exhibitions differ from the ITU’s daily business? This chapter explores the thesis that industrial exhibitions and public fairs organized in Switzerland represented a privileged tool for promoting the ITU, telecommunication technologies, and their industry to a broader audience, while simultaneously fostering technical exchange and international business, thus creating opportunities for Swiss industries to connect to the international telecom research and market. To analyse the ITU exhibitions, we draw upon the broad work of scholars in the field of Exhibition Studies.⁹ While World’s Fairs and other international events of massive size have received the most attention,¹⁰ historians of exhibitions have more recently also considered industrial fairs and topical exhibitions. These smaller, often forgotten events accompanied and complemented the more prestigious international exhibitions, and served, similar to the latter, as platforms for international trade and national self-affirmation. They functioned as

 The 1947 Atlantic City Conferences were the first ones ITU held after the war. They are a landmark in the institutional history of the organization as several aspects of its structure were substantially modified. New organs were created, like the General Secretary, the Administrative Council and various technical Committees. Membership rules and process were also discussed and changed. See Ruppen Coutaz, La voix de la Suisse à l’étranger.  See Tegge, Die Internationale Telekommunikations-Union.  See past and present Senior Officials here: http://www.itu.int/en/history/Pages/SeniorOffi cials.aspx.  For an overview, see Geppert, Fleeting Cities.  See Geppert et al., International Exhibitions, Expositions Universelles and World’s Fairs.

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materializations of power, mediated and spectacularized through often elaborate scenographic choices and displays.¹¹ As the chapter shows, during the 1960s and 1970s, the ITU fairs evolved significantly from industrial meeting places to “techno-spectacular” platforms. The Television Symposium, co-organized by the ITU and held in Montreux from 1961 on targeted mainly a professional audience and focused on techno-political issues such as the introduction of colour television. Its study highlights the fairs’ roles as meeting grounds for international (television) industries and public actors. While the Telecom exhibitions held from 1971 on in Geneva continued to address the telecommunication industry and broadcasting institutions, they also aimed at the financial sector, as well as the broad public. Including private and public actors, the Telecom events heavily promoted new media such as satellite communication through spectacular demonstrations, sustaining the image of the ITU as a “global telecommunication family,” and simultaneously working towards the liberalization of telecommunication markets and institutions.

11.2 “The Very First World Telecommunications Exhibition” In June 1971, the ITU inaugurated what it emphatically called “the very first World Telecommunications Exhibition,”¹² Telecom 71. Under the banner “Message to the XXIst Century,” the event took place at the Palais des Expositions in Geneva.¹³ For eleven days, tens of thousands of visitors strolled through the exhibition halls and discovered a very wide-ranging diversity of telecommunication technologies, such as video-phones, high-capacity submarine cables, radiorelays, data transmission equipment, television studios, and computers. Furthermore, spacecraft and satellites occupied a central place among the stands. Initially conceived as an event on the fringes of the ITU Space Conference held at the same time and in the same building, the exhibition turned out to be highly successful, and so the ITU decided to institutionalize its existence by restaging it

 See Debluë, Exposer pour exporter; Weber, Interwar Television on Display. Grossbölting, Im Reich der Arbeit.  “Message to the XXIst century,” ITU News, n. 8 (October 2012), 30.  Ibid, 29.

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every four years, “like the Olympic Games” as Mohamed E. Mili, the ITU’s Secretary-General, underlined.¹⁴ In order for the picture to be perfect, the ITU endeavoured to gather at the fairs, as fully as possible, the “great family of telecommunications.”¹⁵ In view of the number and the diversity of exhibitors and visitors alike (from television manufacturers to scientific research centres; from families to professionals), it was a successful bet. Indeed, the entrance tickets recorded an increase of more than 235 % between Telecom 71 and Telecom 79, and the number of exhibitors rose, from 250 in 1971, to 350 in 1975, to 600 in 1979.¹⁶ Finally, a growing number of countries took part in the event, from 14 in 1971, to 42 in 1979. The large spectrum of nationalities and interests at Telecom events was represented not only by administrations and public institutions, such as national PTTs, but also by private enterprises, research centres and laboratories, manufacturers, international organizations, and, from 1979, by financial service providers and telecommunications law specialists. The exhibition’s strategic role for the ITU, as envisioned by Mili himself, was clearly expressed in a 1971 editorial of the ITU’s house-publication, the Telecommunication Journal: At no time in the more-than-century-old history of our Union has this uniquely conceived organisation conveyed its message so forcefully or so clearly. All those who had the opportunity – and the good fortune – to visit the various stands were able to appreciate the fundamental role played by the ITU in the spectacular evolution of telecommunication technique and in the rapid expansion of the world network to which it has made such a large contribution.¹⁷

For the Union’s Secretary-General, the organization of a techno-spectacular event such as Telecom 71 aimed first and foremost to re-present and promote the institution to a broad audience. While the numerous technical Commissions constituting the Union’s ordinary business offered major platforms for exchange among international experts and governmental authorities, they remained inaccessible to the general public: Telecom 71 and the subsequent fairs symbolically opened the ITU’s doors and created a unique occasion for the ITU to stage the position it aspired to, namely to be the symbolic node of the “world network of telecommunications.”  Speech of Mohamed E. Mili at the inauguration of the 2nd Telecom in 1975 in Geneva, Telecommunication Journal, n. 2 (February 1976), 91.  Mohamed E. Mili, “Editorial,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 9 (September 1975), 512.  “Telecom 79 sets records,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 2 (February 1980), 65.  Mohamed E. Mili, “Editorial,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 11 (November 1971), 668.

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To reach out to a broad audience, the ITU attached great importance to address equally “the expert and the profane.”¹⁸ Many pavilions emphasized interactivity and enjoyable education to attract as many visitors as possible. The success of this approach is notably illustrated by the large number of young people and students who came individually or accompanied by their teachers. As noted by Mili, girls and boys “were encouraged to look at and, for the first time, touch and manipulate a wide variety of installations.”¹⁹ (Figure 11.2).

Figure 11.2 – Young visitors testing devices at ITU Telecom 1979. At the back, the Siemens exhibition stand. Source: ITU Library & Archives. Image no. 790682

In 1971, for instance, the main hall welcomed visitors with a spectacular, giant, walkable telephone (Figure 11.3). It was displayed by the Deutsche Bundespost, who renewed the experience in 1975 with an installation of oversized yellow handsets. Video-phones were also recurrent stars of Telecom events during the 1970s and 1980s. The crowds could test the device, which was presented as a fu This expression was frequently used by the press about ITU Telecom exhibitions. See “L’exposition mondiale des télécommunications à Genève organisée par l’UIT,” TSR, June 24, 1971; “Telecom est aussi pour vous,” Journal de Genève, June 25, 1971; “Un jour, une heure,” TSR, October 7, 1975.  Mohamed E. Mili, “A Double Success,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 10 (October 1971), 669.

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turistic tool soon to be accessible to everyone.²⁰ Beside the numerous main attractions, side activities were organized, such as “The Golden Antenna” film festival and a drawing competition for teenagers and children called “Youth in the Electronic Age.” The film festival was dedicated to films on telecommunications and consumer electronics, and was open to governmental and private productions. Thus, educational, technical and promotional films were entered to win a prize. For the drawing competition, “all the children of the world” were invited to send a creation around the theme of telecommunications today and tomorrow.²¹ The results were rather spectacular, and fuelled the ITU’s rhetoric on a united and peaceful family of world telecommunication (Figures 11.1, 11.4, 11.8).

Figure 11.3 – The huge telephone of the Deutsche Bundespost at Telecom 1971. Source: ITU Library & Archives.

The plurality of exhibited technologies, the striking scenographic choices, as well as the diversity of participative activities offered were all consistent with the ITU’s objective of reaching out to the general public. The Telecom events re See “Aujourd’hui s’ouvre à Genève la première exposition mondiale des télécommunications,” Gazette de Lausanne, June 17, 1971; “L’exposition mondiale des télécommunications à Genève organisée par l’UIT,” Carrefour, June 24, 1971.  See “La jeunesse à l’âge électronique,” Journal de Genève, May 18, 1972.

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sponded to a communication strategy, which aimed to give a global, but nevertheless familiar, aura to the international organization. However, the Telecom events were not simply mass events for families and other crowds, they were also explicitly designed to meet commercial goals for the ITU’s member states as well as for participant enterprises and organizations. Among the main exhibitors at the first exhibitions, we can mention not only the United States, West Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland and Korea, but also Thomson-CSF, IBM, Intelsat, Motorola, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European Space Agency, etc. Numerous developing countries and smaller firms also attended.

Figure 11.4 – Drawing from the Telecom competition “Youth in the Electronic Age” of 1983. Source: ITU Library & Archives. Image no. 830291

As a Swiss reporter rightly pointed out in 1975, the majority of the purchasing power of the telecommunication branch was present at these events, (potential-

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ly) resulting in an “alignment of interests” between sellers and buyers.²² Coordinating supply and demand on a global scale indeed required a comparison and evaluation of the market, and some of the stands were expressly designed to draw the attention of potential investors and interested professionals. From microprocessors to submarine cables, from colour and multiplex to satellite television, from radio relays to electronic devices, the Telecom events staged and thus put in competition the newest technologies. Not surprisingly, a Belgian journalist qualified Telecom 75, with its “number of gadgets worth billions,” as “the first commercial fair on such a scale.”²³ Another major feature of the Telecom events were gatherings of technical, industrial and financial experts. Organized for the first exhibition in 1971, a symposium was regularly held from 1975 under the name “Telecommunication World Forum.” The Forum was conceived as a two-sided event, with one part dedicated to economic and financial issues, and the other to more technical matters. For that reason, the Forum should not be separated from the commercial goals of the Telecom events as a whole. On the contrary, a call for contributions, published in the Telecommunication Journal in June 1979, was quite explicit on this point: Geneva, where the world telecommunication and financial leaders meet: FORUM 79 will attract to Geneva senior government officials, tens of thousands of highlevel executives from industry, commercial managers, commercial and investment bankers, engineers and consultants who are, or will be, involved in the planning, design or practical implementation of private and public telecommunication systems and networks. A great number of these executives will meet at FORUM 79, which has been designed to acquaint the international, financial and investment community with the leaders of telecommunications authorities and industry. Your participation will help you to position your organisation among the most successful.²⁴

Bankers, financial counsellors and businessmen were granted major speaking time during the Forum, along with researchers, engineers, public officials and specialists in telecommunication law. As a result, the topics addressed could be data communication, videotext, digital switching, or legal aspects of satellite communication, as well as investment strategy, cost comparison in the spatial sector, or the phone industry in the year 2000. As examples of the presence of

 See “En octobre, ‘Telecom 75’,” Journal de Genève, August 28, 1975.  See La Libre Belgique, cited in “…international press,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 2 (February 1976), 105.  See “Geneva, where the world telecommunication and financial leaders meet,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 6 (June 1979), 332– 333.

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international businesses and the financial sector, we can mention Lewis M. Branscomb, vice-president of IBM (USA), Jean-Pierre Bouysonnie, chief executive of Thomson-CSF (France) and Philippe de Weck, board chairman of Union des banques suisses (Switzerland), who all participated in Forum 79. The Forum was an important place for networking, rather than a space to debate actual techno-diplomatic issues, which were negotiated behind closed doors at regular ITU conferences. Furthermore, the participants’ profile gives an insight into the liberal values and solutions this arena promoted, and underlines the financial and business issues at stake. In that respect, the specific needs of developing countries were also discussed during these Forums, with conferences generally divided by regions to approach the situation in South and Central America, Africa, Asia or the Middle East. Yet, the significant interest for the development of the planet’s poorest countries was by no means philanthropic: they represented enormous new markets, and the construction and management of their telecommunication infrastructures were worth billions. For developing countries, the Telecom events also represented opportunities to find investors: while industrialized nations displayed their latest technologies, some Global South nations came with a clear development plan looking for financial and technical solutions. The presence of the developing world at Telecom events was regularly highlighted by the ITU, who positioned itself as a mediating link between the North and the South in the context of the UN Second Development Decade. The prestigious Telecom exhibitions thus represented an arena of political, economic and public relevance for all actors involved, first and foremost the ITU. The events fostered on the one hand the Union’s public relations, and on the other hand facilitated international business and technical exchange among member states, whose industries competed and collaborated as part of the “great family of telecommunications.” Swiss industries and institutions particularly benefitted from the Telecom events: for the duration of the exhibitions, Switzerland indeed turned into a major hub for the modern telecommunication world, despite its very limited interior market and lack of major research centres in the field of new telecommunication technologies. Assuming the role of host, the Swiss players made themselves a place at the core of a major technical and economic field.

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11.3 Switzerland, Host Country of Telecom “Genève, capitale mondiale des télécommunications”: The title of Le Journal de Genève of September 1975, proudly repeated by the Swiss press at every Telecom event, was also regularly echoed in international newspapers.²⁵ The significant media coverage of the Telecom exhibitions constituted for Switzerland a means to gain visibility abroad. Its image of a favourable place for worldwide leaders to meet was reaffirmed, and its reputation as a nation of cutting-edge technology was reinforced (Figure 11.5). The symbolic facet of being the host country put aside, Switzerland got directly involved in the organization of exhibitions. From 1971, the events were placed under the high patronage of the Swiss Federal Council as well as the State and City of Geneva,²⁶ and their practical organization was left to Orgexpo, Fondation pour l’organisation d’expositions, from Geneva. The first edition of the film festival “Golden Antenna,” showcasing national technologies and savoir faire, was launched in 1971 by the Swiss PTT. On that occasion, this public institution was rewarded for its film Signaux ²⁷ and, in 1975, for its documentary Auf Draht und Welle.²⁸ Together with other contributions, such as the PTT symphony orchestra concert at the 1979 inauguration, the film festival strengthened the public institution’s visibility and reputation.²⁹ As we have seen above, Telecom exhibitions represented a platform where global and national industry met and from where new collaborations could emerge. Switzerland, as did other countries and enterprises, seized the opportunity to strengthen its position within the telecommunication market, to showcase its new products and, simply put, to do business. At Telecom 79, for instance, the Swiss telecommunication and electronics industry came together with public institutions under a sole pavilion. The stand gathered the Swiss PTT, Radio Suisse SA, and 35 other industrial enterprises on a floor space of 1,500 square metres. Among the technologies shown, one can mention Gretag Ltd’s data security system, the exact replica of Ariane 1’s rocket tip manufactured by the Zürich based

 ITU Library & Archives, 33 Z 10 S.G., TELECOM WORLD, 1. Teleclippings: a selection of clippings on Telecommunications from the press. ITU Library & Archives, 33 Z 10 S.G., TELECOM WORLD, 2. Teleclippings, spécial Telecom 79.  “Visiting Ministers,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 10 (October 1971), 684.  “Technical symposia,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 10 (October 1971), 690.  Hessa Al-Jaber, “Connecting to build a better future,” ITU News, n. 10 (October 2012), 6.  See Telecommunication Journal, n. 2 (February 1980).

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Figure 11.5 – 1979 Swiss pavillion: opening speech by Fritz Locher, director general of the PTT. Source: “La Suisse très présente à Télécom 79,” Le Dauphiné libéré, September 22, 1979.

enterprise Contraves, or the prepaid phone card system Phonocard, launched by Sodéco-Saia.³⁰

 See “Telecom 79, Jules Verne aurait-il pu prévoir?,” Revue Polytechnique, n. 1387 (1979).

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Following the recession of the 1970s, sales volumes of the Swiss PTT were 30 % lower at the time of the third Telecom event.³¹ Therefore, the public enterprise sought new prospects abroad and was keen to support the efforts of the national industry in that direction. In this context, the strategic significance of international events such as Telecom for the national industry increased. And, indeed, with the prospect of developing exportation to the Global South, twelve Swiss enterprises joined forces at Telecom 79 under the banner “Swisscom.”³² Collaborating closely with the Federal division of trade, the Swiss Office for trade promotion and the Swiss Association of construction plant manufacturers, this business group tried hard to get in touch with new customers coming mainly from South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.³³ Other than their commercial importance, Telecom events also constituted a platform for the transfer of knowledge and technical know-how. That is especially true for the Société suisse de radiodiffusion et télévision (SSR) and the Télévision suisse romande (TSR), which could establish contacts with foreign television services and get acquainted with their technologies. For example, on the inauguration of Telecom 1971, the EBU transmitted a Mondovision program through satellite broadcasting.³⁴ Yet, the TSR and the Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française (ORTF) jointly coordinated the operations in Geneva from the brand-new colour television studio of the French public television staged at the exhibition. On this occasion, Swiss television personnel had the opportunity to work with technologies they did not use on a daily basis. As a matter of fact, at this point Switzerland was not a leading force in the field of colour television, nor in satellite broadcasting – but thanks to its implication in various displays at Telecom, the names of TSR and SSR were quickly associated with these kinds of high-tech developments and tests. The hosting of an event such as Telecom therefore offered the opportunity for Switzerland to gain knowledge of technologies that were not developed by its national industries. As these examples show, the advantages for Swiss industries and institutions were located at multiple levels. On a local scale, other than Telecom’s opportunities for tourism, which were thoroughly exploited, the events consolidated the international reputation of the UN host city, la Genève internationale, and

 See “A Telecom 79, Un stand collectif de l’industrie suisse,” Voix ouvrière, July 23, 1979.  Not to be confused with the enterprise Swisscom SA, created in 1997 and resulting from the progressive liberalization of the state-owned Swiss PTT.  See “A Telecom 79, Un stand collectif de l’industrie suisse,” Voix ouvrière, July 23, 1979.  See “L’UIT pense aux enfants du monde,” Journal de Genève, May 18, 1971.

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reaffirmed its capacities as an international exhibition city.³⁵ The important tribune granted by Telecom to different local and regional actors was confirmed by opening speeches of the exhibitions, delivered by Secretary-Generals of the ITU, Swiss federal authorities, and the Mayor of Geneva: at these occasions, the Swiss actors praised the longstanding collaboration between Switzerland or Geneva with the ITU, and emphasized the advantages of organizing such events within their territory, depicted as magnificent and as having an international vocation (Figure 11.6).³⁶ The inauguration speeches were also an occasion for Geneva to receive praise from the ITU. For example, in 1975, Mili qualified it as a “pre-eminently international city, renowned throughout all mankind, to the lasting honour of Switzerland.”³⁷ This image of Geneva, and of Switzerland, as an international place for peace and intergovernmental collaboration is not new. It is, on the contrary, strongly linked to the long tradition of Swiss “neutrality,” which goes back to the very early history of the Federal State.³⁸ The principle of neutrality is at the heart of Swiss foreign policy since the 19th century and guides, among other things, the country’s relations with international organizations, turning Switzerland into a privileged host of international institutions and events. In this regard, we can highlight the foundation of the Red Cross in Geneva in 1863, the diplomatic conference of 1864, which laid the foundations for the Geneva Conventions, and, of course, the role played by Switzerland in the early history of the ITU. In the interwar period, Geneva was notably chosen to host the League of Nations’ Headquarters, and after the Second World War, the city welcomed the UN European Headquarters as well as several specialized agencies. At the time of the first Telecom exhibitions, the Swiss notion of neutrality was adjusted to the context of the Cold War. A new “neutrality and solidarity doctrine” sought to reconcile, on the one hand, the country’s will to integrate the world market, its adhesion to liberal economic values and its firmly anticommunist attitude, and, on the other hand, the preservation of neutrality’s political and economic advantages. The policy stated that Switzerland remained

 With regard to Geneva’s role as an international exhibition city, the Geneva International Motor Show in 1905 offers a successful example.  Willi Ritschard, “Speech at Inaugural Ceremony of the Telecom 75,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 2 (February 1976), 89; “Inaugural Ceremony, The Speakers,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 7 (July 1984), 370; Guide to Geneva, Telecom 71. ITU Library & Archives, 33 Z 10, S. G. Telecom World, I.  Mohamed E. Mili, “Speech,” Telecommunication Journal, no. 2 (February 1976), 90.  See Riklin et al., Neues Handbuch der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik; Riklin, “Neutralität am Ende?”

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Figure 11.6 – Telecom 1979. The opening speech of Swiss Federal Counsellor Willi Ritschard is transmitted on large screen. Source: ITU Library & Archives. Image no. 790993

neutral but was willing to act in solidarity with Western countries. With regard to international organizations, the principle led the Federal State to distinguish between “political” and so-called “economic or technical” institutions, its neutrality allowing participation only in the latter. As a result, Switzerland did not adhere to UN until 2002, but was active in numerous special agencies and was a member of – to name a few – the Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), the Council of Europe, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the European Space Agency (ESA).³⁹ The Telecom exhibitions and Forums thus appear to fit perfectly the Swiss policy of the time. Indeed, they enabled the country to integrate the world market, to promote a liberal vision of telecommunications, and to reaffirm its image of a neutral country, all under the guise of “non-political” and “technological” ITU exhibitions.

 See Fischer, Die Grenzen der Neutralität; Mantovani, Schweizerische Sicherheitspolitik im Kalten Krieg 1947 – 1963; Zellmeyer, A Place in Space.

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11.4 Before the Telecom: The International Festival of Television With the Telecom events, the efficacy of exhibitions as a communication tool and a network-creator had been recognized by all actors involved: for the ITU as well as for Switzerland, the events represented a major happening, addressing the general and the professional public alike. However, the Telecom exhibitions were not the ITU’s first participation at public fairs, since the Union had already been present at the Paris Exhibition in 1900. In the post-war period, the ITU was represented at, among other events, the World’s Fairs in Brussels (1958), Montreal (1967), and Osaka (1970).⁴⁰ In Switzerland, the collaboration between the Union and local or national actors for the organization of exhibitions started in 1961, with the ITU’s participation at the 1st Television Symposium in Montreux. Initially held annually, the Montreux Television Symposium brought together hundreds of professionals, engineers and technicians from over 30 countries. Participants gave talks about television, simultaneously translated into English, French, Spanish, Russian and German.⁴¹ In addition to this professional meeting, a technical exhibition displayed the most recent professional material shown by Swiss and international industries. Key themes in the 1960s were satellite communications, colour television, television cameras and studio equipment, and the different applications of television in the industrial and medical fields.⁴² The third feature of the Montreux gathering, labelled International Festival of Television and held under the patronage of the EBU, was The Golden Rose contest, which rewarded the best television entertainment programs. From 1961, the ITU, together with the Swiss PTT, was the principal organizer of the technical meeting, the International Television Symposium. The ITU’s participation was the result of a proposal made by the festival initiators who thought it appropriate for the ITU to be involved in a practical manner with the organization of the Symposium, and thus with the development of international coop-

 “Message to the XXIst Century: Telecom 71,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 10 (October 1971), 683. The ITU also took part in a travelling exhibition in the Federal Republic of Germany, in the International Air and Space Show at Le Bourget in 1969 and in 1971, but also in the exhibition held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva in honour of the 25th anniversary of the United Nations.  John H. Gayer, “Du siège de l’Union. Symposium de télévision. Succès international à Montreux,” Telecommunication Journal, n. 7 (July 1961), 410.  Ibid.

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eration in television matters.⁴³ The ITU’s participation in the Television Symposium of Montreux was highly valorized during the first event. The ITU’s then Secretary-General, Gerald C. Gross, launched the manifestations in 1961 and in 1962, and the opening session itself was dedicated to the ITU’s role in telecommunications.⁴⁴ For the 1962 edition, Gerald C. Gross gave a general outline of the development of television throughout the world,⁴⁵ and in 1963 he received an honorary distinction given every year to scientists who had contributed to the development of television.⁴⁶ The collaboration between the ITU and the city of Montreux reached its peak in 1965, when the city held the International Festival of Television in May, as well as the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in September.⁴⁷ As host country of the event, Switzerland was also directly involved in the Festival’s organization and was represented at the different events. The Swiss public sector invested in both the planning of the Symposium and the official coverage of the Montreux Television Festival. The exhibition was, for instance, an opportunity for the Swiss PTT to present their two new video-operator cars used by Swiss television.⁴⁸ While only a few Swiss private companies specialized in television equipment, the main ones were displayed at the exhibition: Kudelski, producer of Nagra recorders, Stellavox Professional Audio Equipment, and the Eidophor, with its large television projection screen.⁴⁹ Furthermore, Swiss industrials were overrepresented in the organization of the manifestation. In 1961, of six industrial advisers on the Symposium Committee, two came from Swiss electrotechnical companies.⁵⁰

 Ibid.  Television art and sciences report, (May 1961). Two papers were presented by Gerald C. Gross about the structure of the ITU, and one by A. H. Cata, member of the International Frequency Registration Board (IFRB), about the ITU’s regulatory role and its conferences.  “Papers presented at the symposium, 2nd international TV symposium,” Montreux, 1962, ETH Bibliothek, Zürich.  “Le 3e symposium international de la télévision a pris fin,” Journal de Montreux, May 27, 1963.  Electron du Matin, Bulletin quotidien de la Conférence de Plénipotentiaires, ITU, September 1965.  “La deuxième journée au Symposium TV,” Journal de Montreux, May 22, 1963.  Roizen et al., Tenth Anniversary International Television Symposium and Technical Exhibition, 46.  Television art and sciences report. W. Roos came from Brown Boveri company while Dr. H. Wehrlin worked for Hasler company. Three other companies were from the United States and one from Japan.

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Finally, Swiss exhibitors like the Eidophor benefitted from a double showcase for their know-how, both as an exhibitor and as a service provider. The Eidophor was a projection system created in 1939 by Swiss scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, led by Dr Fritz Fischer. From the 1950s, the television projector was commercialized by the Gretag Company, who sought, among other things, to sell the equipment to Hollywood studios looking for alternatives to domestic television.⁵¹ The three television events held in Montreux – the Symposium, the exhibition and the Golden Rose contest – were all opportunities to stage the Eidophor and its broad range of possibilities. The Eidophor system was first presented in 1965, during the second day of the Symposium dedicated to applications of television in various fields such as biology, medicine and education. A representative of the company outlined the untapped opportunities of the colour projection system for teaching or for scientific congresses.⁵² In 1967, Eidophor offered a colour projection in the large hall of the Montreux Pavilion. Here, the audience could observe the beating heart of a water flea thanks to cameras connected to a microscope. The case of the Eidophor system in Montreux underlines the different ways the exhibition used television technologies:⁵³ shown as a new tool of communication and audiovisual information, the Eidophor was also an exhibition tool, giving access to unseen images and details, such as a microscopic reality, for instance. The Eidophor finally constituted a promotional tool for the different events occurring during the festival itself, by relaying for instance the Golden Rose contests or the Symposium’s presentations.

11.5 Montreux and the Colour Television Debate Montreux’s role as a professional platform and a network creator was specifically underlined for the negotiation of colour television standards, which took place during the sixties. During this decade, the question of colour television was debated at an international level. From 1955, television engineers and technicians from broadcasting institutions, national post offices and the television industry discussed a common European colour standard for television. These national and international debates – particularly intense between the 1962 EBU ad hoc commission meetings and the 1965 and 1966 conferences organized by the  See Kitsopanidou, “The Widescreen Revolution and 20th Century-Fox’s Eidophor in the 1950s”; Meyer, Der Eidophor.  “La 2e journée du Symposium,” Journal de Montreux, May 26, 1965.  Lugon, Expositions et médias, 11.

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ITU’s International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR)⁵⁴ – were supposed to represent a scientific exchange on the best colour television system for Europe. They instead turned, as historian Andreas Fickers has shown, “into a fierce techno-political controversy between the major stakeholders.”⁵⁵ In other words, a seemingly neutral – because technological – matter, such as the best television colour system, proved to be a highly politicized issue. Indeed, Europe had to choose between three existing technical alternatives: the American NTSC system, the French SECAM system and the German PAL system. These heated debates also informed the Montreux events. In 1967, the Swiss Federal Advisor and Head of the Swiss Federal Department for Environment, Transports, and Energy, Rudolf Gnägi, presented Switzerland as a “small country at the heart of Europe … [that] has always functioned as a natural junction for exchange.”⁵⁶ In his speech, he encouraged the European continent to follow the Swiss model based on compromise instead of international competition. To create a unified Colour Television System, Gnägi promoted the federalist stance of “meet halfway.”⁵⁷ Furthermore, as the example of the Eidophor has already suggested, Montreux was also a place for demonstrations of different colour television systems. For the second edition of the Montreux Symposium in 1962, a working group composed of the Swiss, German, Italian and Dutch postal services presented their research results on colour television. After national transmission tests with NTSC signals, the involved authorities “decided to extend these experimental colour transmissions … to international networks of complex design carried out from June 1960 to October 1961.”⁵⁸ The four PTTs developed experimental tests of colour television transmissions between Rome, Bern and Darmstadt.⁵⁹ Despite its limited broadcasting space and the lack of major television equipment manufacturers, Switzerland was thus presented as an international

 Fickers, “The Techno-politics of Colour,” 95. See also Lommers, European – On Air. These debates between the ITU and EBU are part of a longer history of these both institutions’ practices around a pragmatic internationalist approach.  Fickers, “The Techno-politics of Colour,” 95. See also Fickers, “Politique de la grandeur” versus “Made in Germany.”  See “L’allocution de M. Rudolf Gnaegi, porte-parole du Conseil fédéral,” Journal de Montreux, May 23, 1967, 13.  Ibid.  See Report of the 2nd Montreux Symposium, 1962.  The purpose of these experimental transmissions was to find out whether and how far the existing network is suitable for future colour television. This report showed that it was possible to transmit internationally colour television pictures according to the NTSC system.

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Figure 11.7 – Jean Schlemmer, Symposium international de télévision, Phillips, 1969. Source: photographic fund PP 070-E-0336, Montreux Archives.

hub,⁶⁰ which brought together highly qualified individuals, and created useful dialogue among manufacturers and television professionals (Figure 11.7). Mon-

 The history of Montreux as a “television city” had already started in the mid-fifties, when different television events, and in particular the first Eurovision transmission on the 6th of June 1954, were organized. In the mid-fifties, Switzerland has been a place dedicated to the international television promotion in a divided and technically fragmented European television landscape. The foundation of Eurovision program exchanges in 1950 by the EBU, stemming from an idea of Marcel Bezençon, Director-General of the SSR, represented a ray of hope to counter national strategies.

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treux was described as a vacation spot appreciated for its beautiful surroundings and its relaxed atmosphere; a peaceful and charming town boosting exchanges and discussions, as well as a conference city, which concentrated in a small place conference rooms, showrooms and entertainment spots, promoting contacts between exhibitors, clients and conference delegates.⁶¹ In view of the underlying intensive, international debates about colour television, Montreux can thus be understood as a space – “a grey area” –“where science, technology, business, and government meet, overlap, and interpenetrate.”⁶² The Montreux Television Festivals constituted events relevant to restoring a spirit of friendship and confidence, “the central social ‘habitus’ of these technical experts which had been lost by way of ‘politicization’.⁶³ From 1967, the ITU’s presence in Montreux became more discreet, since only one member remained in the organising committee of the symposium, compared to seven members in 1962. One reason for the ITU’s slow withdrawal from the Montreux events might be related to the Festival’s fragmentation into three distinct activities, each addressing different audiences. For the very first edition of the International Festival of Television Arts and Sciences in 1961, the activities (Symposium, Golden Rose Festival, technical exhibition) were supposed to create a bridge between the arts and science, between production and technical development. However, already for the 1962 exhibition and symposium, EBU organized the Golden Rose as an independent yearly event. The reason given for this separation was a “too little commonality between two sides of television”⁶⁴ and a too large “dichotomy between program production people and television technologists”⁶⁵ to be kept together in the same conference. The rhythm of the events also differed from each other, as the symposium and technical exhibitions were organized biannually from 1963 to follow the frequency of technological change.⁶⁶ In short, the Montreux exhibition and symposium remained a professional and technical event that addressed mainly experts, professionals, and scientists; the broader public was explicitly excluded from the Festival from 1967 due to insufficient space in showrooms occupied by an increasing number of participants

 Roizen et al., Tenth Anniversary International Television Symposium and Technical Exhibition, 58.  Aitken, The Continuous Wave, 22.  Fickers, “National barriers for an Imag(e)ined European Community,” 29.  Roizen et al., Tenth Anniversary International Television Symposium and Technical Exhibition, 5.  Ibid, 4.  Ibid, 5.

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and exhibitors. Moreover, the Montreux Festival remained oriented towards television only, and thus towards a technology whose evolution during the sixties was characterized by small improvements rather than major, spectacular innovations.⁶⁷ By comparison, the next event overseen by the ITU in Switzerland was a popular, and highly advertised exhibition: the 100th anniversary of the ITU’s presence in Switzerland. Mobilizing the latest technology – satellite communication – the ITU used this event as a stage to promote its role in global telecommunications to the general public.

11.6 100th Anniversary of the ITU in Switzerland: Martigny, 1969 For the 10th edition of the Comptoir de Martigny, which took place from October 4th to October 12th, 1969, the ITU presented a pavilion devoted to telecommunications. The authorities of the Canton of Valais and the Comptoir’s organizers made the honorary pavilion available to the ITU as part of the 100th anniversary of the ITU’s presence in Switzerland. It was inaugurated by Roger Bonvin, Head of the Swiss Federal Department for Environment, Transports and Energy, and Mohammed Mili, ITU Secretary-General and a member of the Comptoir’s Honorary Committee. Fully devoted to international cooperation and elaborated by organizations from various sectors,⁶⁸ the pavilion was divided into 5 parts:⁶⁹ telecommunication history, telecommunication networks, radio communications, technical cooperation, and space. In addition, the “Hall of Honour” staged the good understanding between the ITU’s 137 members by displaying their various flags. Among the main attractions, the ITU supplied a satellite for the installation of a television duplex between Martigny and Teheran and realized with SODECO a world map displaying the Earth’s areas covered by geostationary satellites.

 See Florian Rochat, “Toute la technique TV,” RadioTélévision Je vois tout, June 12, 1975.  See “Une exposition célèbre les cent années de présence de l’UIT en Suisse,” Telecommunication Journal, December 1969, 572. List of the organizations: Swiss, French, German, Soviet and Iranian administrations, Swiss Radio and Television, Vocation Training School of Valais, International Consortium of satellites telecommunications Intelsat, companies like Radio Suisse SA, British Aircraft Corporation, MDS Corporation, Sodeco, Patek Philippe.  See “Union Internationale des Télécommunications,” Le Nouvelliste, September 30, 1969.

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As with the Telecom event a few years later, the Comptoir represented an occasion for the ITU to stage and perform the position it aspired to, namely to be the central actor in international and technical cooperation. The ITU’s symbolic and material investment highlighted the event’s function as a self-celebratory tool for the international organization, addressing not only a professional audience, but a much broader public – the Comptoir’s 1969 edition welcomed over 80,000 visitors.⁷⁰ Moreover, compared to the Television Festival of Montreux, the fair was not so much a snapshot of current technological development as it was the celebration of the most innovative and impressive means of telecommunications. Tellingly, the stand detailing Telecommunication history focused, after a short overview, on the most modern technologies. Two demonstrations of a data processor were realized and presented the “harmonious”⁷¹ development of telecommunications networks, such as a connection between Martigny and Tokyo jointly produced by Radio Suisse SA and KDD.⁷² Finally, though the Comptoir did not focus on television, the media was not absent from the event, but was used as a promotional tool. In the “Hall of Honour,” a continuous film projection, as well as presentations by the TSR, documented recent technical televisual developments. The satellite duplex between Martigny and Tehran was the topic of a television programme realized by the Swiss director Paul Siegrist, showing both the ITU stand in Martigny and the Asiatic fair in Tehran, as well as the inauguration of an earth telecommunications station in Iran. Again, as with the Telecom events in the 1970s, this demonstration was an opportunity for Switzerland to symbolically own technologies its national industries did not have the capabilities to develop. At the end of the 1960s, we can thus identify a turning point. The Union’s priorities turned away from the Montreux Television Festival, instead turning towards events that allowed it to stage the significance of its role in worldwide telecommunications, and to communicate this idea to a broad audience. While the ITU divested itself, the Television Festival continued in the hands of its original initiators, namely the Swiss PTT, the SSR and the city of Montreux. Two years later, the ITU launched its own exhibition, Telecom, which differed from the Montreux Symposiums as well as from the regulation and standardization work done by the experts within the ITU’s technical Commissions.

 Compared to 65 300 visitors in the previous edition in 1968.  See “Union Internationale des Télécommunications,” Le Nouvelliste, September 30, 1969. “Sans un développement harmonieux des réseaux de télécommunications, pourrait-on réaliser la liaison Martigny-Tokyo et faire converser deux ordinateurs?.”  Ibid.

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First, in contrast of the Montreux Symposium, the Telecom events did not focus solely on television. In the 1960s and 1970s, television was no longer a “new media” capable of attracting crowds but had become a daily object. As the historian Isabelle Gaillard has shown, in the 1970s television became a “trivial” object in France. By the mid-1980s, almost the totality – 92 % – of households owned a television set.⁷³ In Switzerland, the number of television sets reached two million by the 1970s, a figure which had doubled in just a decade; 95 % of the population was able to receive the three national channels, and one out of every two households possessed a television set.⁷⁴ As a henceforth “ordinary” technology, television was no longer able to count among the bêtes de foire, or to attract a mainstream audience; Montreux’ focus on this media was incompatible with the ITU’s ambition of reaching out to non-professional public audiences. Indeed, from the early 1970s, Telecom events embraced all “spectacular novelties,” including satellite technologies and other new media, allowing for participative demonstrations already tested by the ITU, for instance in 1969 in Martigny. Secondly, rather than techno-scientific events bringing together engineers and experts, Telecoms were commercial fairs, creating a market and bringing together producers and buyers. Bearing in mind that the European media context of the 1970s and 1980s was characterized by the liberalization of public services, Telecom can be seen as a convergence point where public and private interests met.⁷⁵ The 1979 Swiss Pavilion, where industry and public institutions joined forces to gain new exportation markets, is a striking example of this dynamic. The significant space granted to businesses and actors from the financial sector in the exhibition and the Forum emphasized the fact that Telecom was in line with these efforts towards the privatization of telecommunication spaces. From the 1950s, the global economy was also characterized by the emergence of new, independent countries in urgent need of telecommunication infrastructure. Under the guise of aid development, Telecom offered a meeting point between private and public investors, and governments of Global South countries.

 See Gaillard, “De l’étrange lucarne à la télévision.”  Vallotton, “Anastasie ou Cassandre?,” 43.  See Chaniac, Télévisions publiques en Europe, 151– 67; Bourdon, Du service public à la téléréalité.

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11.7 Conclusion: The Political Narrative of Telecom Exhibitions As historians of exhibitions have underlined, exhibitions condense multiple “layers of meaning”:⁷⁶ by their nature they are polysemantic, embracing a plurality of discourses addressing several distinct audiences. Rather than simply being a mirror of (social, political, institutional) realities, they co-construct “webs of signification” woven together with multimedia displays.⁷⁷ In the case of the ITU’s history, this multifaceted nature of exhibitions helps to understand why the involved actors placed considerable effort in the organization of Telecoms, which promised to satisfy a plurality of political, commercial, and public-relations goals. While the business interest of Telecom events was rather explicit, they remained camouflaged behind discourses on universal peace through the development of telecommunications worldwide. The same applied to contemporary “hot political topics” and actual techno-diplomatic questions, which were barely mentioned: The Cold War or decolonization conflicts, North-South inequalities or techno-political questions, such as the standardization of technologies, remained hidden behind the ITU’s self-celebratory rhetoric. The organization thus endeavoured for these events to appear uncoupled from political tensions of any kind, to the point of seemingly denying their existence. With their visually attractive scenographies and spectacular displays, exhibitions indeed represented an ideal medium for celebrating a unified Union and for smoothening controversial matters: at least for the broad public, techno-diplomatic disputes were disguised behind the discourses on progress and unity. However, this apparent absence of controversial issues provides an indirect insight into the, in fact, highly political aspect of the Telecom events. The exhibitions provided a space for business interests of the North to find prospects in the South, for the industrialized countries to showcase their technologies and thus their economic and political power, and for the ITU to adopt a catalytic role in international relations thanks to a specific collective imagery. The universalistic, technophile and pacific discourses with the representations they involved, as the “big family of telecommunication” used time and again, formed the essential narrative of each Telecom event. This narrative char-

 Geppert, Fleeting Cities, 4.  Historian of exhibitions Robert W. Rydell borrows this notion from anthropologist Sidney Mintz in his World of Fairs, 11.

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Figure 11.8 – Drawing from the ITU competition “Youth in the Electronic Age” of 1983. Source: ITU Library & Archives. Image no. 830305

acterized itself with the promise of a bright technological future, where all mankind would be equal thanks to the development of telecommunication technologies. And such a future was displayed as being within easy reach: visitors were able to manipulate objects with the promise that, soon, they would do so in their own living room. These discourses on progress are to be put into perspective with techno-political debates led by the ITU and other UN organs in a decolonization and Cold War context, which they tended to euphemize. First, the Telecom events echoed debates on satellite telecommunications led, in the early 1970s, by the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, which opposed two antagonistic vi-

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sions.⁷⁸ On the one hand, the free flow of information doctrine, mainly advocated by the United States, basically conceived information and communication as a “merchandise like any other.”⁷⁹ On the other, the USSR favoured the sovereignty principle, reserving the right for states to control the information flow crossing their borders. Yet, the free flow precept was precisely promoted by its defenders through discourses on the economic, social and cultural benefits of liberalism that Telecom events fuelled in the field of telecommunications. Second, the change in the global balance of power, due to the progressive end of colonization, marked the ITU’s work in the 1970s. Symptomatic of this change is the ITU’s member list: whereas in 1959 the institution counted 96 members, in 1981 it counted 154. The developing countries brought to the negotiating table specific claims, which did not converge with the goals of industrialized countries. For instance, the regulations regarding the frequency spectrum and geostationary orbits were discussed at the 1971 Conference on spatial telecommunications, at the 1977 Conference on direct broadcasting satellites, and at the 1979 general Conference on radiocommunications.⁸⁰ The governments of Global South countries favoured planning and fixed allocation principles instead of the then practiced first-come-first-served rule, since only a long-term perspective would guarantee their right of access to the frequencies and orbital resources. Even though the regulations adopted by the ITU during the decade tended towards greater equity, on the eve of the 1979 Conference, 90 % of the spectrum was in the hands of industrialized nations.⁸¹ Moreover, the Telecom’s universalistic rhetoric resonated with the ideas and practices of development aid promoted by the United Nations and its agencies at that time.⁸² Indeed, the 1970s were proclaimed the 2nd Development Decade by the UN General Assembly. Yet, these years were also characterized by the increasing significance of mass communications in debates on development, and the growing importance of an organized resistance from the governments of Global South countries within UN agencies. Both elements were reflected in the discussions on a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), led by

 UN Information service, Press releases on the work of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, from May to March 1974. AFB. E2003 A#1988/15#1493* Télévision directe par satellite Vol. 1 et 2. 1973 – 1975.  Griset, “Fondation et empire,” 79.  Courteix, “La conférence administrative mondiale des radiocommunications de 1979,” 625‑47; Courteix, “De l’accès “équitable” à l’orbite des satellites géostationnaires,” 790‑802.  Courteix, “La conférence administrative mondiale des radiocommunications de 1979,” 634.  Frey et al., “Introduction.”

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the UNESCO McBride Commission during the late 1970s and early 1980s.⁸³ Here, the developing countries denounced the cultural imperialism and the uneven access to information resulting from inequalities in the world communication flows, as well as the concentration of media ownership. In portraying the Global South countries as wholly – and peacefully – participating in the worldwide “family of telecommunications,” the Telecom exhibitions covered up such techno-political concerns. At the exhibitions, the free flow of communications, and the peaceful international relations it allegedly entailed, were symbolized in particular by the network metaphor (Figures 11.4 and 11.9). Communication technologies such as satellite and cable were indeed presented as linking the whole planet and, as such, allowing universal understanding among people and cultures. The faith in progress and economic growth was omnipresent, as well as the belief in the endless capacities of technology in terms of economic, social and cultural progress. This ideology was particularly well expressed in the titles of the first two exhibitions in 1971 and 1975, “Message to the XXIst Century” and “Telecommunications = Progress,” and was taken up in the children’s and teenagers’ drawings of the “Youth in the Electronic Age” competition (Figures 1.1, 11.4, 11.8). With this major role in international relations given to telecommunication, the ITU was considered the main networking actor, encouraging collaboration and standardization among governments, experts and the society in general. In short, in this narrative, the ITU was the key to universal peace and progress. These exhibitions were therefore a way of not only constructing the institution authority, but also establishing specific notions of the telecommunications world order, with the ITU at its core. In so doing, the Telecom “story-telling” legitimized the technical work undertaken by ITU delegates by giving it an ideological and universal goal. The highly technical and sometimes polarized discussions held in Commissions or at Conferences were, in this light, granted the capacity to enhance the mutual understanding between people. For instance, while, during the ITU spatial Conference of 1971, delegates fiercely discussed the frequencies allocations for satellite communications, entertaining demonstrations of this same technology took place at Telecom, presenting to the public the benefits of such regulations in terms of social and economic progress. The two events were not of the same nature, but they were profoundly linked and, both in their own way, designed to sustain the globalization of telecommunication.

 Cabedoche, “Le rapport McBride.”

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Figure 11.9 – An installation with flashing small lights illustrates the world telecommunication network at Telecom 75. Source: ITU Library & Archives.

Ultimately, Telecom events served to promote the ITU’s liberal values to the general public. Their analysis reveals the ideological side of the technical deliberations, the aim of which is to facilitate the establishment of an allegedly “liberated” and global communication market, in line with the concept of a “free flow of information.” In that respect, the profitable private investments in the developing telecommunication markets were supposed to meet the same common worldwide objective promoted by the ITU’s rhetoric. Regarding Switzerland, the ITU’s liberal and technophile values corresponded entirely to its own long tradition of economic liberalism and technical expertise. Telecom was also in line with Switzerland’s ambitions in the 1970s of being a major hub for international liberalism and finance. The ITU exhibitions were, in this light, one of several privileged venues in Switzerland for technical, financial and business experts from the liberal world to meet and exchange. We can mention in this respect the World Economic Forum (WEF), launched the same year as the first Telecom event by the German economist Klaus M. Schwab, a professor at Geneva University. And even though Switzerland never regained the central place it had once had in the ITU prior to the Second World War, the country found ways to maintain a specific role within the organization. Being the host country for ITU events

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such as Telecom was one of them. At Telecom, Switzerland was indeed in a privileged position and enjoyed numerous advantages, most importantly, the access to an international market. In addition to supporting local tourism and the visibility of Geneva, ville internationale, the Telecom events first and foremost served as a showcase for Swiss savoir-faire, displayed in numerous forms, and a platform for Swiss industries to do business. Despite its extremely small broadcasting space and the absence of any major telecommunication players, in particular in the growing field of space communications, the hosting of the Telecom events turned Switzerland into the place to be for global communication.

References Aitken, Hugh. The Continuous Wave: Technology and American Radio (1900 – 1932). Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. Balbi, Gabriele, Fari, Simone, Richeri, Giuseppe, and Spartaco Calvo. Network Neutrality: Switzerland’s Role in the Genesis of the Telegraph Union, 1855 – 1875. Bern: Peter Lang, 2014. Balbi, Gabriele, Calvo, Spartaco, Fari, Simone, and Richeri, Giuseppe. “‘Bringing Together the Two Large Electric Currents that Divide Europe’: Switzerland’s Role in Promoting the Creation of a Common European Telegraph Space, 1849 – 1865.” ICON, vol. 15 (2009): 61 – 80. Bertrand, Cabedoche. “Le rapport McBride, conférence du consensus avant l’heure.” Les Enjeux de l’information et de la communication, n. 1 (2011): 69 – 82. Bourdon, Jérôme. Du service public à la télé-réalité: Une histoire culturelle des télévisions européennes, 1950 – 2010. Bry-sur-Marne: INA, 2011. Chaniac, Régine. “Télévisions publiques en Europe: crise et mutations.” Les lucarnes de l’Europe: Télévisions, cultures, identités, 1945 – 2005, edited by Marie-Françoise Lévy and Marie-Noële Sicard, 151 – 67. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2008. Courteix, Simone. “La conférence administrative mondiale des radiocommunications de 1979 et le nouvel ordre international de l’éther.” Annuaire français de droit international, n. 26 (1981): 625‑47. Courteix, Simone. “De l’accès ‘équitable’ à l’orbite des satellites géostationnaires.” Annuaire français de droit international, vol. 31, n. 1 (1985): 790‑802. Debluë, Claire-Lise. Exposer pour exporter: Culture visuelle et expansion commerciale en Suisse (1908 – 1939). Neuchâtel: Éditions Alphil-Presses Universitaires Suisses, 2015. Fickers, Andreas. “The Techno-politics of Colour: Britain and the European Struggle for a Colour Television Standard.” Journal of British Cinema and Television, n. 7 (2010): 95 – 114. Fickers, Andreas. “Politique de la grandeur” versus “Made in Germany”: politische Kulturgeschichte der Technik am Beispiel der PAL-SECAM-Kontroverse. München: R. Oldenbourg, 2007.

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Fickers, Andreas. “National Barriers for an Imag(e)ined European Community. The Techno-Political Frames of Postwar Television Development in Europe.” Northern Lights, n. 4 (2006): 15 – 36. Fischer, Alex. “Swiss Telecommunications Policy: From State Monopoly to Intense Regulation.” Flux, n. 2 (2008): 78 – 91. Fischer, Thomas. Die Grenzen der Neutralität. Schweizerisches KSZE-Engagement und gescheiterte UNO-Beitrittspolitik im Kalten Krieg 1969 – 1986. Zürich: Chronos, 2004. Frey, Marc, Sönke, Kunkel, and Corinna R. Unger. “Introduction: International Organizations, Global Development, and the Making of the Contemporary World.” International Organizations and Development, 1945 – 1990, edited by Frey Marc, Kunkel Sönke and Corinna R. Unger, 1 – 22. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Gaillard, Isabelle. “De l’étrange lucarne à la télévision. Histoire d’une banalisation (1949 – 1984).” Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire, n. 3 (2006): 9 – 23. Geppert, Alexander C. T. Fleeting Cities. Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siècle Europe. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillian, 2013. Geppert, Alexander C. T., Coffey, Jean, and Tammy Lau. International Exhibitions, Expositions Universelles and World’s Fairs, 1851 – 2005: A Bibliography. Freie Universität Berlin, 2006. Griset, Pascal. “Fondation et empire: l’hégémonie américaine dans les communications internationales 1919 – 1980.” Réseaux, vol. 9, n. 49 (1991): 73 – 89. Großbölting, Thomas. “Im Reich der Arbeit”: Die Repräsentation gesellschaftlicher Ordnung in den deutschen Industrie- und Gewerbeausstellungen 1790 – 1914. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008. Hauser, Claude, and Vallotton François. “Entre soft power, compétition économique et divertissement de masse: les expositions internationales aux XIXe et XXe siècles.” Relations internationales, n. 8 (2016): 3 – 8. Kitsopanidou, Kira. “The Widescreen Revolution and 20th Century-Fox’s Eidophor in the 1950s.” Film History, n. 1 (2003): 32 – 56. Lommers, Suzanne. Europe – On Air: Interwar Projects for Radio Broadcasting. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012. Lugon, Olivier. Exposition et médias. Photographie, cinéma, télévision. Lausanne: L’Age d’homme, 2012. Mantovani, Mauro. Schweizerische Sicherheitspolitik im Kalten Krieg 1947 – 1963: Zwischen angelsächsischem Containment und Neutralitäts-Doktrin. Zürich: Orell Füssli, 1999. Meyer, Caroline. Der Eidophor: Ein Grossbildprojektionssystem zwischen Kino und Fernsehen 1939 – 1999, Zürich: Chronos, 2009. Riklin, Alois, Haug, Hans, and Raymond R. Probst. Neues Handbuch der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik. Bern: Paul Haupt, 1992. Riklin, Alois. “Neutralität am Ende? 500 Jahre Neutralität der Schweiz.” Zeitschrift für schweizerisches Recht, 125 (2006): 583 – 598. Robert W. Rydell. World of Fairs. The Century-of-Progress Expositions. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 1993. Roizen, Joseph, and Roizen Donna Foster. Tenth Anniversary International Television Symposium and Technical Exhibition. Commemorative Issue, Montreux, June 3 – 10, 1977.

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Ruppen Coutaz, Raphaëlle. La voix de la Suisse à l’étranger: radio et relations culturelles internationales (1932 – 1949). Politique et échanges culturels. Neuchâtel: Éditions Alphil, 2016. Schanze, Helmut, ed., Handbuch der Mediengeschichte. Stuttgart: A. Kröner, 2001. Schmidt, Susanne K., and Werle Raymund. Coordinating Technology. Studies in the International Standardization of Telecommunications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. Tegge, Andreas. Die Internationale Telekommunikations-Union. Organisation und Funktion einer Weltorganisation im Wandel. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994. Vallotton, François. “Anastasie ou Cassandre? Le rôle de la radio-télévision dans la société helvétique 1958 – 1982.” Radio und Fernsehen in der Schweiz Geschichte der Schweizerischen Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft SRG 1958 – 1983, edited by Theo Mäusli and Andreas Steigmeier, 37 – 81. Baden: hier + jetzt, 2006. Van der Vleuten, Erik, and Kaijser Arne. “Networking Europe.” History and Technology, n. 1 (2005): 21 – 48. Weber, Anne-Katrin. Interwar Television on Display. New Media and Exhibition Culture in Europe and the USA, 1928 – 1939. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, forthcoming. Zellmeyer, Stephan. A Place in Space: The History of Swiss Participation in European Space Programmes, 1960 – 1987. Paris: Beauchesne, 2008.

Nina Wormbs* and Lisa Ruth Rand**

12 Techno-Diplomacy of the Planetary Periphery, 1960s – 1970s [T]he technological developments in the field of satellite broadcasting hold the promise of unprecedented progress in communications and the promotion of understanding between peoples and cultures […] the use of satellite-borne television for educational purposes, particularly in the developing countries would contribute towards national programmes of integration and community development and economic, social and cultural development in such areas as formal and adult education, agriculture, health and family planning.¹

This conclusion was drawn by the Working Group to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Space in a 1977 report on direct broadcasting satellites. Just as radio had in the 1920s and Internet would in the 1990s, the power of satellite communication technology seemed like it would shortly surpass its predecessors in scope and accessibility. No wonder that international regulatory bodies wished to organize a legal, equitable framework for its use in advance of widespread adoption around the world. This chapter deals with one such central effort from the standpoint of two efforts to govern a distant planetary periphery.

12.1 Introduction In October 1967, the United Nations Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies entered into force. Commonly known as the Outer Space Treaty, this document remains the primary binding international agreement for managing and regulating the regions beyond Earth’s atmosphere. The treaty calls for the maintenance of space as a peaceful domain, free from weapons, military installations, or sovereignty conflicts. The treaty opens with an explicit definition of outer space as both extraterritorial and ownerless; that “the exploration and use of outer space should be carried on for the benefit of all peo-

* KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. ** University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA  Quoted in secretary general Mohamed Mili’s opening address of the World Administrative Radio Conference for the Planning of the Broadcasting-Satellite Service 1977 (Document No. 81-E, Annex 5, 21). Our italics. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-013

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ples irrespective of the degree of their economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind.”² Ninety member states—the vast majority of which had not yet launched a satellite into orbit—signed the treaty in early 1967. Even as the United States and the Soviet Union maintained hegemony in orbit, newcomer states incrementally entered the Space Age through the launch and operation of satellite technology over the course of the long 1970s. The proliferation of satellites and satellite operators during this time required a clearer articulation of the ways that this burgeoning information infrastructure ought to be managed in order to prevent exclusion of latecomers and potential degradation of the increasingly diverse information services supported by orbiting satellites. This chapter focuses on the use and regulation of Earth orbit as a natural resource and site of infrastructure, and the role of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in that process. Ultimately, concurrent international conflicts over natural resource access and communications technology allocation informed new discourses of techno-diplomacy in outer space that emerged surrounding the use of a unique region of outer space: the geostationary orbit (GEO). The construction and definition of a specific part of outer space as a natural resource, and in particular part of an infrastructure supporting applications on Earth, did not occur overnight. Rather, the current governance of GEO resulted from a long process of negotiation and renegotiation among a shifting group of actors, which continues to unfold. Rendering something valuable—whether a material commodity or a vacuum with useful physical properties—requires not only methods of discerning the resource from others like it. The creation of value also requires technology to appropriate the resource and, finally, the means to press it into commercial or other use.³ Often when we speak of resources, particularly natural resources, we think of those that are incontrovertibly material, and often also depletable. However, even the value of a vast and seemingly boundless resource may shift over time. The seas were once regarded as infinite, and a consequence-free sink for different forms of waste.⁴ Today, most regard the seas a limited global resource and certainly not a convenient, bottomless dump.⁵ This re-evaluation of the seas has been co-produced not

 “UN Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,” Resolution 2222 (XXI) (1967).  See Bridge, “Material Worlds.”  For more on sinks and the material transformation and transition of wastes, see Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink.  On the changing views on the ocean, see Rozwadowski, Vast Expanses.

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only alongside increased scientific understanding of the resource itself, but also concurrent with broader shifts in political and environmental values. Conceptual similarities connect the seas and polar regions of the Earth and outer space. In this chapter we find particular, if complicated, commonalities upon regarding these large, extraterritorial regions as commons.⁶ At the same time we recognize the problems inherent in the idea of global common goods, particularly given endemic inequalities barring just and fair sharing of resources among nations with widely variable wealth, political power, and access to the necessary appropriative technologies.⁷ This chapter explores these complexities through historical attempts to resist, revise, and redefine the use of a vast common pool resource, interrogating precisely the relation between those that get to determine the parameters of a particular resource, and those who get to use it.⁸ The legal and diplomatic discourses imbued in international management of GEO during the long 1970s illustrate that many actors participated in this effort, with varying degrees of success. The geostationary orbit, located some 35,790 km above the equator, represents a technology-dependent common pool resource, meaning that its definition and appropriation relies fundamentally on techno-scientific systems. The orbit is indeed a mathematically straightforward, physical reality, but impossible to access, allocate, and use without advanced technology.⁹ Moreover, the technology co-produces the commons, since the size of the satellites and the precision of the thrusters affords different degrees of division and use. GEO also represents a limited natural resource, given that only 360 usable degrees exist. Scarcity of the resource also depends on technological mediation. If a satellite cannot efficiently “station-keep,” it drifts, and its precise position becomes difficult to determine. With increasing position accuracy and frequency allocation, the orbit can house more satellites within those same 360 degrees.¹⁰ If frequencies were to become unstable and transmitters move around in the spectrum—as often occurred in the early days of broadcasting—listening audiences might miss their favourite show, and other transmitters would be disturbed.¹¹ When satel-

 Disco, Nil and Kranakis, Cosmopolitan Commons.  Beery, “Unearthing Global Natures.”  For more on common pool resources as part of a larger categorization of property and enclosure, see Ostrom, Governing the Commons.  See Wormbs, “Technology-Dependent Commons”.  The same argument can be made for the radio spectrum.  In the early days of broadcasting this was a real issue. See for example the work of the Technical Committee in Brussels (Fickers and Griset, Communicating Europe).

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lites cease functioning, some—particularly those constructed before norms regarding satellite disposal—drift indefinitely within those depletable 360 degrees. However, the radio frequencies on which they operated become once again available for new use, none the worse for wear. GEO thus represents a natural resource that is both depletable and durable. Through two cases, we explore tensions surrounding access to GEO, which the ITU officially defined as a limited natural resource in 1973. Access to this orbit involved conflict-laden negotiations and efforts to standardize a region of space far above the heads of the negotiators. These efforts opened up the possibility of national appropriation in relation to overarching and possibly conflicting ideologies of the peaceful uses of space, national sovereignty, and the commercialization of space technology. The first case concerns a claim by eight equatorial countries arguing that the orbit exists within their extended national territory. Known as the Bogotá Declaration, this 1976 claim to sovereignty over GEO challenged the definition of outer space as the unownable, unclaimable “province of all mankind.” The Bogotá Declaration arrived on the world stage in the midst of ongoing negotiations of egalitarian resource access among developed and developing states at the United Nations, and threw into sharp relief its drafters’ belief that extant regimes of space governance supported a neocolonial order. The second examines pan-national broadcasting in relation to national slots for direct broadcasting satellites, discussed during the very same period. In the early 1970s, communications satellites were still a new technology and debates over who had or should have expertise in this inchoate field were ongoing. It was a period when an emerging space sector tried to find use for advanced technology. Moreover, the discussion on transnational use challenged the long-standing idea of telecommunications as taking place primarily within or between individual nations, rather than a cooperative effort spanning a broad international network. Together, these cases not only shed light on the techno-diplomacy of international telecommunications networks, but they also illustrate the co-production and mutual shaping of technology and natural resources.

12.2 Historical Background to the Orbit Beginning in 1944, the German army bombarded Allied targets from a distance using the novel V2 rocket. In February 1945, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke published a letter to the editor of Wireless World envisioning an array

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of potential peacetime uses for this new weapon, even as V2s continued to terrorize his native England.¹² Clarke remarked that such rockets could enable the creation of “artificial satellites” that he predicted would revolutionize communications technology. Moreover, Clarke suggested that an object launched to an altitude of 42,000 kilometers would prove particularly valuable: Circling the planet at the same speed that the Earth rotates, such a satellite would effectively remain stationary above a point on the ground, never passing behind the Earth relative to that point. A network of such satellites, weaving an enormous web of radio transmissions crisscrossing the globe, could provide uninterrupted, worldwide communications coverage.¹³ However, Clarke lamented that such a revolution likely would not take place for another half century.¹⁴ Only 19 years later, a mere seven years following the launch of Sputnik 1, the United States sent the first satellite into what by then had become known, interchangeably, as the geostationary orbit or the Clarke orbit. Unlike other satellites at lower altitudes, which experienced data outages when they periodically passed behind the planet, the Syncom 3 satellite transmitted signals continuously between the regions of North America and East Asia located directly beneath it. Although Clarke had miscalculated the altitude by several thousand kilometers, Syncom 3 proved the validity of his prediction by broadcasting live, uninterrupted footage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics to viewers in the United States.¹⁵ The desirability of GEO for communications applications rapidly spread across international scientific and technical communities eager to make use of this newly accessible part of space. Three years and six geostationary satellites later, the UN Outer Space Treaty established a precedent for the shared governance of Earth orbit. The treaty stipulates that, although a nation may own a satellite moving through orbit or operating on another planet, space itself may not be subject to conquest or claims of sovereignty. The treaty also delineates the necessity of cooperation among signatory nations, requiring that all activity in space must be conducted in consultation with and with regard for the mutual interests of all parties to the treaty.¹⁶

 For more on the development and deployment of the V2 rocket, see Neufeld, The Rocket and the Reich.  Clarke, “Extra-terrestrial relays.” Clarke also published widely and worked extensively on the Oceans, even though his contribution to our appreciation of space is what is mostly known (see Rozwadowski, “Arthur C. Clarke”).  Clarke, “Peacetime Uses for V2.”  Darcey, “Syncom 3.”  “UN Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies,” Resolution 2222, XXI (1967).

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As the number of GEO satellites and satellite operators multiplied, the ITU confronted the task of interpreting the broad strokes of the Outer Space Treaty into practical organizational and operational standards. At its first conference on space radio communications held in Geneva in 1963, the ITU expanded its purview to include the organization of spectrum use by orbiting satellites.¹⁷ Beginning in 1968, the International Radio Consultative Committee (CCIR) of the ITU convened a working group to consider potential interference resulting from an overcrowding of GEO.¹⁸ At its 1970 plenary assembly meeting, members of the CCIR discussed methods of sharing expertise to broaden access to communications—including via satellite systems—to new and developing nations. Attendees noted the material limitations of GEO and the likelihood that the technical limits of broadcasting technology could yield crowding of common frequencies. The CCIR subsequently set up a working group to assess methods by which the ITU could prevent this outcome.¹⁹ As part of a broader discussion on how to manage the broadening satellite communications infrastructure, CCIR membership also debated whether or not to define a “terrestrial telecommunication sphere” bounded by GEO as separate from the rest of “outer space”—a designation that some participants argued clashed with other definitions suggested by the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS).²⁰ By the 1971 World Administrative Radio Conference for Space Telecommunications in Geneva, ITU members drafted a resolution to guide future allocation of GEO. Defining both the radio spectrum and the orbit itself as limited natural resources, the resolution declared that no country or countries should impede the use of these resources by other nations, and that such ITU-sanctioned use must be conducted in such a way as to preserve future access by states seeking to establish a presence in GEO.²¹

 “Final Acts of Extraordinary Administrative Radio Conference (EARC-63).” Geneva: International Telecommunication Union, 1963.  “The International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (CCITT), White Book – Volume I,” Mar del Plata: International Telecommunication Union, 1968.  “Volume VII: Information Concerning the XIIth Plenary Assembly Structure of the C.C.I.R., Lists of Texts Adopted by the C.C.I.R.,” New Delhi: International Telecommunication Union, 1970, 166 – 167.  “Report by the Director, C.C.I.R. to the XIIth Plenary Assembly,” New Delhi: International Telecommunication Union, 1970; “Minutes of the Eleventh Plenary Session,” New Delhi: International Telecommunication Union, February 2, 1970.  “World Administrative Radio Conference for Space Telecommunications: Final Acts of WARC-71,” Geneva: International Telecommunication Union, 1963, 311– 312.

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Two years later, in its 1973 plenipotentiary meeting held at Malaga-Torremolinos, Spain, ITU members refined organizational priorities regarding both the radio spectrum and the material dimensions of the 360 degrees of GEO. In a series of declarations, the ITU officially defined both the radio spectrum and GEO as “limited natural resources” that all nations, regardless of technical capability, should have equal rights to access. Even though fewer than 50 satellites inhabited GEO at the time, ITU members predicted that GEO would rapidly become “congested” or “saturated” with both human-made objects and with signals transmitted to and from GEO satellites. Member nations across a spectrum of wealth and power, from West Germany to Paraguay, called for the ITU as a body to regulate the efficient and egalitarian allocation of orbital slots and radio frequencies, with explicit protections for subsequent use by states that had not yet developed the technology necessary to reach the orbit.²² Although Arthur C. Clarke had envisioned a broadly accessible network of satellite technologies as an asset, in practice the allocation and management of this unique—and uniquely limited—orbital region quickly also became a contested conflict, subject to increasingly fraught negotiation. As egalitarian access to natural resources, particularly among former colonies, became a paramount concern at the United Nations, the ITU’s characterization of GEO as a limited natural resource would feature in subsequent negotiations of sovereignty that challenged the bedrock of the Outer Space Treaty and extended the debate over resource access well beyond the borders of the nations it governed.

12.3 Bogotá Declaration In 1973, a delegate from the Ivory Coast addressed the ITU chair. In language reflecting his nation’s past as a French colony, the delegate argued that newly independent countries suffered from a gap in technological power, and that the under-regulation of space communications technology might further deepen the divide between rich and poor nations. Sharing technical expertise and maintaining room in GEO for latecomers, the delegate noted, should be undertaken not only for humanitarian purposes, but also to maintain peace through the strengthening of truly global communications networks. Technological dominion of Earth orbit by a few wealthy nations represented a new kind of neocolonial-

 “International Telecommunication Convention Final Protocol, Additional Protocols, Resolutions, Recommendations and Opinions,” Malaga-Torremolinos: International Telecommunication Union, 1973.

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ism, he argued—the conquest only preventable through careful, diplomatic management and technical cooperation.²³ In a departure from previous meetings, the 1973 ITU conference in MalagaTorremolinos prioritized participation by developing nations. Explicitly rejecting the propagation of neocolonial interests in outer space, the ITU membership revised its conventions to protect the radio spectrum and the geostationary orbit for use by all nations, regardless of technological resources—echoing the egalitarian language of the Outer Space Treaty. The revision represented a step in the direction of the New International Economic Order (NIEO) supported by developing and newly independent states at the United Nations. Both the NIEO and the 1973 charter revisions reflected these nations’ efforts to maintain independence in the midst of a polarizing Cold War. However, a group of ITU member nations took issue with the inclusive expectations reflected in the charter revision. Representatives of some of these nations questioned whether the ITU could achieve these lofty goals without a broader consensus on the legal definition of outer space governed by the Outer Space Treaty. Many suspected that proclamations of egalitarian allocation of spectrum and orbit would remain unenforced, effectively safeguarding the established hegemony of the Cold War superpowers in outer space. A subset of these nations—those whose national borders fell directly below the equatorial inclination of the most valuable GEO orbit—challenged the ITU’s new conventions over the following five years through collaborative declarations and speeches to UN and ITU working groups and general assemblies, voicing resistance to the preservation of a rapidly solidifying status quo that maintained the hegemony of the Cold War superpowers and their industrial allies. In 1975, the Colombian delegate to the United Nations General Assembly called for a legal, codified definition of outer space in order to protect resource sovereignty of nations directly below GEO, drawing a parallel to the Atlantic Charter of 1941 which affirmed freedom of the seas and Allied support for societies plundered by colonial regimes. Representative Indalecio Liévano warned against “self-interest” among citizens of powerful nations that would, in time, deplete the “scarce natural resource” of GEO and further destabilize geopolitical alliances.²⁴ The following year, representatives from a growing number of equatorial nations addressed the General Assembly and UNCOPUOS to warn that the

 “Documents of the Plenipotentiary Conference,” Malaga-Torremolinos: International Telecommunication Union, 1973, Annex 4 to Document No. 99-E.  “United Nations General Assembly 30th Session, 2376th Plenary Meeting,” New York, October 6, 1975, 471– 475.

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indefinite postponement of an acceptable resolution to the question of the definition of outer space and GEO accessibility threatened to violate the natural resource sovereignty of those nations directly below GEO—all of which fit the definition of “developing nations.”²⁵ With no resolution in sight, in late 1976, delegates from a coalition of developing equatorial nations met in Bogotá, Colombia to discuss the implications of ongoing inaction on GEO for non-spacefaring states in the developing world. Of the eight nations represented—Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Kenya, Uganda, Ecuador, and the nations then known as Congo and Zaire—only Indonesia owned its own satellite, launched to GEO aboard an American rocket a mere four months earlier. The resulting document, known as the Bogotá Declaration, established the signatory states’ claim to GEO as subject to the national sovereignty of states immediately below. The Bogotá Declaration drew upon both the Outer Space Treaty and the ITU Convention to argue that GEO represented a unique resource distinguishable from other regions of orbit. Rather than accepting all of outer space as unownable, the declaration defined GEO as a distinct, discrete geophysical commodity generated by the Earth, and therefore a natural resource subject to the same laws of sovereignty over terrestrial resources upheld elsewhere in UN policy. The porous definition of where Earth ends and space begins represented only one of the critiques embedded within the short document. The framers of the Bogotá Declaration challenged the Outer Space Treaty as a colonial project in itself, noting that low access to scientific expertise prevented developing nation signatories from seeking adequate guidance at the time of its drafting, enabling industrialized nations to shape the treaty to their own benefit. Although the declaration’s primary argument for sovereignty relied upon the 1973 definition of GEO as a limited natural resource that must be used efficiently and equitably—and potentially the 1970 debate at the CCIR over the definition of a “terrestrial telecommunication sphere” separate from the rest of outer space—the Bogotá coalition noted that few methods of enforcement existed to further this end, given the vast technical and monetary resources harbored by the “great Powers.”²⁶ Extending national sovereignty to GEO, Bogotá’s framers argued, would add balance to a regime that primarily benefited the very wealthiest nations, and

 “United Nations General Assembly 31st Session, Verbatim Record of the 8th Meeting, Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space,” Verbatim Record. New York, October 20, 1976, 7– 8.  Declaration of the First Meeting of Equatorial Countries (“Bogotá Declaration”). Bogotá, Colombia, 1976.

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strengthen developing equatorial nations as well as the “world community” stricken by disparities of wealth and resource access.²⁷ Ultimately, the equatorial nations that questioned the egalitarian rhetoric of early international treaties setting lofty goals of common access and egalitarian ownership of GEO did so in a manner that extended extant critique of Cold War neo-colonialism. Although few of the nations represented by the Bogotá Declaration had access to space technology at the time of its drafting, their collective statement threw into relief the unspoken ways that Cold War and colonial hierarchies could easily persist into a brand new frontier should those in power fail to examine and revise longstanding hierarchical practices. The Bogotá Declaration called into question whether centuries of resource inequality could be easily overturned merely by declaration and intent. Much like the advent of GEO as a resource in and of itself, the egalitarian use of this orbit required active technical mediation and the valuation, in practice, of GEO as a truly scarce natural resource.

12.4 Peripheral Broadcasting In 1973, the same year that the delegate from the Ivory Coast addressed the ITU, the issue of possible transnational broadcasting for the Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden—via satellite was suggested in a report produced by the Nordic Council. The Nordic Council, created in 1952 as a supranational body to formally foster Nordic cooperation, consists of a parliament with representations from the national parliaments and self-governing and minority groups such as the Sami nation. Much of the Council’s work mirrors the practices of the national parliamentarian order and fit with already existing structures.²⁸ Broadcasting had been on the agenda of the Council for a long time. During the twentieth century, border overspill by both radio and television broadcasts contributed to maintaining knowledge of neighboring languages but also to a common cultural understanding. That transmitters could not be designed in such a way that radio waves stopped at national borders was one of the reasons for the rapid spread of broadcasting in the 1920s and continued to be an issue in frequency planning. Even in countries that did not have broadcasting services early on, transmissions from foreign countries could be picked up by lis-

 Ibid., 194.  Sundelius, Bengt and Wiklund, Norden i sicksack.

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teners and stimulate interest.²⁹ Border overspill was both a problem and an asset in the densely multilingual Europe. This technical sharing of programs was complemented by the Nordvision in 1959, and made formal exchanges of programs possible.³⁰ This was a direct answer to the popular cooperative European broadcast Eurovision, established as part of the work on program exchange by the reconfigured European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Following new efforts to increase broadcasting cooperation in the early 1970s,³¹ the Nordic Council decided to launch an inquiry, resulting in a report called TV Across Borders. ³² It proposed a number of ways to expand Nordic television, and added that during the 1980s, direct broadcasting satellites would also become available. Satellite and cable were two further options that could enable full geographic coverage for the sparsely populated but geographically big nations of the north.³³ This report soon found its way to the eager employees of the newly formed Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), which immediately saw an opportunity in the briefly mentioned satellite track. Not only would satellite broadcasting enable coverage over the entire Nordic area, but it would also be an application of space technology that fit the aims of the Corporation and space advocates in Sweden. The SSC had been established in 1972 together with the Swedish Board for Space Activities after years of deadlock and relative inactivity. The re-organisation coincided with the creation of the European Space Agency out of two separate European space organisations for science and launchers, respectively. In the process, Esrange, a former European sounding rocket, balloon, and telemetry station outside Kiruna in northern Sweden, was nationalised.³⁴ The SSC claimed that broadcasting satellites had reached an advanced state of development and few technological barriers stood in the way of implementing satellite broadcasting. Drawing on the successes of satellite developers around the world, the SSC suggested that this technology could be employed in the very near future. Moreover, a satellite solution could also serve Norway’s need to communicate with its emerging North Sea oil rigs or Denmark’s distant territories. Finally, it would be good for Nordic industry. This compelling message gave SSC the possibility to explore the satellite option—now aptly called Nordsat—in a pilot study. The Nordic Council gave the task of investigating the satel-

 Wormbs, “Negotiating the Radio Spectrum.”  Zilliacus, Nordvisionen 20 år.  TV-radio i Norden: Utvecklingsperspektiv. Stockholm, 1972; “Nordiskt TV-samarbete,” Nordisk utredningsserie (1972), 2.  “TV över gränserna: Slutrapport,” Nordisk utredningsserie (1974), 19.  NU 1974, 19, 51– 54, 89.  Stiernstedt, Sweden in space; Wormbs, Vem älskade Tele-X?

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lite solution to the SSC, even though expertise on broadcasting were believed by many to reside with the Nordic post and telecom authorities (PTTs), not the least themselves. They had, after all, managed radio and television in their respective countries for decades. The PTTs protested the decision of the Council and publicly sparred over who was to have a say on this new technology.³⁵ To broadcast Nordic channels on a Nordic satellite, however, demanded infrastructural and organizational support through international agreements. The Nordic PTTs were not just the established actors with resources and knowhow; they were also central figures in international telecom cooperation, holding the keys to ITU coordination, belonging to the groups and committees that mattered. They had participated in preparing for an upcoming conference where frequencies and positions in GEO were to be discussed and agreed upon. The importance of the upcoming 1977 World Administrative Radio Conference for Space Telecommunications (WARC SAT-77) was very soon realised by the SSC and political representatives to the ongoing inquiry and meant that the final report on Nordsat had to be postponed, awaiting the result of the conference. The Nordic PTTs had formed a specific group that was preparing for WARC SAT-77 and had to revise their initial claim for national allotments in the geostationary orbit, which was a crucial asset for uninterrupted satellite broadcasting. The first meeting between the PTTs preparatory group and the SSC took place in June 1976 in Copenhagen, chaired by Ib Lønberg from the Danish PTT. He was very critical of the calculations made by the SSC, opposed any form of cooperation, and argued that “the aims of cultural policy should be kept out of the ITU conference, which should be conducted on a solely technical base.”³⁶ Lønberg also noted that Western Europe had agreed to give equal space in GEO to everyone and thus more than five channels would not be possible. In the fall of 1976, every participating country in the upcoming ITU conference the following year had declared its requirements in response to the call from the International Frequency Registration Board (IFRB), asking for a response in early November.³⁷ The Nordic proposal was that Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden each should have five channels for three national services

 Wormbs, Vem älskade Tele-X?  Minnesanteckningar, Möte statssekreterargruppen och NTRS 11/6 1976, 2, 850-MR/TV SAT, NMR. Copenhagen, Nordic Council of Ministers.  The IFRB existed between 1947 and 1993 and had several missions. Primarily it was to manage the registration of used frequencies around the world, allowing for planning both on a national and international level. The IFRB compiled and published lists of registered frequencies and managed allocations of high frequency broadcasting. Today much of the same work is done by the ITU Radio Regulations Board.

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and two covering the entire Nordic footprint, which was a compromise between the PTTs’ initial idea and that of the SSC. The Nordic countries were not alone in suggesting pan-national footprints, or “super beams” as they would sometimes be called during the conference. The Vatican, the German-speaking part of Europe, and the Islamic world filed similar requirements. However, transnational broadcasting and overspill was no small matter on a global scale and it was not evident that requirements could be met. In the Nordic case, a representative of the Swedish government was made part of the Swedish delegation in order to protect the interests of the Nordic beam. Johan Martin-Löf was specifically chosen because he had a background in international work, among other things sitting on the technical subcommittee of the UN Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. He was an engineer by training with extensive experience of space related work, but also had contacts with the telecom sector.³⁸

12.5 WARC-SAT 1977 Not long after the Bogotá Declaration the international telecommunications community met in Geneva for WARC SAT-77, where frequencies and positions in the geostationary orbit were allotted to nations for satellite direct broadcasting.³⁹ The conference would prove important in paving the way for new services and setting standards for future exploitation of the orbit. The conference opened in a spirit of optimism. Ib Lønberg of the Danish PTT —newly elected as conference chair—opened the first plenary session by noting that the establishment of a national space broadcasting regime had no clear precedent. He reassured the assembled audience that although it would require compromise, building a new, orderly telecommunications infrastructure could be achieved to its highest technical potential, unencumbered by “old traditions” and longstanding investments.⁴⁰ However, even though Lønberg eventually

 To be sure, however, the key people of the Swedish delegation put him through interrogation and spent some energy and whiskey in the process. Interview with Johan Martin-Löf by Nina Wormbs October 30, 1999; personal account deposited at the Swedish National Museum for Science and Technology as part of the oral history project “50 år i rymden” (50 years in space).  World Administrative Radio Conference for the Planning of the Broadcasting Satellite Service in Frequency Bands 11.7 – 12.2 GHz (Regions 2 and 3) and 11.7 – 12.5 GHz (Region 1), Geneva, 1977. Below referred to as WARC-SAT 77.  Minutes of the First Plenary Meeting, Broadcasting Satellite Conference, Geneva: ITU, January 10, 1977.

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hailed this effort as a success, the creation of a mutually agreed-upon roadmap did not occur without a few bumps. The serious preparations for allocating GEO use, beginning after the MalagaTorremolinos conference in 1973, had three parts: CCIR worked on technical planning of the 12 GHz frequency band and published reports that dealt with technical criteria; the International Frequency Registration Board received and compiled the various requirements; and finally, a series of seminars took place in different parts of the world in order to educate the delegates on new technologies that had not yet been deployed.⁴¹ The 1977 conference hosted 111 countries and over 600 delegates, making it one of the largest ever conferences for broadcasting planning. Some delegations were small and only contained one participant, like Afghanistan, Nicaragua, and Tanzania; among the biggest were the USSR (18), Italy (21), West Germany (23), France (29) and the United States (27). Furthermore, international organizations such as the United Nations, UNESCO, the European Space Agency, the International Broadcasting Union, and the European Broadcasting Union, as well as Intelsat and Intersputnik, participated, illustrating how the East-West divide also played out organizationally. The International Amateur Radio Union sent four delegates.⁴² The formal opening took place on January 10th 1977. After an opening address, the address of Chairman Lønberg and remarks by the Secretary General of the ITU Mohamed Mili, the Colombian delegation took the floor. On behalf of the signatory countries to the Bogotá Declaration, the delegate issued a statement that hit the brakes on the grand ambitions and scale of the conference, as well as the optimism expressed by Chairman Lønberg: It is premature for this Conference or any other international body to enter into any discussion concerning the distribution of the geostationary orbit, without having reached agreement with the equatorial countries on the status of the segments of the orbit situated over their territories.⁴³

The Colombian delegate further stated that only the part of the arc over the high seas—analogous extraterritorial regions—could be used for satellite allocations,

 Mili, “Satellite Broadcasting.” Mili was secretary general of ITU at this point. The reports of the CCIR were part of the conference documentation as were the reports by IFRB and the requirements.  WARC-SAT 77, Document No. 387-F/E/S. However, this was not a meeting in which broadcasters or industry took part.  WARC-SAT 77, Document No. 81-E, Minutes of the first plenary meeting, Annex 4, 17.

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and that the signatory countries were prepared to take part in discussions on this premise. Delegates from Ecuador, Congo, Uganda, Guatemala, Kenya, and Indonesia supported the statement. This was the first but not the last time that the issue of equatorial sovereignty over GEO came up during the conference. It would re-appear both in the plenary sessions and the meetings of the working committees. During the first plenary meeting, UNCOPUOS was invoked by the representative of the United Nations, who wanted to underscore the work already carried out to maintain egalitarian rules in space. In referencing a report from a working group on direct broadcasting satellites, the representative expressed high hopes in the technology due to “the great potential of the Broadcasting Satellite Service in assisting in the solution of some of the economic and social problems of the world particularly in the developing areas.”⁴⁴ Yet, representatives of Ecuador, Uganda, Indonesia, and Colombia each raised the belief that, in the words of the Ecuadorian delegation, the convened conference was “not competent to deal with these matters” of orbital allocation in a manner that would enforce rules of access beyond “first come, first served.” The ITU should stick to its proven expertise in managing radio frequency use, not fairly assigning physical space.⁴⁵ Other attendees pushed back on grounds of protocol—such as the representative of Australia who noted that the absence of GEO sovereignty on the conference agenda meant that the issue should not be brought to the table, particularly before the matter of a legal definition of outer space could be determined by the Legal or Scientific Subcommittees of UNCOPUOS.⁴⁶ Representatives of equatorial nations persevered, even to the point of threatening retaliation should any state claim a GEO slot without permission, claiming that any use of the orbit without the consent of the underlying nation would justify use of “technological resources or other means at our disposal” to protect sovereign territory.⁴⁷ Geopolitical conflict did not end with the equatorial nations’ campaign. Following the standard procedure of “taking into account the principle of equitable representation of regions and continents” chairmanships and vice-chairmanships had been decided on by Heads of Delegations. However, the delegate from Afghanistan protested and argued that since the conference outcome was so important for developing countries in Regions 1 and 3, they needed to be “adequately represented” in Committees 4, 5, and 6, dealing with “technical,” “plan-

   

Ibid., Annex 5, 21. WARC-SAT 77, “Summary Record of the First Meeting of Committee 5,” January 13, 1977, 8. WARC-SAT 77, “Sovereignty of the Geostationary Orbit,” Document 181-E, January 31, 1977. WARC-SAT 77, “Summary Record of the Second Meeting of Committee 6,” January 26, 1977.

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ning,” and “procedures.” Therefore the Iranian representative Ahmad Fadami should be chairman, and not vice-chairman. Lønberg decided to adjourn to the next morning. After “informal” discussions, Fadami withdrew his candidacy and the issue was put on ice.⁴⁸ Two days later it was resolved through making him special Vice Chairman to the Conference instead, pointing to the importance and power of chairmanship for the furthering of issues.⁴⁹ A third illustration of the global politics present at the first day of this radio conference was an exchange between India and China on visual representations of the contested territory along their mutual border. A challenge to planning was that agreements on standards and procedures had to be developed in parallel to the actual planning. The preparatory work of the IFRB and the CCIR was, however, helpful since it had indicated some boundaries of what might be possible. It was also envisioned that the biggest challenges lay in Region 1—Europe and Africa—that needed to share a small part of the geostationary arc. Committee 5 was responsible for planning and used a punched-card computer from Télédiffusion de France, without which—declared the Chairman—the work could not have been carried out in the time available. In fact, the great importance of the computer for the planning work was brought forward several times, underlining that without this equipment, the kind of planning undertaken would not have been possible. Committee 5 worked in sub-groups solving separate issues and regrouped when the conference approached its end. The work was difficult for several reasons, including the fact that the final revised list of requirements was not received by the committee from IFRB until February 2nd. Moreover, there was confusion since some had submitted the coverage area rather than the proposed beam, which in turn had several negative side consequences.⁵⁰ The difference between the two would be that the area was indeed a geographical definition in which reception could vary, whereas the beam was the radio signal with its characteristics. When only a bit more than a week of the conference was left, a discussion of an Islamic superbeam suggested by Saudi Arabia drew the attention of the delegates. To begin with, it was unclear whether this requirement was new or actually part of the original revised requirement. Second, it turned out it had not been part of the computer trials that Committee 5 had run initially. Lønberg tried to solve the issue by adjourning for informal negotiations and then propos-

 WARC-SAT 77, Document No. 81-E, 1– 4.  Ibid., Document No. 95-E.  Ibid., Document No. 264-E.

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ing that the planning could be done both with the agreed upon requirements and the additions. He suggested that “[t]he second option would demonstrate the consequences of consideration of excessive requirements.”⁵¹ The term “excessive” was used several times during the conference, but it was rare to see it as an argument in the actual planning. It is noteworthy since the terminology cannot be regarded as neutral but rather as an assessment of the claim. Thus, Lønberg did take a stand in his diplomatic role. However, he did not enter into arguing—rather he simply stated that the claim was out of bounds using his position as chairman to exert power. At the same time, he adjourned to allow for Saudi Arabia to argue its case, balancing techno-diplomacy with a moral argument of excess. The USSR did not agree with the suggestion to make a separate computation as the first one had already shown that all requirements could not be met, suggesting than any further efforts would be in vain. Instead a proposal should be worked out between Lønberg and the chairmen of Committee 5. The UK delegate agreed, reminding the plenary participants that they could expect to have more reductions. Furthermore, he stated that “he was doubtful about the effect of adding the extra requirement of one group of countries only, when certain other countries had put in increased requirements and then withdrawn them,” also alluding to a moral economy of the entire endeavor.⁵² Statements of concern and support on behalf of the Saudi Arabian claim followed. Lønberg appealed to what he seemed to accept as common sense and what might be “realistic.” An Islamic beam was eventually made possible by using and expanding national beams.⁵³ The Vatican had to settle for a beam that covered Italy, and the German speaking countries gave up their superbeam in exchange for five national channels, each with a larger footprint. This meant that only the Nordic countries were in general given the superbeams requested, even though the beams’ footprints and strength had slightly shifted.⁵⁴ On February 9th, Committee 5 had managed to produce a plan with “fairly good results.”⁵⁵ Some areas proved more difficult than others and various suggestions were made to remedy those problems. At times the only solution would have to be bilateral discussions. However, the Committee had also moved a great number of channels out of the requested arc to a position that worked better. This had been done in consultation with the relevant administra    

Ibid., Document No. 251-E, 6; Document No. 207-E. Ibid., Document No. 251-E, 6. Ibid., Document No. 256-E and Corrigendum to Document No. 256-E. Jaensson, Rolf and Pettersson, “Frekvensplan för satellit-rundradio.” WARC-SAT 77, Document No. 256-E, 2.

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tions, which were specifically thanked by the chairman of the planning group. The result was a plan for Regions 1 and 3 that would be the basis for satellite broadcasting as an emerging communications technology. For Region 2, future standards for planning were accepted, whereas the actual plan was postponed to a regional conference. The conference was extended by two days and came to a close on February 13th, a Sunday. Despite continuous protests from the equatorial states and several revisions to the original requirements, every participating country signed the final acts with no abstentions.

12.6 Conclusion The two cases of WARC SAT-77 that have been in focus here—the status of GEO and transnational beams—both illustrate a central interest for this volume of collected essays, namely the access to techno-scientific expertise for an international telecommunications regime. However, they display rather different approaches, mirroring the fact that the objectives were diverse even though they both concerned fairness. At the heart of the equatorial nations’ claim lay an articulated post-colonial concern regarding the distribution of knowledge and means to, in any meaningful way, make use of the newly discovered resource of GEO. To nationalise the resource in itself was seen as a way of balancing wealth between those who had and those who had not. In the case of the super beams, they clearly added extra complexity to the proposed plan since their footprints interfered with national beams in almost all examples. Here the task was in a way the opposite, to allocate a shared space. In the end, it was just the sparsely populated northern periphery of Europe where super beams could be satisfactory employed. Central Europe and the Middle East eventually had to settle for other solutions. However, on a regional level, WARC SAT-77 also illustrated to the entrepreneurs of the Swedish Space Corporation the importance of belonging to the international telecommunications networks and not just those pertaining to space technology. It became clear to them that this was an obligatory passage point, to use Latourian language.⁵⁶ The several diplomatic challenges of the conference were met by different means. What might be termed territorial politics recurred throughout the plenary

 Interview with Johan Martin-Löf by Nina Wormbs October 30, 1999; Preparatory Nordic meetings, see for example above referenced Minnesanteckningar, Möte statssekreterargruppen och NTRS 11/6 1976, 2, 850-MR/TV SAT, NMR. Copenhagen, Nordic Council of Ministers.

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sessions and committee meetings. In some instances world politics united the delegations—for example when the prime minister of Yugoslavia died in a plane crash, the conference observed a minute of silence. However, the conference more regularly fielded claims or border disputes both small and large: Mauritius stated that the islands off its coast fell under its jurisdiction; North and South Korea opposed each other’s respective statements on a historic radio call sign; and France and Spain disagreed over the deciding power of the co-princes of Andorra. In the conference records, few of these instances led to further elaboration and were simply taken to the notes. However, when they pertained to the envisioned plan or the process of arriving at a plan, diplomacy was either overt in plenum, or the meeting would be adjourned and informal discussions carried out, as exemplified in the proceedings. As has been shown, this was clearly the initial case with the vice chairmanship. However, it is most likely that practically all of the bilateral agreements which led to moving of satellite positions and changing of beam characteristics and foci took place separately and out of sight. Backing off initial requirements became acts of solidarity with the collective, working towards a fair use of what could, with careful management, regulation, and cooperation, be used as a commons. Sacrifices could be made into assets, and delegations showing the will to compromise could count on the expressed gratitude of official chairmen of subgroups, working-groups, committees, or even the conference itself. Even though many of the delegates were new to ITU meetings of this kind, many were also experienced engineers and negotiators who had developed personal relationships in working groups, committees and preparatory gatherings. There were also those who had been part of earlier large meetings of the same type as WARC SAT-77.⁵⁷ Through their professional training they often shared an understanding of a best practice and procedure for transnational cooperation. Johan Schot and Vincent Lagendijk have termed this technocratic internationalism, defined by a strong belief in networks as essential for modern economy, a rejection of the tension between the national and the international, and finally an insistence on working as if technical issues could be separated from politics.⁵⁸ The delegates to WARC SAT-77 employed several of the characteristics of technocratic internationalism in their procedures. The appreciation of the network itself as core to progress was perhaps best formulated in the epigraph in the beginning of this chapter; however, statements to the same end were made also during opening and closing of the conference. Moreover, the above-described processes

 Heinrich-Franke, “Cookies for ITU.”  Schot and Lagendijk, “Technocratic Internationalism.”

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had a global sustainable system as the goal, and even though national interests were paramount, they were negotiable. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly, even though high politics were present during the conference, it is possible to view the practice of arriving at a plan as a non-political practice; once the statements had been made officially, the pragmatics of footprints and field strengths might just as well have appeared to be all and only about technology and the realities of physics and nature. The intense debate over sovereignty that took place during WARC-77 did not derail the primary mission of the conference. However, questions of egalitarian access and the fair division and use of the limited natural resources of geostationary space and the radio spectrum provided obstacles to the smooth creation of a new national communications regime. In particular, representatives from nations that feared being overlooked or excluded from the new regime questioned the technical feasibility and diplomatic agility necessary to achieve the lofty goals set out by ITU leadership. While the delegates of countries supporting the Bogotá Declaration may not have expected the Cold War superpowers to relinquish free access to GEO, the resistance displayed at WARC-77 illustrated broader efforts by developing nations to force dialog about the real challenges to postcolonial egalitarian ideals—even in the context of a technologically mediated resource like GEO. In challenging the treatment of outer space as an external, infinite expanse capable of supporting the technological needs of populations worldwide, these efforts suggested that Earth orbit could, in fact, be depletable. At the same time, all participating countries signed the Final Acts of the Conference, which in the case of broadcasting conferences historically had not always been the case.⁵⁹ The Copenhagen conference in 1947, for example, had seen great disagreement with several abstentions and reservations. WARC SAT77 may have served as an arena for statements and declarations. When the conference was over, the assembled had crafted and unanimously accepted an agreed-upon plan that could be put into use.

12.7 Epilogue The Nordic super beam successfully registered at 5 degrees East never saw the Nordic broadcasting satellite Nordsat. It turned out that the five countries on

 See for example the Copenhagen conference 1947 (Wormbs, “Negotiating the radio spectrum”).

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the periphery could not in the end agree, and what was eventually launched from Kourou in French Guyana in April 1989 was an industrial telecom satellite. It would in time also broadcast television, but the original cultural project never materialized. One reason was copyright issues, but the opposition to more television, commercial television and in particular US commercial television, was substantial. The late 1970s post-colonial debate on the unwanted imperialism of the West also included Nordsat. Thus, ironically, the industrialised small nations on the periphery of northern Europe, seen as colonisers by some, simultaneously rejected the US cultural imperialism by trying to oppose the implementation of direct broadcasting satellites. While some delegations outside the Bogotá group initially demanded a change to the Outer Space Treaty to address GEO as a separate entity, over the ensuing years most representatives of the Bogotá coalition abandoned their initial claim to GEO.⁶⁰ By 1988 only Ecuador still clung to the original group’s position.⁶¹ Meanwhile, the inequality of access to GEO space anticipated by the declaration endures. A vanishingly small fraction of the over 400 operating satellites in GEO belong outright to developing nations. While the state of the art of satellite technology has changed, the utility of the GEO band as a unique and limited natural resource has remained constant. However, the legacy of the challenges brought to the ITU by developing nations continues to reverberate through international discourses of space governance. The challenges posed by the Bogotá Declaration entered, unnamed, into the annual UNCOPUOS report beginning in 1977 when a Soviet panel formally rejected wholesale any sovereignty claims to GEO.⁶² Since that year, a special section of each annual UNCOPUOS report has been dedicated to revisiting the matter of GEO allocation. With the exception of a brief consideration in 1980 of a “special regime” to separate the governance of GEO from other, less valuable orbits, and a 1984 proposal that UNCOPUOS punt the matter back entirely to the ITU, discussion of the issues raised by the Bogotá Declaration have remained symbolic rather than practical matters of equitability and efficiency.⁶³ Access barriers to

 “Report of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space,” New York: United Nations, August 7, 1980.  Böckstiegel, Karl-Heinz and Benkö, Space Law: Basic Legal Documents.  “UN Document A/AC.105/L.94 – Considerations on the Legal Status of Geostationary Orbits: Working Paper Submitted by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,” 1977, UNOOSA; “Report of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space,” New York: United Nations, August 9, 1977.  “Report of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space,” New York: United Nations, August 7, 1980.

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developing nations have also remained consistent over this time.⁶⁴ One of the original complaints of the equatorial states claiming sovereignty over GEO has proven prescient. Uganda, Indonesia, Ecuador, and Colombia all argued that allocation of the orbit necessarily meant its indefinite occupancy due to its high altitude and slow rate of orbital decay. As the first generations of GEO satellites have ceased functioning, they remain aloft—unpredictable variables filling an increasingly precious, diplomatically contingent, increasingly depleted 360 degrees of GEO.

References Beery, Jason. “Unearthing Global Natures: Outer Space and Scalar Politics.” Political Geography, vol. 55 (1 November 2016): 92 – 101. Böckstiegel, Karl-Heinz, and Marietta Benkö. Space Law: Basic Legal Documents, vol. 2. The Hague: Eleven International Publishing, 1990. Bridge, Gavin. “Material Worlds: Natural Resources, Resource Geography and the Material Economy.” Geography Compass, vol. 3, n. 3 (2009): 1217 – 44. Clarke, Arthur C. “Extra-terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give World-Wide Radio Coverage?” Wireless World (November 1945): 305 – 308. Clarke, Arthur C. “Peacetime Uses for V2.” Wireless World (February 1945). Darcey, R. J. “Syncom 3.” NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive. Available at: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1964-047A, accessed April 29, 2018. Disco, Nil, and Eda Kranakis. Cosmopolitan Commons: Sharing Resources and Risks across Borders. Cambridge, MA: MIT press, 2013. Fickers, Andreas, and Pascal Griset. Communicating Europe: Technologies, Information, Events. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2019. Heinrich-Franke, Christian. “Cookies for ITU: The Role of Cultural Backgrounds and Social Practices in Standardization Processes.” In Bargaining norms – Arguing standards, edited by Andreas Fickers, Anique Hommels and Judith Schüler, 86 – 97. Den Haag: STT Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends, 2008. Jaensson, Rolf, and Percy Pettersson. “Frekvensplan för satellit-rundradio.” Tele, n. 2 (1978): 43 – 53. Mili, M. “Satellite Broadcasting.” Telecommunication Journal, vol. 44, n. 2 (1977): 42 – 43.

 The 1983 UNCOPUOS report recommends that the ITU “at both the world and regional levels, should take into account the need to develop criteria, planning methods and/or arrangements for the equitable and efficient use of the geostationary orbit and the radio frequency spectrum, based on genuine need as identified by each country, and taking into account the specific needs of the developing countries as well as the special geographic situation of particular countries.” See “Report of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space,” New York: United Nations, July 22, 1983, 11; “Report of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space,” New York: United Nations, July 26, 1984.

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Neufeld, Michael J. The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era. New York: Free Press, 1995. Ostrom, Elinor. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Rozwadowski, Helen. “Arthur C. Clarke and the Limitations of the Ocean as a Frontier.” Environmental History, vol. 17, n. 3 (2012): 578 – 602. Rozwadowski, Helen. Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans. London: Reaktion Books, 2018. Schot, Johan, and Vincent Lagendijk. “Technocratic Internationalism in the Interwar Years: Building Europe on Motorways and Electricity Networks.” Journal of Modern European History, vol. 6, n. 2 (2008): 196 – 216. Stiernstedt, Jan. Sweden in Space: Swedish Space Activities 1959 – 1972. Noordwijk: ESA, 2001. Sundelius, Bengt, and Claes Wiklund, eds., Norden i sicksack: tre spårbyten inom nordiskt samarbete. Stockholm: Santérus, 2000. Tarr, Joel A. The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective. Akron: The University of Akron Press, 1996. Wormbs, Nina. “Technology Dependent Commons.” In Routledge Companion on the Study of Commons (forthcoming). Wormbs, Nina. “Negotiating the Radio Spectrum: The Incessant Labor of Maintaining Space for European Broadcasting.” In Cosmopolitan Commons: Sharing Resources and Risks across Borders, edited by Nil Disco and Eda Kranakis, 97 – 122. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. Wormbs, Nina. “Technology-Dependent Commons: The Example of Frequency Spectrum for Broadcasting in Europe in the 1920s.” International Journal of the Commons, vol. 5, n. 1 (2011): 92 – 109. Wormbs, Nina. “Vem älskade Tele-X? Konflikter om satelliter i Norden 1974 – 1989.” PhD diss., KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, 2003. Zilliacus, Ville. Nordvisionen 20 år: Anteckningar och minnen. Helsingfors, 1979.

Valérie Schafer*

13 The ITU Facing the Emergence of the Internet, 1960s – Early 2000s 13.1 Introduction “We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code”: this statement by one of the pioneers of the Internet, David Clark, in 1992 has come to be frequently quoted as typifying the mindset of the researchers who invented first ARPANET and then the Internet. With a policy of promoting open “de facto standards,” the Internet has changed the standardization that used to be negotiated by “traditional” and well-recognized bodies such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (and, for emerging data networks in particular, the Consultative Committee for International Telephony and Telegraphy, CCITT). “To comprehend the culture and technology of the twenty-first-century open world, we need to reject monocausal technological determinism, build on the work of social constructivists, and look closely at the ‘system builders’ as well as the social and institutional forces that shaped and constrained their actions,” Andrew Russell suggests in the introduction to his book Open Standards and the Digital Age. ¹ This is precisely what we propose to do here by exploring how the CCITT first, and more generally the ITU, positioned themselves during the emergence of the Internet. The ITU was faced with a form of Internet governance demanding broad autonomy even from the bodies, which had long been involved in establishing standards for information technology and telecommunications, and which had been actively considering data networks since the 1970s. Indeed, the genesis of data networks is based on the convergence of two worlds in the 1960s: telecommunications and computing. A significant weight was therefore given to actors of both fields, notably to common carriers who owned the infrastructures necessary for the development of networked communications. The ITU was thereby involved early on through the CCITT² (now known

* University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg  Russell, Open Standards, 4.  The CCITT was born in 1956, from the merger of two consultative committees for wired telecommunication. It was an arena where engineers from the telecommunication administrations and actors from the industry could debate and negotiate on technical standards. See Laborie, L’Europe mise en re´seaux. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669701-014

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as ITU-T), for example in the debates concerning transport protocols that emerged from the 1970s, or those concerning emails. But faced with a new model of technical decisions and governance arising within the Internet community that was openly divergent from the standardization previously at work, the ITU received strong criticism at the end of the 1990s and at the beginning of the 2000s when it tried to enter the Internet field. This is demonstrated by the controversies surrounding its desire to take a position in the management of domain names. As we will see in the second part, the ITU then sought to restore its techno-diplomatic role through multi-stakeholderism,³ of which the World Summit on the Information Society (2003 and 2005) marked a crucial step. Criticized by various dominant technical, but also political and economic, players of the Internet, a stronger ITU participation was nevertheless supported by several countries and actors who found that Internet governance was already too asymmetrical and US-centric. By crossing organizational archives (e. g. the French archives of the computing world and of the administration of telecommunications, which also include a lot of foreign reports), several CCITT and ITU reports, oral history, press materials and web archives, this chapter aims to analyse the place of the ITU in data networks in two parts – first, before and during the first years of the Internet, and second, during its growth in the early 1990s and then its propagation to the general public. It will show how the ITU dealt with its transition from a well-recognized and salient techno-diplomatic role – partly due to the telecommunications’ monopolies – to a more peripheral position during the deregulation and growth of the Internet.

13.2 The First Steps to Convergence and the First Obstacles and Debates (1960s – 1980s) From the 1960s, data networks became symbolic of the convergence of telecommunications and information technology. The technical, as well as financial, potential of this combination was quickly realised, especially in the scientific and business world. From the 1970s, with the rapid growth of an IT industry that was based at this time on formidable and onerous mainframes, and in a developing telecommunications context with an expanding market and powerful actors enjoying a monopoly in many countries, data networks and what was first known  On multi-stakeholderism, see Negro, “The Rising Role of China in the Promotion of Multilateral Internet Governance” in this book.

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as telematics acquired a prominent place internationally with the launch of a number of projects in North America, as well as in Europe and Asia. In this first section, we therefore want to review early initiatives envisaging a “marriage” of telephony and computing, and to highlight the central role of the CCITT in discussions on data networks and on standards for interactive videotex⁴ and electronic messaging. We will also underline from the outset the evermore numerous and varied factors and actors involved in the developments of these early decades. However, the convergence between telecommunications and computing, which seemed to have great potential, didn’t naturally or easily create a professional and technical convergence between computer scientists and engineers from the telecommunications administration.

13.2.1 The Convergence of Telecommunications and Computing In the 1940s and 1950s, calculating, and then computing, hardware consisted of enormous, costly machines.⁵ These were the preserve of specialists, and the computers did not communicate with one another. But data networks, which allowed the computing power of these enormous and still rare machines to be shared, would gradually change the game. In the 1950s, military research led the network field with the Sage programme, which grew out of US Air Force initiatives to develop a radar-based system for analysis of the aerial environment. This system also had a potential military response function. Transfer to the civilian sector was rapid. In the early 1960s, aviation and other multinational companies started acquiring systems that could be used by several users simultaneously – so called time-sharing. One of the first significant applications was the Sabre (Semi-Automatic Business-Related Environment) network, a scaled-down version of Sage, developed by American Airlines and IBM between 1956 and 1962. These networks brought real gains, especially with time-sharing and “real time,” but they were still centralized and dependent upon having machines that were all built by the same manufacturer – until the ARPANET breakthrough of the late 1960s.

 Videotex was a system that connected a terminal and databases via the telephone network (e. g. Teletext in France or Viewdata in Great Britain).  Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing.

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The ARPANET network, the forerunner of the Internet, developed under the aegis of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and supported not only by military finance, but also by a powerful university and industrial complex, introduced a number of innovations at the end of the 1960s;⁶ as a distributed and heterogeneous network, it also relied on packet switching, which we discuss in more detail below. By 1969, there were four connections between universities in the United States. However, Europe also played its part, which we also discuss further below. The functions we know today in the Internet were not created solely by the ARPANET (and later Internet) community. In the 1970s, the telecommunications world also began to take a close interest in data networks, initially in a business context. In several European countries, Ministries of Post and Telecommunications saw this as a way for telecommunications to create new services. From the 1970s, the idea was for a “marriage” of telephony and computing to bring the new communication potential to a wide public – the new term for this was “telematics.”⁷ Various interactive videotex experiments, including the Japanese Captain system and the Canadian Telidon, as well as the German Bildschirmtext and the British Prestel, provided access to online services via a television or a dedicated terminal, together with a telephone line.⁸ By the late 1970s or early 1980s, there were numerous such services, but none would achieve the longevity or success of the French Minitel.⁹ All of these projects, be they data networks, videotex or electronic messaging, involved telecommunications infrastructure and also standards ensuring the compatibility of different systems, and therefore came – with differing degrees of success – within the remit of the CCITT. We will focus in the next section on the CCITT recommendations in relation to data networks, in particular on those touching on packet-switching networks, while also addressing those concerning electronic messaging and videotex – the latter proving particularly controversial.

 Abbate, Inventing the Internet; Serres, “Aux sources d’Internet.”  Nora and Minc, L’informatisation de la société.  Balbi and Magaudda, A History of Digital Media; Fickers and Griset, Communicating Europe.  Cats-Baril and Jelassi, “The French Videotex”; Mailland and Driscoll, Minitel; Marchand, La grande aventure du Minitel; Schafer and Thierry, Le Minitel.

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13.2.2 The Central Role of the CCITT In the 1970s, a need for international coordination rapidly became apparent, notably with regard to standards governing the transmission of data thanks to packet switching. The idea of transmitting the data circulating on a network by dividing messages into “packets” appeared promising both to computer scientists and to engineers in the world of telecommunications, where it began to be known from the late 1960s and be taken up seriously in a number of countries (not only in the United States, but also in Great Britain and France). However, teams and projects opted for different technical solutions. In France, for example, it was apparent as early as 1973 that there was disagreement between computer scientists and common carriers. The technical convergence between computing and telecommunications didn’t mean a cultural and institutional convergence, and even the technical choices could differ, as shown in the French case. A team of computer scientists, the “Cyclades team” led by Louis Pouzin, opted for a datagram solution, which sought adaptive routing for the transportation of packets,¹⁰ dispersing these throughout the network according to what pathways were available (the solution subsequently adopted by the seminal Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, known as TCP/IP). Meanwhile, the French Telecommunications Administration opted for a technical solution involving virtual circuits, where all the packets making up one message followed the same route to their destination, which telecoms specialists considered a more reliable solution and easier in terms of billing. The stalemate rapidly reached in France was referred to the judgement of bodies involved in the setting of standards, with the French common carriers naturally turning to the CCITT to impose a standardization of the virtual circuits option, which seemed to offer better control, reliability and adaptation to the requirements of a public network,¹¹ across the telecoms sphere.¹² In 1971, the CCITT’s Committee A, which had particular responsibility for data transmission, established a “New Data Networks” working group and commissioned it to carry out between 1972 and 1976 a study on packet switching. There was still no consensus even among telecoms specialists.¹³ French experts worked together to impose the virtual circuits¹⁴ option with Bell Canada, with the

 Russell and Schafer, “In the Shadow of ARPANET.”  Ibid.  Schafer, La France en réseaux.  Després, “X.25 Virtual Circuits.”  “Such an approach broke a message into packets, which would be sent through a network where each connection was identified. Packets could therefore be traced through the network,

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US company Telenet, and in particular (as neither of the two previous partners had voting rights on the CCITT) with Philip Kelly of the British Post Office.¹⁵ As a result of these negotiations, Recommendation X.25 was accepted in March 1976 and confirmed in September/October 1976 by a plenary meeting of the CCITT. Protocol X.25 was to remain influential for many years, particularly in France and in Costa Rica,¹⁶ where X.25 solutions continued to be pursued until the year 2000 and beyond, despite the development of the Internet founded on the rival datagram solution, which had been dismissed by the CCITT. The CCITT meanwhile began to focus on other projects too. Although less essential to an understanding of the CCITT’s place in the development of the Internet, these are still very interesting in so far as they illustrate the central role of the CCITT in the consideration of networks and the online services they can facilitate. The X.25 case demonstrates a degree of convergence among telecoms experts around a single standard, institutional and political manoeuvrings notwithstanding. However, agreement on standards for videotex proved much more difficult and positions more entrenched, with various national solutions already far advanced, and the British and the French were this time unable to reach any agreement. The difficulty of imposing retrospective standards in the wake of developments at national level was analysed in sophisticated detail by Schmidt and Werle, who review the repeated failures of a long process that began in 1978 and continued over several decades. They conclude that “When nations regard standards as a means of gaining competitive advantages, antagonistic negotiations will tend to be the consequence. The standardization of videotex provides an example of this.”¹⁷ A final and considerably less controversial example is that of electronic messaging and Recommendation X.400. Email had already been developed by ARPANET, but it was not the only network using electronic messaging, and by the 1980s there was a perceived need for normalization here too, in particular within

thus providing predictability for the network operator and for the users at the ends of the network. Virtual circuits created, in effect, a connection between two terminals at the edges of the network through which all packets would pass,” which was not the case with datagrams (see Russell and Schafer, “In the shadow of ARPANET”).  Després, “Oral history interview.” The French and British administrations of telecommunications took a key role in this process, according to their pioneering role and experience in packet switching in Europe. Of course, other administrations took part in these debates that also divided US players.  Siles, “Establishing the Internet.”  Schmidt and Werle, Coordinating Technology, 268.

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Figure 13.1 – Electronic directory during the first experiments of the Minitel in Saint Malo (France), 1980. Bernard Marti, CC BY 3.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cate gory:Minitel#/media/File:AnnuaireÉlectroniqueSaintMalo980.jpg

the scientific world. Electronic messaging, identified as one of the most significant services to be offered in the short term, thus became the object of early and concerted actions.¹⁸ This early start led to convergence on an international standard (X.400) without the problems encountered by the CCITT in relation to videotex. Nonetheless, as Schmidt and Werle also note: The standardization of X.400 is an impressive example of an attempt at early, comprehensive standardization. As we will see, a head start allowed X.400 standardization to progress smoothly, without major internal difficulties or conflicts. However, X.400 has not managed to take on the Internet, and its diffusion has been rather disappointing. Thus, X.400 demonstrates the pitfalls of ex ante standardization: if the work of the standardization committee is protected from the influence of the markets, and if the marketing of products is years away, a comprehensive system of standardization may remain largely theoretical.¹⁹

The Internet solutions cited by these authors remind us that, by 1998, the Internet (and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol for electronic messaging) had prevailed.

 INRIA, “Bull et le réseau de la recherche.”  Schmidt and Werle, Coordinating Technology, 230 – 31.

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Figure 13.2 – View data Graphics page (1978, British Post Office). Bernard Marti, CC BY-SA 2.5, Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Videotex#/media/File:Viewdata_Gra phics_1.jpg.

But in the 1980s, this was not yet the case and, following its success with X.25, the CCITT invoked ISO standards instead of the Internet protocols.

13.2.3 Alternative Pathways The CCITT was aware of the development of ARPANET and of the Internet, and of the Cyclades network in France. Indeed, it was partly the advent of datagram solutions in packet switching that led to forceful intervention by the CCITT in the data networks field, and the adoption of X.25. However, there are examples of earlier actions on the convergence of telecommunications and the computing field, especially those in the late 1960s concerning Pulse Code Modulation, which led to a remarkable level of Europe-wide agreement, though a twofold system was finally adopted due to divergences with the US solution.²⁰

 Atten, “La ne´gociation au cœur de la technique.”

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In the 1980s, however, the CCITT, in collaboration with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), rallied around an alternative and ecumenical initiative for data networks: this was the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI). As explained by Andrew Russell,²¹ representatives from the British computing industry had proposed the creation of a new standards committee dedicated to packet-switching networks within the ISO in 1977, just one year after the adoption of X.25 by the CCITT. Based in Geneva, like the CCITT, ISO includes the national standards bodies around the world and closely works with the European Computer Manufacturer Association and the CCITT.²² The CCITT aimed to ensure the compatibility of this seven-layer network architecture with X.25 (as well as its norm for messaging, X.400). It was thus involved in formulating a solution, which seemed close to acceptance, with the support of numerous IT manufacturers (notably Digital Equipment Corporation, Honeywell and IBM), as well as the support of the European Economic Community. The basic OSI reference model was published in 1984. In the same year, the ISO and the CCITT even merged their respective OSI committees.²³ But in the years that followed, there were further developments: The OSI model was never really completed, but instead fell into disrepair… There were a number of reasons for this. Firstly, right from its conception, OSI had become much too complicated – it suffered from an overabundance of what Americans call “Bells and Whistles,” thus becoming so complex and elaborate that it was difficult to understand or implement.²⁴

With proliferating de facto standards, in particular the key Internet protocol TCP/IP, along with the temptation of provisional and sometimes national standards (like in Great Britain) and the complexity of the whole process of adopting norms, OSI came to be seen as a “Tower of Babel.” In the course of all this, significant Internet actors, notably Vinton Cerf, coauthor of the TCP/IP protocol and a central figure in the rise of the Internet, began to distance themselves from the process, having found it very difficult to get their views across to the ISO. They also had more struggles than opportunities in the CCITT; Andrew Russell recalls Vincent Cerf’s ill-fated approach to the CCITT in 1975.²⁵

    

Russell, “The Internet that wasn’t.” Targowski, Global Information Infrastructure, 30. Real, “An overview of the CCITT and ANSI T1.” Levillion, “Interview with Valérie Schafer.” Russell, Open Standards.

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Figure 13.3 – OSI Model, Public Domain. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Catego ry:OSI_model#/media/File:Osi_model_trad.jpg

By the 1990s, the success of TCP/IP and of the Internet would supplant X.25 and OSI. But a mixed solution would nonetheless survive for several years in the choice of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM),²⁶ in which CCITT also played a significant role. ATM is a communication protocol allowing the transmission of not only data but also sound and video over high-speed networks.²⁷ Beginning in 1984, an initial series of thirteen recommendations were adopted and, in 1988, a three-layer reference model for ATM was defined by the CCITT. But here too, the CCITT had to deal with a new set of actors. In 1991, a private but non-profit organization, the ATM Forum, was established in California and brought together hundreds of manufacturers and operators. Retracing the history of ATM, Sylvie Ritzenthaler,²⁸ who led a European Group of the ATM Forum, described this body as “a trouble-

 Decina, “Convergence of telecommunications and computing.”  Gallo and Hancock, Networking Explained, 424.  Ritzenthaler, “Histoire de ATM.”

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maker”: “It adopted a pragmatic and simplistic stance. Although it did not set out to present itself as an opponent of the adoption of official standards, it is often regarded as such, especially in Europe.” This forum was only one of dozens of consortia that emerged in the high-tech economy in the 1980s and 1990s, such as the X/open Consortium (1984) and CableLabs (1988).²⁹ Sylvia Ritzenthaler concludes that “Of course, the IP market was in a much stronger growth period (doubling in size between 2002 and 2004) … Who will be the “jackpot winner” of the future? Innovation never stops and new candidates are certain to emerge.”³⁰ Geoff Huston of the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre, reviewing in the following year the development of the Internet, the OSI and ITU initiatives, was already painting a very clear picture of “jackpot winners” and “new candidates” in the game of standardization: OSI was heavily supported by the ITU, and by virtue of this very active sponsorship of this technology, the implication of the aftermath of OSI was that the ITU was seen as being simply out of touch with data networking. It was often portrayed that the ITU was coming from a mindset that was incapable of engaging with either the data communications industry or the broader consumer market for data services. From the perspective of data networking, the failure of OSI was seen as a failure of the ITU itself.³¹

Although this definitive statement can be discussed, and although at the beginning of the 1990s it was still not entirely clear which technical solutions should be supported, the emergence of the world wide web at the beginning of the 1990s, and then of the graphic browser Mosaic, which from 1993 onwards would popularize its use beyond specialist circles, did seem to indicate that the CCITT would have to adapt to a new environment – that of the Internet. One might retrospectively wonder why the CCITT supported “the losing side.” But at that time, nobody knew which technical choices were right: several technical solutions and paths actually worked, and the longevity of X25 demonstrates it. As outlined below, “Netheads” also developed their protocols at odds with the work habits of the CCITT.

 Russell, Open Standards, 274.  Ritzenthaler, “Histoire de ATM,” 92.  Huston, “Opinion: ICANN, the ITU, WSIS.”

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13.3 From Centre to Periphery (1990s to Early 2000s) Neither the telecommunications sector nor the CCITT could remain for long outside discussions implying major developments in infrastructure and standardization of direct interest to them. But their position did seem to have been weakened and sometimes subjected to fierce debate, even if they still had strong support from those seeking a counterbalance to the United States in the governance of the Internet. Through its collaboration with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which produced technical documents for the Internet community, and its intervention in issues of Internet naming, which was a public policy question and a field where technical and political topics rapidly seemed to become inextricably linked, the ITU sought to regain its position as a significant techno-diplomatic actor. This, however, meant adopting a firm negotiating position, not only to bring together the various telecoms actors – at which it had been somewhat successful – but to stand up to those from other sectors who were not always keen to see the vagaries of the ITU at work in an arena of such strategic significance.

13.3.1 Finding a Place in a New Environment One of the earliest ITU reports to explicitly tackle the question of the Internet, that of 1997 on “Challenges to the Network. Telecoms and the Internet,” summarizes the rapid changes then under way. The Internet may be about to challenge the very foundations of the telecommunications industry, both economic and technical. The major difference this time is that the change is coming from outside the industry, not from within it. To quote Eric Schmidt, the Chief Executive Officer of Novell, a US-based networking software company, “We started out running the Net on top of the phone system, and we’ll end up with telephony running over the Net. A completely unregulated network is toppling its highly regulated predecessor …³²

The report notes the growth of the Internet and the strategic factors at stake, as well as a landscape undergoing profound change, with the deregulation of a pre-

 ITU, Challenges to the Network.

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viously monopolistic telecoms sector.³³ The verdict on the telecoms sector is not a positive one, describing it as “remarkably slow to react and respond.”³⁴ However, the report has a rather optimistic and confident response to the question: “Will the ‘Netheads’ and the ‘Bellheads’ manage to live together on the same basic network?”: But whichever future develops, it is likely to be founded on the public telecommunication network. Ultimately it is the network, which is the hero of this book, not the Internet, not the web, not the telephone and not even the computer. It is the public telecommunication network, which supports all these different technologies and which will go on supporting their successors for many years to come. … Certainly, as this book has shown, the network faces new challenges in the last years of the 20th Century, but it can assimilate those changes and will be stronger as a result.³⁵

Three years later, the report on “Activities of General Secretariat and ITU Sectors Underway with Regard to IP-Based Networks and Cooperation with Other International Organizations”³⁶ was somewhat positive in tone, and the ITU’s involvement in Internet-related questions appeared to be wide-ranging. The Strategic Policy Unit prepared expert reports on policy and regulatory issues. After the previous report “Challenges to the Network” in 1997 (and another one in 1999), the ITU established a strong position in the provision of Internet indicators and data. In addition, the report underlines the fact that a Regulatory Colloquium had also stimulated discussions on regulatory issues, including e-Commerce. At the request of two Internet bodies, the ITU was one of the original participants in the International Internet Ad Hoc Committee, which was created in 1996 and aimed to establish a new framework for the management of generic top-level Internet domains. After conducting a comprehensive survey during 1998/1999 of the contact information and registration sites for all Internet toplevel domains based on the ISO 3166 Standard, the ITU participated in the Governmental Advisory Committee, a part of the new Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) created in 1998 to manage Internet domain

 This had an impact on the ITU representatives. As noted by Schmidt and Werle (Coordinating Technology, 128): “at the times of their extensive monopolies, the PTTs headed the national delegations to the CCITT. The separation of the regulatory authority from the operation of telecommunications that accompanied liberalization has transferred formal national membership to the responsible ministry in each country.”  ITU, Challenges to the Network, 3.  Ibid., 5.  Internet Archive, “Activities of General Secretariat.”

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names.³⁷ The report also mentions that discussions were under way for a planned ITU management of registrations in the .INT domain (which is principally for intergovernmental organizations). Additionally, within ITU-D Study Groups, there was also a focus Group dedicated to the promotion of infrastructure and use of Internet in Developing Countries. Furthermore, the ITU was able over the years to make a number of contributions in the Internet protocol field. Several ITU recommendations were deployed on the Internet, “especially when it borders the phone networks,”³⁸ such as in the cases of ENUM (an IETF standard for mapping telephone numbers to the Domain Name System) and of Standard X.509 on digital cryptography. These successes should not, however, lead us to ignore the tensions that existed, and, while the report makes little mention of these, it does make a plea for greater cooperation, which remained difficult on many fronts.³⁹

13.3.2 Debates and Disagreements on the Role of the ITU Although the ITU has been involved in a number of issues related to the Internet and its regulation, the two communities have favoured different forms of collaboration, as exemplified by a Request for Comments (RFC) in 2002, which is dedicated to collaboration between the ITU and IETF: In the IETF, work is done in Working Groups (WG), mostly through open, public mailing lists rather than face-to-face meetings. WGs are organized into Areas, each Area being managed by two co-Area Directors. Collectively, the Area Directors comprise the Internet Engi-

 Mid-1998, the US Department of Commerce published a white paper that aimed to move administration of Internet domain names and IP addresses to a private, non-profit, internationally representative organization. In November 1998, the Department of Commerce officially recognized the ICANN as the organization that would manage them. See Mueller, “ICANN and Internet governance.”  Malcolm, Multi-stakeholder Governance.  “Activities of General Secretariat and ITU Sectors Underway with Regard to IP-Based Networks and Cooperation with Other International Organizations: Although the ITU-T and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) are collaborating in a number of areas, given the new industry emphasis on Internet and IP structured signals, it is our view that this collaboration must be strengthened within the context of changes in work emphasis and direction within the ITU-T on IP based networks. Both the ITU-T and the IETF will play key roles. However, in our view neither the IETF nor the ITU-T will be able to adequately address this area independently. For example, the IETF strength lies in the protocol and application areas, whereas the ITU-T has a great deal to offer in the areas of architectural, network interworking and network evolution.” (Internet Archive, “Activities of General Secretariat”).

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neering Steering Group (IESG). In the ITU-T, work is defined by study Questions, which are worked on mostly through meetings led by Rapporteurs. Questions are generally grouped within Working Parties (WPs) led by a WP Chairman. Working Parties report to a parent Study Group led by a SG Chairman.⁴⁰

The very idea of RFCs,⁴¹ as well as the way the Internet community established and organized itself, is a break with the way that standardization bodies work, with elements of what we might describe as technical democracy, but also as autocracy,⁴² or even as a “republic of computer scientists.”⁴³ From the start there was an ethos of self-organization: as early as 1968, to specify the very first specifications of ARPANET, a Network Working Group (NWG) was established around Steve Crocker. He was the one who came up with RFCs as an open mode of exchanging documentation and technical specifications aimed at developing consensual standards. This open access for anyone to review technical proposals encouraged the notion of an “ideal scientific community.”⁴⁴ The ethos of the early Internet was partly that of the scientific community, a tradition of free circulation of knowledge and “open science,” but the early community did also begin to establish technical structures. Bodies like IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) soon appeared, followed in 1992 by ISOC (Internet Society), tasked with coordinating the efforts of technical working groups. However, the development of the Internet, far from being in the hands of only technicians, involved powerful financial interests, as evidenced by the creation in 1998 of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Charged with administering the Domain Name System (DNS), which established the link between IP address and domain name, ICANN significantly entrusted the management of .net and .com addresses, and of root servers, to the powerful US company VeriSign. ICANN was created just at the time when the ITU was expecting to have a role in domain naming. As Wolfgang Kleinwächter recalls, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Generic Top-Level Domains was signed in May 1997 and was “celebrated in particular by the ITU, which became its depositar.  Fishman and Bradner, “Telecommunications Standardization Sector Collaboration Guidelines.”  The Requests for Comments (RFCs) are a set of open technical specifications, originally published in hard copy and then online. They constitute an extraordinary open record of all the technical developments of ARPANET and the Internet.  Russell, Open Standards, 24.  Flichy, “Internet ou la communauté.”  Ibid.

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ITU Secretary-General Pekka Tarjanne qualified the MoU as the beginning of a new global internet policy and a turning point in international law.”⁴⁵ But this took no account of the project’s opponents, who, significantly, included such figures as US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, as well as the company Network Solutions Inc., which saw its monopoly in the registrar and registry business challenged. Two months later, the US government introduced an alternative plan suggesting the privatization of the DNS,⁴⁶ and ICANN was then founded in November 1998. As summarized by Kleinwächter, who refers to it as the “Minneapolis Deal,”⁴⁷ “the US government withdrew its opposition to the plans of the ITU to prepare a world conference on the information society and got in exchange the recognition of the private sector leadership in internet governance.” By the beginning of 2000, the representatives of the US government had moved decisively to contain the vagaries of the ITU with regard to domain names: As a matter of principle, the United States believes that the ITU should not seek to initiate standardization (or other) activities that fall outside its mandate and core competencies, especially in areas where other well-recognized standards groups have greater expertise, clearer mandates, or ongoing work. Some aspects of the ITU’s work in IP-based network related areas, both current and proposed, may duplicate standards work already underway through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other fora.⁴⁸

In this they were also representing the criticisms made at the end of 1999 by the United States ITU Association, which had offered its comments to the State Department in a report entitled “Activities of General Secretariat and ITU Sectors Underway with Regard to IP-Based Networks and Cooperation with Other International Organizations,” demonstrating that even within the ITU there was far from unanimous agreement: For the Association, this suggests that the ITU – and particularly the Secretariat – should proceed with the utmost caution before expanding its role with respect to IP networks. Some of the policy activities already being considered by the ITU would constitute serious policy mistakes. For example, Study Group 3 of the ITU-T is discussing “tariff and accounting principles as well as related telecommunications economic and policy issues specific to

 Kleinwächter, “Beyond ICANN vs ITU?,” 237.  See the report “A Framework for Global Electronic Commerce,” published by the White House and signed by US President Bill Clinton and US Vice-President Al Gore: https://clinton whitehouse4.archives.gov/textonly/WH/New/Commerce/.  Kleinwächter, “Beyond ICANN vs ITU?”  United States of America, “Comments in response.”

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IP Network offerings.” The Association strongly opposes ITU consideration of such activities.⁴⁹

13.3.3 Towards a Multi-Stakeholder Governance Although its role in domain naming had clearly been blocked in favour of ICANN⁵⁰ – later criticized by all those opposed to a too unilateral form of Internet governance – the ITU had meanwhile been charged with preparing a world conference on the information society and would now work in support of public pol-

Figure 13.4 – Second preliminary session of the World Summit on the Information Society, plenary meeting, 18 – 25 February 2005, UNO building, Geneva, Switzerland. Yann Forget CC BYSA 3.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WSIS_2005#/media/File:ONU_ geneva_WSIS.jpg.

 “Comments of the United States ITU Association on the Secretary-General’s IP Networks Report,” retrieved from Internet Archive:https://web.archive.org/web/20000424213859/http://www. wia.org:80/ITU/usitu_assoc_comments.htm  Mueller, “ICANN and Internet governance.”

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icy governance, to be affirmed by Resolution 102 of the Plenipotentiary Conference of 2002.⁵¹ From 2003, the ITU held a number of joint workshops with ICANN, as well as forums on spam and on cyber-security in 2004, but most significant was the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held in two stages, in Geneva in 2003, and in Tunis in 2005. At the heart of the Summit debates was the issue of Internet governance, though this was not at first the most controversial item or “top of the agenda.”⁵² Opposition to US and European positions in favour of ICANN, in particular, would come from China⁵³ and from G20 members including Brazil, South Africa and India. Pushing for a broader, more political definition of governance encompassing more than the naming function or the current responsibilities of ICANN, these countries favoured the handing of responsibility to an intergovernmental organ of the United Nations, and notably the ITU. The “network of networks” was at the heart of the debates at WSIS, which broadly demonstrated its political dimensions. WSIS led to the creation of the Internet Governance Forum, which recognized the role of civil society as well as governmental, technical and industrial actors in Internet governance. Thus, the ITU came to represent at that juncture (as it still does for some today) the framework for an international management of the Internet within a formal multilateral structure.

13.4 Conclusion This review from the 1960s to the 2000s has allowed us to see the ITU’s involvement from the start, via the CCITT, in debates concerning data networks. In the 1970s and 1980s, the CCITT was still a central techno-diplomatic actor and an arena, merging the positions of diverse national interests from the telecommunications sphere. We have seen how, within the CCITT, telecommunications representatives decided in favour of virtual circuits and, in 1976, converged around X.25. Nevertheless, this choice diverged from the one made by ARPANET’s researchers, and later by the Internet community, concerning packet switching. In fact, alternatives were being developed, such as datagrams in ARPANET and in the Internet,

 Malcom, Multi-stakeholder Governance, 61.  Kleinwächter, “Beyond ICANN vs ITU?,” 240.  See Negro, “The Rising Role of China in the Promotion of Multilateral Internet governance.”

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Figure 13.5 – Stamp of Azerbaijan dedicated to the WSIS (2005) – Public Domain. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WSIS_2005#/media/File:Stamp_of_Azerbaijan_ 705.jpg

and the project for a global networking architecture, the Open Systems Interconnection, which was discussed by the ISO and joined by the CCITT. We have also described the difficulties encountered in reaching agreement concerning videotex, as well as the successful adoption of X.400 governing electronic messaging, which was, however, less successful in terms of implementation. As noticed by Michel Atten: A technical standard is the result of a concrete and contingent process – there is no optimum “moment” when that process is concluded. Agreeing too early on a norm means opting for a de facto standard (insufficiently tested in other countries) and often leads to having no standard at all. Waiting too long may lead to different and incompatible procedures being developed to a point where they cannot be undone.⁵⁴

However, what was at stake in the Internet went far beyond the telecommunications sphere and the ITU was well aware of the need to collaborate with other

 Atten, “La ne´gociation au cœur de la technique,” 161.

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actors. The CCITT, in collaborating with the ISO, was able to ensure the recognition of X.25 in the OSI. It was then strongly involved in the definition of the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), but it could not prevent the success of TCP/IP and of the Internet. In a context of internal restructuring and of deregulation, as well as of external changes emanating from the Internet community, the ITU was obliged in the 1990s to rethink its own role, in particular because it was receiving serious criticism from the IT industry. The ITU was heavily criticized over the ponderous amount of time taken to generate telecommunications standards, the nature of the process used in developing these standards in a closed set of forums, the marginal relevance of these standards, and the final indignity, that the ITU charged for paper and electronic copies of these standards. … It was also evident that this critical view of the ITU was most strongly held within the United States, and in particular those parts of the U.S. administration and industry that were involved with the growth of the Internet.⁵⁵

The ITU found itself excluded from the management of domain names by American actors – both those within the Internet community and also, with the creation in 1998 of ICANN, private and governmental actors in the US. It was through the demand for broader Internet governance, and especially at the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 and 2005, that the ITU came to be aligned with the new “multi-stakeholder approach,” described by Kleinwächter as a move from a “diplomacy of the Industrial Age” to a “diplomacy of the Information Age.”⁵⁶ This transition is far from complete, but during that period the ITU moved to an antenna too, bringing up discussions and issues debated in the civil society and the public sphere. Although the regulatory role of the ITU has evolved, as late as 2012, at the World Conference on International Communications (WCIT–12), the relevance of International Telecom Regulations to Internet governance was at the centre of debates. Milton Mueller concluded then: There is no sudden UN or ITU effort to take over the Internet. There is, instead, a longstanding struggle between the Net and states at the national and international level. The WCIT is just the latest episode; and compared to WSIS, a minor one.⁵⁷

 Huston, “ICANN, the ITU, WSIS, and Internet Governance.” On the critics the ITU had to face, see Winseck, “Is the International Telecommunication Union still relevant in ‘the Internet Age’?” in this book.  Kleinwächter, “Beyond ICANN vs ITU?,” 233 – 51.  Sridhar, “An Interview with Professor Mueller.”

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The debates are far from over, as seen in an article of 24 May 2012 by Vinton Cerf in the New York Times entitled “Keep the Internet Open,” in which he made a plea for openness that was not completely without ulterior motive. In particular, he criticized the ITU for willing to get involved in Internet governance, stressing that the push for openness and multi-stakeholderism was coming more from bodies the Internet community had given rise to than from the international institution itself. At present, the I.T.U. focuses on telecommunication networks and on radio frequency allocations rather than the Internet per se. Some members are aiming to expand the agency’s treaty scope to include Internet regulation. Each of the 193 members gets a vote, no matter its record on fundamental rights – and a simple majority suffices to effect change. Negotiations are held largely among governments, with very limited access for civil society or other observers.⁵⁸

Vinton Cerf turned the criticisms often made of Internet governance bodies on the ITU itself, reaffirming David Clark’s famous “We reject kings, presidents and voting,” which the ITU had been challenging since the 1990s.

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Després, Rémi. “Oral History Interview with Rémi Després by Valérie Schafer.” Oral History, Charles Babbage Institute, 2012. Fickers, Andreas, and Pascal Griset. Communicating Europe: Technologies, Information, Events. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2019. Fishman, Gary, and Scott Bradner. “Internet Engineering Task Force and International Telecommunication Union – Telecommunications Standardization Sector Collaboration Guidelines.” RFC 3356, 2002. Available at https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3356. Flichy, Patrice. “Internet ou la communaute´ scientifique ide´ale.” Re´seaux, vol. 17, n. 97 (1999): 77 – 120. Gallo, Michael, and William Hancock. Networking Explained. Digital Press, 2001. Huston, Geoff. “Opinion: ICANN, the ITU, WSIS, and Internet Governance.” The Internet Protocol Journal, vol. 8, n. 1 (2005). Available at: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/ press/internet-protocol-journal/back-issues/table-contents-31/internet-governance.html. Internet Archive. “Activities of General Secretariat and ITU Sectors Underway with Regard to IP-Based Networks and Cooperation with Other International Organizations,” 2000. Retrieved from Internet Archive on 15 July, 2018. Available at https://web.archive.org/ web/20000815053924/http://www.wia.org:80/ITU/c99_51_long.htm INRIA Archives, 2011.03.003. File RENATER et ARISTOTE, “Bull et le réseau de la recherche. Version provisoire.” January 21, 1985. ITU. Challenges to the Network. Telecoms and the Internet. Geneva: ITU, 1997. Kleinwächter, Wolfgang. “Beyond ICANN vs ITU? How WSIS Tries to Enter the New Territory of Internet Governance.” Gazette: The International Journal for Communications Studies, vol. 66, n. 3 – 4 (2004): 233 – 251. Laborie, Le´onard. L’Europe mise en re´seaux. La France et la coope´ration internationale dans les postes et les te´le´communications (anne´es 1850-anne´es 1950). Brussels: Peter Lang, 2010. Levillion, Marc. “Interview with Marc Levilion by Valérie Schafer on 25 February 2003.” Paris: 2003. Mailland, Julien, and Kevin Driscoll. Minitel: Welcome to the Internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017. Malcom, Jeremy. Multi-stakeholder Governance and the Internet Governance Forum. Wembley: Terminus Press, 2008. Marchand, Marie. La grande aventure du Minitel. Paris: Larousse, 1987. Mueller, Milton. “ICANN and Internet Governance: Sorting through the Debris of Self‐ Regulation.” Info, vol. 1, n. 6 (1999): 497 – 520. Available at http://home.uchicago.edu/ ~mferzige/muell.pdf. Nora, Simon, and Alain Minc. L’informatisation de la société. Rapport à M. le Président de la République. Paris: Seuil, 1978. Negro, Gianluigi. “The Rising Role of China in the Promotion of multilateral Internet governance, 1994 – 2014.” In History of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Transnational Techno-Diplomacy from the Telegraph to the Internet, edited by Gabriele Balbi and Andreas Fickers, 107 – 133. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020. Real, M.S. “An Overview of the CCITT and ANSI T1 with Emphasis on OSI Network Management Activities.” IEEE International Conference on Communications, World Prosperity Through Communications, IEEE Conference Publications (1989): 334 – 340.

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Index Accra 49 Aden 46, 49 AEG 221 Afghanistan 81, 83, 310 f. Africa 6 f., 37 – 51, 77, 80, 82 f., 86, 100 f., 104, 113, 151 f., 193, 247, 274, 277, 312 African Direct Telegraph Company 46 AGTU, Austro-German Telegraph Union 22 f., 139, 154, 171 – 175 Alcalá Zamora, Niceto 243 Alexander II (Tsar) 15, 19 f., 22, 26, 30 f. Alexandria 44 Algeria 40, 44, 93 Algiers 44, 92 f. Alibaba 114, 130 Almeria 45 American Bankers Association 64 American Civil War 21 American Manufacturers Export Association 64 American Newspaper Publishers Association 64 Anderson, James 182 Andorra 315 Andrada, Marco Aurelio 81 APNIC, Asia Pacific Network Information Center 113 Apple 148 – 150 Argentina 45, 81, 200, 250, 260 ARPANET 146, 321, 323 – 326, 328, 335, 338 Ascension 46 Asia 6, 24, 27, 44, 77, 80, 82 f., 86, 104, 113, 121, 130, 152, 174, 200, 274, 277, 301, 323, 331 Association des ingénieurs télégraphistes, France 219 Atlantic Charter 304 ATM, Asynchronous Transfer Mode 330 f., 340 AT&T, American Telephone and Telegraph 56, 66, 99, 135 f., 142, 151, 216, 221, 227, 229, 231

Australia 113, 136, 143, 150, 157, 200, 248, 254, 311 Austria 15, 21 – 23, 28, 171, 173, 185, 220, 225, 236 Austrian (Habsburg) Empire see Austria Austro-Prussian War 17, 23 Azaña Díaz, Manuel 246, 261 Barbados 46 Bavaria 171 BBC, British Broadcasting Company 205 f. Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, China 114, 121, 130 Belgian Congo 48, 90, 247, 253 Belgium 90, 172 f., 180, 187, 196, 225, 244, 246, 249, 253, 256, 260, 273 Bell, Alexander 72, 227 Bell Company, Canada 325 Bell Company, US 56, 220 f., 227 Bermuda 46 Blair, Montgomery 62 Bolivia 86, 200 Bonvin, Roger 286 Brazil 45, 127, 135, 137, 145, 305, 338 Brazilian Submarine Telegraph Company 45 BRICS, acronym Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa 5, 127, 135 British Guiana 46 British India 178 British Post Office 62, 326, 328 Brown, W.J. 62 Brunner, Charles 173, 184 f. Brussels Conference on Proposed Rules for Military Warfare, 1874 19 Buenos Aires Plan of Action for Promoting and Implementing Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries 119 – 121 Burleson, Albert S. 59, 64, 66 Burrows, Arthur R. 205 Cadiz 46 California 200, 330 Cambodia 80

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Index

Canada 135 f., 143, 145, 150, 157, 248, 254, 258 f., 325 Canary Islands 45, 48 Cape colony 40, 46 Cape of Good Hope 46 Cape Verde 45 f., 48 f. Carty, John J. 66 f., 220 Caucasus 20, 29 Central America 86, 274 Centre for Telecommunications Development 100 – 102 CEPT, European Conference of Postal and Telecommunication Administrations 237 Cerf, Vint 135 f., 143, 329, 341 Chile 86, 145 China 5 – 7, 9, 24, 61, 80, 107 – 130, 135, 137 f., 147, 155 – 157, 159 f., 200, 250, 312, 322, 338 Cisco 136 CITEL, Inter-American Telecommunication Commission 87 Clarke, Arthur C. 300 f., 303 Clinton, Hillary 114, Coast, Ivory 303, 306 Cold War , 16., 58, 80, 84, 278, 289 f., 304, 306, 316 Colombia 85 f., 90, 200, 304 f., 310 f., 318 Colour Television 268, 277, 280, 282 f., 285 Comcast 136 Comert, Pierre 248 Commercial Cable Company 66 f., 140 – 142, 196 Communist Party 108 Comoros 77 Compagnie du télégraphe électrique sousmarin de la Méditerranée pour la correspondence de l’Algerie et les Indes 44 Comptoir of Martigny 286 Computer 5, 9, 17, 77, 118, 143 f., 268, 312, 323, 325, 329, 333, 335 Congo 90 f., 94, 253, 305, 311 Cooke, William 17 f. COPUOS, Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UN) 290 f., 302, 304 f., 309, 311, 317 f. Corsica 44 Costa Rica 86, 100, 326

Craemer, Peter 227, 232 Crimean War 15, 17, 20 f., 23 Cuba 200, 259 f. Curchod, Louis 25, 27, 173, 178 – 180, 185 Cyber administration of China 110 Czechoslovakia 84, 257 D’Amico, Ernesto 184 f. Davies, Norman 64 de la Plaza, Victorino 200 De Wolf, Francis Colt 71 f. Debeg, Deutsche Betriebsgesellschaft fü r drahtlose Télégraphie 196 Denmark 24, 257, 306 – 308. Dennery, Alfred 225 Despecher, Jules 181 f. Deutsch-Niederländische Telegraphengesellschaft 251 Deutsche Bundespost 270 f. Deutsche Fernkabelgesellschaft 221 Direct broadcasting satellites 291, 297, 300, 307, 311, 317 DNS, Domain Name System 111 f., 127, 138, 147, 334 – 336 Dubai 104, 135 f., 148, 156, 159 f. Duchy of Modena/Reggio Emilia 171 Duchy of Parma/Piacenza 171 Dutch East Indies 192, 244 f., 247, 249 – 252, 254, 256, 260 Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies 140 Eastern and South African Telegraph Company 46 Eastern Telegraph Company 41 f., 196 EBU, European Broadcasting Union 3, 272, 277, 280, 282, 285, 307, 310 Eckersley, Peter 205, 207 Ecole supérieure des télégraphes (France) 219 ECOSOC, Technical Assistance Bureau of the Economic and Social Council 81 f. Ecuador 86, 200, 305, 311, 317 f. Egypt 40, 43 – 45, 81 Eidophor 281 – 283 electromagnetic spectrum 56 f., 69 f., 146

Index

EPTA, Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance 80, 82 – 84. EPTU, European Postal and Telecommunications Union 235 f. Ericsson 86, 88, 103 ESA, European Space Agency 272, 279, 307, 310 Esrange 307 Ethiopia 83 EU, European Union 136, 143, 145, 150, 152, 154, 157, 235 Eurasia 27 f., 115 Europäischer Fernsprechdienst 219, 223, 234 Europe 5 f., 15 – 19, 24, 32, 39, 42 – 44, 55 – 57, 71 f., 77, 83, 99, 113, 150, 172 f., 182, 187, 198 f., 201, 205 – 207, 210, 216 – 219, 221 – 227, 229, 231 f., 234, 236 – 238, 248, 256, 267, 279, 283, 288, 299, 307 – 309, 312, 314, 317, 323 f., 326, 328, 331 Eurovision 284, 307 Facebook 148 – 150 Fadami, Ahmad 312 Falmouth Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Company 43, 45 FAO, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 85 FCC, Federal Communications Commission 136, 143 – 145 Federal Germany 87 Field, Cyrus West 25, 183 Finland 24, 306, 308 Fischer, Fritz 282 France 15, 17 f., 23, 40 f., 44 – 46, 58, 64, 139 f., 172 f., 202, 216, 219 – 222, 225 – 231, 235 f., 249, 253 f., 256, 260, 272, 274, 288, 303, 310, 312, 315, 322 – 328 French Guyana 317 Funabashi 200 f. Gambia 46 Geneva Convention, 1864 19, 278 German Federal Archives, Koblenz, Germany 79

347

Germany 48, 94, 185, 192, 198 f., 216, 219, 221, 225, 228 f., 235 f., 244, 254 – 257, 261, 272, 280 Gibraltar 43 Gill, Frank 224 – 227 Global South 7, 77 f., 80 f., 83 – 85, 88 – 90, 93, 95, 99 – 104, 274, 277, 288, 291 f. Gnägi, Rudolf 283 Golden Antenna film festival, The 271, 275 Golden Rose / Montreux Television Festival, The 280 f., 285 – 287 Google 114, 135 f., 138, 143, 145, 148 – 151, 160 Gorchakov, Alexander (Prince) 19, 30 Grand Duchy of Tuscany 171 Grant, Ulysses 21, 140 Great Britain see United Kingdom Great Northern Telegraph Company (Denmark) 18, 24 Great Powers of Europe 15, 49, 56 Great Reforms in Russian Empire 6, 16, 19 f., 31 Greece 250, 252, 254 Gretag Company 282 Gross, Gerald C. 281 Guatemala 88, 200, 311 Guyana 86, 317 Hammer, Bernhard 184 Harbord, James G. 70 f. High Energy Physics Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, The 118 Holland or The Netherlands 171, 200 Hu, Qiheng 125 Huawei 114, 130 Hyderabad 104 IANA, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority 335 IARU, International Amateur Radio Union 310 IBM 272, 274, 323, 329 IBU, International Broadcasting Union 71, 205 – 207, 209 – 211, 231, 248 f., 256, 310 ICANN, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers 2 f., 107, 109, 111, 113, 122, 124 – 126, 147, 333 – 338, 340

348

Index

Iceland 200, 306 ICT4D, ICT for Development 77, 102 f., 122, 129, 156 IETF, Internet Engineering Task Force 107, 147, 332, 334, 336 IFRB, International Frequency Registration Board 281, 308, 310, 312 IGF, Internet Governance Forum 110 f., 117, 122, 126 – 129, 142, 147 ILO, International Labour Organization 85 India 27, 41, 43, 46 – 48, 83, 90, 127, 135, 137, 145, 247, 254, 256, 312, 338 India Rubber Company 46 Indonesia 305, 311, 318 Institute of Current World Affairs 60 Institute of International Law 140 Intel 136 Intelsat, International Telecommunications Satellite Organization 272, 286, 310 International Conference on Statistics, St. Petersburg, 1872 19 International Congress of Telegraph and Telephone Engineers, 1914 197 International Educational Cinematograph Institute 248 International Electrotechnical Commission 231 International Telegraph Union (sometimes abbreviated Telegraph Union) 2, 6, 8, 15 f., 22 f., 27, 32, 55 f., 59, 65, 68 – 70, 74, 141, 146, 169, 174, 186, 191 f., 208, 215 – 220, 222, 225, 227 – 229, 233, 235, 237 f., 243 f., 246, 260, 265 f. International Western Electric 221, 224 Internet 1 f., 5, 7, 9, 77, 107 – 119, 121 – 128, 135 – 140, 142 – 155, 157 – 161, 297, 321 f., 324 – 341 Intersputnik 310 IOSC, Information Office of the State Council, China 114 IOSCO, International Organization of Securities Commissions 107 Iran 81, 83, 137, 156, 159, 286 f., 312 Ireland 254 IRU, International Radiotelegraph Union 8, 65, 71, 141, 146, 191 – 196, 198 – 202, 205, 207 – 211

ISC, Internet Society of China 127 ISO, International Organization for Standardization 321, 328 f., 333, 339 f. ISOC, Internet Society 111, 135 f., 138, 142, 147, 152, 156 – 158, 335 Italy 43 f., 47, 58, 64, 178 – 180, 185, 198, 202 – 204, 225, 247, 249 f., 253 f., 256, 310, 313 ITU – Bodies – BDT, Bureau de Développement des Télécommunications or Telecommunication Development Bureau 77, 102, 120 – Bureau International des Administrations Télégraphiques 2, 5, 8, 23, 25, 170, 178 f., 183, 185, 191, 193, 198, 203 f., 209, 228, 235, 249, 259, 266 – CCIF, Comité consultatif international (for) Fernschreiben 8, 215 f., 223, 228 – 238 – CCIR, International Radio Consultative Committee 8, 209, 229, 237 f., 283, 302, 305, 310, 312 – CCITT, Consultative Committee for International Telephony and Telegraphy 9, 238, 302, 321 – 333, 338 – 340 – General Secretary 80, 85, 228 – 231, 267, 333 f., 336 see General Secretariat – ITU-D, Telecommunication Development Sector (before BDT) 7, 77, 102 f., 129 – 131, 334 – ITU-R, Telecommunication Radio Sector (before CCIR) 102, 129 – 131 – ITU-T, Telecommunication Standardization Sector (before CCITT) 102, 129 – 131, 322, 334 – 336 – International Telecommunications Conferences (ITU and non-ITU conferences are included in the list) – 1849, Treaty of Vienna or Vienna Convention, Vienna 171, 174 f. – 1852, International Telegraph Conference, Paris 172, 175 – 1855, International Telegraph Conference, Paris 172 – 1857, International Telegraph Conference, Turin 172

Index

– 1858, International Telegraph Conference, Bruxelles 22, 173 – 1865, International Telegraph Conference, Paris 15, 17, 20, 22 f., 173 – 177, 180, 186, 215, 217, 243 – 1868, International Telegraph Conference, Vienna 28, 139, 177, 185 – 1871 – 2, International Telegraph Conference, Rome 23 – 26, 28, 139, 177, 183 – 1875, International Telegraph Conference, St Petersburg 6, 16, 18 f., 23, 25 – 32, 140 f., 170, 177 – 179, 181 – 185, 246 f., 250, 252 – 1903, The Preliminary Conference on wireless telegraphy, Berlin 59, 70, 192, 218 – 1906, International Radiotelegraph Conference, Berlin 191 – 193 – 1912, International Radiotelegraph Conference, London 59, 191, 193 – 197, 200, 202, 208 – 1915, International Telegraph Conference, Paris (never occurred) 197 f. – 1917, International Radiotelegraph Conference, Washington (never occurred) 197 f., 203 – 1920, Preliminary International Conference on Electrical Communications, Washington D.C. 57 – 63, 66, 68, 74, 141, 195, 202 f. – 1925, International Telegraph Conference, Paris 141 f., 209, 228 – 230, 237 – 1927, International Radiotelegraph Conference, Washington 56, 69 – 71, 141, 146, 191, 193, 207 – 211, 243, 247 – 1932, International Radiotelegraph Conference, Madrid 146, 193, 243, 246 – 251, 253 f., 256 f., 260 – 262 – 1932, International Telegraph Conference, Madrid 8, 108, 142, 243 f., 247, 249, 254, 257, 259 – 1947, International Telecommunications Conference, Atlantic City 71 f., 81, 108, 142, 267 – 1952, Plenipotentiary Conference, Buenos Aires 82 – 84

349

– 1959, Plenipotentiary Conference, Geneva 84 – 1965, Plenipotentiary Conference, Montreux 85, 96, 281 f. – 1971, World Administrative Radio Conference for Space Telecommunications, Geneva 268 – 271, 273, 275, 277, 280, 291 f., 302 – 1973, Plenipotentiary Conference, Málaga-Torremolinos 92 f., 95, 303 f., 310 – 1977, World Administrative Radio Conference for the Planning of the Broadcasting-Satellite Service, Geneva 297, 308 – 311 – 1979, World Administrative Radio Conference, Geneva 273, 276 – 1994, ITU Seminar of Strategy for Telecommunication Development, China 116, 118 – 120, 122, 126, – 1998, Plenipotentiary Conference, Minneapolis 110, 336 – 2012, World Conference on International Telecommunications – WCIT, Dubai 104, 117, 127, 135 – 137, 144 f., 148, 153, 156 – 158, 160, 340 – 2014, Plenipotentiary Conference, Busan 108, 117 f., 128 Jacoby, B.S. 17 f. Jamaica 46 Japan 24, 57 f., 61, 64, 88, 99, 136, 143, 200, 202, 249, 253, 261, 272, 281, 324 Jeddah 45 Journal Télégraphique 5, 24, 29, 32, 39, 46, 58, 173, 191, 194, 196, 198, 205, 207, 219, 228, 261, see also Telecommunication Journal Kazakhstan 115 Kazansky, P. or Kazanskii, P.E. 32 f. KDD, International Telegraph and Telephone Company 287 Keeling Island 42 Kenya 305, 311 Korea 80, 108, 253, 272, 315 Kudelski Company 281

350

Index

Kuomintang, Chinese Nationalist Party Kyrgyzstan 115

108

Lagos 46 Laos 80 Latin America 80, 82, 85 – 88, 113, 152, 250, 259 f. League of Nations Conference of Press Experts, 1927 248, 255 League of Nations (The) 57, 61, 63, 67, 79, 203 f., 228, 230, 245, 248, 255 f., 261, 278 LeRoy, Harold S. 70 f. Libya 80 Liévano, Indalecio 304 Lincoln, Abraham 20, 62 Lønberg, Ib 308 – 310, 312 f. Luanda 46 Lüders, Karl Karlovic 18, 21 – 25, 27, 31 MacBride Commission 97 Mackay, Clarence H. 67 f. Madagascar 40 f., 46 Malta 43 f. Malta and Alexandria Telegraph Company 44 Marconi Company 63, 72, 191, 195 f., 221 Marquet, Jules 90 f. Martens, F. F. 18, 33 Martigny 286 – 288 Martin-Löf, Johan 309, 314 Massaua 47 Mauritius 42, 46 f., 315 McNamara, Robert 95 Merchants Association of New York 64 Mexico 84, 200, 254 Meydam, Theodore (Colonel) 185 Microsoft 136 MIIT, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China 114, 130 Mili, Ezzedine Mohamed 89, 95 Minitel 324, 327 Minotto, Giovanni 180, 185 mobile phone 5, 77, 138, 151 Mondovision 277 Montreux 85, 280 – 285, 287 f.

Montreux Television Symposium 268, 280 – 283, 285, 287 f. Morocco 41, 48, 249, 253, 256 Morse 18, 175, 183, 209, 215 Mosaic 331 Mozambique 49 Mulatier, Leon 82 Naeve, Charles 66 f. Napoleon III 22, 30 National Association of Manufacturers, US 64 Netflix 148 – 150 New York Chamber of Commerce 64 New York World 64 New Zealand 113, 143, 150 News Corporation 136 Nicaragua 310 NIEO, New International Economic Order 304 Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Public Corporation, Japan 88, 103 NIR, National Internet Registry 113 Non-Aligned Movement 92 f., 104 Nordic Council 306 – 308, 314 Nordsat 307 f., 316 f. Nordvision 307 North Korea see Korea Norway 193, 306 – 308 NSA, National Security Agency, US 115 Oceania 41 OECD, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 96 – 99, 151, 157 Oracle 136 Oran 44 f. ORTF, Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française 277 OSI, Open Systems Interconnection 329 – 331, 339 f. Ottoman Empire 15, 22 f., 31, 45 Outer Space Treaty, 1967 297, 301 – 305, 317 Pakistan 81, 83, 90, 93, 115 Pakkana, Terjane 102

Index

Pan-African Telecommunication Union 86, 101 Panama 200 Papal Stat 171 Paraguay 86 – 88, 303 Paris Peace Conference, 1919 57 f. Patagonia 200 Pender, John 46, 181 Perim 47 Perk, J.J. 192 Peru 200 Piedmont 172 f. Pirelli company 47 Portugal 43, 45 – 47, 141, 157, 244, 249, 252 f., 256 Portuguese East Africa 47, 247 Portuguese West Africa 247 Postal Telegraph Company 141 f. Poti 20 PRISM 115 Prussia 18, 21 f., 24, 171 – 173, 185, 218 Pupin 221, 233 radio 201, 208, 210 radio broadcasting 56, 67, 71, 191, 205 – 207, 209 Radio Suisse SA, Company 275, 286 f. radiophony 206, 209 radiotelegraphy see wireless or wireless telegraphy radiotelephony see wireless or wireless telegraphy RCA, Radio Corporation of America 56, 62 f., 66, 70, 72, 142 Region 1 309, 312 Region 2 314 Reichspost, Germany 219, 221, 228 f., 237 Reichspostzentralamt 219 Resolution 56/183 112 Reunion islands 46 RFC, Request for Comments 334 f. Ritschard, Willi 278 f. Rogers, Walter S. 7, 55 – 64, 66 – 70, 72 – 74 Russia 6, 15 – 33, 84, 113, 115, 127, 135, 137, 139, 141, 155 f., 158 – 160, 174, 178 f., 187, 203, 228, 236, 254 – 256, 258, 259, 280, 291, 298, 310, 313

351

Russian Empire see Russia Russo-Turkish War 31 Saint Helena island 46 Salandra, Antonio 203 Sardinia 44 Satellite 5, 7, 9, 78, 90, 97 f., 150, 268, 273, 280, 286 – 288, 290 – 292, 297 – 303, 305, 307 f., 310, 313, 315, 317 f. Saudi Arabia 137, 159, 312 f. Saxony 171 Schilling, P.I. (Baron) 17 f. Schramm, Wilbur 97 Schwab, Klaus M. 293 Senegal 40, 46, 97 Sha, Zukang 123 f. Siegrist, Paul 287 Siemens, Siemens & Halske, Siemens Brothers 18, 20, 22 f., 86 – 88, 103, 196, 199, 219, 221 f., 227, 270 SNFS, Swiss National Science Foundation 10 Société Anonyme de Télégraphe sans Fils, France 196 Somalia 92 South Africa 42, 47, 127, 135, 157, 248, 338 South America 45 f., 48, 200, 277 South Korea see Korea Soviet Union see Russia Spain 44, 46, 49, 169, 172, 178 f., 225, 249, 256, 303, 315 Spanish National Submarine Company 46 Spectrum 56, 71, 102, 160, 208 f., 269, 291, 299, 302 – 304, 307, 316, 318 Sprint Co., Ltd 118 SSC, Swedish Space Corporation 307 – 309, 314 SSR, Société Suisse de radiodiffusion 277, 284, 287 St. Petersburg Declaration banning explosive bullets, 1868 19 Stanford University 78, 97, 104 Stroessner, Alfredo 87 Submarine cables 5 – 7, 15, 28, 37 – 53 251, 258, 268, 273 Sudan 45 Suez Canal 43

352

Index

Super beam 309, 314, 316 Sweden 88, 297, 306 – 308 f. Swedish Board for Space Activities 307 Swiss PTT, Postes, téléphones, télégraphes 275 – 277, 280 f., 287 Switzerland 1 f., 8 f., 56, 108, 172 f., 185, 187, 225, 244, 250, 254, 265 – 296., 337 Syncom 3 301 Taiwan 108 Tanzania 101, 310 Tarjanne, Pekka 336 Telecommunication Journal 87, 89, 91, 96, 269 f., 273, 275, 278, 280, 286, see also Journal Télégraphique Telecommunication World Forum 273 Telefonica 136 Telefunken 195 f., 200, 251 Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company 44 Television or TV 7, 97, 150 f., 266, 268 f., 273, 277, 280 – 288, 291, 297, 306 – 308, 317, 324 Thailand 77 The Hague 196 The Netherlands see Holland The Missing Link, Report, 1985 7, 78, 98 f., 101 – 104 Thomson-CSF 86, 272, 274 Timashev, Alexandr Egorevich 21, 26 Time Warner Cable 136 Tokyo Olympics 301 Touré, Hamadoun 137, 160 Tsinghua University 113 f., 131 TSR, Télévision Suisse Romande 277, 287 Tunis Agenda for the Information Society 112 Tunisia 40, 44, 95, 110, 249, 253, 256 Turkey 23, 159 f., 174, 187, 225 Uganda 305, 311, 318 UN, United Nations 5, 7, 72, 79 – 84, 86, 89, 95, 103, 107 – 113, 116, 119, 121, 123 – 128, 135 f., 147, 217, 236, 257, 260, 266 f., 274, 277 – 279, 290 f., 297, 300 – 305, 309 – 311, 338, 340

UNDP, United Nations Development Programme 83, 86, 89, 93 UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 3, 78, 81, 85, 96 – 98, 104, 147 f., 292, 310 Union des banques suisses 274 Union Télégraphique Internationale see International Telegraph Union (sometimes abbreviated Telegraph Union) United Kingdom 15, 17 f., 25 – 27, 32, 40 f., 42 – 48, 45, 47, 57, 61 – 64, 66 f., 70, 79, 82, 98 f., 139 f., 143, 170, 178, 181, 187, 198 f., 202, 204 f., 216, 221, 224 f., 227, 243, 245, 247 – 249, 251, 254, 256 – 259, 261, 272, 286, 313, 323 – 326, 328 f. United Nations Treaty of Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space see Outer Space Treaty, 1967 United States Chamber of Commerce 64 Universal Communications Union 61, 63 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 153, 159 Universal Electrical Communication Union 7, 55, 58 – 62, 64 f., 73, 141 UPU, Universal Postal Union 62 – 66, 181, 253, 260 Uruguay 86 US, United States of America 2, 5, 7, 18, 21, 25, 55, 57 – 59, 62 – 72, 88, 111, 114, 118, 135 – 138, 140 – 145, 147, 150, 155, 157, 160, 170, 202 – 204, 210, 216, 218 – 222, 224, 227, 229, 231, 236, 247, 249, 256 – 259, 266, 272, 274, 281, 291, 296, 298, 301, 310, 317, 322 – 326, 328, 332, 334 – 338, 340 USSR see Russia Valensi, Georges 225, 227 – 231, 235, 237 Vatican 266, 309, 313 Venezuela 87, 95, 200 VeriSign 136, 335 Verizon 135 f. Videotex 323 f., 326 f., 339 Vietnam 80 Vinchent, Julien 180, 182 f., 185 Von Lüders, K. see Lüders, Karl Karlovic

Index

von Siemens, Carl 18 von Siemens, Werner 18 von Stephan, Heinrich 181 f., 185 Wang, Zhanning 121 WARC SAT-77 308 f., 314 – 316 West Africa Telegraph Company 46 West Germany 272, 303, 310 Western Electric 221, 226 f., 231 Western Union 65 f., 140 – 142, 257 WETU, Western European Telegraph Union 154, 172 – 175 WGIG, Working Group on Internet Governance 112, 124 – 126 WHO, World Health Organization 85 Wilson, Woodrow 55, 57 – 59, 61, 63, 66 f., 73 WIPO, World Intellectual Property Organization 111 wireless or wireless telegraphy 5, 7 f., 47, 59, 64, 67, 70, 145, 152, 192 – 214, 206 f., 209 f., 243, 251, 253, 299 Woolwich 196, 199 Working Group to the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Space 297 World Bank 78, 86 f., 95, 97, 101, 104 World Disarmament Conferences, 1932 – 34 249

353

World Internet Conference, Wuzhen, 2014 110, 115, 117, 126 World Summit on the Information Society 109, 122, 142, 147, 322, 337 f., 340 World Trade Organization’s Basic Telecommunications Agreement in 1997 138, 143 WSIS, World Summit on Information Society 109 – 112, 116 – 118, 120, 122 – 126, 128 f., 142, 147, 322, 331, 338 – 340 WTO, World Trade Organization 138, 143, 147, 160 www or world wide web 110, 331 X.25 326, 328 – 330, 338, 340 X.400 326 f., 329, 339 X.509 334 Xi, Jinping 123, 126, 128 Xian 118 Youth at the Electronic Age, Competition, 1979 265 Yugoslavia 315 Zaire 305 Zanzibar 46 f., 49 Zhao, Houlin 108 f., 112 f. Zhu, Guofeng 120 f.