Commercial radio silence on 11/22/1963 at 12:30?

Army intelligence agent Edward J. Coyle reported a period of silence on commercial radio in Dallas at approximately the time of the assassination to the AARB July 29, 1996:

"I was only interested in seeing President Kennedy. [...] And as soon as the motorcade turned left, I turned around and walked a half block up the street, entered the building, and met my boss, Steve Weiss. We rode up the elevator to our office together [...] So we went up there and when we walked into the office...the radio was on and the news was on. And all of the sudden the radio went blank, and it stayed blank for quite awhile and we didn't know what the hell had happened. And... our telephone, and I can remember Steve Weiss picking up the telephone, and one of our agents was in the School Book Depository building, and he said that the president had been shot. And Steve Weiss like to went berserk (sic)." [Emphasis mine.]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/143tevLWDhhMy-JAkp-ho3B3S-oXVVKvr/view

If the news was playing this would be the regular radio-- not some special frequency-- and it would've gone silent right around the assassination. I've never read about this before.

Did any other witnesses or Dallasites report this period of radio silence on any stations? Was this just Coyle's memory lapsing? If not, was this standard operating procedure, for a radio station to just shut off for a minute or two or more?

My brief experience with college radio taught me that dead air was the one thing broadcasters fear most of all. Still, I suppose it's possible there is nothing definitely sinister about dead air at that exact moment... Perhaps one of the radio stations pulled the plug on the news (and all audio) for a few minutes while formulating a response to the breaking news of the assassination?

My brief experience with college radio taught me that dead air was the one thing broadcasters fear most of all. Still, I suppose it's possible there is nothing definitely sinister about dead air at that exact moment... Perhaps one of the radio stations pulled the plug on the news (and all audio) for a few minutes while formulating a response to the breaking news of the assassination?

That was my thought as I was reading prior to even getting to the above comment. Doesn't mean that's it but it is a plausible, non-sinister explanation.

Technicians, engineers or even the person at the panel in the radio station itself may have been responsible for the silence in my view. Particularly if the timing of the station going off air is accurate - that is at least a good few minutes after the assassination. I could imagine the mad panic to get to air with the news and radio staff having fumble fingers as they desperately  tried to break into normal transmission with the latest news. Also not sure of the syndication obligations too, that may have added to the drama. 

The article from the ARRB is fascinating on other matters too. Especially regarding Hosty Revill and Powell as according to Coyle's interview.

Mick Purdy wrote:[...]

The article from the ARRB is fascinating on other matters too. Especially regarding Hosty Revill and Powell as according to Coyle's interview.

Yeah-- I picked a random thing about the Coyle interview that I found unusual but it is not the first thing I'd generally mention about him and his day on 11/22/63. Powell in the TSBD is a lot stranger on its face, I'll admit.

The radio being silent made me think of Edward Luttwak and his Coup d'Etat: A Practical Handbook because I like to speculate. Wildly!

 I like to speculate. Wildly!

If it was an Olympic sport, you wouldn't even make the selection trials.


You need to study the Masters at the 13" Ed Forum and Deep Foo Foo, not to mention Dr, McRae's Imaginarium. 

In addition to this lone mention of silence on commercial radio around the time of the assassination is the silence on Channel 1 of the DPD's radio at the exact time of the assassination, attributed to "a mike button stuck open" (WC Vol. 17, p. 395). Correct me if I'm wrong but the ostensible recording of what came through that hot mic (not apparently silent) has gone on to be immortalized as the Dictabelt recording, a whole kettle of fish I am largely ignorant of but understand is hotly debated, with Wikipedia telling me:

"The open-microphone portion of the recording lasts 5.5 minutes, and begins at about 12:29 p.m. local time, a minute before the assassination. [...] the HSCA concluded that the recording originated from the motorcycle of police officer H. B. McLain, who later testified before the committee that his microphone was usually stuck in the open position. However, McLain did not hear the actual recording until after his testimony, and upon hearing it, he adamantly denied that the recording came from his motorcycle. He said that the other sounds on the recording did not match any of his movements."

I understand Wikipedia is problematic as a source, as is the whole Dictabelt thing-- I'm not looking to delve deeply into it or the acoustical evidence-- I just figured while on the subject of one alleged radio silence I'd bring up another with even more impeccable timing that disrupted the DPD's response, which apparently contained audio info nonetheless. Unless something else could have somehow caused Channel 1 to get jammed, that faulty motorcycle mic sure had uncanny timing, is what I'm getting at.

Nothing to see here! 

A USSSTD document dated November 29-30 1963. 

Police Radio Channels 1 and 2 are to be sent to the US Washington Protective Research Section for filtering, re-recording, and transcription.

There is very good reason to believe that erasures might have been made in the copy of the radio log which would be be sent back to the Dallas police Dept.
Any audio transmissions from the original Police radio logs, channels 1 and 2 which did not correlate with the unfolding narrative could have been deleted, edited or added in at the WPRS.

Mick Purdy wrote:
There is very good reason to believe that erasures might have been made in the copy of the radio log which would be be sent back to the Dallas police Dept.
Any audio transmissions from the original Police radio logs, channels 1 and 2 which did not correlate with the unfolding narrative could have been deleted, edited or added in at the WPRS.

That's very interesting, Mick. I wasn't aware if there were Dictabelt alterationists like there are Zapruder Film alterationists, but it looks very plausible. No need for Hawkeye Works to edit or recreate audio-- that could be done on the cheap in any number of studios, or using a Dictabelt machine itself...

And maybe one of those old-timey radio drama sound-effects boards..

https://i.servimg.com/u/f18/20/21/10/18/effect10.jpg

rogerhucek wrote:

Mick Purdy wrote:
There is very good reason to believe that erasures might have been made in the copy of the radio log which would be be sent back to the Dallas police Dept.
Any audio transmissions from the original Police radio logs, channels 1 and 2 which did not correlate with the unfolding narrative could have been deleted, edited or added in at the WPRS.

That's very interesting, Mick. I wasn't aware if there were Dictabelt alterationists like there are Zapruder Film alterationists, but it looks very plausible. No need for Hawkeye Works to edit or recreate audio-- that could be done on the cheap in any number of studios, or using a Dictabelt machine itself.

Not sure about Zapruder's footage ever having been altered, but what the above document clearly was acknowledging in my opinion is that the original police radio transmission audio log or dictabelt of channels 1 and 2 from that day especially relating to the timeline of Oswald's alleged fleeing of the President's murder scene were being sent to a Government agency for filtering, re-recording and transcription. 

We know from the recordings we have in the public domain now that the timeline on those transcripts of the transmissions around the time of Officer Tippit's last known confirmed radio message at 12.54pm - that the timeline on the police log starts to become problematic when trying to match the radio calls to the witness statements. That includes Doctors staements, police statements, ambulance drivers statements and eye witnesses to the Tippit murder. Nothing on the radio log we see today between the time of  12.54pm and 1. 26 pm - possibly - longer seems to correlate with what witnesses statements from the 22nd November have shown. There are also two possible erasures which seem to be evident on the existing copy of the radio log which occur just after the time of Tippit allegedly being sent to a disturbance call. If they are erasures then that is highly suspicious to my mind.

Sorry if this is a bit off topic too.