A fruit of changing US-Taiwan relations
ICRT’s forerunner was a US military station: Armed Forces Network Taiwan.
Pat Torguson, daughter of an American airman, recalls that as a result of the shelling of Kinmen (Quemoy) by the PRC that began on August 23, 1958, the US Air Force base in Tainan was in a continuous state of high alert, and its personnel had to pay constant attention to AFNT broadcasts. She remembers that each time one of the station’s broadcasters said, “The pepper is hot. I say again, the pepper is hot,” her father would, without uttering a word, get up, put on his uniform and promptly leave for the base.
AFNT was the sole channel for American military and foreign diplomats, as well as their families, to hear Western popular music. And it wasn’t just foreigners: Whether for blues-inflected rock music by Elvis Presley, “Let It Be” by the chart-topping Beatles, or “American Pie” by Don McLean, AFNT was also where young Taiwanese tuned their dials during the martial-law era when searching for freedom and dreaming of distant places.
On New Year’s Day in 1979, the US and the ROC broke off diplomatic relations, and the station prepared to cease broadcasting. According to standard procedures, the US military was expected to ship all broadcasting equipment back to the United States. Admiral James Linder, the last commander of the US Taiwan Defense Command, convinced the US government to “sell” the equipment for a symbolic US$1 to the ROC government, which then leased it to ICRT.
Shortly before midnight on April 16, 1979, to the sound of the national anthems of the United States and the Republic of China, AFNT ceased broadcasting. Then, right at midnight, Robert P. Parker, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, announced, “ICRT is on the air.” It has continued to broadcast ever since.
Robert P. Parker (right), former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, put much time and energy into launching ICRT. The photo shows him with Taipei mayor Lee Teng-hui, who would later become ROC president.