An expansion of a previous piece I did.
Hughes-Welch Broadcasting Corporation
The headquarters of the Hughes-Welch Broadcasting Corporation in London has a massive golden statue of Howard Hughes in a pilot suit standing outside its front doors, pointing to the Thames. It is fitting, given the story of HWBC is really his story and how he exploited nationalistic feelings, capitalism, and anti-communism to form an empire within an empire, one which continues to prey on the fears of jingoists to this day.
Howard Robards Hughes, Jr was only 19 when he inherited the massive fortune of his father, a Texas drill bit tycoon. Using his fortune, he would launch a career as a film producer (winning one of the Oscars with
The Racket) and eventually going into aviation with Hughes Aircraft. Hughes would pack up and leave for Britain when Norman Thomas was elected. Hughes Aircraft would become one of the biggest aircraft manufacturers in the United Kingdom, and during the war, would produce the Hughes H-Series of bombers, and the Hercules H-4 transport vehicle. He would also go on to buy majority of the Cuban airline Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA) by 1944, and start offering passenger flights across the Atlantic as the war winded to a close.
Hughes, however, decided to get back into the industry that brought him into fame. He would steadily buy shares in the struggling Havanawood poverty row studio RKO, before seizing complete control. This also marked his growing investment in Cuban and Jamaican casinos and real estate, propping up the Hughes name as the largest landowners in the Caribbean.
Hughes was by most accounts, a neurotic, often eccentric millionaire, often going by his whims. So, when the Television Act of 1956 privatized many Franco-British stations to promote “free enterprise”, Hughes bought several of them solely because his favorite films and Cuban television shows were not being played on the EBC.
One of those shows was
Private Opinion, hosted by Robert W. Welch, Jr. Once an executive at his brother James’ candy manufacturer, the Revolution drove them to Cuba. The strong anti-communist lost his will as his beloved country fell to the scourge of communism. Eventually, he would find solace in faith, eventually becoming a evangelical preacher of “capitalism”. He would give sermons in the late 30’s while still working at the candy company, become a chaplin in the Cuban Navy, and rise to become a personal spiritual advisor to MacArthur and Secretary of War Edwin Walker. Thus, he would gain a syndicated feature in Life/Time Magazine in 1948, and in 1955, a nationwide program was commissioned showing his sermon to a national audience. Private Opinion saw Welch tell his audience (both in-studio and outside) about the dangers and evils of communism, and the need for a Christian faith “armed with the weapon of free enterprise” to destroy it. It was largely remain this combination of bog-standard preaching and bog standard propaganda for the first few years of its existence.
Hughes would place the new stations under his control to the new “RKO-TV” division, which would supply them with imported Cuban films and television shows. By 1960, Hughes owned a large share of the Franco-British television stations, and would expand into other areas, including documentaries and sports. Some original productions came into being, including, notably, a six-part miniseries adaptating
We the Living. Hughes’ interest soon went to the news media in the Franco-British Union. Hughes was a particular fan of The Daily Mail, a strongly conservative paper long run by Harmsworth family, which he felt was the only paper to truly dedicate itself against communism. Still, he felt that some “adjustment was needed”, and bought out shares of the Daily Mail and General Trust, which ran the newspaper.
Hughes, associated romantically with some of the biggest stars of Britain and Europe, including Hedy Lamar and Olivia de Havilland, finally tied the knot with Marie-Claire Bonnel*, a French actress of some renown, in 1953. Resulting from this was the 1954 birth of Marianne Hughes.
The early 60’s were decidedly not good for Welch. His sermon grew increasingly erratic, speaking of communism as an “ancient, satanic conspiracy”, and eventually started calling said conspiracy the Illuminati, a secret society with its origins in the Garden of Eden and philosophers of ancient Greece. Since he did in-house production through the “Robert W. Welch Television Corporation” and he never advocated any anti-state activity, the distribution companies kept the show on the air, albeit editing out some of the more bizarre assertions (including that British Royal Family were part of the leading council of the Illuminati. In a 1962 show, Welch claimed that God would ensure the survival of MacArthur as long as communism remained on Earth. A few months later, with MacArthur’s death, he claimed that the Communists had assassinated him in secret. Soon enough, the theories focused primarily on President Robert Kennedy. Welch claimed that Kennedy was a high ranking MDSS agent known as “Raven”, who was controlled by J. Edgar Hoover to assassinate MacArthur and sublimate the Americuban government back under American control. His rants grew more bizarre from there, including his father being an Irish mob boss and a crypto-communist who poisoned MacArthur. Thus, in 1964,
Private Opinion was taken off the air for its inflammatory rhetoric against the President (and for promoting dubious health products).
Hughes was outraged by the cancellation, and subsequently offered to have RKO-TV distribute Private Opinion for both FBU and Cuban audiences. Welch signed a deal that would seal its continued distribution and came back on the air in July of 1966.
Emboldened, Welch’s sermons now focused on the insufficient response of the Franco-British Union to the threat of communism. Eventually, Welch would host a second program, which would be produced by the renamed “Robert Welch News Company”, helped by Hughes’ funding. Independent News was infamous for its intense support for the Indochina War. (
Monty Python’s Flying Circus notoriously satirized Independent News as
Maybe It's News ) This turn towards open conservatism was also marked by Hughes seizing complete control of the Daily Mail in 1967 in a hostile takeover, prying it directly from the hands of the Harmsworth family that started it and shutting them out. Hughes largely kept the editoral stance the same, only adding in a rotating column from one of Welch’s supporters (including Fred Trump and Revilo Oliver).
With the combined success of Independent News and Private Opinion, Robert Welch would slowly rise through Welch News, now partially owned by RKO itself, into RKO-TV, and direct more attention to his own pet conspiracies, now increasingly bizarre. Noah Dietrich, Hughes’ longtime confidante and lawyer, warned that Welch was erratic and untrustworthy, but Hughes maintained faith in his new hero. Indeed, Hughes himself was gradually becoming stranger and more bizarre and reclusive. This lead to his divorce in 1969 and his daughter becoming distant, instead going off as a celebrity in her own right as a teen. He had also abandoned his English estate in favor of the Hotel Tropicana in Georgetown. He would rewatch movies like
Ice Station Zebra and
Topaz hundreds of times in a loop, and buying gallons of coconut water and ice cream.
Still, the two kept in contact, and in 1970, the two discussed having a news network that could contrast the “communist-leaning” EBC or the “socialist” Voice of Europe[1], and bring a “pro-civilization” perspective.
They were given a lucky test subject in 1971, when a TWA flight was accidentally shot down near Maine, and the occupants were held up in Bangor airport for several hours to get connecting flights. Independent News and The Mail portrayed the incident as the Reds kidnapping people and holding them hostage. The strong reaction showed the market for this sort of coverage.
Hughes, Welch, and Dietrich would spend the early seventies hammering out this vision of a conservative news network, untethered by leftist sentiment. The new development of cable and satellite was decided to gain a wider reach worldwide instead of just the Franco-British Union. At the same time, Hughes and Dietrich agreed that Welch should probably stay off the air for now, because of his insistence that the FBU was part of a socialist conspiracy, which conflicted with government contracts for Hughes Aircraft and TWA. Thus,
Private Opinion was given guest spots, while Welch was made director of programming and production, effectively taking him and his opinions off the air.
After developing a series of programs that would make a full line-up for a dedicated news channel,(including
Red Channel, The Nation, and
Daily Mail TV), the Hughes-Welch Broadcasting Corporation went on the air on January 5th, 1975, making a considerable waves for its open attacks on Communism, detente, the ongoing Bolivian and Indochina Crises, and on the counterculture in London, Paris, Bonn, West Rome, etc. While said counterculture was quick to seize on it and its quasi-fascist nature (producing parodies widely distributed by recording), it soon garnered a viewership amongst Cold Warriors and Powellites, many of whom believed the government had been “surrendering” to the Communists. Pundits like Powell himself, American ex-prisoner and writer Barry Goldwater, and Ayn Rand would all get a chance to air their own “commentary (Rand advertising her colony in Northern Canada on the air was considered a memorable moment on British television, according to a 1999 Empire Magazine poll). Goldwater would go on to host his own talk show (
Breakpoint with Goldwater) in 1976, where he would engage with a variety of politicians on a variety of issues.
Howard Hughes died en route from Georgetown to a Kingston hospital for a bypass surgery in 1976. Dietrich would assume control of his various companies and assets, including RKO-TV and The Daily Mail. With Ted Kennedy’s own Global News satellite network rising as a competitor, Dietrich would transition the network to satellite, and make his own 24 Hour News station. Dietrich would also ensure that the increasingly erratic Welch (at this point, sending journalists to find evidence of the Illuminati in Spartan ruins) was kept out of official production as much as possible.
Now 23, Marianne Hughes was a regular at Monaco, and mingled with the Prince on a regular basis. While the tabloids linked the two romantically, she would ultimately fall in with a very different individual. While at a yacht party with a friend, she noticed an old man telling a grand tale of the war. The friend, Sarah Folger, heiress to the Folger Coffee Company, recalled the scene:
“We overheard him, and saw a group of people enraptured by him. He was telling the story of saving a group of British sailor during the war, while commanding a submarine. He just had this charisma, this presence, that attracted people. He would talk and people would listen to him. When he was done, he came up to Mary, and they started talking. She ended up wanting to talk more so much, he took her to his organization”
L. Ron Hubbard had been scuttling between a Dianetic Church owned property in Spain and an apartment in Monaco, since the Franco-British Union opened an investigation to the finances and practices of Hubbard and his church. As his followers in the FBU continued the legal battle against the government’s investigation, he was recruiting more people, primarily fellow tax exiles in Monaco, to help keep the Church afloat.
He and Marianne became closer, and in 1978, she formally joined the Dianetics Church. With her wealth, she rose through the levels, before eventually becoming a high ranking member by 1980. Dietrich, sensing that Hubbard was a shady figure with a dubious past, began to dig into the Church, hiring private investigators to dig as much dirt on it as possible, and ordering some of the news programs to cover the church and show their internal corruption as much as possible.
By that time, Welch’s paranoia had reached fever pitch, believing that 1979 was a smokescreen conspiracy by the Illuminati to ensure that the birth of the anti-Christ isn’t noticed. Upon learning that the FBU had retracted the tactical nuclear bomber headed towards the restive Quebec City, a furious Welch stormed the set of The Red Hour with Lord Richard Cecil, pushed him off the seat, and angrily yelled on camera about how the FBU had “key members of the Illuminati” inside that were conspiring to ensure that the “Satanic World Order” by staging the entire crisis. The broadcast was cut in minutes, and Dietrich would fire Welch then and there.
Dietrich would die in 1981, without completing his investigation of the Dianetics Church, and legal wrangling prevented his papers from coming out, meaning much of it remains locked. (Bits would leak over the years, including Dianetics story of Xenu). Soon, a mandate was handed down to ensure all mentions of Dianetics were eliminated from the air. Marianne would get RKO to back L. Ron Hubbard’s film
Battlefield Earth. She would name her first son, Lafeyette, born shortly after Hubbard’s death in 1985.
The 80’s would see Hughes expand, first into continental Europe, and then Algeria, Nigeria, Ethiopia, India, Cuba, and Australia. All would follow the same anti-communist viewpoints, but tailor it towards the local markets. The hope was to create a worldwide conservative brand.
New head of programming, Andrew Neil, continued the line during the wars and conflicts of the 80’s, heavily criticizing ant-nuclear and anti-war groups and protests, and being unabashed about support union suppression and privatization. By now, their lack of objectivity and open support for government policies earned them criticism from commentators. Ted Kennedy and Robert Maxwell, rivals of the operation, would use some of their publications to attack their stance. In 1985, journalists including Emile DuMont and Henry Kerrigan [2] (The latter having himself profiled Hughes during the war) signed a petition condemning Hughes-Welch for “journalistic negligance” and “degrading the political discourse not only in the Franco-British Union, but in international markets”. This didn’t stop their expansion into documentary film and book publishing through the Mail. That same year, Robert W. Welch died in his London apartment, living off his shares in his brother’s candy company and still in his production company. James would sell off the latter entirely to the HRH Corporation.
In 1988, Red Channel would attract criticism for their interview of David Icke, president of the Dianetics Church, who was in the midst of criticism for the Church’s systemic attack on the government and demand it be recognized as a religious institution, as well as massive attacks on journalists and critics. Icke defended the organization and denied the claims. This coincided with the Daily Mail publishing articles alleging that the National Association of Mental Health was conducting experiments to drive people insane and destroy their will. These were later revealed to be given by the Dianetics Promotion Section, a propaganda arm of the Church. This coincided with Marianne’s subsequent power plays within RKO to ensure that Dianetics was ignored.
In 1991, HRH reorganized their various properties, separating Hughes-Welch from RKO-TV. As the wars of the 80’s winded down, HWBC would double down on the culture wars, bringing on Mary Whitehouse frequently to discuss “video nasties” and the “violence on the EBC, ITV, Galaxy, and Canal”, and frequently mentioned crime and drug problems within working class, immigrant neighborhoods, tying them with communist activism in those communities. In 1994, Red Channels would spark controversy by claiming that “confidential reports” from the Joint Foreign Service revealed that several union leaders were secretly part of a Comintern spy ring. The resulting lawsuit would see them lose £110 million. They would invoke further controversy by stating that Ted Kennedy and the late Robert Maxwell were “assets of DeLeon-Debs”, and that Kennedy’s purchase of Maxwell’s publishing empire was part of a consolidation of American assets in the FBU.
1996 would see them launch a website, along with the Daily Mail’s. 1997 would see them launch a separate Daily Mail Business Network. 2000 would see HRH purchase Minute and Le Figario, and subsequently launch Le Figario TV in HWBC French sections, replacing French translations of Daily Mail TV.
After Independent News host Peter Hitchens blasted Tony Blair in 2006, Blair launched heavy criticism to HWBC, stating that they represented the lowest standards of television. In 2011, the history of Hughes-Welch was dramatized in an EBC miniseries,
Truth in Journalism (referencing a quote by Robert Welch outlining the mission of a conservative station), and in 2014 in the American film
News Wars (focusing on the rivalry between the EBC, and news groups owned by the Kennedy Group and HRH).
HWBC continues to broadcast their unabashed conservatism, and have continued to hold some political influence, with former Parliamentarians and Lords making regular appearances to comment on various issues. Lafeyette Hughes, the grandson of Howard Hughes, is the current president of the network.
[1] A government operated radio station aimed at Comintern nations
[2] Fictional journalists created by
@Bookmark1995 and
@Aelita respectively