In the Public Interest
RocheIII, George Charles
In the Public Interest George Charles Roche !11 O N PREVIOUS speaking trips Hawaii, I have usually accepted an invitation to appear on a radio talk show of station KTRG in Honolulu. The KTRG...
...The exception was the 1960 election...
...When the dust had settled the GOP had lost a golden opportunity for a Senate seat, and Askew was in the Governor's mansion...
...Kennedy would not have won if Johnson had not campaigned so effectively in the South...
...The scant national publicity he has received indicates that his personal style and bland liberalism is perfectly designed to seduce the journalists who will make him a household word after he is nominated...
...Hostility cannot always be dissolved...
...But Southerners take it seriously...
...From 1928 to 1964, the Democrats' VP candidates came from Texas three times, and one each from Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama and Tennessee...
...By 1968 two Democratic Administrations had presided over a civil rights revolution, George Wallace was on the prov~l, and the Republicans were competitive in the South...
...They are patriotic Americans who see much to defendin traditional American society...
...Considering just the states he won, he fell furthest short of a majority i~ Florida, which he won with just 40.5per ceniof the vote...
...Surely the Democrats have learned their lesson...
...A letter before me, written by one of the announcers of the station, tells the sad story which more people should hear firsthand...
...Apparently the Federal Communications Commission did not feel that KTRG was representing "'the public interest" in presenting its views...
...In 1972 Florida will cast seventeen electoral votes...
...For example, KTRG had once signed r ff the air for four days while its trans nitter was to be overhauled...
...First, Agnew was unknown...
...Considering the fact that about 95 per cent of our communications media present a consistent leftist line, all without any apparent criticism from the Federal Communications Commission, it seems an odd charge indeed that KTRG could be accused of "'one-sidedness...
...There is precious little evidence that any election but one has been decisively influenced by the Vice Presidential candidate...
...How many years until 1984...
...Wits everywhere asked, "'What's a Spiro Agnew...
...Ask Who ? (Gesundheit) (WASHINGTON) -- There was much hilarity in August, 1968, when candidate Nixon stepped before the battery of microphones in Miami t(i announce his running mate with the improbable name...
...Nixon picked Agnew for two reasons...
...To the extent that this diverse nation can be said to have an archetypal state, The Alternative April 1972 15...
...It appears that radio station KTRG has been accused of violating the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" by the Federal Communications Commission...
...My own information comes from one of the announcers on the station, a young man now forced to seek other employment outside the broadcasting industry, as the direct result of his political views...
...And Askew is not just a Southerner...
...The owner lacked the necessary resources to pursue what appeared to be an endless fight...
...And the factors that made Agnew a sensible choice for Nixon are operating to make Askew a sensible choice for any Democratic nominee...
...Wits everywhere will ask, 'What's a Reubin Askew...
...This sign-off period took place with full FCC permission, yet one of the "'charges" under investigation was that KTRG had signed off for those four days to frighten the public into writing letters of appeal to the FCC to keep the radio station on the air...
...For decades the Democrats used the second spot on the ticket to preserve Party unity...
...No, a Reubin Askew is not a sandwich...
...Yet this is the basis for the suspension of the radio station's license...
...He did not win a majority in any of these...
...Florida's fourteen electoral votes were important to Nixon in 1968...
...If a man has not done anything to make himself famous, he probably has not done anything tomake any significant portion of the party or public mad at him...
...Thus ended the FCC's crusade for freedom of expression and the _9 "Fairness Doctrine...
...So the Democrats tried to win without the South...
...The charges under "'investigation" were absurd in the extreme...
...Enthusiasmcan always be generated...
...That is a special bonus...
...As the second hearing date approached, ed, fully one and one-half years after the entire attack on free speech had begun, the owner of the radio station had already spent $60,000 in attorney's fees...
...Since 1968 the Florida Republican Party has blown itself to smithereens...
...At the end of this year's suspension and delay, the FCC again pbstponed the hearing for an additional six months...
...He was then told by one of the FCC commissars that the matter was far from over, since the Commission intended to use KTRG as a test case to see just what would have to be done to get a radio station off the air...
...The details of this particular case are long and involved...
...Obviously there is no reason for the Democrats to concede Florida to Nixon, and it is possible that as Florida goes, so the nation will go...
...The second reason for picking Agnew was geographic...
...It is a young, handsome Democratic Governor of Florida...
...The Vice Presidency, like Confederate money, is not worth a farthing...
...Anonymity is a virtue in Vice Presidential candidates...
...They ran two Northerners and lost a cliff-hanger to a Republican ticket that was geographically balanced to suit the South...
...Nixon's 1968 performance in the nine states that now have seventeen or more electoral votes was not impressive...
...It was the most the South could demand, and it was enough to keep the South in the Party...
...It was not until 1964, when a Southerner was at the head of the ticket, that the Democrats departed from their almost religious devotion to Vice Presidential candidates from Southern and border states...
...Because Presidential candidates rarely come from Southern or border states, Vice Presidential candidates frequently do...
...So Askew is the right man in the right place at the right time: He is unknown...
...He came closest in California with 47.8 per cent of the vote...
...The first stage in the attack was the withholding of license renewal for almost a full year by the FCC, while _9 "investigations" could be pursued...
...he is a Floridian...
...The KTRG people are consistent defenders of the free market philosophy and individual liberty...
...Agnew's Maryland is a border state...
...He won five (California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio) and lost four (Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas...
...Intraparty rivalries led to a bitter primary fight in the 1970 Senate race...
...Proof of this is the fact that a Vice Presidential candidate can actually ch~inge votes in the South...
...This year in July in Miami there will be much hilarity when the Democratic presidential nominee, whoever he is, steps up to a battery of microphones and announces his running mate...
...Rather than pursue the matter further, he took the radio station off the air...
Vol. 5 • April 1972 • No. 7
