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The Joey Bishop Show (ABC, June 5, 1968) Andrew West/RFK Assassination

P

pqgeorge

Does anyone happen to have an audio tape of The Joey Bishop Show, recorded on Wednesday, June 5, 1968? This was the live interview with Andrew West, the KRKD reporter who reported, on the scene, the actual shooting of Senator Robert F. Kennedy a few moments after he just won the California Primary. I personally saw this particular show (at the age of eight) and never forgot it. Even some 38 years later, it was a time that stuck with me to this day. Does anyone recall this particular show?

Thanks,
Pete
 
...I have no information about this particular program, but I'd like to ask you a question concerning the impression the interview left on you. Ron Jacobs, the program director of KHJ Los Angeles at the time, has been claiming for years that West faked the tape simply to get the payment from Mutual for the clip and wasn't even near the Ambassador Hotel at the time of the assassination. Jacobs is also quick to point out that he had fired West from three different jobs, including one at KHJ, so Jacobs obviously has an axe to grind concerning West. If it is a fake, it's the most convincing fake I've ever heard in my life. Do you recall anything in West's appearance that could possibly suggest Jacobs' claims may be true?...

...slightly related: on June 10th, the Monday of the following week, ABC ran a prime time special titled "Here's Dick Cavett," made up of clips from Cavett's morning talk show. A kinescope of that special is included on THE DICK CAVETT SHOW: COMIC LEGENDS boxed DVD set. Of course, 50 weeks after that, Cavett's show popped up on ABC's prime time schedule as a thrice-a-week offering, and by the end of 1969 Cavett had replaced Bishop as ABC's late night talk host...
 
>>...I have no information about this particular program, but I'd like to ask you a question concerning the impression the interview left on you. Ron Jacobs, the program director of KHJ Los Angeles at the time, has been claiming for years that West faked the tape simply to get the payment from Mutual for the clip and wasn't even near the Ambassador Hotel at the time of the assassination. Jacobs is also quick to point out that he had fired West from three different jobs, including one at KHJ, so Jacobs obviously has an axe to grind concerning West. If it is a fake, it's the most convincing fake I've ever heard in my life. Do you recall anything in West's appearance that could possibly suggest Jacobs' claims may be true?...<<

I am familiar with Ron Jacobs and the work he did at 93/KHJ. He is well respected and well known in the business. Other than the audio tape of the assassination and seeing Mr. West on The Joey Bishop Show, I know very little about Andy West and know very little about his work after the Kennedy assassination. Once I get a copy of the Bishop interview with Andy West, I will listen carefully to the interview and hear the recording of the scuffle for myself. True, I was only eight years old at the time of the events of 6/5/68. But, I was well aware of the events of the time and understood it quite well. Whatever happened to Andy West after 6/5/68?

Nonetheless, I'll never forget the Bishop show for as long as I live. I was home recouperating from open-heart surgery at the time and the TV was my "window on the world". I was not able to sleep the night of June 5-6, 1968 and so I kept the TV on all night, (my parents understood and let me stay up) and I watched history unfold in front of my eyes. I was up all night until Senator Kennedy's press secretary came to the microphone around 5:00 AM (Eastern) to announce that Senator Kennedy had expired some 15 minutes earlier. I can't believe it has been over 38 years ago.

Thanks for the reply.
-Pete
 
There is no doubt that West was there. He can clearly be seen in some of the still photos taken in the pantry in the moments following the shooting. In one photo I recall in particular he's standing at the end of the steam tables towards the double swinging doors through which RFK entered the pantry and appears to be speaking into a microphone. Given where Sirhan was positioned when he fired the shots and West's positioning immediately after RFK was felled, it is indeed a distinct possibility that West could have found himself in a situation in which, as he described it so vividly, "the gun is pointed right at me."
 
Another motive: KHJ had been Mutual's West Coast flagship and its owner, RKO-General, had been a major stockholder in Mutual. The RKO stations had bailed on Mutual a few years earlier.

Both could be right. West could have been there and the recording could have been... what ... "enhanced," "augmented." Maybe his tape recorder wasn't running. Maybe he ran out of tape. Maybe his battery died. All sorts of things could go wrong with those old reel to reel portables, at just the wrong. It happened to me; it could happen to him.

Shortly afterwards, West ended up at country station WITL in Lansing, MI as their one-person news department. He wasn't there long (the job had high turn-over, although some people went on to bigger and better things). Was "Andrew West" his real name? Whatever he did since then may have been under his own name.
 
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