MARTHA MITCHELL: “We’ll never have Watergate behind us, I hope, because in a way, it’s been good. We’re teaching the politicians to be straight and not crooked.”
REPORTER: “Do you actually think, then, that President Nixon was guilty?”
MITCHELL: “I’ve always more or less said that.”
KYLE KELLAMS: This is Ozarks at Large. It is a Monday. It’s time for Randy Dixon from the Pryor Center. Welcome, Randy.
RANDY DIXON: Thanks, Kyle. It’s good to be here.
KELLAMS: What are you listening to this week?
DIXON: Well, that was none other than Martha Mitchell, also known as the Mouth of the South. She was talking about Watergate and Nixon and Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon. If you don’t know who she was, she was married to the attorney general of the United States, John Mitchell. She was from Pine Bluff, right. And she was really the first person to be outspoken about Watergate and accused Nixon of a big cover-up, and everybody thought she was nuts. Just one of the many Arkansas stories you can find at the Pryor Center website.
And now anyone can find it. We’re now online on the Pryor Center with the entire—I say the entire—the entire film and videotape portion of the KATV News Collection. So there’s probably 60 years’ worth of news, weather and sports in there that could keep you pretty busy.
KELLAMS: Thousands of hours digging around in there?
DIXON: Yes. So we thought we’d do a little “best of” show again this week. If you weren’t with us Labor Day, we started this then. And we’re just kind of doing some examples of what you can find in there if you know what to look for. What you need to do is go to the Pryor Center—just Google Pryor Center—and go to the KATV section where it says “Search KATV,” and you’ll come to a section. There’s a description of how you can search. There’s even a little tutorial that I did that will hopefully be helpful to searching around. So, you want to dig in to a few?
KELLAMS: Let’s go.
DIXON: All right. This first one is an interview I actually did in 2005, and Steve Powell ended up fleshing out a story, but it’s about B.B. King and his connection to Arkansas. In 2005, he came to Little Rock to do a concert at the Riverfront Amphitheater, and I actually got on the bus with Tim Hamilton, who shot the interview with me, and we talked to him about Twist, Arkansas, little town over in the Delta that B.B. King used to play juke joints around that area. They called it the Chitlin’ Circuit.
KELLAMS: They did.
DIXON: And he actually named his guitar Lucille at an incident in Twist, Arkansas. So here he tells the story of Lucille.
STEVE POWELL: “That night, everything was going along swell, and two guys started fighting, and one knocked the other one over on this container. When they did, it spilled on the floor. It was already burning. So when it spilled on the floor, it looked like a river of fire. And everybody started running for the front door, including B.B. King. See, during those days, the little nightclubs, guys would sneak in the back if you didn’t have them nailed up. So they nailed it up. And the only way we could get out was through the front door. But when I got on the outside, then I realized I left my guitar and I went back for it. And when I did, the building was burning rapidly, and it started to collapse around me. I almost lost my life trying to save my guitar, but the next morning we found that these two guys that was fighting was fighting about a lady. I never did meet the lady, but I learned that the lady’s name was Lucille. So I named my guitar Lucille to remind me never to do a thing like that again. And that’s when it started, in 1949.”
DIXON: Well, there’s another musical tie that we can throw in, and this is actually one of the most popular on our website. In 1976, Keith Richards and Ron Wood from the Rolling Stones had played a concert in Memphis, and their next show was, I think, two days later in Dallas. And they decided, the two of them—Keith Richards and Ron Wood, big fans of the blues—wanted to drive up through the South, and so they rented a car in Memphis and were driving to Dallas. Well, they were stopped in Fordyce, of all places, and were arrested for—gee, go figure—
KELLAMS: Was it possesion?
DIXON: Drugs. Yeah. KATV had the only camera there when they were sprung from jail from a Little Rock attorney named Bill Carter. So in this clip, you’ll hear Ron Wood as he and Keith Richards are coming out of the jail, and then a quick interview with Bill Carter.
REPORTER: “Tell us what happened.”
RON WOOD: “Man, if I could, I would, but I just don’t believe it.”
“Hey, let me borrow you.”
“Hey, Ron, how about that hat from you?”
BILL CARTER: “The police observed the car swerving on the road, and Keith advised me that when he was pulling out from a restaurant, he leaned over to adjust the radio, and the car swerved and the police stopped him as a result. The police have been very good to us here, and they’ve treated the group with respect and been very courteous to us. They were not placed in a jail cell. They were just detained in the office for a short period of time while the vehicle was searched.”
REPORTER: “Is it a normal procedure for the Stones to drive between concerts, especially through a rural area?”
CARTER: “No. As a matter of fact, Keith Richards had indicated yesterday in Memphis that he’d never been in the state of Arkansas in all of his tours of the United States, and that he wanted to drive from Memphis to Dallas to sightsee and see the state of Arkansas.”
DIXON: Here’s another quirky story from the KATV News Collection. In 1990, there was—he called himself a scientist and a climatologist—but his name was Ivan Browning, and he predicted there would be a major earthquake along the New Madrid fault line. And if you don’t know, the New Madrid fault line is right along the Arkansas–Missouri border, the northeast part of Arkansas, right. And in the 1800s—
KELLAMS: One of the strongest earthquakes in recorded history.
DIXON: Yes, it made the Mississippi River flow backwards and even changed some of the directions, caused some islands—
KELLAMS: And allegedly rang church bells in St. Louis.
DIXON: That’s true.
KELLAMS: That’s the story,
DIXON: Right. Well this guy predicted that on or about Dec. 3, 1990, there would be an even bigger earthquake along that fault line. And people might hear this now and not remember this, or not have lived around here. It was a range of taking him seriously to really taking him seriously. Right? I mean, this—“OK, this guy’s a joke, right? Let’s make a party out of it.”
KELLAMS: Yeah.
DIXON: And that’s exactly what happened. And it was a media party more than anything else. Media from all over the world descended on New Madrid, Missouri, which is right over the Arkansas border, around the first of December. Well, KATV was no different. I mean, it was just a short drive up the road. We sent our satellite truck up there, and Tara Blume was our reporter. This is Tara Blume’s report the day it was supposed to happen.
TARA BLUME: “The town of New Madrid threw an earthquake party today, but residents were glad the guest of honor didn’t show up. No sign of an earthquake. But if there had been, it would have been the best documented disaster on record. Satellite trucks, TV cameras and reporters swarmed this town on the fault line."
“That train comin’, comin’ around the bend."
BLUME: “Some residents decided to make the most of their moment in the limelight."
“If there’s anybody here been interviewed more than I have. He’d been interviewed, ’cause I bet I’ve been interviewed a hundred times. I bet I’ve taken two hundred pictures. I’ve been on live radio twice at New Orleans and Frankfort, Kentucky."
BLUME: “While earthquake jitters convinced some residents to leave the area, national attention has made New Madrid a travel destination for others."
“And when I was reading about New Madrid, of course, because of the earthquake that they were talking about that would be coming on Monday, I said, what a perfect time to go to see the—see Middle America and be at right at the center of attention."
“ Nothing happened so far. But it’ll have to happen."
BLUME: "Hap’s Bar downtown became party central, where beer drinking and pool games started at dawn."
“Everybody’s having a good time. Nobody seems to be worried. But if it did happen, I don’t know how we’d get out of here. It’d be nuts."
BLUME: “Missouri Governor John Ashcroft visited with local officials. He says he’s concerned about building codes here, and he’s also worried about all the hype.
JOHN ASHCROFT: “Well, I think the key to earthquake preparedness is preparation, and it’s not panic. And I do fear that some of the hype surrounding the earthquake has caused people to do things that are not as productive as preparing might be."
BLUME: "Fear from Ivan Browning’s earthquake predictions appears to be loosening its grip. Last week, the sheriff’s office fielded hundreds of anxious calls and strange sightings. But today, they say only the media has been calling."
DIXON: You and I have played this one before. This is called "The Promise of Tomorrow", and it was a 1971 promotional film produced by then Arkansas Power & Light, which is now Entergy. They were in the process of building Arkansas Nuclear One at Russellville, and they wanted to introduce nuclear energy to the state. So they produced this film. Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods, the advertising agency in Little Rock, went all out and produced this film that I guess showed at Chamber of Commerce, schools.
KELLAMS: Sure.
What’s kind of strange about this is the choice of narrator. You know who it was? It was Rod Serling—Twilight Zone,Night Gallery—and I just thought that was sort of an odd pick.
KELLAMS: Because he was associated, especially at this part of his career, with the macabre.
DIXON: And a lot of those episodes of The Twilight Zone had to do with nuclear war—
KELLAMS: And future scientific gone nuts, that sort of thing.
DIXON: But anyway, it’s a good film.
ROD SERLING (narration): “Arkansas Nuclear One, the first nuclear-fueled electric generating station in the Southwest. It represents the state’s largest single investment of private capital. When in full operation in 1975, it’ll provide 1,800,000 kilowatts of power, which will almost double AP&L’s generating capability in the early 1970s.”
KELLAMS: And if you know the voice of Rod Serling—if you remember—that’s Rod Serling.
DIXON: Yeah, it sure was.
KELLAMS: One of the last things he recorded, correct?
DIXON: I believe that’s correct. That’s what Ron Robinson told me when he gave me this film that they had produced. He had it just in a cabinet somewhere, and a few years ago, he thought the Pryor Center might be interested in it.
KELLAMS: And yes, they were.
DIXON: And yes, we’ve gotten some mileage out of that. Speaking of nuclear—and this is a terrible tragedy that happened Sept. 18 into Sept. 19, 1980—and as a matter of fact, I was there right on the 18th before the big disaster happened. But in Damascus, Arkansas, it began as a fuel leak in one of those underground missile silos and ended up exploding and blowing a nuclear warhead out of the ground and into a ditch. Arkansas came very, very close to being annihilated.
KELLAMS: Destroyed.
DIXON: Literally blown off the face of the Earth. This is a special report the night that it happened, because it actually happened about 3 in the morning. That night, after the 10 o’clock news, KATV had put together a special report, winding up the day. This is Steve Barnes and Amy Oliver.
ANNOUNCER: “Newscene Nightline Special with Steve Barnes and Amy Oliver.”
STEVE BARNES: “Good evening, everyone. The savage explosion at the Damascus missile silo has produced its first casualty. Air Force Sergeant David Livingston died a few minutes after five o’clock this afternoon at Little Rock’s Baptist Medical Center, where he had been taken shortly after the silo erupted. Although officials did not confirm Sergeant Livingston’s death until just a few moments ago, in the interest of notifying next of kin."
AMY OLIVER: "The eruption shattered a 740-ton steel and concrete lid on the missile silo and injured 21 other Air Force personnel. Steve reports that although residents have been allowed to return home, the debate about their safety will continue for weeks.”
REPORTER (voice-over): “Dusk had barely settled over south Van Buren County when the first signals came that something was wrong at Silo 374-7. At 6:43, Air Force officials telephoned the state Office of Emergency Services to report that a crewman servicing the silo’s huge Titan II missile had dropped a tool—a 3-pound socket wrench—about 70 feet, puncturing the skin of the ICBM. When workmen descended, they spotted fuel escaping and evacuated. Still, the Air Force seemed confident the leak could be repaired without significant damage or disruption. Still, about 1,000 people were moved from their homes surrounding the silo. Water was pumped into the seven-story subterranean compound in an effort to dilute and diffuse the highly volatile fuel. It didn’t work. At about 3 o’clock, a quick series of explosions, red flames soaring into the night sky to heights that some observers said exceeded 300 feet. ABC News reported tonight that the explosion blew the missile’s warhead from the tip of the rocket and onto the ground outside the silo. The Pentagon has not officially confirmed that the silo contained a warhead, although Defense Department sources were quoted by the Associated Press as saying it had not been damaged.”
DIXON: Can we end up with—
KELLAMS: Let me guess—maybe music?
DIXON: Thank you. So indulge me. This is our favorite native son—one of them—Johnny Cash. This was actually from 1989. He came to a seminar in Fayetteville at—
KELLAMS: What was then the Hilton—now the Graduate.
DIXON: Right. He was speaking to a small group of health care workers who specialized in treating addiction. Of course, he had had his own problem with alcohol, prescription drugs, pills, all that. He was very candid.
KELLAMS: Very.
DIXON: And chief photographer Tim Hamilton went up there and started to record. They had said just the first—
KELLAMS: They told us—
DIXON: You were there. Tell me about this.
KELLAMS: I was there. What I recall was it was Tim. Bill Bowden was there. I think Bill may have been with the Gazette at the time—now with the Democrat-Gazette—and me. I was there. I was there for KICKS 104. I wasn't at KUAF yet. Yeah, they told us five minutes and then you’ve got to turn it off, which is not uncommon.
DIXON: Right. That usually happens at a concert. They say first two or three songs and then you’re out.
KELLAMS: Because you don’t want it trafficked or sold.
DIXON: Right. Bootlegs.
KELLAMS: So apparently Tim Hamilton and I did the same thing—I forgot.
DIXON: Well, so did Tim. They didn’t stop you guys?
KELLAMS: And then years later— No. No, it wasn’t—
DIXON: And so Tim recorded the whole thing.
KELLAMS: Thank goodness.
DIXON: And you recorded the whole thing?
KELLAMS: Yeah, but then I was so mortified that I’d forgotten. I went back to KICKS 104, took a couple of quick cuts for a newscast that evening, and I threw away the tape because I thought I had an illegal copy of something.
DIXON: Well, thank goodness Tim didn’t have those scruples. I’m kidding, Tim, if you’re listening. But we have the whole thing. So that’s one thing you can look up in the archives. It’s great. What I have here is Cash talking a little bit about himself and then going into why he wrote the song “Man in Black.”
KELLAMS: All right.
DIXON: Can we close out with all that? It’s kind of long, but—
KELLAMS: All right.
DIXON: It’ll be a good way to go.
KELLAMS: Randy Dixon with the Pryor Center.
DIXON: I’ll be back next week with the Damascus Titan II missile.
KELLAMS: Right before we go to Johnny Cash—earlier, you mentioned Ron Robinson was the person who gave you the tape.
DIXON: Yes.
KELLAMS: Are you done collecting tapes at the Pryor Center? Somebody else has something in the attic that is—
DIXON: If you have anything you think is of interest, absolutely. We’d love to take a look at it, and we’ll digitize it.
KELLAMS: You can also get hold of Randy through the Pryor Center website. Let’s go to Johnny Cash.
DIXON: See you next week.
JOHNNY CASH: “I was born—between—you know where Kingsland is? Between Pine Bluff and Fordyce. Well, I wasn’t born right in Kingsland. You know, I was born in the cotton patch in the woods about four miles north of Kingsland, Arkansas, on Feb. 26, 1932. My father was an itinerant worker. He was a hard worker. He rode the rails and hopped the boxcars going looking for work. 1932 was a hard time for everybody in this country. And he always sent the money back home to my mother, wherever he’d go—to Mississippi, Arkansas—whatever kind of a job of work he could get, as he called it. And I grew up by the railroad tracks, and maybe that’s why I have an affinity for the trains. And I was always looking for my daddy to come back home.
“They asked me a lot of questions—reporters did back ’68, ’69—about why I wear black, and I wrote a song called ‘Man in Black’ that points up some of the reasons. And one of the reasons was the Vietnam War—not an antiwar thing, but grieving over the fact that we were losing each week 100 fine young men—and wear the black for the poor and the elderly.
“Well, you wonder why I always dress in black, why you never see bright colors on my back. You wonder why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone? Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on.
“I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town. I wear the black for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime but is there because he’s a victim of the times. I wear the black for the sick and the lonely old, for the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold. And until we start to make a turn, to make a few things right, you’ll never see me wear a suit of white.”
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
