Technology Dishes Ortega Into U.S. : Politics: Through a satellite TV hookup, the Nicaraguan president will broadcast to the United States from Managua today.

By SHARON BERNSTEIN

March 3, 1990 12 AM PT

Since the beginning of the Cold War, the United States has broadcast its version of world events into foreign countries through such vehicles as the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. The United States is even planning to update its radio transmission into Cuba with a television signal later this year.

Now technology has turned the tables.

Today, through a satellite television hookup that costs only $5,000, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega will address the people of the United States from Managua. For an hour, Ortega will explain his version of events leading up to his defeat in last week’s presidential elections, and offer his analysis of the National Opposition Union (UNO), the 14-party coalition whose candidate, Violeta Chamorro, was victorious.

The transmission will also include a brief documentary about Nicaragua that focuses on the election and includes interviews with UNO politicians and international observers, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

The program will be transmitted using essentially the same technology that in the past has been used primarily to carry boxing matches to closed-circuit audiences and, more recently, to conduct the much-publicized “citizen diplomacy” conversations between U.S. and Soviet citizens.

The difference is that this time, instead of broadcasting to a few people who have paid to receive the transmission, Ortega’s speech will be available to millions for free. Viewers with satellite dishes will be able to pick up the broadcast on SatCom 4 at 6 p.m., and the telecast also will be carried on the community-access channels of more than 300 cable systems across the nation. In Los Angeles, among the systems carrying it will be Continental Cablevision and Century Cable at 6 p.m. It will also be broadcast on KPFK-FM (90.7).

“We knew that these satellites are a new technology and it’s fairly inexpensive, and we felt this was one way to essentially jump over the information barrier that the U.S. government had set up,” said Lee Artz, director of the Palo Alto-based Peninsula Peace Center, which organized the broadcast. “Originally, the problem we faced was that the U.S. some time ago refused to give visas to officials of the Nicaraguan government, so it made it impossible to tell in their own words their view of what was happening in their country.”

To move the transmission beyond the closed-circuit realm, the organization contacted New York-based Deep Dish Network, which distributes independent programs to community-access channels.

The cost for the entire venture--including a film crew to conduct interviews and tape the speech--was $22,000, according to Artz, which the organization was able to accumulate through fund-raising.

Ortega’s speech marks the first time that the international satellite system has been used by a world leader to broadcast to other than a closed-circuit audience, said Carl Jeffcoat, vice president of the Washington-based division of the Communications Satellite Corp. (Comsat), which is handling the international portion of the transmission.

“The original uses were mostly (television) network kinds of things, and today they are still the predominant users,” Jeffcoat said. “But today there are all kinds of uses. Colleges use it to talk to other colleges, large companies talk to other large companies. Those things have been happening for several years, but it’s a growing use now compared to how it was five years ago.”

To set up a transmission, Jeffcoat said, one must contact transmitting stations--known in industry jargon as “earth stations”--on each end and ask permission to broadcast. Nicaragua, for example, is one of 118 foreign countries with an earth station providing television, telephone and computer data transmissions for the country.

On the U.S. end, the Ortega speech will be received by a station in Andover, Me., owned by MCI Communications Corp. From there, it will be decoded and sent out on a domestic satellite.

Officials in Washington said that they are not particularly concerned about the use of satellite technology to transmit foreign--and potentially anti-U.S. government--points of view to American TV viewers.

“Through international radio broadcasting, (foreign viewpoints) always have been available here,” said Joseph Bruns, chief of staff for Voice of America. “We get Radio Moscow, Radio Peking, the BBC. Anybody with a short-wave radio can pick them up. Radio Havana is up on a satellite.”

For its part, Bruns said, the United States broadcasts on short- and medium-wave frequencies--medium wave is the technical term for “AM”--as well as television throughout the world on Voice of America and other services offered by the United States Information Agency.

In fact, one reason that the Ortega broadcast is able to take place is that the United States--partly to facilitate its own services--has insisted that broadcast signals that are carried on legitimate frequencies be allowed to cross borders.

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Bruns said.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Kim Hoggard agreed. “We are a country that espouses free speech, whether it’s by people from our own country or other countries,” she said.

Activist Artz, who said that his efforts to set up the transmission had not been impeded by the government, said the group’s next project would be to televise a speech from South Africa’s anti-apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela.

“It’s like the Solidarity movement goes high-tech,” Artz said. “People who wouldn’t be caught in a meeting with a bunch of Solidarity activists will see this in their own living rooms. And being human beings, they will think about it. And hopefully, if they think about it long enough, it will affect their attitudes and their behavior.”