The Far Right Populists In The Days Of Yore
By Lucy Warner
March 1, 2016


I clipped these articles because a memory floated through my mind this morning about a rascally and even vicious radio talk show host, one of the original “shock jocks” and a predecessor of other such radio shows which are still on the air. A white man whom I shall call John, who lives in my building is fond of listening to one of those talk shows, on which very ignorant people (white men) call in with their comments ranging from racist statements to stories about “proof” that the US government was behind the attack on the World Trade Center. They don’t trust “the government” and hate blacks, Islamic people, gays and Jews and that is a short list. There’s usually at least one caller who is talking about Bigfoot or having been abducted and perhaps raped by space aliens.

I asked John whether he believes “all that stuff,” and he paused and said slowly, “I’m not sure.” Why isn’t he sure?? I have had no respect for him at all since that time. Rush Limbaugh is the most famous man of that stamp in our modern day, coming immediately to mind. The Joe Pyne article below calls such people “rabble rousers,” and that’s what they are because they excite folks who are both paranoid and more than a little bit mentally “slow” to a frenzy of fear and hatred. The Tea Party “conservative” movement has a vast number of people like that behind it, and they are all, or nearly all, going to vote for our most abusive Republican candidate, Donald Trump. If David Duke were running, they might even vote for him.

I was riding along in the car one night in the late 1960s when his show came on the radio. I was appalled. That time he was “interviewing” a nun, who probably was championing a liberal cause such as getting rid of the death penalty. He was so verbally vicious to and about her that I was fascinated but disgusted, all at once, by his personality and technique – very similar to the way I felt when I had a good look at a female zoology grad student teasing her research animal – a four inch long tarantula. It’s only that large when it spreads its’ legs out, which it would do when she tapped on the glass walls of the (thankfully well-covered) fish tank which was its’ home. That was some 40 years ago at UNC-CH.

I can only attribute the popularity of this kind of aggressive abuse to poor public schools, the shockingly low number of Americans who have even graduated from a four-year college or community college, and finally, to the widespread influence in our society of a radically rightist, highly irrational, and emotional trend in the Evangelical Protestant religions which, in my not very humble opinion, depend on group hysteria for its’ power. The goal is to rake in magabucks for their megachurches, bogus “universities” and political movements, one of which is admittedly to install Protestant Christianity as our “national religion.”

If you want to read some of this type of thing go to the Net and look up “Christian Identity Church,” or the very popular literature about the Apocalypse. To them “Christianity” bears little similarity to Jesus’ teachings, and a great deal to the American Nazi Party “philosophy.” There was a shocking documentary on the Christian Identity groups and the members themselves who were interviewed. One of the “ministers” was filmed making a totally disgusting diatribe against Jews, in which he took from his own head a Yarmulke or Yamaka which Jews wear to Temple, and many religious Jews wear all the time, wiped it on the seat of his pants and then threw it on the stage and stomped on it. If that’s not radical, I don’t know what is. The audience cheered.

See the two articles below, first about George Lincoln Rockwell and Joe Pyne. Pyne was a believer in Rockwell’s views. The Wikipedia article below on Rockwell states, “Given the epithet of the "American Hitler" by the BBC,[1] Rockwell was a source of inspiration for White Nationalist politician David Duke. As a student in high school, when Duke learned of Rockwell's assassination, he reportedly said "The greatest American who ever lived has been shot down and killed." One thing in the article on Pyne did give me a chuckle, which states: “An exchange between Joe and musician Frank Zappa went like this:
Pyne: "So I guess your long hair makes you a woman."
Zappa: "So I guess your wooden leg makes you a table!"

We really have a serious problem in the fiber of our citizenry, and it is far more widespread than I had imagined until Tea Party followers began to emerge from out of the background. I knew since the 1960s that there was a rightist problem in our country, but not how widespread that it is, especially since, not surprisingly, the election of a black man to the highest office in our land. A shocking number of the “good” people in this country are showing themselves to be less than totally “good,” and even “possessed” by evil beliefs. A taste for race war is evil. I truly hope that NeoFascists don’t actually win the Presidency, and that the legislature will not become filled with such people to the degree that they can virtually dismantle important parts of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. There is a move in progress among those people today to declare a Constitutional Convention and have a go at our legal system.

Racism is always disgusting, but at this point it threatens to become politically the law of the land. Read the Rockwell article, especially, for a listing of Rockwell's beliefs which sound exactly like things the Tea Partiers, militia, Dominionists and a bunch of cynical politicians espouse today. Republicans who are clever enough to recognize the fact that they can get elected by catering to the mob mentality, are in the majority. You know their names. This political propaganda push not only causes more and more corruption in government, but it is destroying the very morality which we need in our body politic to have a democracy/republic at all. I know I use this phrase too often, but it’s a really sad situation.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lincoln_Rockwell

George Lincoln Rockwell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Photograph -- Rockwell during his military service.


George Lincoln Rockwell (March 9, 1918 – August 25, 1967) was the founder of the American Nazi Party.[1] He was a major figure in the neo-Nazi movement in the United States, and his beliefs and writings have continued to be influential among white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

On August 25, 1967, Rockwell was killed by gunshots while leaving a shopping center in Arlington, Virginia.[1] John Patler, a former member of Rockwell's group, was arrested, convicted of the murder, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.[2] Patler was paroled in 1975, after serving eight years.[3]

Early life[edit]

Rockwell was born in Bloomington, Illinois, the first of three children of George Lovejoy "Doc" Rockwell and Claire (Schade) Rockwell. His father was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and was of English and Scottish ancestry. His mother was the daughter of Augustus Schade, a German immigrant, and Corrine Boudreau, who was of Acadian French ancestry. Both parents were vaudeville comedians and actors; and his father's acquaintances included Fred Allen, Benny Goodman, Walter Winchell, Jack Benny, and Groucho Marx.[4][5] His parents divorced when Rockwell was six years old, and he divided his youth between his mother in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and his father in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.[4]

Rockwell attended Atlantic City High School in Atlantic City, and applied to Harvard University when he was 17 years old. However, he was denied admission. One year later, his father enrolled him at Hebron Academy in Hebron, Maine.[6] He became an avid reader of Western philosophy and socially significant novels, leading him to re-examine the topic of religion. He had initially perceived himself as a devout Protestant; but, after reading the Bible numerous times, he perceived religion as a necessary pillar to civilization rather than literally true. He promoted the Christian Identity sect in the 1960s.[citation needed]

In August 1938, Rockwell enrolled at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island as a philosophy major.[4] In his sociology courses, he rejected equality and the idea that man was made by his environment and all human beings had the same potential in life. He debated with fellow students over topics such as social themes in popular novels.

Military service and marriages[edit]

Rockwell had a successful naval career, both on active duty and in the Naval Reserve. A veteran of World War II, he was a naval aviator and served a follow-on tour during the Korean War. He transferred to the naval reserve.

In his sophomore year, Rockwell dropped out of Brown University and accepted a commission in the United States Navy.[4] He appreciated the order and discipline of the Navy, and attended flight schools in Massachusetts and Florida in 1940.

On April 24, 1943, Rockwell married Judy Aultman, whom he had met while attending Brown University. Aultman was a student at Pembroke College, which was the female section of the university. The couple had three daughters: Bonnie, Nancy, and Phoebe Jean. . . . .

Rockwell was recalled to duty as a lieutenant commander at the beginning of the Korean War. He moved to San Diego, California, with his wife and two children, where he trained Navy and United States Marine Corps pilots.[4]

In 1952, Rockwell was ordered to report to Norfolk, Virginia, where he was notified by a superior officer that he would be transferred to Iceland.[4] Since families were not permitted to be with American service personnel stationed there, his wife and children stayed with her mother in Barrington, Rhode Island. Due to the separation, his wife filed for divorce the following year. Several months after his return to Iceland, Rockwell attended a diplomatic party in the capital city of Reykjavík. He met Þóra Hallgrímsdóttir there, and they were married on October 3, 1953 in the Icelandic National Cathedral by Þóra's uncle, the Bishop of Iceland. They spent their honeymoon in Berchtesgaden, Germany, where Hitler once owned the Berghof mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps. Together they had three children: Hallgrímur, Margrét, and Bentína.

In his nineteen years of service, Rockwell had obtained the rank of Commander and was commanding officer of several aviation reserve units. In 1960, as a result of his political and racist activities, the United States Navy discharged Rockwell one year short of retirement, since he was regarded as "not deployable" due to his political views. The proceedings to dismiss him were an extremely public affair, and Rockwell widely advertised the results, saying he "had basically been thrown out of the Navy", though he was still given an honorable discharge.[8]

When the Korean War ended, Rockwell decided to become a graphic designer. He was accepted into the art program at the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.[4] He and his wife Þóra moved to New York City so he could study at Pratt. Rockwell was introduced to the post modern art concept, something he considered to be a corporate form of trendy Communist chic mixed with Madison Avenue marketing. He viewed Jewish New Yorkers as the main promoters of this simplified yet marketable movement, and felt even more contempt towards Jews.

In 1948, Rockwell won the $1,000 first prize for an advertisement he did for the American Cancer Society.[4][9] The contest was sponsored by the National Society of Illustrators in New York. He left Pratt before finishing his final year, and founded his own advertising agency in Maine.

Rockwell saw a business opportunity in publishing a magazine for United States servicemen's wives. In September 1955, he launched the U.S. Lady. After presenting the idea to the generals and admirals who headed public relations departments of the military services, Rockwell began publishing in Washington, D.C. The new enterprise also incorporated Rockwell's political causes: his opposition to both racial integration and communism. He financed the operation through stock sales and subscriptions. With a staff of thirty workers, Rockwell could only promise to pay his employees before the launch of the first issue. The publication continued to have financial problems, and he sold the magazine. However, he still aspired to pursue a career in publishing.

Political activism[edit]

It was during his time in San Diego that Rockwell became a supporter of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.[10]:10 He was influenced by Senator Joseph McCarthy's stance against communism. Rockwell supported General Douglas MacArthur's candidacy for President of the United States. He adopted the corncob pipe, following MacArthur's example. Rockwell attended a Gerald L. K. Smith rally in Los Angeles, and read Conde McGinley's Common Sense, a political newspaper that introduced him to anti-semitism and Holocaust Denial. He then read Hitler's National Socialist manifesto Mein Kampf and the Russian propaganda pamphlet Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Privately, he adopted their beliefs. He published an Animal Farm-type parody, The Fable of the Ducks and the Hens. This was Rockwell's interpretation of Jewish power in the United States in the 20th century.[citation needed] In 1952, Rockwell began working with anti-Semitic and anti-Communist groups.[citation needed]

That year, he attended the American Nationalist Conference, which was organized by Conde McGinley’s Christian Educational Association.

After his move to Washington DC in 1955 he became more and more conservative until, in the words of his biographer, he was "on the farthest fringe of the right wing."[10]:24–25 In July 1958, Rockwell demonstrated in front of the White House in an anti-war protest against President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision to send peace-keeping troops to the Middle East. One day he received a large package from a supporter; it contained an 18-foot-long Swastika flag. He placed the flag on the wall of his home and made a shrine with Hitler's photo in the center, three lighted candles in front. In his autobiography, Rockwell claimed to have had a religious experience and swore allegiance to his leader, saluting "Heil Hitler!" Rockwell and a few supporters had uniforms. They armed themselves with rifles and revolvers, and paraded about his home in Arlington, Virginia. The window to his home was left open, so that others could see the huge Swastika flag. Drew Pearson wrote a news column about Rockwell, giving him his first publicity. In the presidential election of 1964, Rockwell ran as a write-in candidate, receiving 212 votes.[11] He ran unsuccessfully for governor of Virginia in 1965 as an independent, this time polling 5,730 votes, or 1.02 percent of the total, finishing last among the four candidates.[12]

American Nazi Party[edit]

In March 1959, Rockwell founded the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists (WUFENS), a name selected to denote opposition to state ownership of property. In December, the name was changed to the American Nazi Party, and the headquarters relocated to 928 North Randolph Street in Arlington, Virginia.

In order to attract media attention, Rockwell held a rally April 3, 1960, on the National Mall of Washington, D.C., where Rockwell addressed the crowd with a two-hour long speech. The second rally was to be held at Union Square in New York City. Mayor Robert Wagner refused to grant him a permit to speak, and he appealed that decision to the New York Supreme Court. Jewish war veterans and Holocaust survivors gathered to oppose his appeal and, during a court recess, when Rockwell emerged into the court Rotunda he was surrounded by a crowd of television reporters. One of the reporters, Reese Schonfeld, asked Rockwell how he would treat Jews if he came to power in the United States. Rockwell replied he would treat Jews just as he treated any other American citizens. If they were loyal Americans, everything would be fine; if they were traitors, they would be executed. When Schonfeld asked what percentage of Jews Rockwell perceived as traitors, Rockwell replied, "Ninety percent."[13] The Jewish war veterans and Holocaust survivors rioted and began beating Rockwell and the reporter with their umbrellas, and Rockwell was escorted out of the Courthouse Rotunda in the midst of a police convoy. Rockwell, with the aid of the ACLU, eventually won his permit, but it was long after the date of the planned event.[14]

The third rally was set for July 4, 1960, again held on the Mall. Rockwell and his men were confronted by a mob and a riot ensued. The police arrested Rockwell and eight party members. Rockwell demanded a trial, however was instead committed to a psychiatric hospital for thirty days. In less than two weeks, he was released and found capable of standing trial. He published a pamphlet on this experience titled How to Get Out or Stay Out of the Insane Asylum.

In summer 1966, Rockwell led a counter-demonstration to Martin Luther King's attempt to bring an end to de facto segregation in the white Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois. He believed King was a tool for Jewish Communists to integrate America.[15] Rockwell believed integration to be a Jewish plot to rule the white community.[16]

Rockwell led the American Nazi Party in assisting the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups during the Civil Rights Movement, in attempts to counter the Freedom Riders and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. But he soon came to believe that the Klan was stuck in the past and ineffective in helping him wage a modern race struggle. After hearing the slogan "Black Power" during a debate in 1966 with Black Panther Stokely Carmichael, Rockwell altered the phrase and started a call for "White Power".[17] White Power later became the name of the party's newspaper and the title of a book authored by Rockwell.

Rockwell was a Holocaust denier.[4] In an April 1966 interview with Playboy journalist Alex Haley, Rockwell stated, "I don't believe for one minute that any 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated by Hitler. It never happened."[4] When asked in a 1965 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation if the Holocaust were true, Rockwell replied by claiming he had "incontrovertible documentary proof that that's not true."[18]

The two-story farm house Rockwell established as his "Stormtrooper Barracks" was located at 6150 Wilson Boulevard, in the Dominion Hills district of Arlington. It was there that the interview with Alex Haley occurred. Situated on the tallest hill in Arlington County, the house has long since been razed and the property incorporated into the Upton Hill Regional Park. A small picnic table pavilion marks the house's former location. The site of the party headquarters, 928 North Randolph Street in the Ballston area of Arlington, is now a massive hotel and office building complex. Rockwell's successor, Matt Koehl, relocated the headquarters after Rockwell's death to 2507 North Franklin Road in the Clarendon area.[19] It became the last physical address of the party before Koehl moved it to New Berlin, Wisconsin in the mid-1980s. The small red brick building, often misidentified today as Rockwell's former headquarters, is now a coffee shop called The Java Shack.[20][21]

Hatenanny Records and the Hate Bus[edit]

In the 1960s, Rockwell attempted to draw attention to his cause by starting a small record label, named Hatenanny Records. The name was based on the word "hootenanny", a term given to folk music performances. The label released several 45 RPM singles of music with openly racist lyrics, and were sold mostly through mail order and at party rallies. When the Freedom Riders drove their campaign to desegregate bus stations in the Deep South, Rockwell secured a Volkswagen van and decorated it with white supremacist slogans, dubbing it the "Hate Bus" and personally driving it to speaking engagements and party rallies.[22] [5][23][24] According to an FBI report on the American Nazi Party, the van was repossessed after a loan default.[25]

Assassination[edit]

On August 25, 1967, Rockwell was killed by gunshots while leaving the Econowash laundromat at the Dominion Hills Shopping Center in the 6000 block of Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia.[1] Two bullets from a model 1896 "Broomhandle" Mauser pistol[26] passed through his 1958 Chevrolet's windshield, and it slowly rolled backwards to a stop. Rockwell staggered out of the front passenger side door of the car, pointed towards the shopping center roof, and then collapsed face up on the pavement.

The gunman ran along the shopping center roof and jumped to the ground in the rear. A shop owner and a customer briefly gave chase, but were unable to get a clear look at the fleeing figure. Other customers called the Arlington County police and checked Rockwell for a pulse. He had none; the one bullet that struck him had ripped through several major arteries just above his heart. The internal bleeding was so heavy that Rockwell died in two minutes.[27]

A half hour later, at a bus stop about a half-mile (800 m) away,[28] John Patler, a former member of Rockwell's group, was arrested as the suspected murderer by a passing patrolman familiar with the Arlington Nazis.[27] Later that day, after hearing of his son’s death, Rockwell's 78-year-old father was curt: "I am not surprised at all. I've expected it for quite some time."[6] Patler was later convicted of the murder, and served eight years in prison.

Matt Koehl, the number two man in the NSWPP, moved to establish legal control over Rockwell’s body and all NSWPP assets. At the time of his death, the NSWPP had approximately 300 active members nationwide, and perhaps 3,000 financial supporters. Although Rockwell’s parents wanted a private burial in Maine, they did not feel up to a public fight with the Nazis for his body. On August 27, an NSWPP spokesman reported that Federal officials had given verbal approval to a planned military burial of Rockwell at Culpeper National Cemetery, as an honorably discharged veteran of the US Armed Forces.[29] The Cemetery and local law enforcement said they would allow the funeral as long as no Nazi insignias or uniforms were present. When the 50 mourners disobeyed these conditions, their entrance to the cemetery was blocked by local law enforcement and Virginia State Police in a standoff which lasted about five hours. During the standoff, the hearse had been stopped on railroad tracks near the cemetery entrance and was nearly struck by an approaching train after a hurried move of several vehicles in the procession. The day after the aborted funeral service (August 30, 1967), his body was cremated.[30]

Legacy[edit]

Given the epithet of the "American Hitler" by the BBC,[1] Rockwell was a source of inspiration for White Nationalist politician David Duke. As a student in high school, when Duke learned of Rockwell's assassination, he reportedly said "The greatest American who ever lived has been shot down and killed".[31] In the mid-1960s, Rockwell had a strategy to develop his Nazi political philosophy within the Christian Identity religious movement. The Christian Identity group Aryan Nations started to use various Nazi flags in its services, and its security personnel started wearing uniforms similar to those worn by Rockwell's stormtroopers.[citation needed] Two of Rockwell's associates, Matt Koehl and William Luther Pierce, formed their own organizations. Koehl, who was Rockwell's successor, renamed the NSWPP to New Order in 1983 and relocated it to Wisconsin shortly thereafter. Pierce founded the National Alliance.

George Lincoln Rockwell is mentioned in the lyrics to the Bob Dylan song "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues". In the lyrics to the song, the narrator parodies Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson as being Communists, and claims that the only "true American" is George Lincoln Rockwell. Quoting the lyrics, "I know for a fact that he hates Commies, 'cause he picketed the movie Exodus."[32]

In the television miniseries Roots: The Next Generations, Marlon Brando portrayed Rockwell and won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his performance. On the post-World War II alternative reality show The Man in the High Castle, Nazi-occupied New York City's main airport is named Lincoln Rockwell Airport.




Joe Pyne

http://www.tvparty.com/empyne.html

Legendary Broadcaster Joe Pyne
by Billy Ingram


"You ought to include that great talk show, The Joe Pyne Show, which came complete with 'the Beef Box,' guests who had been abducted by aliens, people like Bishop Pike and Joe Pyne's inimitable caustic wit: 'I think I'll have that laminated for my wallet' (said in response to a guest who made the comment, 'tax is tax'), 'send Joe Pyne to college' and 'straight ahead...'

"I know he's dead, but can you tell me anything about him or the show?"

- Thanks,
Jonathan Menn

Joe Pyne Show"Go gargle
with razor blades!" - Joe Pyne

Radio broadcaster Joe Pyne was the first outraged, outspoken, right-wing voice on national television, the father of modern conservative talk shows; blazing a path for Morton Downey, Jr., Wally George, Jerry Springer, Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and the rest.

Never one to avoid controversy, Pyne claimed to keep a loaded gun in his desk drawer - and no wonder with the kooks he (or more accurately, the TV cameras) attracted.

Joe developed his confrontational persona in 1949, when he discovered his audience on WILM Radio in Wilmington, Delaware got more excited when he raged on about local and national injustices. A companion TV program, the first Joe Pyne Show, debuted in 1954, broadcast locally on WDEL-TV, Channel 12.

After a move to the West Coast in 1957, Pyne promptly made a name for himself in Riverside, CA when he busted up a high school drug ring on his radio program. Within weeks, this notoriety led to a local LA television program on KTLA, the Joe Pyne Show. With the success of the LA show, Pyne moved his TV program back to the Delaware Valley (WVUE-TV in Philadelphia) in the fall of 1958.

He returned to Los Angeles when Metromedia offered him a local weekly slot and a nationally syndicated program in 1965.

The ninety-minute syndicated gabfest was filmed at KTTV-11 (now FOX-11) studios, located in the recently defunct Metromedia Square. The Joe Pyne Show started airing on three stations, Saturday nights around 11:30pm. Within a year, 85 stations around the country (like channel 8 in Tulsa, OK, channel 8 in Richmond, VA and channel 48 in Philadelphia) signed up.

His daily taped, syndicated radio program was heard in 254 markets and Pyne was also the number-one morning guy in LA in 1966, so popular he was allowed to broadcast the 6-10am program from his home.

Viewer Sonny Jackson remembers, "I was living in NE Oklahoma and picked up the Tulsa channel that carried Joe Pyne. I had never heard of him or his show when I turned on the TV late one Saturday night, for myself and a couple of my friends visiting the house. I was a young 'un in high school.

"As the picture came on, the screen was filled with a full head-shot of a bald guy with glaring eyes and a black goatee, staring malevolently at the TV audience. Not a word was being said, and we all freaked out. It looked like the devil himself.

"As it turned out, it was Anton LeVay, the high priest of the Church of Satan, and Joe was getting ready to interview him. Needless to say, after this show, I was hooked on his show every Saturday night thereafter."

Talk radio host Ray Briem wrote in 1985, "Joe Pyne was the only radio personality who had higher ratings than Dodger baseball. (He was on KABC nightly against the Dodgers, who at that time were being aired by another LA station). He was also number one in the mornings at KLAC and was perhaps the first to bring a telephone talk format to that time period and make it the top-rated program in the market - overtaking such heavyweights as Dick Whittinghill on KMPC."

Joe PyneOn his TV show, perched on a set awash in cigarette smoke, Joe hosted a wide assortment of colorful visitors, anyone who had a weird story (like being abducted by aliens or having seen Bigfoot) or possessing an extreme point of view (against the war or for Women's Lib).

He would often start out an interview with an insult to knock his targets off-guard and get them flustered. One of the most famous tales about The Joe Pyne Show involved the wooden leg he earned from service in WWII.

An exchange between Joe and musician Frank Zappa went like this:
Pyne: "So I guess your long hair makes you a woman."
Zappa: "So I guess your wooden leg makes you a table!"

Pyne was smart enough to recognize the public was ready for a tabloid television experience, he was there to deliver it first.

The Joe Pyne Show opened up with 'gripers' in the 'Beef Box,' where people from the studio audience could, apparently unscreened, bitch about whatever they liked.

The program drew LA area locals for the assemblage, so naturally there were a good number of nuts out there. For instance, in this clip, a hippy (Pyne hated hippies) speaks out against the slaughtering of animals - naturally, Joe uses him as an object of ridicule.

During the interviews, Joe played up to his audience which consisted largely of older folks and arch-conservatives who were unwavering in their support of the war in Viet Nam; their disgust for dirty hippies, atheists, and the women's movement; and their utter contempt for the minimum wage law, affirmative action and any other progressive cause that threatened to bring on a frightening liberal agenda to destroy the nation. Sound familiar?

Joe Pyne was knowledgeable on a wide range of issues and could speak with restraint and reason. At the same time, he would be condescendingly insulting and occasionally course when he'd had enough of a guest.

Joe Pyne ShowThat's when he gave the audience what they came for - the proverbial fight at the hockey game, the flaming crash at the NASCAR race. The congregation erupted in cheers whenever Pyne ended a segment with a roll of his eyes, a sideways glance, and his famous invective, "take a walk!" You see that same spirit alive today with Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly's catch phrase, "Shut Up!" and Glenn Beck's over the top histrionics.

There was nothing Pyne loved more than baiting inexperienced guests, openly ridiculing those he disagreed with, providing them with enough rope to hang themselves - if not by a preponderance of the evidence then at least by carefully unraveling their nerves on the air.

joe pyneCritics accused Joe Pyne of bullying his guests, but could he be faulted for being a keen manipulator who took advantage of his mastery of a medium that few were savvy about? TV hadn't been around very long, after all.

Life magazine commented, "His manner is that of a barroom tough who invites his quarry to pull up a chair and sit down. Five minutes later, the poor lummox is apt to feel like he has been slapped into a corner with his tie ripped off."

After Joe got in his licks, he would turn to 'the dock' to give individuals from the now-outraged crowd their chance to grill the guests - and fling their own pious put-downs. Pyne was unapologetic about his approach, "I'm not a nice guy, and I don't want to be. I have no respect for anyone who would come on my show."

Joe Pyne TV ShowSay what you will about Pyne's confrontational tone, in all fairness, he did give his guests time to make their point and for that reason he attracted many serious guests who knew this was their only outlet to reach TV viewers. The LA Times wrote, "No one conducts the straight, hard-hitting interview as well as Joe Pyne, the master showman of the talk realm."

The Joe Pyne Show did so well that NBC tapped him to host a short-lived daytime game show during the summer of 1966 called Showdown. This unusual game teamed Joe with a rock group and six contestants in a primitive version of Nickelodeon's Double Dare. Without the controversial exchanges, audiences tuned out for Showdown, preferring the show that replaced it - Hollywood Squares starring Peter Marshall.

In 1966, Pyne was seen in a ridiculous movie entitled Mother Goose A Go-Go and in 1967's The Love-Ins, playing himself interviewing a hippie LSD advocate.

What Happened to the "Original Tapes of The Joe Pyne Show?"

Most, if not all, of the syndicated Joe Pyne programs still exist on videotape in the archives of Hartwest Productions, Inc. Here's what Hartwest tells us:

"The tapes are 2" Quads, meaning that they are so ancient that you only get one pass before the oxides flake off. That one pass is fine to make a new digital master, but the cost (including two digital clones) comes to about $600 a show. So far, we have only transferred three shows, with the cost being paid for by people who were either in the show, or who were making a documentary, or who now seem to worship one of the guests (and I mean the last literally).

"However, back in the distant past, when the tapes were not so brittle, somebody had the bright idea of either producing a new series using the same format, or of trying to syndicate the old shows; at that time, they made 3/4" copies of about a dozen of the shows, and then edited those to a clip promo. I have that, so have a pretty fair idea of what the show looked like.

"According to Briem, Pyne was strictly local when he was in LA; he went national when our company, Hartwest Productions, Inc., then owned by Saul Jaffe and his family, syndicated him nationally, beginning in 1966. The tapes are dated from 1966 to 1970. Originally, Hartwest was only the distributor; however, after Pyne died, and Hartwest collected its $1MM insurance policy, Hartwest bought out all right, title, and interest in the shows from the Estate. I found those documents, along with Pyne's death certificate, in the files, so I am confident that we are the copyright owners, as well as being the owner of the physical materials.

"We found boxes and boxes of individual release forms; they are all the same, with Hartwest owning all rights to reproduce and exploit, in all media and territories, in perpetuity. The inventory covers 121 programs, each 90 minutes (although I don't know if those were the air lengths or not); most, but not all, are broken into three separate segments. The puzzle is that there are about 220 tapes on the materials inventory; while many have dates and show identification numbers, not all do, so I'm not sure whether they assembled different segments for each broadcast, or whether we have duplicates of some of the shows, or whether we have more shows than made it to the air. I also found a contract with Metromedia, which transferred all ownerships of the shows, format, materials, etc. to Hartwest.

Click here for a near complete
list of guests on The Joe Pyne Show.

"We also have about 1,000 45-minute masters of the Joe Pyne Radio Show; unfortunately, only about 1/3 have guest names written by hand on the tape box; apparently, the tapes were made as the shows were broadcast. I grabbed one of them labeled "Rockwell" and sure enough, it turned out to be the famous or infamous interview of George Lincoln Rockwell; I had it transfered to audiocassette. I then compared it to the version on the web site of the American Nazi Party; I can tell you that the one on their web site was doctored extensively, with somebody else's voice being substituted for Pyne's distinctive voice. Pyne was very clearly antagonistic to Rockwell in the real interview - in the doctored one, he sounds positively supportive. As we have now all learned, Hitler was right about repetition of a really big lie; not too many people are interested in the American Nazi Party."

NEXT: Part Two (with ultra-rare video):

Thirty-five years ago, race was rarely discussed on commercial television.

A careful examination of one episode of The Joe Pyne Show from 1968 offers us a peephole into the past; an opportunity to look at how race was discussed on TV in the mid-sixties, and a glimpse into to the very origins of one of the most infamous organizations of all time (see left).

Joe Pyne wasn't exactly a champion for civil rights. He was suspended for a week when he pulled a gun out in front of a Black guest during the Watts riots period. In one of Pyne's last shows, taped shortly after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968, two guests debated distinctly opposite political views.

On one side was Rev. E. Freeman Yearling, a representative of the John Birch Society offshoot TACT (Truth About Civil Turmoil).

This organization was promoting the concept of "the responsible Negro." They were determined to see to it that Dr. Martin Luther King, Huey Newton, Ralph Abernathy, Malcolm X and other prominent civil rights leaders of the era were not glorified.

On the other side of the debate was Mr. L. C. Wheeler, activist and founding member of the 'Black Cat Bones.' Wheeler described his group this way, "Those who know don't say, those that say don't know."

The guests entered into a spirited discourse about race and the role of Black leaders in America, post-Martin Luther King.

. . . .


A "spirited discourse" of this type closely resembles a food fight in a middle school cafeteria. (The most recent Republican debate was described in one article that way, so I watched a video clip from it for my entertainment.) My good friend's daughter was fond of those food fights, and kept coming home with mustard and ketchup on her shirt. Finally her mother gave her a container of prewash spray and made her squirt the stuff liberally on every stain. That was effective. The stains stopped.

I hate to go on and on about "the good old days," but we really didn't do things like that when I was her age. We would have been sent to the principal's office if we had. He was a burly and tough acting man of fifty or so. The rumor was that he had a large flat wooden paddle and would administer justice on the spot. His techniques are not allowed now, but we had none of the kind of disorder that goes on in schools today.