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Eddie Barker currently broadcasts at KPLT-AM 1490 in Paris, Texas. He is a charter year inductee of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame as well as a co-founder. He began his broadcasting career at KMAC while a junior in high school in San Antonio in 1943. Broadcasting high school football games led to his announcing football on the old Humble Oil Southwest Conference. Ves Box of KRLD hired Eddie and he moved to Dallas and go on the air when KRLD-TV went on the air on December 3, 1949. Eddie worked on both radio and TV in the news department and later became news director.
He is a former President of the Radio-Television News Directors
Association (RTNDA). Eddie Barker started the first full time talk radio
station at KRLD in 1960. He says that the most interesting story he
covered was the JFK assassination.
He served as CBS stringer for many years before the network opened a
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(To order the book, call Toll Free 1-866-327-0964 or click here for online ordering information)
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For media interviews,
contact Eddie Barker at 903-395-0386 |
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Excerpt 3 |
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Before 60 Minutes fame, Don Hewitt produced the Cronkite News and some JFK specials. Even then he was the idea man. A good example: Lee Harvey Oswald used the name "A. Hidell" when he made the mail order purchase of the Mannlicher - Carcanno he used to kill the president. One day the phone rings and it is Hewitt: "Eddie I want you to see if you can buy a Mannlicher - Carcano through the mail using the name "A. Hidell" and try and get the same post office box that Lee Harvey used." To the task; I got a magazine full of mail order rifles and went to work. I ordered 12 Mannlichers from 112 different mail order houses using the name A. Hidell. The old post office number was not available. I used money orders to order the rifles. Well, it didn't take long for results. A total of 11 M-Ns came in and a note from the 12th dealer saying it wasn't in stock. Of course the rifle wouldn't fit in the post office box so I had to take the paper in the box to a window to retrieve the rifles. Not once did anyone at the post office bat an eye or look like either or the name was familiar to them. We did a story showing all of the rifles and how we got them. Homeland Security had its problems then, too. So, what to do with 11 Mannlicher-Carcanos? (To order the book, call Toll Free 1-866-327-0964 or click here for online ordering information) Scroll down for the Prelude and Excerpts 1 and 2
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Excerpt 2 |
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I did the first major interview with him (John Connally) following the Kennedy assassination for a CBS documentary, but other situations brought Connally and me quite close, although not in the happiest of circumstances. These were very personal encounters. Once, I got a call from somebody at CBS. “You know John Connally, don’t you?” I said, sure. “Well, you need to know that we’re about to do a ‘gut job’ on him. You need to get a copy of the script to him.” My source said he would take it to
the airport and ask someone on the flight to carry it. The source
then called me, described the person, and I met the flight. This was
after Connally’s tenure as governor, but he was considered a
potential presidential candidate. I called him and said, “John, I’ve got something here that you really need to see.” I briefed him on it, and he knew absolutely nothing about it. I called Pollard Simons, the commercial developer who was a good friend of John’s, and said we’ve got to get this script to Connally. He said, “Well, I’ll just send my jet down with it.” So they flew down and gave it to
Connally. I don’t know what happened, but CBS never ran the story,
which was good, because it was a terrible, poorly researched story.
(To order the book, call Toll Free 1-866-327-0964 or click here for online ordering information) Scroll down for the Prelude and Excerpt 1
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Prelude and
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Prelude
Writing a book, especially one about yourself, can be a monumental task since it is so easy to fall back on that old bugaboo, procrastination — you'll get around to it in due time you tell yourself. I was fortunate to meet Texas A&M University-Commerce professor John Mark Dempsey, who was “practicing what he preaches” at the Texas State Network. I was working Saturdays at my old alma mater, KRLD, and Professor Dempsey was across the divider at TSN. He kept telling me, "You've got a story to tell," and I kept telling him I'd get around to it in time. When he reminded me that none of us live forever, I took heed and looked at the clock. I agreed to do it, but only if he would be along for the ride, too. He said okay, and the pages that follow are the result.
When you've been on the scene as long as I have, people think you've got some pretty good stories to tell, and I think I do. And you get a lot of questions such as: "What's the real story of November 22, 1963?" In these pages you'll find what really happened and 'tis not the same you'll find in most of the umpteen books written on the subject. "Hey, you didn't really throw Dan Rather out of your newsroom did you?" As a matter of fact I did. "Well, why?" Read on and you'll find out. "How did you end up being the first reporter to interview Marina Oswald?" Interesting how easy it was. "Did she think Lee Harvey shot the president?" I’ll tell you about it. "Did you ever pay for a story"? I’ll let you be the judge of whether or not I'm guilty. "Did your bosses ever tell you to drop a story you were covering?" With a heavy heart I tell you, yes. And you'll be surprised who and what the story was about. It has never made the news anywhere because of who is involved. "Have you ever been fired?" Once, and at the time I was so crushed I wanted to disappear. But like so many doors that close a better one opens, and that's what happened in my case. See if you don't agree. "Did you ever meet Edward R. Murrow?" Well sort of, but under, shall we say, unusual circumstances. Reporters meet all types along the way, which gives us a realistic view of humanity. As the poet Sam Walter Foss wrote:
Let me live in a house by the
side of the road, So true, too, is the book of Daniel’s warning about false gods with “feet of clay." It may surprise you to whom some clay feet belong. I hope there's a story or two here that will catch your fancy, and that you’ll say the read has been a good one. Excerpt 1 The bullet that apparently passed through President Kennedy's throat and then tore into Governor Connally's chest and wrist, the bullet some Warren Commission doubters refer to as the "magic bullet", has also been a hugh source of controversy over the years. Oliver Stone, who made the movie 'JFK' a few years ago, fancifully portrayed Jack Ruby planting the bullet on Governor Connally's stretcher at Parkland Hospital The casual handling of the crucial evidence no doubt contributed to the conspiracy theories that grew around it. I interviewed two Parkland Hospital employees, Darrell Tomlinson and O.P. Wright. Tomlinson found the bullet when it fell from the governor's stretcher: TOMLINSON - There was a doctor that went into the doctor's lounge and he had to pull this stretcher out, the one I'd taken off the elevator, and whenever he came out he failed to push it back up against the wall. So I just stepped over and gave it a little kick to get it back in line, and then I turned and walked away and heard a little rattle, and I turned around and looked. I didn't see anything at that time , but I walked back over to the stretcher and there was this bullet laying there. So, I picked it up and put it in my pocket BARKER Well, now as you think back, is there any doubt in your mind that the stretcher on which you found that bullet was the stretcher that came off the elevator? TOMLINSON Well, I know that; that I know. I just don't know who was on the stretcher. BARKER But the stretcher was on the elevator? TOMLINSON Right BARKER And this is the elevator Governor Connally would have taken, or would have been placed on to go to theft operating room; is that right? TOMLINSON Right BARKER Yes sir, that's the one he went up on. Conspiracy theorists have claimed that the bullet came from President Kennedy's stretcher , which, if true, would have discredited the "single bullet" explanation. Tomlinson then gave the bullet to Wright, the hospital's chief of security. Wright said he instructed Tomlinson to keep the bullet while Wright contacted federal authorities. WRIGHT I contacted the FBI and they said they were not interested because it wasn't their responsibility to make investigations . So I got hold of a Secret Service man and gave it to him. BARKER When you gave it to the Secret Service man, did he mark it in any way? WRIGHT No sir, he just put it in his left hand coat pocket. BARKER Well now, did he ask you your name or who you were sore any question about the bullet? WRIGHT No sir; I just told him this was a bullet that was picked up on a stretcher that had come off the emergency room elevator that might be involved in the moving of Governor Connally ... And I handed him the bullet , and he took it look at it and said, "OK," and put it in his pocket. ------------------------------------------------ (To order the book, call Toll Free 1-866-327-0964 or click here for online ordering information)
To learn more about Eddie Barker, read the story below ...
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of a generation By Charles Richards The Paris News © 2004 The Paris News. All rights reserved Published December 12, 2004 Eddie Barker’s first interview when he got into radio as a 16-year-old high school student in San Antonio was with baseball great Dizzy Dean. From there, it’s been more than 60 years of meeting the great as well as the not-so-great and covering the stories and events of the last half-century. Broadcasting high school football games led to his announcing football on the Humble Oil network, where he, Kern Tips and Ves Box did weekly broadcasts of Southwest Conference football games. On Nov. 22, 1963, as news director for KRLD radio and KRLD television, the CBS affiliates in Dallas, Barker was the first to announce the death of President John F. Kennedy. Barker had the first exclusive interview with Marina Oswald, wife of Lee Harvey Oswald. He’s a former president of the Radio-Television News Directors Association, and he’s one of the 15 founding members of the board of directors for the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. But in Paris, Edmund Asa Barker Jr., 77, has a following unrelated to the things he is known for in media folklore. In Paris, he is the man behind the microphone in KPLT’s “The Talk of Paris” radio talk show. Listeners — or “associates,” as he calls them — tune in faithfully from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. each weekday on 1490 AM to interact with Barker on topics of the day in Paris, or “Paradise,” as Barker prefers to say. “That show is a fun thing. It’s a more mature audience, and most of our callers are senior citizens,” Barker said. “We talk about everything. You know, frankly, I’m careful what I discuss and how I discuss it, but we got off one morning on Viagra, and I said, well, I didn’t know if anyone had any reports on Viagra. And this one gal called and said, ‘Well, John tried it and it doesn’t work!’ So, you never know what they’re going to say.” Barker pioneered talk radio in the southwest with KRLD’s “Comment” program in the early 1960s. He has been doing the KPLT talk show for 10 years, shortly after he bought a farm 20 miles south of Paris after responding to a two-line classified ad he saw in The Dallas Morning News. “It said 30 acres near Cooper, and I didn’t know where in the world Cooper was. I called the number in the ad, and said, ‘Tell me about the place,’ and she said, ‘Very private.’ I said, ‘Well, tell me, is it really private?’ and she said, ‘Honey, you could run around buck naked up here all day and nobody would see you.’” He and his wife, Jane, made the 85-mile trip from Dallas to Cooper, “looked at it and bought it that afternoon. I had never been in this part of the country before.” Barker soon will be an author. Scheduled for release in early 2005 is “Eddie Barker’s Notebook: Stories that made the news, and some better ones that didn’t.” Some of the stories relate, of course, to Barker’s experiences covering the Kennedy assassination. On the day of President Kennedy’s trip to Texas, Nov. 22, 1963, Barker was set up on the balcony of the Trade Mart — the destination of the presidential motorcade, which was making its way into Dealey Plaza on the west side of downtown Dallas. Then shots rang out from the sixth floor of the School Book Depository building. “Our mobile unit was parked outside, and one of the engineers called me on the headset and said, ‘Something has gone wrong. ... They didn't stop. Police cars and everything else are going by.” The motorcade was headed instead to Parkland Hospital with the mortally wounded President Kennedy. Barker got a call from his newsroom: shots had been fired at the motorcade. “And so we immediately took air. I had nobody to interview because I was up on the balcony and all of the dignitaries and luncheon guests were downstairs. And so I just ad-libbed with things from my knowledge of why he was in Texas, what had gone on before, and so forth,” Barker said. “And then, as we got a little more involved, this doctor that I knew came up to me and whispered in my ear. He told me that he was dead.” Barker said he did a double-take and said, “What???” The doctor repeated, “He's dead.” "How do you know?” Barker asked, "and the doctor replied, ‘I just called the emergency room, and he’s dead.’ Well, I knew this doctor, and he was big out at Parkland. He just went to a phone and called the emergency room, and they told him, 'Yeah, he's dead.’ “And so he told me, and then I went on the air and said I’d just been told by a source that I would trust implicitly that the president was dead.” Barker's report was to be confirmed in the minutes to come by the wire services and other networks. The CBS correspondent in Dallas was a Texas journalist by the name of Dan Rather, who himself has claimed credit for being the first to announce that Kennedy was dead — although privately he has conceded that Barker actually was the one. Barker and Rather have had an off-and-on relationship over the years, dating back to an incident a couple of days after the assassination. A 40-man CBS crew, headed by Rather, set up operations in the KRLD newsroom where Barker was the news director. Barker mentioned in the newsroom that at the school his children attended, students cheered the announcement that classes would be dismissed. CBS reported that students at a Dallas elementary school cheered when they learned the president had been assassinated. Barker was furious. “The kids were first graders, cheering because school was being let out, not because the president was dead, but that's not the way it came out.” Barker threw Rather and the entire CBS crew out of his newsroom. "Out! Get out of my newsroom, right now!” Barker ordered. Yet, when Rather was inducted into the Texas Broadcasters Hall of Fame, it was Barker he asked to induct him. Over the years, however, the relationship has chilled. About the CBS report questioning George W. Bush's service with the National Guard, a report that CBS and Rather had to pull, Barker said: “I would have fired him. If he had been working in my newsroom, I would have fired him, or given him the opportunity to resign," Barker said. “It would take an hour or more to get into, but I've always said there are two Dan Rathers. There is one who is a nice guy, you're delighted to have him as your friend. And then there's the other one, who would gut you and never look back. He did that to Walter Cronkite, who was shoved out at the age of 65 and replaced by Rather, and he did it to me, and I don't have great love for him at all.” Barker rejected Rather's offer to write the foreword for his upcoming book. Barker turned instead to Cronkite, with whom he has had a warm relationship over the years and talks on the phone with every few months. Rather has said he's stepping down as anchor next March, 24 years to the day after he took over for Cronkite. What standards of news coverage today came out of the assassination coverage in 1963? “I'd say, be ready for the unexpected. Look at the 9/11 thing. The networks did an excellent job on that. That was something that was thrown at them, and who in the world would ever expect that you would have two airliners loaded with passengers crash into two skyscrapers? “Another thing would be that if you're going to cover a president or something like that, just to prepare or brief yourself with a lot of information about him, about the reason he's where he is or whatever, that sort of thing. Just be prepared for the bottom falling out, because it's liable to fall out,” Barker said. Barker has definite feelings about all the assassination conspiracy theories. “Do you want to know who killed Kennedy? Lee Harvey Oswald, and he acted alone. I was so close at the time to law enforcement, and there was never a doubt in my mind then or today that Lee Harvey Oswald did it, did it all by himself, and the rest of this is a bunch of bunk.” © 2004 The Paris News. All rights reserved This story was published in the December 12, 2004 edition of The Paris News. For reprints and other requests, please contact The Paris News.
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