The diffraction by a conducting wedge of a transient electromagnetic disturbance in the form of a plane wave discontinuity having arbitrary polarization and direction of propagation is reduced to a pair of two-dimensional scalar problems. The solution to one of these is identical with that previously obtained for the analogous acoustical problem, while the second is attacked in a similar manner, using a Tschplygin transformation to reduce the boundary value problem to one in potential theory, which is then solved by classical means.