Classic Radio 08-04-26 - Benny Troundel Killed, Leiningen Versus the Ants, and Sellout

**SPEAKER_1** (0:10)
Now, the greatest radio shows of all time. Suspense, The Shadow Node, Washington Calling, David Harding, Counter-Spy, Classic Radio Theater, The Great Gildersleeve, Fibber McGee and Molly, Dragnet, Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger.
Now, step back into our time machine with your host, Wyatt Cox.

**Jack Webb** (0:34)
Good evening, friends of the NSXN.

**Wyatt Cox** (0:39)
Crime on a Tuesday, episodes of Dragnet, Escape, the Crime, Casey, Crime Photographer, Dimension X and Claudia. And we'll take a look at what happened on this date back in 1949, on a Thursday. We'll take a look at some of the headlines of that date. This is a Tuesday. This is the fourth day of August, 216th day of the year and 149 days left in 2026 Was on this date in 1693 Dom Perignon invented champagne. In 1735, printer John Peter Zenger, defended by Alexander Hamilton, acquitted of libel in a case that helped foster freedom of the press. Lizzie Borden's father and stepmother killed on this date in 1892 with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts. Germany invaded Belgium on this date in 1914 In response, Britain declared war on Germany. The start of the First World War.
Denver ceded the Danish West Indies on this date in 1916, including the Danish Virgin Islands to the US for $25 million.
Anne Frank and her family were found hiding in Amsterdam by Nazis on this date in 1944 In 1964, President Johnson ordered military forces in Vietnam to take action against the communist forces in reaction to the attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin.

**SPEAKER_4** (2:12)
We Americans know, although others appear to forget, the risk of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war.
I have instructed the Secretary of State to make this position totally clear to friends and to adversaries and indeed to all. I have instructed Ambassador Stevenson to raise this matter immediately and urgently before the Security Council of the United Nations.

**Wyatt Cox** (2:46)
President Johnson on this date in 1964 On that same date, the bodies of three civil rights workers, Michael Schwimmer, Andrew Goodman and James Cheney, found in an earthen dam six weeks into a federal investigation backed by President Johnson. It wouldn't be until 2005 that Edgar Ray Killian, an outspoken white supremacist, was found guilty of the murders, 41 years later.
A growing controversy over comments by John Lennon that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus had some radio stations boycotting the lads from Liverpool, collecting and burning Beatles records.

**SPEAKER_5** (3:27)
This is Doug Blayton and Tommy Charles. We're reminding you that our fantastic Beatles boycott is still in effect. Don't you forget what the Beatles have said. Don't forget to take your Beatles records and your Beatles paraphernalia to any one of our 14 pickup points in Birmingham, Alabama and turn them in this week if possible.

**SPEAKER_6** (3:43)
I wasn't making a big statement. I was not in a good mood.
And they'd been erected out of something and maybe it wasn't going so well. They'd been knocking us in the press. They were always out there loving us or hating us. It was never anything in between. Same as they do with Dylan or any of us now. And I was in a bad mood. I said, Slippin, we're bigger than Jesus. Just no thought whatsoever like that. I don't know how you print it. It looks like it's a statement. In England, nobody took any notice.
No, these guys blabbing off, you know, who is he? Over here, you know, some lunatic gets his clan mask on as I was running around and burning crosses. So it was that flippant.

**Wyatt Cox** (4:20)
The apology Leiningen offered, not for the message he was trying to convey, but for conveying it in a way that confused its meaning. President Carter signed a congressional act on this date in 1977 to establish the Department of Energy.

**SPEAKER_7** (4:35)
The impending crisis of energy shortages has brought about an unprecedented quick action by the Congress in establishing the new Department of Energy.

**Wyatt Cox** (4:46)
And remember, back in 1977, it was difficult to get fuel at any price. In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission rescinded the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to fairly present controversial issues. It was on the state in 1993 Federal judge sentenced LAPD officer Stacey Kuhn and Lawrence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights. In 2007, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft launched Phoenix, a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars, under the Mars Scout program. It was four years ago today, basketball star Brittany Greiner, convicted in Russia of drug possession and smuggling, and was sentenced to nine years in prison in a politically charged case. Greiner would be released in a prisoner exchange four months later. Some people forget that what is legal in the US is not legal, necessarily everywhere in the world.