On the night of October 30, 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcast their dramatic adaptation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds.
Presented as a series of simulated news bulletins interrupting standard music programming, the show famously convinced thousands of American listeners that Earth was under invasion by Martian forces. Less known, however, is the geopolitical ripple effect the broadcast caused among foreign embassies in Washington, D. C.
In 1938, global tensions were soaring in the run-up to World War II, and international diplomats in the US capital were hyper-vigilant for any signs of sudden military action or civil unrest. Several Latin American diplomatic attachés, tuning into shortwave relays or receiving panicked phone calls from local staff, lacked the cultural context of American radio drama tropes. Hearing reports of flash explosions, gas attacks, and state militia mobilizations in New Jersey, foreign military attachés rushed to send coded cables to their home capitals in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.
They urgently requested confirmation on whether the United States was experiencing a sudden foreign attack, an internal fascist coup, or an unprecedented national emergency. State Department officials were forced to spend the following morning reassuring anxious foreign diplomats that the United States military was not engaged in battle and that the American government remained fully intact.