Right Winger Paul Harvey arrested! The Rest of the story...

[B Calm]

Here are some amazing facts about Paul Harvey. His WW2 military career lasted about 14 months. He was discharged from the Army Air Corps on Section 8 charges.

In 1951 at the height of the Red Scare Paul Harvey had been criticizing the Federal government's perceived poor security. Harvey was arrested for breaking into the Argonne National Laboratory. Oh well here is the rest of the story...


Harvey was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Harvey made radio sets as a boy. In 1933, at a high school teacher’s suggestion, he started working at KVOO/Tulsa. There he helped clean up and eventually was allowed to fill in on the air, reading commercials and news.

Later, while attending the University of Tulsa, he continued working at KVOO as an announcer, and later as a program director. Harvey spent three years as a station manager for a local station in Salina, Kansas. From there, he moved to a news casting job at KOMA-AM in Oklahoma City, then moved on to KXOK-AM, in St. Louis, where he was Director of Special Events as well as working as a roving reporter.

In 1940, Harvey moved to Hawaii to cover the U.S. Navy as it concentrated its fleet in the Pacific. He was returning to the United States from assignment in Hawaii when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Harvey then enlisted in the Army Air Corps, where he served until 1944. According to his official Army Air Corps Military Personnel Record, his term in the military lasted from December 2, 1943 to March 15, 1944 - about 14 weeks.

(The November 7, 1978, issue of Esquire magazine has an exposé of sorts on Harvey, including how he came to drop his last name of Aurandt: Briefly, he stole an airplane and was discharged from the Army Air Corps on Section 8 charges.)

After leaving military service, Harvey moved to Chicago, where in June 1944, he began broadcasting from the ABC affiliate WENR-AM. He quickly became the most popular newscaster in Chicago.

In 1945, he began hosting the postwar employment program Jobs for G.I. Joe on ABC affiliate WENR-AM.

In 1946, Harvey added "The Rest of the Story" segments to his newscasts, which eventually became its own series in 1976.

In 1951, the ABC Radio Networks carried Paul Harvey's show News and Comment coast-to-coast and it has continued ever since.

At this time, America was at the height of the Red Scare and Harvey had been criticizing the Federal government's perceived poor security. In order to bolster his allegations, based on a tip from a guard at the Argonne National Laboratory, he attempted to infiltrate the lab. He enlisted the aid of the guard who had given him the tip, Charles Rogan, and John Crowley, an employee of the Office of Naval Intelligence. On February 6, 1951, he and his partners went to the perimeter of the lab around 1:00 AM. Harvey climbed over the fence but his overcoat caught on the barb-wire that topped the fence. While he was trying to extricate himself, a security patrol found and apprehended him, turning him over to the FBI. Eventually, a grand jury cleared him of all charges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Harvey

[saltpoint]

1. I hope there's an exhibit for this at the G. Gordon Liddy Museum. n/t

[Mike03]

2. Fascinating

This is great info. Harvey has annoyed me for years--it's good to know the Rest of the Story.

[B Calm]

3. Discharged from the Army Air Corps on Section 8 [mental illness] charges.)

ha ha ha

[NNN0LHI]

10. My guess is one too many "good days" to his CO got him the Section 8 n/t

[Rick Myers]

4. Section 8??? LOL!!!

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooood day...

[chaplainM]

5. It's like a breath of fresh air

When a right winger's overcoat-related arrest doesn't involve children.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Arrested for what? When? Where?

And did his army career last 14 months or 14 weeks? (You've said both, above.)

[B Calm]

13. You are right 14 weeks, my error. Arrested in 1951 for breaking

into the Argonne National Laboratory on a tip from a guard that there was no security. Paul won wide notice with a stunt in which he demonstrated the lax security at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois by breaching the fence around the federal atomic research facility. Harvey was arrested, but the grand jury couldn't find the outrage in the act and refused to indict. In the '50s, Harvey joined the McCarthyist bandwagon and won a reputation as a conservative voice of the heartland...the label that would win him a huge audience and a steady supply of sponsors

[shain from kane]

7. So it wasn't poorly secured. The S.O.B. got caught. Sounds like the

makings of a chickenhawk. Wanted to be on the radio since the age one like some other asshole that we are all know. Almost witnessed Pearl Harbor, but took him 2 years to join the service. Didn't get assigned to his coveted radio gig, threw a fit, and got discharged. Working under an alias for the last 60 years.

[Zen Democrat]

8. Here's how I would have written that story ....

Paul Aurandt was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He made radio sets as a boy. In 1933, at the suggestion of his high school teacher, he started working at a local radio station, where he helped clean up and eventually was allowed to fill in reading commercials and news on the air. While attending the University of Tulsa he became an announcer and later program director at the Tulsa station. Thereafter he worked as a reporter at radio stations in Oklahoma City and St. Louis. On December 7, 1941, Paul Aurandt was returning from an assignment covering the U.S. Navy in Hawaii when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Two years later, Aurandt enlisted in the Army Air Corps, where he served from December 2, 1943 to March 15, 1944 - about 14 weeks. (Esquire Magazine later reported that Aurandt had stolen an airplane and received a Section 8 discharge from the Army Air Corps.)

Following this less than stellar military career, our hero returned to broadcasting in Chicago and quickly became the most popular newscaster in town. In 1945 he hosted a popular post-war employment program called "Jobs for G.I. Joe". By 1951, he had a coast-to-coast program on the ABC Radio Networks - but this program was political and exploited the "Red Scare" of those days -- regularly attacking the Truman administration for poor security and for allegedly being soft on Communism. In order to bolster his allegations, he attempted to infiltrate the Argonne National Laboratory. On February 6, 1951, with the aid of a Laboratory guard, and an employee of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Aurant attempted to climb over the fence at the National Laboratory and caught his overcoat on the barb-wire that topped the fence. While he was trying to extricate himself, a security patrol found and apprehended him, turning him over to the FBI. Subsequently, he was no-billed by a grand jury.

Aurandt became aligned with right-wing, McCarthyite forces in the 1950's. He remained a functionary for the right-wing, broadcasting partisan political commentary for another 50 years.

Oh, I almost forgot ... somewhere along the way Paul Aurandt decided to drop his last name and go by his first and middle names. Thereafter, Paul Aurandt made a name for himself as .... Paul Harvey. And ... now you know ..... the REST of the story.

[B Calm]

9. Damn... you are good!

[B Calm]

15. Zen, your writing would make a great left wing mass e-mail

[Zen Democrat]

17. Thanks, B Calm. It's there for the taking.

This old red-baiter is up in his 90's. I understand his son is picking up where he's leaving off. It's like Billy Graham's creepy son, et al. These people seem to have fiefdom's that pass down through the families ... like some bastardized "nobility".

[kittenpants]

20. Your re-write was great! I used to be subjected to Paul Harvey as a child

and that was spot on! Shame about his son carrying on the family tradition as you say though.

[B Calm]

23. A co worker at work worships Paul Harvey. I printed out your

rewrite and handed it to him this morning. He was a little surprised, but still likes him.. Anyway, lot of other people at work enjoyed your rewrite.. One guy really chuckled loudly..

I have also forwarded it to all my e-mail contacts. Who knows maybe this will make the rounds like a lot of those right-wing e-mails...

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[mitchum]

12. Is that reactionary motherfucker still alive?

[Judi Lynn]

14. Oh, yeah! Bush gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 5,

last year. What a high point in American history.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

16. The man is a freak

Even as a child I found his speech cadences disturbing; fortunately, my parents detested him so I wasn't exposed to him much.

I have never understood America's love of grinning hucksters like Harvey and Pat Robertson. Insanity shines in the eyes of these Alfred E. Neumann lookalikes. How people can be taken in by them is beyond my comprehension.

[Zen Democrat]

18. He looks like a wax figure in that picture.

[bunkerbuster1]

19. You sure he's not?

How could anyone tell?

[Radio_Guy]

21. Oh good grief

I thought you meant he was arrested yesterday. Heck, I was arrested for drug use 30 years ago.

[godai]

22. Sounds like a top candidate for the next WH press secretary (eom)