Editing Emergency Broadcast System (section)

== National level EBS ==
An order to activate the EBS at the national level would have originated with the [[President of the United States|president]] and been relayed via the [[White House Communications Agency]] duty officer to one of two origination points – either the [[Aerospace Defense Command]] (ADC) or the Federal Preparedness Agency (FPA) – as the system stood in 1978. Participating telecommunications [[common carrier]]s, [[radio network|radio]] and [[television network]]s, the [[Associated Press]], and [[United Press International]] would receive and authenticate (by means of code words) an [[Emergency Action Notification]] (EAN) via a [[Teleprinter|teletypewriter]] network designed specifically for this purpose. These recipients would relay the EAN to their subscribers and affiliates.<ref name="lifesaving"/>

Enemy attack or nuclear attack warning procedures under EBS changed with time. In 2024, the United States National Archives made available prerecorded messages dating to 1972 that were intended to be played during a national activation of the Emergency Broadcast System.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Agency |first=United States Defense Civil Preparedness |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qXLfAAAAMAAJ |title=Annual Report |date=1971 |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=National Archives NextGen Catalog |url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/1772601 |access-date=2024-09-07 |website=catalog.archives.gov}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5IuD_dvLOA |title=EBS Pre-Recorded Information Tape Side 1 |date=2024-03-13 |last=CONELRAD6401240 |access-date=2024-09-07 |via=YouTube}}</ref> A presidential EBS activation message without attack warning appears at 1:05:55 on side 2 of prerecorded tape number 027:

"''The United States Emergency Broadcast System has been activated by direction of the President of the United States because of a grave national emergency. The Emergency Broadcast System comprises all communications facilities designated and authorized  by the Federal Communications Commission to operate during a period of national emergency."''<ref name=":5">{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lxp3I_4PA8 |title=EBS Pre-Recorded Information Tape Side 2 |date=2024-03-14 |last=CONELRAD6401240 |access-date=2024-10-19 |via=YouTube}}</ref>

This "grave national emergency" message recording and script above was not in use by individual stations or published in any known FCC document. 

The release of the EAN by the Aerospace Defense Command or the Federal Preparedness Agency would initiate a process by which the common carriers would link otherwise independent networks such as [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], [[CBS]], and [[NBC]] into a single national network from which even [[Independent station (North America)|independent stations]] could receive programming. "Broadcast stations would have used the 2-tone Attention Signal on their assigned broadcast frequency to alert other broadcast stations to stand by for a message from the president."<ref name="lifesaving" /> The transmission of programming on a broadcast station's assigned frequency, and the fact that television networks/stations and FM radio stations could participate, distinguished EBS from CONELRAD. EBS radio stations would not necessarily transmit on 640 or 1240 on the AM dial, and FM radio and television would carry the same audio program as AM radio stations did.