Radio Tirana

In April 1939, the self-proclaimed King Zog of Albania [L lifted from commons.wikimedia] fled the country with the country's gold-reserves in his carry-on luggage. The power vacuum was filled by the Provisional Administrative Committee of Albania until an "army of liberation" arrived from Italy. The PACA issued a bulletin to its diplomats abroad including the advice . . . stop Listen regularly to Radio Tirana stop . . . which was moderately amusing because I did just that when I was learning Portuguese in the mid-80s. In addition to formal lessons from a wonderful me-local officer from the Instituto Camões, and reading novels in parallel text editions, I had scanned the airwaves hunting for Portuguese language broadcasts. By far the strongest signal was from Radio Tirana blaring out Marxist propaganda, music & current affairs to former Portuguese colonies in Africa many of which were still in a state of unresolved armed struggle aka USA/USSR proxy-war. I listened into Tirana while…