1959: Following the Media Money trail ....

The story of British offshore radio has its roots in the year 1959, because that is when various people began making moves to set events in motion that would eventually culminate in 1964 with the creation of 'Radio Caroline'. But the trail was not created by the people named in the stack of books claiming to reveal the "true story", or the "real story" about 'Radio Caroline', because the truth is not in those books. In fact, key names don't even appear in those publications!

But as I [Caroline Brooks] explained yesterday, we are following the lives of various individuals to document how their lives crisscrossed the lives of other individuals in order to weave together the fabric of this hitherto untold story. Other writers spinning fake stories have ignored those names (like Jimmy Deterding), and some of those names have been published in glaring format for all the world to see. But those hints have sailed over the heads of the offshore hack writers. Instead, they have followed the old fake trail led by the young man full of blarney and lies whose name is Ronan O'Rahilly.

However, the actual story is a lot more interesting than the fake story!

Yesterday I quoted from the 'American Lawyer' magazine, and it is in that publication that the following redacted item was published by them. Their magazine writer claimed that "Stanley Rader .... became an accountant after his 1951 graduation from UCLA .... His initial contact with [Herbert W. Armstrong] came in 1956 when he was working as an accountant for Hollywood advertising mogul Milton Scott, who bought radio and television time for [Armstrong]. When Armstrong's accountant died in 1956, Scott sent Rader to straighten out [Armstrong's] books. .... Scott .... says Rader violated their confidential relationship by wrestling [Armstrong's] advertising business away from [Scott]."

​We now know the name of the person who died and when he died, and it was not in the year 1956, as claimed by 'The American Lawyer' magazine. In fact a picture of Stanley Robert Rader, C.P.A, first showed up in the 1959 Ambassador College yearbook with this caption: "Auditor and Financial Advisor for the Church and College. A new-comer to the Campus, Mr. Rader's advice is frequently sought on questions relating to business and financial matters."

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​So who did Stanley Robert Rader, a nominal member of the Jewish faith, replace to advise this Christian denomination on matters relating to business and finance? The answer is ​Boliver O'Rear [right] who was a both a practicing, attorney and a member of the Baptist denomination.

Armstrong's operation began life in the Nineteen Thirties as a tiny local congregation based in Eugene, Oregon. It had broken away from a small denomination that previously ordained Herbert W. Armstrong.

In the Nineteen Forties Armstrong relocated to Pasadena, California, and attracted the professional services of Boliver O'Rear who was not a member of Armstrong's  Church, and neither was he a subscriber to Armstrong's theology! But that is not the only oddity that draws our attention to the life and times of Boliver O'Rear.

Armstrong's literature states that when he died, Boliver O'Rear had been "both legal advisor and auditor of Ambassador College since its beginning ten years ago." Ambassador College began in the year 1947.

The slow process of turning a Sunday morning religious service of the Church of God in Eugene, Oregon into a Hollywood formatted monologue was gradual. Inspiration for a name change came from the promotional title of the 1939 World's Fair, when Armstrong picked-up its futuristic theme and reinterpreted it to refer to a Biblical verse about a millennial age of peace on Earth.

That is when newspaper program listings for the 'Radio Church of God' broadcast service on Sundays, were changed to a listing for the 'World Tomorrow' program. It was still presented under the eponymous name of the radio program, which was then registered as a California corporation. Ambassador College, which began as an activity of the Radio Church of God, Inc., was then registered separately as another non-profit California corporation. Handling both the legal and financial contract work for Herbert w. Armstrong, was Los Angeles attorney Boliver O'Rear.

Even after the name change, the Hollywood influenced program still retained elements of a church service, and its morphing into a monologue introduced by Art Gilmore, the announcer of the Broderick Crawford television show called 'Highway Patrol', and then concluding with an instrumental jingle, would be gradual.

More about Boliver O'Rear tomorrow.

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