Following the success of the August 19, 1945 General Insurrection, everyone in Hanoi was looking forward to the day that the government led by President Ho Chi Minh made its first public appearance. At that time, many people didn’t know Ho Chi Minh was Nguyen Ai Quoc. Active preparations for the great day were going on in the capital.

I still remembered the moment when Tran Kim Tuyen, Chu Va Tich and I were called in by Xuan Thuy to discuss about the creation of a radio station. Thuy told us “this is on order from President Ho. The radio has a very important role in disseminating the birth of the young republic to people across the nation and the world”.

Three of us discussed and decided:

Tran Kim Xuyen who was a civil servant under the French having a wide personal network would be in charge of the transmitter.

Chu Van Tich, a newly graduated doctor of medicine who had a lot of experience in communications activities, would be in charge of studio.

And me – a fresh graduate from the Law School - would be in charge of editorial work.

At that time there was no public radio station in the capital, but a department in charge of tele-communications activities and a radio telegraphy station in Bach Mai. At that time the key function of the Bach Mai transmitter was to transmit messages from Hanoi to Saigon and Paris.

Xuyen contacted Nguyen Cung, a technician working in the department and some technical people working at the Bach Mai station to prepare for the first transmission of the Voice of Vietnam.

Everything about the technical matter was completed by September 2, including five short wave transmitters with capacity ranging from 100W to 1KW and several medium wave transmitters with capacity ranging from 300-500W.

On September 2, we did a trial test by having a live broadcast of a meeting at Ba Dinh Square from the house at 4 Dinh Le Street. It was a success, we were able to record President Ho’ voice reading the Declaration of Independence.

Regarding the editorial work, I gathered some of my friends, including Hoang Tuan, Nguyen Van Nhat, Nguyen Huu Ban, Le Hong Giang and Nguyen Van Tich to prepare for the first broadcast.

In the first broadcast, we used three languages: Vietnamese, French and English. I myself was one of the first broadcasters in Vietnamese.

Radio the Voice of Vietnam is the soul of the Vietnamese nation

On September 5, at a meeting at 4 Dinh Le Street chaired by me, we discussed three key issues:

-Take September 7 as the founding day of Radio the Voice of Vietnam

- Take Radio the Voice of Vietnam as an official name

-  Decide the signature tune – Smashing Fascism by composer Nguyen Dinh Thi

At 11.30 on September 7, five days after President Ho Chi Minh and the provisional Government made the first debut at Ba Dinh Square, the first broadcast of Radio Voice of Vietnam was on air.

Key contents of the broadcast were President Ho Chi Minh’s Declaration of Independence and the name of members of the Provisional Government.

My memory about the first broadcast is till fresh. The first person to speak was Duong Thi Ngan “This is the Voice of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam”. The sentence was repeated twice by Nguyen Van Nhat. At the back 10 young women from the National Salvation Women’s Union were ready to sing the song “Smashing Fascism”. Followed on was the Declaration of Independence read by Nhat and the list of members of the Provisional Government.

From that day on, Radio the Voice of Vietnam has become a close and indispensable friend to many listeners both inside and outside the country.