Jack Ruby and KLIF

Anyone with any level of interest in the Kennedy assassination from the student, to the historian, to the conspiracy theorist knows who Jack Ruby is. But many of them won't know anything about 1190 KLIF-AM, and even fewer the connection between the two. The Kennedy assassination was a tragedy of course but also a huge news event so the city was swarming with local news people. So as coverage ramped up for the Kennedy assassination beat it also proliferated a witness list for the Oswald assassination which included a huge number of radio and news people. 552 different witnesses' testimony was presented to the Warren Commission. It included police, attorneys and Oswald's acquaintances.  But that list includes multiple radio staff:

• Corporon, John
• Duncan, William Glenn, Jr
• Jenkins, Ronald Lee
• Pappas, Icarus M.
• Richey, Warren E.
• Stuckey, William Kirk
• Underwood. James R.
• Walker, Ira N., Jr.

That list has zero overlap with the Ruby trial witnesses. Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24th 1963 in Dallas. Access was limited in secure buildings, but KLIF-AM was on the scene for the prisoner transfer of Oswald but did not broadcast the shooting live. NBC was the lone TV network to have broadcast live coverage. NBC News correspondent Tom Pettit, was the voice everyone recognizes shouting “Lee Oswald has been shot!”  The first mention of the shooting on KLIF is at 9:51 on this video:

First the events you already know about.  Sunday morning, November 24th, the police were ready to move Harvey Oswald to the county jail. A distance of one mile.  At 11:20 AM Oswald emerged flanked by officers. Captain J. Will Fritz led two detectives escorting Oswald through a basement garage toward a car. Moments later, Jack Ruby wearing his fedora, stepped out from the mob of detectives and reporters and fired a .38-caliber Colt Cobra revolver at Oswald's chest. Oswald died at 1:07 p.m.

First you should know a bit more about Ruby.  He operated a strip joint called the Carousel Club. In addition to the local contacts he made through his strip club, he was very social, and made his daily rounds in Dallas visited acquaintances around Dallas. He'd hit the bank, the Statler Hilton, the police station, the courthouse, the bail-bond office, the Doubleday Book Store, the delicatessen, the shoeshine parlor, radio station KLIF. He actually bought that Colt cobra through a police friend of his, Joe Cody to avoid paying sales tax. 

KLIF was owned by Gordon McLendon. Born in Paris TX in 1921, graduate of Yale, and sports  director at WYBC in New Haven, CT. He made a name for himself at the Liberty Broadcasting System. Liberty was a network that mainly broadcast "recreated" baseball games starting in 1948. Reputedly many listeners were not aware the broadcasters were not announcing the live events. [LINK]Ruby once identified McLendon as “the world’s greatest American.” In those days at Liberty McLendon was billing himself as “the Old Scotchman.” He had founded KLIF in 1947.  Ruby name dropped him in his hand-written confession. Later in his career McLendon became a right-wing radio wonk, and made a failed senate run. His career stalled a bit when he started a campaign to ban suggestive songs like “Yellow Submarine” and “Puff, the Magic Dragon.”

He also name-dropped KLIF, DJ Russ Knight, better known as The Weird Beard.(No connection to the WAKY weird beard.)  When FBI Agents found Knight's personal phone numbers in Ruby's possession he won an interview. He had been at KLIF since 1960 and left in 1964 for a spot at WXYZ. Somewhere in there he was also on KILT. Knight had known Ruby for a year and had hung out with him half a dozen times, even taking his wife to the Carousel Club. Ruby for his part, ran ads for the club on Knights program at KLIF. [SOURCE]

Another familiar name that pops up at Liberty is sound man Wes Wise. Back in the 50s he was doing foley work to fake baseball games. Somehow he moved from there to at sports director for WFAA in 1961.  By 1963 Wes Wise was at KRLD-TV (CBS).  He was there with Bob Huffaker. He testified that he bumped into Ruby at the now infamous School book Depository building that Saturday Nov. 23rd; just a day before the assassination. In 1971 Wes Wise would be elected Mayor of Dallas, and he'd serve 3 terms despite being originally from Shreveport, LA. It's worth nothing that Wise kicked off a conspiracy theory in December of 1963 taking poor notes about a possible Oswald sighting. He got a plate number correct but the wrong color and make of the car. By random chance (ahem) the car listed was owned by a Carl Mather at Collins Radio, a company that worked with military communications for the CIA. [SOURCE]  

According to Ruby's own account, he he was trying to find a local disc jockey from KLIF and went into the police station to locate him to deliver some sandwiches from Phil's Delicatessen. He worked his way around the police station, and found instead some staff from KBOX. He asked for  KLIF's Gary DeLaune. Witness Willian Duncan Jr. testified that Ruby delivered sandwiches and soda to KLIF around 1:30 on Friday Nov. 22nd. He asked about DJ Russ Knight and left after 20-30 minutes. More here.   

Gary would see Ruby again when Oswald was shot. DeLaune was standing right next to photographer Bob Jackson when the latter took his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. Gary's 's presence begat a conspiracy theory of it's own since Jack Ruby had a few connections to KLIF. Despite personally knowing Ruby, DeLaune testified that all he saw was "figure with a gun."  More here. Delaune later worked in Houston, then moved to San Antonio in the early 1970s to cover the San Antonio Spurs. Eventually he joined the sports broadcasting team at KENS-TV where he stayed for decades until his retirement.

Was there any more to any of this?  Probably.  But knowing DJs as I do... the basis of these friendships was probably free sandwiches, and drinks at the carousel club. It an unusual event where in covering the news of one crime find a dozen DJs testifying in the trial over another related crime. I can't think of another event like this one in that one respect.

DJ Cuzzin Linnie

A few months ago I read an all too short obituary for Cuzzin Linnie (aka Cousin Linnie, Cousin Linny) in the Dallas Observer. His friends just called him "The Cuz." It was said that Sam Cooke gave him that nickname. It was hard to cross the color line in broadcasting in the 40s and 50s. But for each format there is a demographic, and for Top-40 the DJs were as white as wonder bread™ in the 60s. Linwood  "Cuzzin Linnie" Henderson broke that color barrier when he was hired at 1190 KLIF-AM. KNON's Weird Warren Harris once said that Cuzzin Linnie was the "first guy to play soul on a rock radio station..."  It's a bold claim, but Harris was there and I wasn't.  Sadly Linwood was only inducted into the Texas Radio Fall of Fame posthumously. 

In all the hullabaloo between his tragic death and his hall of fame induction November 6th, the actual story of his rise to fame and his tragic fall has been lost. So lets get on with it. He started out at 1590 KPRS-AM in Kansas City, MO in the 1950s. He was born in 1937, so it was probably around 1958. KPRS-AM was the nation's first Black radio station west of the Mississippi River. It was founded by Andrew "Skip" Carter as a as a 500-watt daytimer with a transmitter donated by former Kansas governor, Alf Landon. I have no affirmative date on when he started there but the station signed on in 1951. The following year, Carter and Ed and Psyche Pate bought the station from Johnson County Broadcasting Corporation.It may be a coincidence, but In 1969, Carter became the majority owner and that's when Cuzzin Linnie shows up as the first black DJ on KLIF-AM.

In 1974 Linwood's career took a dramatic detour. I'll just cut right to the climax and work backwards. Allow me to quote the December issue of Texas Monthly, 1974:

"The arrest of KLIF's popular disc jockey — now ex-employee — Linwood (Cousin Linny) Henderson in September proved a cheerless and unnerving event for the station. Hendersonwas charged with (and later indicted for) two counts of third degree theft involving 37 stolen televisions and other goods valued at $13,000."

Despite the hubbub, Cousin Linnnie later returned to KLIF so his all-night show had two sequential runs with a brief interruption. It complicates his resume slightly. Consider it a brief interruption. He was at KLIF from 1969 to 1974 and again from 1977 to 1979.  Where was he from 1974 to 1977?  Was it prison?  No, while I have no firm data on that, it appears he went straight to 105.3 KXXK-FM, then a pop station. In 1977 he crossed the street to 730 KKDA-AM  a station known as Soul 73.

He remained there until station politics purged the staff in 1998. The year before that Dick J. Reavis published a texas guide book that mentioned The Cuz "The king of KKDA is "Cousin" Linnie Henderson, a thin, chain-smoking elder who refuses to disclose his age..."  He let commercial radio in 1998 at 61 years old, and began DJing at the legendary non-com,  89.3 KNON-FM.

The Radio say's it's sorry

Some people might tell you that an apology is a sign of weakness. This may or may not be so. But to do so in broadcasting is definitely not. Whoever has the mic is in charge and do not forget that. until the mic is handed over, apologies are meaningless.

I recently picked up the book "My Bad" and found an entire chapter of radio apologies. Below are a few of my favorites. I implore you to read the book. Note the weasle words, the non-apologies and the truly vile deeds. The chapter is long and detailed.. I may have to do a part II eventually.

"WNEW regrets the unfortunate incident that took place. We apologize to anyone who has been offended, and have taken measures to ensure that it does not happen again."
-Ken Stevens, GM WNEW (New York, NY) after DJs Opie & Anthony spurred a couple to have sex in St. Paticks cathedral on air.

"It's an instance we would like to put behind us."
-Beverly Rice, GM of WDEZ (Wassau, WI) after DJ Terry T asked listeneres to call in and tell Auschwitz death camp jokes.

"Unfortunately I used inappropriate words in describing my concerns. These concerns, especially when taken out of context, sound insensitive and unfeeling. that was never my intent."
-DJ David Gold KLIF-AM (Dallas, TX) after suggesting that a boxcar of illegal aliens that suffocated in a box car enroute to America "gor what they deserved."

"We would like to say publicly that employees involved were told then: this incident was inappropriate and unacceptable. The promotion could be viewed as ofensive and derogatory. We sincerely apologize to our employees and anyone else for any offense that has been taken."
-Steve Bornstein, President ABC broadcasting after KLOS (Los Angeles, CA) DJs Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps gave away garden tools referred to as "Black Hoes" both over the air and to black co-workers spurring a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Who was Rex Miller?

Most disc jockeys would be pumping gas if they couldn't be at the mic. As a group they are generally uneducated, but charismatic. But we one-dimensional people make the best on-air talent apparently. Rex Miller wasn't like that at all. Bright, industrious and multifaceted. the big question is why he bothered with radio at all. More here.

He was born in 1939, Miller became a radio announcer before he finished high school in St. Joseph, Missouri. He dropped out of junior college to attend Elkins Institute of Radio in Dallas. It was there he went back to radio. He studied both as an announcer and engineer. By all reports his career started at WNOX, but it didn't end there.

 

His resume includes KLIF and KBOX in Dallas, WQXI in Atlanta, WITH in Baltimore, KWK in St. Louis, WPRO Providence, WUBE in Cincinnati, WNOX in Knoxville, KQV Pittsburgh, and both WNUS and WIND in Chicago... he left his stamp in a dozen major cities. As a radioman he was unstoppable. While at KLIF he released a series of 45s in Dallas just to show off his musical talents.

He left radio in 1971 to pursue a writing career. Beginning in the 1980s he started publishing horror novels. The novel Slob was his debut. He published half a dozen horror novels including Slice, Savant, Butcher, Iceman and the 5-book Chaingang series, maybe others. Steven King was a fan. He also had a successful mail-order business dealing in collectibles for comics and superheros. In some circles Rex was referred to as an expert in the field of juvenile-related collectibles.

Rex died on May 21, 2004 at a hospital in Sikeston, Missouri. He had been in a nursing home for six years, after a debilitating stroke. More here.  [Nevermind Some deletionist prat deleted the article on Rex Miller, try this one on the Jeff Roteman page here. ]  I took some time to parse his bibliography. Some of the dates are dubious, because of reprints and e-books —but have at it.

Title	Year	Publisher	X
Saint Louis Blues	1995	Maclay & Associates	XXX
Iceman	1990	Onyx	XXX
Profane Men	1989	New American Library	XXX
Slob	1987	Signet	XXX
Frenzy	1989	Pan Books	XXX
Stone Shadow	1989	Onyx	XXX
Slice	1990	Onyx	XXX
Chaingang	1992	Pocket Books	XXX
Butcher	1994	Pocket Books	XXX
Savant	1994	Pocket Books	XXX

AIRCHECK WEEK: Jim Randolph

"Big" Jim L. Randolph rose to fame in the 1950s and became an Los Angeles staple by the sixties. There are precious few airchecks of the man but they are worth finding.

He helped break the careers of R&B artists like Booker T & The MG, Larry Bright, and KoKo Taylor.He was the first African-American to attend the Oklahoma University School of Communications. He was a program director at KSAN in San Francisco, CA; and KLIF in Dallas, TX where he was also rated a Top 5 Lone star state DJ in October 1955. By 1969 he was booking talent for the Watts Summer festivals.

This clip is from KGFJ, in Los Angeles but he was also on WYNR, in Chicago, IL;  WERD in Atlanta others. More here. There was a "Big" Jim Randolph at KNOK in 1956, but I can't verify it's the same gentleman. An issue of Radio Daily-Television Daily lists him as replacing Dean McNeil in April of 1957, but gives the calls incorrectly as KNOX in  Dallas confusing the trail.

His obituary in Record World was brief and understated.

Jim Randolph, noted broadcasting executive, died Sunday, May 3, at his home in Los Angeles. Program Director of KGFJ (LA) and for the Tracey Broadcasting chain at the time of his death, Randolph had enjoyed success in several major markets as both air personality and executive. He achieved notable success in the Dallas, Fort Worth, Chicago and Los Angeles markets. A native of Oklahoma, "Big Jim" attended Morehouse College and the University of Oklahoma. Most recently he had guided KGFJ from "also-ran" to one of the four or five most important facilities in the Southern California market areas. Randolph is survived by his wife, Lillian, their six children, all of who reside in Los Angeles, and by his parents who live in Oklahoma City.

KGFJ was very progressive for it's day having an integrated staff. Their staff included other legends like Magnificent Montague, Johnny Magnus, Herman Griffith, Jim Wood, and Hunter Hancock. He died of a heart attack in 1970 at the age of 39.



 ***AUDIO EXPIRED***

*POST UPDATED 5/9/2020
*Anyone want to share a Jim Randolph aircheck?

Radio and the Kennedy Assasination

No TV stations broadcast the assassination live, as the area through which the motorcade was traveling was not considered important enough for a live broadcast. Dallas radio stations KBOX-AM and KLIF-AM carried some live coverage, but neither of the actual shooting. Both later recreated the sounds of the shooting for records they released. It included excerpts of news coverage of that day.
http://www.historyofklif.com/pgtwo.html


On November 1963, the Dallas police were recording their radio transmissions over two channels. A frequency designated as Channel One was used for routine police communications. A second channel, designated Channel Two, was an auxiliary channel, which was dedicated to the President's motorcade. Up until the time of the assassination, most of the broadcasts on this channel consisted of Police Chief Jesse Curry's announcements of the location of the motorcade as it wound through the streets of Dallas. Links to transcriptions below:
excerpts here: http://www.geocities.com/whiskey99a/dbt2002.html
full transcript here: http://pages.prodigy.net/whiskey99/dbt2002.htm

Very detailed piece on the sequence, overlap and gaps between the various dictabelts.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/scally.htm

In the early 40's, the engineers at Dictaphone Corp. developed a new recording media using a tube of very thin plastic. When the tube was cut, it created a continuous loop of plastic; also called a "belt." Audio could be impressed on to the "belt" using a stylus to cut a groove in the soft plastic.

This Dallas Police Dictabelt recording is the source of the audio track we so often hear paired up with the infamous Zapruder film. Video recorders of that era had no audio track.

Workers at Dictaphone went to work in WWI for the war effort to design and build radio monitoring and audio logging equipment to help the Allies break the German and Japanese codes. The corporation still exists and indeed will even still transfer your old dictabelt recordings to CD-R. http://www.dictabeltrerecord.com/

Remember, someone is always more obsessed than me.
http://members.aol.com/DRoberdeau/JFK/DP.jpg