The Pirate and the Prophet
Story Mane #2098
Pub Date 4/24/94
HD: PIRATE AND PROPHET
AH: RADIO, RELIGION: The story of two rebels who say they were mistreated.
KE: Pirate
BY: TONY BARTELME
Of the Post and Courier- Paper from Columbia S.C.
A powerful shortwave transmitter beamed the Last Day Prophet's gruff voice into the heavens where it slammed into a layer of electrically charged gas and bounced back to earth.
"When I speak, he thundered, it's the word of God!"
Soaked in shortwave static, his voice quieted. I've told this over and over again that God gave me , in the spiritual realm, authority over this church- the true church- in all these Southern states. And my influence reaches to the far corners of the world. He was pleading now, almost crying.
We're getting very close to the final countdown, Call 1-803-538-4202, and you'll be on the air with the Last Day Prophet of God.
Everyday, R.G. Stair, 60, can be heard on more than a dozen shortwave and AM radio stations from Sacramento, California to Conway.
During one recent broadcast, he said listeners sent him nearly $1 million last year to proclaim his warnings of the coming apocalypse. And he said he's increasing his presence on the airwaves. Today I wrote three checks for 31,000 dollars signing up radio stations, he told his listeners.
But not too long ago, Stair hoped to have his own shortwave radio station.
From a ship anchored off the coast of Belize, he planned to broadcast his messages of doom across the world.
But those hopes were dashed in January.
In January, while the ship was being prepared at a local yard, federal agents stormed the vessel, claiming transmitters aboard were broadcasting illegal test tones.
The Federal Communications Commission called his vessel a pirate radio ship. Stair and his controversial radio expert, Al Wiener, called the government's action a crime- the work of the devil- sometimes mentioning in the same breath last year's violent bungled raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.
The story of the seizure sheds light on two very different subcultures: One is the world of shortwave broadcasting, where stations broadcast programs across the globe and unlicenced pirates try to hijack the airwaves.
The other is the doomsday movement, which some observers believe will grow dramatically as the year 2000 draws nearer- and possibly trigger potentially dangerous police actions against nontraditional religious groups and Christian extremists.
The Pirate
On any given night, pirates are on the air. Mostly kids, they broadcast music, skits and their own shows, usually on shortwave frequencies. They are called pirates because they don't own FCC licenses. Some are more energetic than others. One pirate group that calls itself 'Radio Airplane' reportedly has a transmitter on the back of a small aircraft.
It's sort of a game to see if they get caught, said Glenn Hauser, a columnist for Monitoring Times', a radio magazine popular with shortwave enthusiasts.
Radio piracy isn't always fun and games though. In Roanoke, VA, a man posing as an air traffic controller broadcast fake instructions to pilots for several weeks before the FCC nabbed him. But the nation's most famous radio pirate is Al Wiener. As a teenager, Wiener aired music on AM and FM stations from his basement. He had no license, and the FCC eventually arrested him. He was sentenced to one year probation.
Wiener, a lanky man with long brown hair, eventually moved to Maine, opened a natural food store, and bought a legitimate AM station. But, like many small AM stations, he was not allowed to broadcast at night. Wiener went on the air after dark anyway, usually once a month. He did so for three years before the FCC shut him down again.
But Wiener's real claim to fame was his pirate radio ship, the Sarah. In 1987, he installed radio transmitters aboard a trawler, moved the ship four miles off the coast of New York- outside U.S. territorial waters- and broadcast alternative rock programs.
Once again, the FCC moved in. Agents boarded the ship, seized radio equipment, and arrested Wiener on charges of obstructing government function, charges they later dropped. We want to give him a chance, explained FCC official.
Al is a folk hero to a lot of people who want to open up the airwaves, said Anita Louise McCormick, author of Shortwave Radio Listening for Beginners.
There's no question the FCC hates my guts, Wiener, 41, said recently. Without the FCC, there would be anarchy on the airwaves, so I think they have an important role. I'm not an anarchist. I love my country. But I think the FCC attacks things they shouldn't.
About 18 months ago Wiener received a call from a friend, Scott Becken, who operated satellite network. Becker said he had spoken with a radio preacher, R. G. Stair, about financing another radio ship.
"I said, Oh no, not another one" I said I wouldn't be involved this time unless it was all on the up and up.
The Prophet
During his programs, Stair often reminds listeners he was born in Bethlehem- Bethlehem, PA.
Since he was a teenager, Stair has traveled the country, making the rounds on the evangelist circuits, doing radio shows.
In the late 1970's, he drove past the Carolina Motel on S.C. Highway 15, four miles north of Walterboro. It was a modest motel, a single story row of rooms, the kind that became obsolete when the interstates were built. In 1978, he paid $45,000 for it.
Stair attracted a small band of followers who moved into the motel and several mobile homes behind it. He also bought a nearby farm. He called his group the "Overcomer Ministry'
He hoped to live a simple life there, like the Mennonites or the Amish. No drinking, swearing, smoking or television. No buying on credit and no doctors. They would live off the land. Women would wear hair long, men would keep it short. Women would wear dresses, men pants.
In 1987 and 1988, not long after Wiener makes the fronts pages with his pirate radio exploits, Stair also began to attract national attention.
He made dramatic predictions: By the end of 1988, the U.S. economy would collapse and the country would be destroyed in a limited nuclear war with the Soviet Union. In his broadcasts, he announced he was creating, 'cities of refuge', small farms throughout the South where believers might weather the catastrophe.
The message hit home with some, and a handful of listeners across the country sold many of their possessions and moved to the motel and farm.
Among them were David Foltz and his wife. The one thing that struck me was that there were no big cars. No one was living an outlandish lifestyle, said Foltz, who lived in Stair's community for two years before moving to a home nearby. He still attends services.
If you had gone to (Jim and Tammy Bakkers) PTL at this time, the dog houses would have been air conditioned, but with Brother Stair, all the money that was coming in was going into radio ministry.
As the contributions poured in, Stair was able to buy more radio time. By mid-1988 he was on nearly 100 stations.
That year, Stair's predictions and allegations that his group was a cult drew hordes of reporters and television people to the small motel. Foltz said the cult label was unfair.
It hurts the public that reads it, because it creates a stereotype. Just because an organization does something different, it doesn't mean it's a cult. I wasn't brainwashed into their beliefs. I came down there on my free will.
The media scrutiny intensified in July 1988 when a couple from Pennsylvania left Stair's group after the woman's baby was born dead. Stair had discouraged her from going to a doctor, even though she had trouble delivering her first child. The Colleton County coroner said the baby probably would have lived had the woman gone to the hospital.
William Alnor, an evangelist and free-lance writer, covered the story for a Pennsylvania newspaper.
He's always proclaiming the idea of doom, and this serves as a catalyst. They were drawn to him by fear, said Alnor, author of 'Soothsayers of the Second Advent'.
There are a number of groups out there like this, and they're popping up more and more because of the year 2000. In the year 1000, people were so worried they were living in caves.
But Foltz said it wasn't fear of Stair or the end of the world that attracked followers. It's really about what's happening with the country. You look around and see what's going on, and it makes you wonder if maybe the Amish have the right idea.
After Stairs predictions failed to come true, he began to appear on fewer radio stations. For the most part, he stopped talking to reporters. In his broadcasts, he calls them perverted. (He refused repeated requests to be interviewed for this story.) He still preaches that the world will end, but instead of setting dates, he simply says the jig is up soon.
And, he never gave up his goal of spreading this message across the world.
The Plan
The pieces fell together quickly. Within a few months, Stair, Wiener, Becker, Wiener's friend in the satellite business, had a 140-foot-long ship called 'The Fury' and four transmitters from Boston to Halsey and Cannon Boat yard on the Wando River.
Becker, who also run the business side of the ship, renting three transmitters to anyone who wanted air time. Stair would have exclusive use of one shortwave transmitter. They would move the ship to Belize or another Caribbean country. Wiener was in charge of building the radio station. Stair's followers chipped and sanded paint and did other work on the ship itself.
Wiener said the ocean would act like a huge reflector dish, increasing the power of the shortwave transmitters. Shortwave radio transmitters are beamed 150 miles from the transmitter. Wiener said Stair's broadcast from the ship would be heard throughout North American and possible in large areas of South America and Europe, where shortwave radio stations are more popular.
Honestly, I saw the hand of God work on that ship, Wiener said. But in less than a year we were able to throw together the people, equipment, and the boat, which was incredible.
Becker and Wiener estimate that Stair pumped $250,000 to $300,000 into the ship. Stair told 'Monitoring Times' that he spent $125,000 on the transmitter installation.
Wiener enjoyed working with Stair's group. The best time we had was at supper, he said. They were people who seemed at peace with themselves. We could be talking about generators and bilge pumps one minute and the glory of God in another breath.
Becker was less enthusiastic. The only way I can describe this group is bizzare.
He said he saw members looking for scraps of food in the trash bin behind a grocery store. He scares people to come and live with them. It gives me the creeps. The women dress in long Quaker or Amish dresses. They walk around like zombies. He's a David Koresh waiting to happen.
The Bust
It was late December when Johnny Lightning came on the air. One of the FCC's monitoring stations picked up the transmission. 'Johnny Lightning was the announcer. He was playing music and there was some chatter said Lawrence Clance, the FCC assistant bureau chief for law. Johnny Lightning was on a frequency normally reserved for government communications, one that's often used by pirates.
We knew right away we had a pirate radio station, Clance said. The monitoring stations traced the transmission to South Carolina.
In January, FCC agents were dispatched to Charleston. For two weeks they drove around the area in cars packed with equipment that track down radio broadcasts.
At 12:15 a.m. on Jan 14, FCC engineers heard something. It wasn't Johnny Lightning. It sounded more like test tones. Their direction-finding gear guided them to a dirt road leading to the Halsey & Cannon Boat Yard- and the Fury. They seemed to be tuning it, said Richard Breen, an FCC engineer who tracked the transmission.
Breen and the other FCC engineers didn't board ship that night. Instead, after discussing their findings with their superiors in Washington, they went to the federal judge and asked for an order allowing them to seize the Fury's radio equipment.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Griffith Jr. said at 8 a.m. on Jan. 19, gun-totting U.S. Marshals and Coast Guard officers raided the ship. There was no resistance. No one was hurt or arrested. Only one firearm was found.
The FCC paid electricians and neighboring shipyard crew $7,500 to remove the transmitters. Wiener was on board when the raid happened. It felt like evil attached the boat, he said.
The Aftermath
Wiener said the feds went overboard, that seizure was a personal vendetta against him. The station was destroyed, he said, because someone in Washington, D.C. apparently doesn't like Brother Stair or me.
He said he was asleep during the time the illegal transmissions were alleged to have been made. Besides, the transmitter and generators weren't working, so it was physically impossible for anyone to broadcast, he said.
The charges are totally unfounded, he said. Even had there been transmissions, he said, the punishment did not fit the alleged crime.
Prosecutors could have sought either a restraining order or a fine.
Why was an entirely legal radio station destroyed without a hearing and due process? What is going on here? Wiener said. A radio station, a printing press of the air, has been smashed.
Stair has since filed a motion in federal court asking the government to return the equipment.
The FCC out of Washington takes a strong view of this kind of deal, particularly in light of who was on board. Griffith answered. The seizure was done entirely at the FCC's request. I would like to think there were no personal animosities involved.
He said the agency considered criminal prosecution but was concerned it would make Wiener a martyr. Taking equipment was a middle road approach.
Said Clance, "We're simply in the business of shutting down pirate radio stations.
Apocalypse Later
Immediately after the bust, Wiener left Charleston. We didn't know if we were going to get shot or arrested. He returned to New York and began working at another radio station. He began writing to newspapers and communications magazines criticizing the FCC's action.
The bust didn't slow Stair down either. He bought more air time on radio stations. During these broadcasts Stair asked for more and more money.
My dear friends, Stair told his listeners, this message of hope to the people of God is being heard. They are responding! They are doing it! This is what stirs my heart. They are obeying! I know that makes me enemies. So be it.
A listener from Canada said he put a money order for $1000 in the mail.
Like Wiener, Stair lobbed verbal darts at the government and armed forces, you, you are the Antichrist.
And he hints at future battles with the government. They will come after me. I'm sure they are going to, because I'm a voice out here that they're going to have to reckon with.
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Propganda
by Edward Bernays
(originally published in 1928)
p37
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits
and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of
our country.
We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical
result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast
numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to
live together as a smoothly functioning society.
Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity
of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.
They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their
ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the
social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses toward this
condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily
lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social
conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively
small number of persons-a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty
million-who understand the mental processes and social patterns of
the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public
mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and
guide the world.
It is not usually realized how necessary these invisible governors
are to the orderly functioning of our group life. In theory, every
citizen may vote for whom he pleases. Our Constitution does not
envisage political parties as part of the mechanism of government,
and its framers seem not to have pictured to themselves the existence
in our national politics of anything like the modern political
machine. But the American voters soon found that without organization
and direction their individual votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens of
hundreds of candidates, would produce nothing but confusion.
Invisible government, in the shape of rudimentary political parties,
arose almost overnight. Ever since then we have agreed, for the sake
of simplicity and practicality, that party machines should narrow
down the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three or four.
In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on public questions and
matters of private conduct. In practice, if all men had to study for
themselves the abstruse economic, political, and ethical data
involved in every question, they would find it impossible to come to
a conclusion without anything. We have voluntarily agreed to let an
invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding
issue so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical
proportions. From our leaders and the media they use to reach the
public, we accept the evidence and the demarcation of issues bearing
upon public question; from some ethical teacher, be it a minister, a
favorite essayist, or merely prevailing opinion, we accept a
standardized code of social conduct to which we conform most of the
time.
In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered
him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and
chemically tasting before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics
or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would be
hopelessly jammed. To avoid such confusion, society consents to have
its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to it attention
through propaganda of all kinds. There is consequently a vast and
continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the interest of
some policy or commodity or idea.
It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special
pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate
our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of
clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But
we have chosen the opposite method, that of open competition. We must
find a way to make free competition function with reasonable
smoothness. To achieve this society has consented to permit free
competition to be organized by leadership and propaganda.
***
p59
Who are the men, who, without our realizing it, give us our ideas,
tell us whom to admire and whom to despise, what to believe about the
ownership of public utilities .. about immigration who tell us how
our houses should be designed, what furniture we should put into
them, what menus we should serve at our table, what kind of shirts we
must wear, what sports we should indulge in, what plays we should
see, what charities we should support, what pictures we should
admire, what slang we should affect, what jokes we should laugh at?
p60
A presidential candidate may be "drafted" in response to "around
popular demand," but it is well known that his name may be decided
upon by half a dozen men sitting L.. around a table in a hotel room.
p61
A man buying a suit of clothe imagines that he is choosing, according
to his taste and his personality, the kind of garment which he
prefers. In reality, he may be obeying the orders of an anonymous
gentleman tailor in London. This personage is the silent partner in a
modest tailoring establishment, which is patronized by gentlemen of
fashion and princes of blood. He suggest to British noblemen and
others a blue cloth instead of gray, two buttons instead of three, or
sleeves a quarter of an inch narrower than last season. The
distinguished customer approves of the idea.
But how does this fact affect John Smith of Topeka?
The gentleman tailor is under contract with a certain large American
firm, which manufactures men's suits, to send them instantly the
designs of the suits chosen by the leaders of London fashion. Upon
receiving the designs, with specifications as to color, weight, and
texture, the firm immediately places an order with the cloth makers
for several hundred thousand dollars' worth of cloth. The suits made
up according to the specifications are then advertised as the latest
fashion. The fashionable men in New York Chicago, Boston, and
Philadelphia wear them. And the Topeka man, recognizing this
leadership, does the same.
Women are just as subject to the commands of invisible government as
men. A silk manufacturer, seeking a new market for its product,
suggested to a large manufacturer of shoes that women's shoes should
be covered with silk to match their dresses. The idea was adopted and
systematically propagandized. A popular actress was persuaded to wear
the shoes. The fashion spread. The shoe firm was ready with the
supply to meet thee created demand. And the silk company was ready
with the silk for more shoes.
p63
The new profession of public relations has grown up because of the
increasing complexity of modern life and the consequent necessity for
making the actions of one part of the public understandable to other
sectors of the public. It is due, too, to the increasing dependence
of organized power of all sorts upon public opinion. Governments,
whether they are monarchical, constitutional, democratic or
communist, depend upon acquiescent public opinion for the success of
their efforts and, in fact, government is government only by virtue
of public acquiescence. Industries, public utilities, educational
movements, indeed all groups representing any concept or product,
whether they are majority or minority ideas, succeed only because of
approving public opinion. Public opinion is the unacknowledged
partner in all broad efforts.
The public relations counsel, then, is the agent who, working with
modern media of communications and the group formations of society,
brings an idea to the consciousness of the public.
***
p71
The systematic study of mass psychology revealed t7 students the
potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of
the motives which actuate man in the group. Trotter and Le Bon, who
approached the subject in a scientific manner, and Graham Wallas,
Walter Lippmann, and others who continued with searching studies of
the group mind, established that the group has mental characteristics
distinct from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses
and emotions which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know
of individual psychology. So the question naturally arose. If we
understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not
possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will
without their knowing about it?
p73
If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their
conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which
they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a
public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences
of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels
himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room
with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have
been stamped on it by the group influences.
p73
Trotter and Le Bon concluded that the group mind does not think in
the strict send of the word. In place of thoughts it has impulses,
habits, and emotions. In making up its mind, its first impulse is
usually to follow the example of a trusted leader. This is one of the
most firmly established principles of mass psychology. It operates in
establishing the rising or diminishing prestige of
p74
But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must
think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images
which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years
ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word
interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him,
because anything associated with "the interests" seemed necessary
corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service
for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of
action.
By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the
propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass group emotions.
p75
It is chiefly the psychologists of the school of Freud( who have
pointed out that many of man's thoughts and actions are compensatory
substitutes for desires which has been obliged to suppress. A thing
may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because
he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else,
the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself. A man buying
a car may think he wants it for purposes of locomotion, whereas the
fact may be that he would really prefer not to be burdened with it,
and would rather walk for the sake of his health. He may really want
it because it is a symbol of social position, an evidence of his
success in business, or a means of pleasing his wife.
This general principle, that men are very largely actuated by motives
which they conceal from themselves, is as true of mass as of
individual psychology. It is evident that the successful propagandist
must understand the true motives and not be content to accept the
reasons which men give for what they do.
p75
Human desires are the steam which makes the social machine work. Only
by understanding them can the propagandist control that vast, loose-
jointed mechanism which is modern society.
p84
... while, under the handicraft of small-unit system of production
was that typical a century ago, demand created the supply, today
supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand. A
single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent
with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public
asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through
advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure
itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant
profitable. This entails a vastly more complex system of distribution
than formerly.
***
p109
No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the
people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The
voice of the people expresses the mind of 3 the people, and that mind
is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by
those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It
is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and
verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.
Fortunately, the sincere and gifted politician is able, by the
instrument of propaganda, to mold and form the will of the people.
p110
The political apathy of the average voter, of which we hear so much,
is undoubtedly due to the fact that the politician does not know how
to meet the conditions of the public mind. He cannot dramatize
himself and his platform in terms which have real meaning to the
public. Acting on the fallacy that the leader must slavishly follow,
he deprives his campaign of all dramatic interest. An automaton
cannot arouse the public interest. A leader, a fighter, a dictator,
can. But, given our present political conditions under which every
office seeker must cater to the vote of the masses, the only means by
which the born leader can lead is the expert use of propaganda.
Whether in the problem of getting elected to office or in the problem
of interpreting and popularizing new issues, or in the problem of
making the day-to-day administration of public affairs a vital part
of the community life, the use of propaganda, carefully adjusted to
the mentality of the masses, is an essential adjunct of political
life.
p119
It is not necessary for the politician to be the slave to the
public's group prejudices, if he can learn how to mold the mind of
the voters in conformity with his own ideas of public welfare and
public service. The important thing for the statesman of our age is
not so much to know how to please the public, but know how to sway
the public.
p120
Good government can be sold to a community just as any other
commodity can be sold.
p120
One reason, perhaps, why the politician today is slow to take up
methods which are a commonplace in business life is that he has such
ready entry to the media of communication on which his power depends.
The newspaperman looks to him for news. And by his power of giving or
withholding information the politician can often effectively censor
political news. But being dependent, every day of the year and for
year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper
reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources.
p123
Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to
say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear.
p123
The criticism is often made that propaganda tends make the President
of the United States so important that he becomes not the President
but the embodiment of the idea of hero worship, not to say deity
worship. I quite agree that this is so, but how are you going to stop
a condition which accurately reflects the desires of a certain part
of the public? The American people rightly senses the enormous
importance of the executive's office. If the public tends to make of
the President a heroic symbol of that power, that is not the fault of
propaganda but lies in the very nature of the office and its relation
to the people.
