Propaganda and Entertainment in the BBC Latin American Service During WW2 The Case of Antonio Callado and the Brazilian Section

In this article I will analyse a body of documents that shed new light on the activity of the BBC Latin American Service (LAS) during the Second World War. These documents have the potential to reveal how entertainment programmes commissioned by the Corporation to be broadcast to Latin America were used as part of propaganda campaigns, designed to counter Nazi-Fascist influence in the region. These documents consist of: the minutes of BBC LAS Propaganda Policy Committee meetings, held in the presence of the Ministry of Information (MOI) staff members; correspondence exchanged between the BBC and the MOI; as well as original radio drama scripts written in Portuguese by Brazilian journalist, novelist and playwright Antonio Callado, which were broadcast to Brazil by BBC LAS in 1943. Callado's scripts function as a case study to discuss the impact of propaganda policies in LAS entertainment programmes.