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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBill Harper TranscriptionCity of College Station Heritage Programs: Oral History Interviewee: Bill Harper Interviewer: Tom Turbiville Place: College Station, Texas Project: Veterans of the Valley Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt 00:00: Bill Harper (BH): Version, (I version?) and I have no idea when, but as you can see, it’s back in the old type-writer days. 00:06: Tom Turbiville (TT): Yeah, yeah. 00:06: BH: And then there’s a. That magazine on page 15, inside, I did a story on it. And then here’s a, another manuscript here in ’94, ‘5, somewhere around there. And. So. TT: Well tell me about, one. Well obvi-, tell me about your stuff that’s already in here. But tell me a little about your own, sort of personal resume. Where did you grow up? 00:37: BH: I was born in Philadelphia. TT: Yeah. 00:40: BH: May 11th, 1929. My parents. I, I was one of five children. We were a depression family. Moving from house to house to house to house, changing our names each time so the bill collectors wouldn’t know where the hell we were. Hiding on the floor when somebody knocked at the door. All those kinds of things you did in the thirties. My father was a truck driver. He liked to see he was a, delivery engineer. He delivered the Philadelphia Ledger. The morning Ledger. He was born in New York in 1889. My mother was born in Philadelphia in 1900. TT: I see. 01:21: BH: Lived in Philadelphia. Went to work for the Philadelphia Inquirer, at age 15 when I dropped out of school in the ninth grade. I was bored to death with school. And my father said, “You lazy bum. If you’re not gonna go to school, you’re gonna go to work.” He knew some people at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Got me a job as a copy boy at the Philadelphia Inquirer. TT: At age 15. When you’re in ninth grade. I’ll be darned. Okay. 0148: BH: Yeah. And. Which, let me digress to an interesting story. When the, the book Eleven Days in Hell. Are you familiar with that? TT: Yes sir. 01:57: BH: Okay. When that book came out, the Eagle sent a young man over here to interview me. And he’s sat as you’re sitting and he, we talked. And I said and I got a job as a copy boy. And he said, “What’s a copy boy?” TT: [laughs] 02:14: BH: That story blew me away. I’ve been telling it ever since. TT: Say that, say that’s, that’s what email does now. [laughs] 02:21: BH: If he saw some of that stuff he might say what’s a typewriter. But any how, went to work for the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1945. It was January 28th. And stayed there for fourteen years with two pitches in the military. One, [clears throat] pardon me. I enlisted in ’48 in the Army. And ended up in Army Intelligence. The world’s greatest oxymoron. And was discharged in 1950 when they were downsizing the military. I had a three year hitch, I got out in two years, one month, and eleven days. And the Korean thing came along the following year, and I got out in ’49 and ’50 the Korean thing came along. And, I was offered the option: reenlist or we’ll put you in the infantry, and draft you. So I reenlisted. And found out, as usual, they had lied to me because with the security clearance I had from my first hitch, they couldn’t put me in the infantry where I would face an enemy and be subject to capture or whatever. So the butter’s lied to me and it cost me another year in the military. So I served five years, one month, eleven days in the U.S military. Serving with the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force. TT: I see. 03:52: BH: On various T.D.Y.s. TT: Yeah. 03:55: BH: The second hitch, ’51 to ’54 is when I went to Enewetak where they fired the world’s first thermo nuclear device. TT: That’s your second hitch? 04:04: BH: Second hitch. TT: Yeah. 04:06: BH: I believe I said that TT: Right. Yes. 04:08: BH: Yeah. TT: So when you came back in 1950, you came back enlisted in the Army. 04:17: BH: When I came, when I got out in 1950, March of 1950 from my first hitch. I went back to the Inquirer. TT: Okay, right. Right. 04:26: BH: I was working there and the Korean thing started the following year. Started in June of ’50. But the following year, they told me I got a draft notice or something like that. (mumble?) Second hitch three years. Enlisted four, (I think four?). TT: I see. Okay. Did you, were you ever in Korea? Did you ever? You, you never sent to Korea. 04:49: BH: No. I did not. I never. I served in Germany. I served in the Pacific. And I served in the U.S. All that’s part of the predecessor to the C.I.A. It’s called the Army Security Agency. Maybe you’ve heard of it. As a matter of fact. Do you get the, American Heritage Magazine? TT: Yeah. I. Normally people bring them to me. 05:14: BH: Oh. TT: Yeah. 05:18: BH: Well anyhow, there’s a, there’s an article in the latest edition, about a guy who did, during the war, some of what we did after the war as far as the C.I.A. or the A.S.A. is concerned. TT: Okay. 05:33: BH: And if you’re interested, I’ve got that magazine around here somewhere, but I can let you read that if you want. You take it from there. Do it what you want. Background again. Married in ’51 to a girl that I met when we were 13 years old. There’s another little story. This girl and I went together for nine years, and when I told my father we were gonna get married, he said, “What the hell’s the rush?” That’s the way it was in those days. Anyhow, she and I had six children. 1962, I’m sorry, ’58 I left the Inquirer for a job with Chilton company, the publishing company of trade journals in Philadelphia. They had something called Gas Magazine and, among others that they published, Iron Age and a lot of the jeweler’s Keystone (Secular?, stuff?) magazines. Two other magazines were in the gas business. They were headquartered in Los Angeles where they had a Philadelphia office for Gas Magazine and, and Butane Propane News. The editor there died suddenly. They needed a replacement in Philadelphia. We had just gone through a newspaper strike in Philadelphia and I was embittered by the newspaper strike and decided to take my severance pay and go. Got the job with Chilton Company, four years. 1962 there was an opening in Minnesota for the Midwest Gas Association. Gas Magazine, Gas Association. It fit. I was hired in ’63, we moved to Minnesota. Spent the next 29 years in Minnesota, came to Texas in ’93. And have I’ve been here ever since. Now I work (blind? Mumble?). TT: [chuckle] Well tell me about the, the first test of the hydrogen bomb. And te-, to, give me sort of the background on that and how your duty took you there and what, what your involvement was, or what you can tell me. 07:54: BH: There’s not a lot I can tell you about what we did. I was in this thing called A.S.A.—Army Security Agency. We did our training in Arlington Hall, Virginia. It was called Arlington Hall in Arlington, Virginia. A former girl’s school. We were then sent down to a place called Vint Hill Farms in Warrenton, Virginia where we did some more stuff. Took basic Army training at Fort Dix, New Jersey. And from there was sent to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. To the Signal Corps school at Fort Monmouth. Left Fort Monmouth, went down to Virginia. TT: Right. 08:44: BH: When I went back in the Army in ’51, was sent initially to Fort Knox, Kentucky, and then back to Virginia. Fort Knox, Kentucky for re-indoctrination or some crap, whatever they call it. TT: Right. 09:05: BH: Um, somewhere in, in 1952. I was advised that I would be part of this, and, and you’ll find this in, in the type written notes. I was advised I would be part of this test course that was being sent over to the Pacific, but we can’t tell you why or where. And you have a three-day pass, go home and say goodbye and come back and that’s it. Went home, said goodbye to my wife and my two-month old son. My first child. And told my wife that, some of the notes will tell you, I’ll you that, “I can’t tell you where I’m going, I can’t tell you when. But someday around your birthday, which was November 11, you’ll be reading something in the newspapers about where I am and what I’m doing.” November 1st, 1952, they fired the shot. Of course, then she had a pretty good idea where I was. TT: Now you were on board the Estes? 10:00: BH: On board the Estes, yes sir. That was the command ship, the communication ship for the Ti-, for the Iv-, Operation Ivy, test force 163 or whatever. TT: That’s what this was called? 10:13: BH: Yup. Operation Ivy. We went out there, and rumors as always, are flying all over the place. We were, the rumors were that we were under surveillance by the Russians. That they had submarines in the area and they were spying on us with, uh, cameras through their periscopes. There was a Russian plot afoot to kidnap some of the American scientists that were all gathered out there for this thing. But the biggest rumor of all of course, was, this could be the end of the world. They’d set off this, if, if and when they set off this thermo-nuclear device, there’s a possibility that the entire universe and all the atmosphere surrounding it will erupt in flames. And we’ll all be disintegrated. One of the things I learned early on in the military is if you bet against all the rumors you hear, you come out a rich man. Fortunately in this case, the rumors were not true or didn’t happen. TT: Yeah. [chuckle] 11:25: BH: A-, as you can tell as we sit here. TT: Kinda like. [chuckle] Yeah. Kinda like when New Year’s Day 2000. Everything was gonna. Right. 11:32: Yeah. New millennium. TT: Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, right. Huh-huh. Yeah. Good. Go on. 11:39: BH: Well, it. It was a frightening time because of the possibility. This was a possibility that was expressed by scientists. They expressed it at the time of the atomic bomb development. TT: Right, right. Sure. 11:59: BH: They came to be less concerned after the atomic bomb was fired because the world didn’t explode in flames. But there was that possibility. And, we, the unwashed aboard these ships with all these Admirals and the Generals and there’s a multi-military task force. We were susceptible to these kinds of things. And uh, and it was an interesting time because of the A) the fear and, and B) the historical aspects of it. Once we got out there and we knew what was going on. We didn’t know why we were going until we got there. TT: Right. 12:45: BH: And we were on this island, Eniwetok Island, was the headquarter’s island in the chain, the Eniwe uh, Atoll. And the island was about 600 feet long and 600 yard-, no six, five miles long and about 600 yards wide and six feet above sea level, at its highest point. We had all our work to do, every day. 24 hours a day, we were working in, in our particular jobs. We were up at 5:00am on, on November the 1st for the shot. And, it happened at 8:00am. And it was interesting because the atomic clocks were really clicking exactly down to the second when that this was fired, triggered. TT: Right. 13:41: BH: One of the interesting parts of what, you know, w-, most of the big shots had the smoked glasses to, to watch it. Those who did not, were ordered to turn 180 degrees to the blast and cover your eyes and so you don’t lose your eyeballs or anything. Most of the people that I was with, the unwashed as I mentioned, said, “Hell if the world’s gonna go up in flames, I don’t care what they do. We’re gonna watch this puppy.” And, we did. TT: Did you have any protection on? Any glasses or? 14:13: BH: No. No. No, we kind of watched it like this. We supposed to be looking that way, but there’s the bomb over there and that’s the way we were. TT: How many miles away were you? 14:23: BH: I. TT: Do you know? Or can you, were you told? 14:27: BH: Well I, I can tell you what I know. At one point, I thought we were fourteen miles away. Subsequently in, in, later readings I’m told we were thirty miles away. [clears throat] The thing that puzzles me about that is that thirty miles away, you can’t see over the horizon. On a ship at, at, at, s-, at, sea level. So I have a hunch that we were closer than thirty miles. I think the official documents say thirty miles. But I think we were closer than that. And. Of course we could see the flash, we could see the whole thing, we could see the mushroom cloud. We could see the island of Elugelab, or whatever the name of that little island, the other, another island in the atoll. Which is where the tower was that, which is where the device was. We saw that disappear. We saw that island disappear. And as I’ve said in the writings there, it was like the island of Manhattan, suddenly was gone. It didn’t exist anymore. It was mushrooming up to 120,000 feet in the air in dust and dirt and gas and all the rest of it. And, and water of course from the ocean. And what was that island of Elugelab or again, the name I don’t know, but it’s in the book. [clears throat] That was nothing but a crater. And that’s what it is today. It, it’s gone. As, as much as any piece of land can be gone. The other thing that was particularly harrowing. Was after the bright light of the explosion, we heard nothing. The sound wave or the shock wave hadn’t reached us yet. But I could see coming across the water, the shock wave was coming at us. Because the water on that side was dark blue and the water on this side was light blue. And you could see this perimeter coming at us. And, and I knew enough to know that this was a shock wave and this was gonna hit us and this was gonna be, pretty bad. And I know that I screamed at everybody around me to grab and hold and, and hold on tight to any fixture they could get their hands on. And nonetheless, every one of us was knocked right down to the deck when that shockwave hit us. Nobody was hurt, but everybody, that I’m aware of, but everyone lost, I mean lost their balance, lost their footing, lost whatever. They were just driven back either back against a bulkhead or down to their knees on the deck. That was a frightening moment to see that thing coming at us and knowing that the-, there’s no escape from this thing. It’s gonna hit us sometime and how bad it’s gonna be, we don’t know. TT: Right. So what happened to you specifically? I mean you were knocked down? 17:20: BH: Oh yeah. TT: Knocked? 17:22: BH: I went to my knees. TT: Yeah. 17:24: BH: I was holding on to the rail with both hands and went, went to my foot and the rail of the Estes, one of the rails of the Estes. TT: Right. 17:33: BH: Uh, wasn’t hurt. But the enormity of, of the force and with the force came the sound. And the sound was awesome. It, the, the noise and, and, and the pounding of, of the shockwave. That was an awesome experience. TT: I’ve never been hit by a shockwave. Is it like a strong wind? Or is like a, is it more? 17:56: BH: It was a force. And I don’t mean it was a wind that would whistle by you. TT: Just a, just a. More like a G-force type of thing? 18:02: BH: Just. Yeah, yeah. TT: More like a, more like a G-force like you’re in, like you’re in a train or an airplane. Pulling some G’s rather than a wind type of thing. Yeah, okay. Yeah. 18:04: BH: Yes. Yeah, right. And you’re, shoved against the back of your seat. Right. And. That, that’s a pretty good description of what it was like. TT: Yeah. Did. Have you. When you went down and it was hitting, I guess you had no idea how long it was gonna last. How long did it last? 18:25: BH: It was over. It was over in an instant. TT: Yeah. 18:28: BH: Because it just kept going, b-, by us. TT: Right. 18:32: BH: And over us. And over the ship and on out to infinity. I don’t know where it went after it hit us, but out in the Pacific Ocean somewhere. TT: So after, it, that went by you, you were able to stand up again and then what? The mushroom was still going? 18:42: BH: Yeah. Oh yeah. The mushroom went on for hours. And everybody got up and said, you know, “What the hell was that?” Or “where, where’s that affect?” “Jesus did you feel that?” You know, and all these dumb things that you say at a time like that. TT: Right. Well this was 1952. So this was, six years after, or seven years after the atomic bomb. So people knew what a mushroom cloud-, cloud looked like. They knew, sort of what to expect from that, but certainly not, the being there. You know not the being, exposed it. 19:16: BH: A-, a-bombs. A-bombs by that time were old hats. There’d been so many of these experiments. You know the (word?) with the woman’s head that we’ve seen so many pictures of. They were popping those things off I think I say somewhere like champagne corks on New Year’s Eve. But this thing was the first time of anything of this magnitude. And. It, I, I don’t have the number in my head how many more times. How much more explosive this was than Nagasaki or Hiroshima but it was a magnitude of many counts. TT: Right. 20:02: BH: The, the. The kill pattern, for a hydrogen bomb or, or the, not the kill pattern, but the effect pattern for a hydrogen bomb of that time, was something like 8-, 800 miles. Or at least that’s what I’ve read. TT: Yeah. 20:24: BH: That could leave you scarred or. We were outside the diameter of any burn. But, depending on, on what’s inside the bomb, and, and I don’t know the technicalities of all this, but I have read that there’s an, an effect, whether it blows over a piece of paper at 799 miles or not, but I think I’ve read 800 miles or something. There’s an effect of that shockwave going out from that bomb. Of, of that magnitude at that time. TT: That’s right. So the effect that it hit you from anywhere between fourteen and thirty miles. [laughs] 21:04: BH: And, and it was pretty powerful. Not. I, I know of no one that was injured. You know, even being slammed up against bulkhead could cause some injury, but I never heard of anyone that was physically injured. I could also say that ten days later they popped off another atomic bomb test in the same location. For what reason, I have no idea. But that wasn’t anything like what we saw on the first of November. TT: Um. Now as far as what you can tell me about why you particularly were there. I, I noticed I read somewhere in there that your duty station was the radio room? 21:48: BH: The, the Estes is a, is a communication ship. The Army Security Agency at that time was part of the Signal Corps. And it evolved into, well you know, O.S.S. started the, that kind of work in World War II. And it became, O.S.S. became C.I.A. And A.S.A. was a part of C.I.A. TT: Right. 22:19: BH: And our work was in communications. And that’s what I can tell you. TT: Okay. 22:27: BH: And, and the other thing is. I, as a matter of fact, oddly enough, this article in the American Heritage that I just mentioned. I. Copied it off the internet and sent it to all my kids. Because this is as much as they’ve ever known about anything that I ever did in the military. Five years, one month and eleven days. The only visible gain is the ability is to touch-type. TT: Right. [chuckle] 23:04: BH: So I never told anybody about what I did. And as I told my kids in that, article heading. I said, “I thought this was an article of interest.” And that’s all I’ve told them. Now they, they, they know I was in Eniwetok. They know I was in Germany. They know I was doing secret work. But I’ve never told them and I, I still feel this is ridiculous I know. But after 59 years or something, I feel like I took that oath of secrecy or top secret clearance that we’ve had and I’ve been following it. As ridiculous as it sounds after all these years. Because what we were doing then was probably so passé now. TT: Yeah. So what did you, so what. So that was done, what was, how far into your five years was this? This was. 23:56: BH: This is ’52. I got out in ’54. TT: Right, okay. So what did you do after that? 24:00: BH: We came back to, Vint Hill Farms, Virginia and did what we were doing in Virginia, for the rest of my career, of my tour. And in, in, March of ’54, I was discharged. Went back to the newspaper. Stayed there till ’50-,’59. Then I left and came to Minnesota. Or, or I’m sorry, left and went to Chilton Company. TT: Right. And then came here in. In ’93. 24:32: BH: I came to Texas. In ’93. ‘Cause you were at Chilton for. 24:38: BH: From four years and then 29 years, or 27 years with the Midwest Gas Association. TT: Right, right. 24:47: BH: The, the, there’s a gap in the story here because in, in ’93 I ran away from home in Minnesota and got on my sailboat and came to Texas. And subsequently was divorced. And, and remarried. TT: I see. 25:02: BH: And my wife, Joyce, teaches at A&M. She’s a. She teaches the, teachers going into gifted and talented teaching students. TT: I see. 25:17: BH: She teaches graduate students and undergraduate students. TT: I see. That’s what she’s doing now. 25:21: BH: That’s why she isn’t here to say hello. TT: I see. I see. Are you in contact with your kids? 25:27: BH: Oh yeah. TT: Where are they? 25:29: BH: Well I have two of ‘em now here in Texas. One’s in Belleville. And, and the other one is in, right outside of Houston on Highway 290. You know. She’s working for the, the gas company in Houston. She’s a, district manager for the something like a million customers under her charge. TT: How many grandkids you got? 25:55: BH: I have uh, nine, ten, eleven. TT: [chuckle] 26:00: BH: I, well I, I have nine of my own grandchildren and then one of my daughter’s has adopted a couple of kids, so I have eleven grandchildren. And I’m about to be a great-grandfather in January. TT: Oh wow. 26:14: BH: By, by one of the adopted children. TT: Yeah. 26:23: BH: That, brochure that’s in there on Operation Ivy and, and the copy of the story has been scanned into, Anne Boykin’s Project HOLD. One of the earliest pieces that she did. I’m pretty sure that um, Sharon has done an interview with me over there for one of her broadcasts. TT: Right. Now there’s a good picture of the Estes, is that picture. 26:58: BH: Yeah, that’s the same one. TT: Came from right there. Do you have any pictures of you? Like an official military photograph or young picture or anything like that? 27:11: BH: Well. There’s that one up there. That was in Germany in ’49 or ’50. And I have, I have a picture, you know, in my file here if you want me to pull up, of me with my silly Army hat on. TT: Yeah, let me see that. 27:31: BH: Yeah. TT: I might get you to email it to me. 27:34: BH: Yeah I can do that. [shuffle] TT: Oh that’s good. Can you, can you, email that to me? 28:06: BH: Yeah. Do I have your email address? TT: I don’t know, I’ll give it to you. If you wanna. Uh. 28:15: BH: I must have your email address ‘cause you emailed me this morning. TT: That’s right. 28:19: BH: So I can send it to you. TT: I did because I emailed. So yeah just email it right back to me. That would be good. 28:27: BH: Other than that, I don’t have much in the way of military. I, my military career was not one that I was very much enamored with. TT: So what did you do in ’93? Besides, getting married. 28:40: BH: I was. I, I, I, I retired early, from the Midwest Gas Association in ’90. TT: Right. 28:49: BH: And hung around in misery for three years in Minnesota. And. Got on my sailboat and came down the in-, inland waterways in my sailboat. To Freeport. TT: Yeah. 29:08: And then, Freeport. There’s a lot of folks from this area. TT: You really sailed down here on your sailboat? Down the Mississippi or what? 29:18: BH: Down the Mississippi. Down the Illinois River, the Chicago River. The. TT: That was your mode of transportation to get to Texas. That’s a story all in itself right there. [chuckle] 29:27: BH: It is. It’s called We Three: Fred, the Ferryboat, and Me. It’s another book that I’ve written that hasn’t been published yet. Oh I’m sorry it is. It’s available on Amazon, Kindle. You can get it on Amazon Kindle. TT: Yeah. 29:41: BH: And it’s, it’s a great story. TT: So how many books have you written? 29:44: BH: I’ve written five. O-, only, Eleven Days in Hell has been published. We Three’s available on Kindle. I think they’ve sold three copies of it on Kindle. I wrote a book called, well I have one that I’m working on right now that, that’s. Matter fact I have a meeting with a lawyer on, on Wednesday. On a book called Second Thoughts, Questionable Supreme Court Nominations. And, and this is a book back on Presidents that have nominated people. And regrettable Supreme Court nominations. For instance, Harry Truman called Tom Clark of Texas, a dumb son-of-a bitch after he had nominated him. You probably know the Eisenhower story on, on Supreme Court Chief Justice from California. TT: Warren? 30:51: BH: Warren, yeah. The, the dumbest thing I ever did in my life is. So there’s a whole bunch of instances such as that, that, that book covers. I wrote another book called An Eye for An Eye: In Defense of the Death Penalty. I wrote another book called Rivers of Life and Death about accidents such as the one down in South Padre Island, where they knocked the bridge out and all the cars were under the bridge in water back in the early ‘90s. So I’ve written about five books. But I haven’t been fortunate enough to find publishers for, except two of them. And the one on the Supreme Court, I have a meeting with a lawyer on, on Wednesday. I hope he’s gonna move this along. That one is just, it just blows my mind away because that book was finished in January and we knew all the Supreme Court stuff was coming down the road. And I had written to more than 150 literary agents or agencies, and not one of them said, “Boy this is hot, this is a hot topic.” And I don’t know what you know about the publishing world today, but if, if you’re not a celebrity, that’s where all the money is. That’s where all the money’s going. TT: Right. Right. 32:16: BH: So anyhow, I’ve had my frustrations. But I haven’t given up. TT: I know there’s uh, have you tried any of these. What’s the name of it. Author House? Do you know what that is? 32:31: BH: That’s a self-publishing. TT: Yeah. 32:33: BH: And, and. TT: I don’t think, I don’t know that you’re making any money. You probably pay more than you make. But. 32:39: BH: You, you do. Or, or at least you know. TT: Yeah. It just depends on what. 32:44: BH: Eleven Days in Hell has, has gone through three printings at, at the University of North Texas Press. It’s out now in paperback. So for a university press, it’s been rather successful. It has cost me far more money than I’ve ever received in, in royals. Far, far, far more money. You know, when you have to travel 600 miles to go interview somebody. Why, it takes a hell lot of books at, something like $3 bucks a royalty. So it’s not a profitable world. TT: Yeah. 33:23: BH: And. It’s just, I guess it’s the vanity. Or you’ve got something to say so you go ahead and say it. Now that I’ve said it, I don’t have say any more about the death penalty. I’ve said everything I have to say. So, to, to self-publish. As, as, I, I’m, incoming president against of the Brazos Writers. Mark Troy is the immediate past president. Do you know Mark? TT: I know of him. 33:53: BH: Mark has said to me and I certainly agree with him. What bestseller ever came out of a, self-publish house? And you’ll search long and hard to find one. And I, I’m just tired of beating my head against the wall with people that, don’t have any interest or something. The, the hope that I have with. The, the reason that. The only reason I got on the Supreme Court book was that I don’t have the platform to talk about the legal world. Okay? TT: Right. 34:34: BH: So. TT: Go ahead. 34:39: BH: Well, i-, if, if I were at an L.L.D. behind my name or something like that, I’d probably been snapped up a long time ago. And that’s frustrating to me that, they, they make judgments before they. No, no, you know, nobody’s read that manuscript. And that’s what bothers me. If, if, if fifty people had read it and said this isn’t worth publishing. Okay. But I sent it out to 150 literary agencies and no one has ever read the manuscript. And yet all of them, what they come back and say, “This is not for us. This is not for us. We can’t represent you on this.” And, and the only reason that I’ve gotten it, is what I just told you. Is I don’t have the platform? I’m, I’m not a lawyer. How can I write about the Supreme Court if I’m not a lawyer? Well how can I write about the Revolutionary War if I wasn’t there to fight it? You know, it’s the same logic to me. TT: Right, 35:35: BH: And. It’s aggravating and frustrating (mumble?). TT: This uh. Are, are you still selling this book? I mean is it, on, like. Is Amazon still? 35:50: BH: Oh it’s still carrying it. Still full price. Well I don’t know about Amazon because they have Kindle. No, no I’m sorry that wouldn’t b-, be any better. But if you pull that up, Eleven Days in Hell on, on Barnes and Noble or, or Amazon. You’ll find it, still it’s selling at list price. And, and I don’t know if they’re listing the, the hardcopy or, or the hardback, or the soft cover book, the pocket book. No, it’s not pocket. Is that it? TT: Yeah. I see there’s a. Lot of references to Bob Wiatt. 36:26: BH: Oh Bob Wiatt is a big part of that story. Bob Wiatt was my first interview. TT: Really? 36:32: BH: Yup. That’s. TT: I heard the other day that Bob is, he’s really not doing well at all. 36:38: BH: He’s not. TT: I heard he, I heard he’s, I heard he’s 120 pounds. 36:42: BH: That’s right. He, you know, he used to be the poster boy for the F.B.I. Just for physical fitness. TT: Oh yeah, yeah. I worked, when I worked. Most of my time working at A&M, he was the, of course the top doctor and all that. He’s, hell of guy. But. 36:58: BH: He’s a magnificent guy. And, and. He and I have, have driven back and forth to Huntsville a couple of times. It’s 50 miles from here to Huntsville. And 50 miles back. 50 miles down, I get 50 stories out of Bob Wiatt. 50 miles back, I get 50 more stories out of Bob Wiatt. I want desperately to write his biography. He won’t let anybody write his biography. TT: Why is that I wonder? 37:21: BH: Well. TT: ‘Cause he has such, so many? 32:22: BH: He, he says he doesn’t want to go through the physical effort to, to dredge out the files. “Give me the damn files Bob, I’ll go through them.” He says. And I, I have a hunch that he doesn’t wanna recall ‘em. Some of these things. You know one of his stories is, is, is some guy was sitting in a bathtub in a hotel room with a gun in his mouth, threatening suicide. And for some reason or another, Bob Wiatt got dragged into this thing. And Bob said, “Let me go up and talk to the guy.” You know. Bob’s a, an, an expert on negotiation. And there are techniques for a negotiating and they go up and they thought maybe Bob could help. And Bob walks into the bathroom, the guy sitting down with a gun in his mouth. And Bob Wiatt’s says, “Hello, I’m Bob Wiatt from the F.B.I.” Bang! The guy pulls his trigger. So, everybody thanked Bob for saving us all the trouble. Now we can just clean up the bathroom and go on our merry way. The, the Sugarland Express, was Bob Wiatt. TT: Right, right. That’s Bob Wiatt. Yeah, I know. 38:22: BH: We remember, remember hearing about, your not old enough to remember the Truman assassination attempt when he was living at the Blair House. TT: Yeah, where the, misfired guns. 38:32: BH: And, and the Puerto Rican nationalists. Bob Wiatt was part of that story. TT: Wow. Now, now I did not know that he was part of that story. 38:40: BH: I mean that’s. He’s got so many. 50 stories down, 50 stories back. TT: See I didn’t know that he was part of the Truman thing. Have you got a scanner? 38:49: BH : Yeah. What do you want to scan? TT: The cover of this. Unless you have it somewhere. [shuffle] 38:57: BH: I don’t. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll get you one. This is my scanner. My wife’s scanner is better. TT: Well I’ve got a scanner too. I don’t know. Do you have another copy of this I could borrow and give back to you on Thursday? 39:08: BH: Uh, let me give you this. TT: Oh yeah, I’ll take it. There you go. I don’t want. Let me give you this one back to you on Thursday. And I’ll scan this myself. Uh. Do you know, a fellow named, by chance. Do you know a fellow named Carl Davidson from Huntsville? Used to be the mayor. 39:28: BH: No. TT: He was, he worked for the prison during this. He was the, he was the guy that did most of the videography. He, he was, he was the guy with the camera rolling. ‘Cause he was sort of the. 39:40: BH: Oh, on, when they were coming out. TT: I think that was his job. He was sort of the, I don’t know, P.R. guy or publicist or the, public information guy for the prison at the time. And. Yeah, he was, he’d tell us stories. He was, he was the guy with the cameras rollin’. 39:59: BH: Unfortunately those films are, are not very good. TT: Yeah. 40:02: BH: It was too dark. TT: Right. Oh yeah. Yeah, that’s what he said. 40:05: BH: And the contrast between the dark light and then the bright lights, just washed everything out of the, everything out. I’ve seen the films that you’re talking about. Over at the Department of Public Safety in, in Austin. And I, I couldn’t use anything. And I was told in advance, that “you’re not gonna get anything out of this.” It’s unfortunate. And, and I wish I could had more out of it. TT: Yeah. Well this is an incredible story and Thursday I, I look forward to, to telling it on, on KAMU. What we do is. You know where KAMU is? That’s where Sharon does, same room where Sharon does her thing over there. 40:45: BH: I um. I have a radio program on KAMU every Thursday so I. TT: Then you should know where it is. [chuckle] 40:51: BH: Sharon and I are good friends. TT: Good. 2:30 on Thursday is when I record. 40:56: BH: You want me there at 2:30? TT: Be there by 2:15. We’ll, get, get going. 40:58: BH: Okay. TT: And it’s just thirty minute thing. We’re just sitting there at a table and we’ll just talk. I’ll lead the conversation and you talk. And you’ve given me so much good information, and if you email me that? And I guess the things in here since they were use in Insight they’re okay to use right? 41:18: BH: Oh yeah. Yeah. I, there’s no problem with using any of that. I think there’s a letter in there from the government in that brochure saying that this information is no longer restricted, as it says on the cover of that. TT: Right. Right. Right. 41:40: BH: What’s that say? TT: The Joint Task Force observer’s pamphlet will be downgraded upon official public release. The (Tom? Word?) Commission. (or the word?). Declassification of copies and extracts. The affected document may be accomplished by canceling classification marks and attaches. Affective. It affected insert date, this document is regarded unclassified. 42:05: BH: Yeah. TT: Very good. Yeah. That’s. I don’t think they’d be concerned. All right. 42:16: BH: Will you, will you have all that back when you’re finished with it? TT: I will. I’ll bring. I will have it for you on Thursday. I will bring it.