Radio jamming is the classical music of dictatorship. Now that music is being played in Iran, being played at full volume: Western radio stations broadcasting in Persian can no longer be heard there.

I have my own history of relations with this classical music. I first went on the air on Radio Liberty in 1978, and that is when I was jammed for the first time. After a few years, I worked at the Russian Service of the BBC to the same Cold War accompaniment.

This gift was generously restored to the Soviet people in 1988. A bit later I began gathering materials for a broadcast called “The Man Who Jammed Me.” A Lithuanian colleague gave me the Moscow telephone numbers of veterans of the jamming service, and I began calling them up.

I couldn’t reach Anatoly Stepanovich Batyushkov of Goskomsvyaz (the State Communications Committee) — he was relaxing at a sanatorium. But I was able to chat with Natalya Yevgenevna Krestyaninova, a retired jammer of the airwaves.