Michael Roberts‟ wartime career in the European Service of the BBC began in the Intelligence Department, where he gathered information about the reception of BBC broadcasts in both German-occupied and neutral Europe. From March 1943 to May 1944 he served on committees which considered the media requirements of Europe once Allied reoccupation got underway.

In June 1943 Roberts took up the new post of Clandestine Press Editor; with one assistant, he prepared a series of twice-weekly programmes addressed to the editors of the underground press in occupied Europe. These programmes provided context for war news but also discussed long-term questions; they were initially broadcast in English, French and Dutch. They continued until December 1944; in all there were 205, for which only seven scripts are missing from this collection. (The BBC's set, at the Written Archives Centre, Caversham, is only half complete.)

This assignment was interrupted from May to August 1944 by Roberts' appointment – a stop-gap measure – as head of the Czech Section. On resuming his post as Clandestine Press Editor, he also supplied weekly book summaries (by himself and others) to reconnect book-starved European listeners with current thought in the “free world”. The series covered science, poetry and literary criticism as well as politics, social philosophy and journalism. In December 1944 Roberts joined the Talks section of the European Service.