The Day the Cops Raided KDNA

It’s been a while since I last blogged about someone reviewing
my book
The United States of Paranoia. No surprise there: It’s
been almost seven months since the thing came out, so the reviews
aren’t exactly cascading into my inbox these days. But this week
Lorenzo Milam—a major character in my
other book—published a kind piece about
USofP in The Review of Arts, Literature,
Philosophy and the Humanities, a.k.a. RALPH. Among
other things, his article includes this entertaining story:

Years ago, I was involved with
a rather unruly radio station in St Louis, KDNA. We lived in the
ghetto and staff and volunteers and hangers-on all worked and ate
and slept in a wretched building that was jammed with retrograde
broadcasting equipment, evil-smelling bathrooms, and disordered
sleeping quarters that were fitted with innumerable rats, roaches,
and unwashed bodies. The station broadcast a strange assortment of
musics along with no end of controversial anti-establishment
they’re-out-to-get-you talk programs.

After a couple of years of this, one night in mid-1972, five or so
huge I mean HUGE guys broke down the front door, commandeered the
building, then crammed themselves in the control room along with a
couple of shotguns and told the on-the-air people that if they
opened the microphone they would get blown away. We had no idea who
these guys were. Mafioso? Dealers? A self-appointed ghetto
protection mob? Little did we suspect…

After a diligent search, they found some pot (pot being the
essential ingredient of the mix in those days of those of us who
were hell-bent on fighting “the system,” whatever that was). Then
they herded us downstairs and into what were then called “Black
Marias”—and hauled us off to the pokey. (This might have been the
only time in the history of American broadcasting that a radio
station went dark so that the entire management, on-the-air, and
volunteer staff could be booked into the hoosegow by the
constabulary.)

One of the youngest volunteers, Tom Connors, later reported that as
he was being fingerprinted, he was asked if his mother knew where
he was at the moment. He yelled across the room, “Mom, do you know
where I am right now?” “Yes, I do,” she replied: she was another of
the volunteers at KDNA.

And what, you might ask, does that have to do with a book on the
history of conspiracy theories? You’ll have to read the rest of the
review to
find out.

RALPH has also published an excerpt
from United States of Paranoia. And as long as I’m in
self-promotion mode: On April 5 I’ll be giving a talk in Bethesda
about the book’s themes. Details are
here; admission is free.