It’s enough to satisfy even the weirdest devotees of dark conspiracy theories. In a Nashville courtroom this week, Art Bell, the cult-favorite host of a hair-raising radio show carried on nearly 500 stations, is suing Nashville’s Worldwide Christian Radio (WWCR), the shortwave station that earned notoriety as the voice of the militia movement at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Bell is accusing WWCR of slander. According to his lawsuit, Ted Gunderson—a gun fanatic and ex-FBI agent who bought time on WWCR—said on the air with one of his guests, David Hinkson, that Bell had molested children in his home state of Nevada and bribed police to cover it up.
Bell’s own overnight call-in show, heard locally on WWTN-99.7 FM from midnight to 5:30 a.m. weekdays, dwells on all things freaky: blinking objects in the sky, paranormal activity, alien abductions, black helicopters, secret government projects, and omens of the apocalypse. Over the past decade, he’s built a nightly audience of 6 million, making him the fourth most popular radio host after Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura, and Howard Stern.
At 2 a.m. on April Fools’ Day, Bell shocked his fans by announcing he was quitting his show, and he wasn’t joking. His spooky on-air world had become very real indeed. Here’s some of what he said:
”In order that you all understand the gravity of the announcement I’m about to make, it’s going to be necessary for me to repeat some very painful events that have occurred to my family over the past several years. On May 16th of the year 1997, my son, Art Bell IV, was kidnapped, transported across state lines, and raped by a substitute teacher from his own high school. The assailant was HIV positive. My son was a minor. He was only 16 years old at the time. The teacher involved was tried, convicted, and is now serving a life sentence....
”As our family was working through this trauma in private, an event beyond all bounds of decency and humanity occurred. On December 9th of 1997, just a few months after my son’s ordeal, my own began. Ted Gunderson, a retired FBI agent, along with David Hinkson and the assistance of others, aired a broadcast which—incredibly, absolutely incredibly—accused me of committing the very same crime my son had suffered, child molestation.... Of course, these accusations were entirely false.“
Bell went on to castigate WWCR as ”one of the country’s leading broadcasters of hate radio“ and ”one of the most irresponsible stations permitted to broadcast over the airwaves of this country.“
Bell won’t talk to the media about his lawsuit against WWCR, Gunderson, and Hinkson. But his lawyer, Gerard Fox of Los Angeles, says the allegations aired on WWCR have prompted death threats against Bell.
This week is Bell’s last as the host of his show, which he broadcasts from his bunker of a home in the Nevada desert, and on Friday in Davidson County Judge Marietta Shipley’s courtroom, the two sides will meet for an initial hearing on Bell’s lawsuit. WWCR is asking Shipley to dismiss it. The station argues that it’s not responsible for what’s said on its airwaves, that it merely sells time and acts as a transmitter.
You may remember the first time WWCR was in the news. After the Oklahoma City bombing five years ago, one of the station’s personalities, ”Mark of Michigan“ Koernke—a member of a Michigan paramilitary splinter group and broadcast voice of the militia movement—suggested that the U.S. government might have been responsible. Deluged with complaints, station general manager George McClintock yanked Koernke off the air, but let him back on a few weeks later.
McClintock won’t answer questions about Bell’s lawsuit, but in an interview, he went on a rant against his station’s critics generally. Here are excerpts:
♦ ”When somebody says something you don’t agree with, you automatically assume there’s some kind of slander involved. These are constitutional rights we’re talking about. There are a lot of ideas that people don’t like that are constitutionally protected.“
♦ ”This is a society that issues lawsuits right and left. If you’re in business, it’s a way of life. Anyone can issue a lawsuit. Whether it has merit or not is completely irrelevant.“
♦ ”The other side is calling us hate radio, saying we have all kinds of axes to grind. The culture of America appears on our radio station. Our U.S. audience is probably in the order of 2.7 million. When you have an audience that large, the nuts come out of the woodwork and call in to the shows. The melting pot of America, that’s what we are.“
Whatever. It actually says more about WWCR to point out that the far-right group Posse Comitatus is among the station’s defenders. Anarchists who preach guerrilla war against a Jewish-dominated government, Posse Comitatus posted this headline on its Web site: ”Art Bell, another parasitic Jew!“ The group states ”that the real thing behind all of this is not so much a slander suit, which Art Bell claims, but to shut down WWCR.“
Wouldn’t that be a shame.
