Speaker 1: Good evening. Search planes and fishing boats hunted along the
Speaker 1: Alaska coast today for a small plane that disappeared yesterday
Speaker 1: on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau. On that plane
Speaker 1: four men, one of them the Democratic Leader of the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives, hay O Boggs of Louisiana. The fifty
Speaker 1: eight year old Louisiana congressman, was in Alaska campaigning for
Speaker 1: the re election of that state's only Congressman, Nick Beggitt.
Speaker 1: Boggs spoke Sunday night at a dinner for baggage at
Speaker 1: an Anchorage hotel before leaving with him and others yesterday
Speaker 1: morning on the flight to You know, it was a
Speaker 1: warm reception, but then the next day trouble. Somewhere along
Speaker 1: the five hundred and fifty mile planned flight path, the
Speaker 1: plane disappeared in a rain store. Close your eyes, picture Alaska.
Speaker 1: What do you see? Mountains, snow, waves, Do you feel cold? Alone?
Speaker 1: Somewhere in that expanse lies the wreckage of a missing
Speaker 1: cessna and the bodies of four men, including two US Congressmen.
Speaker 1: Their disappearance on October six two prompted the largest search
Speaker 1: in American history, a search that spanned thirty nine days
Speaker 1: and covered three and twenty five thousand square miles. Yet
Speaker 1: no sign of the men or they're plane ever surfaced,
Speaker 1: No oil slick, no wreckage, nothing. Ever. This story is
Speaker 1: one of the great mysteries of American history. But you've
Speaker 1: probably never heard of it, and that's okay. Even in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, it vanished from the headlines within weeks.
Speaker 1: A nation consumed with Watergate and Vietnam quickly moved on.
Speaker 1: For the families of the men of Congressman Hail Bogs
Speaker 1: and Nick Beggett, pilot Don John's, and political aid Russ Brown,
Speaker 1: it was a slower process without a wreck. There were
Speaker 1: no definitive answers, no closure. Eleven children, including the journalist
Speaker 1: Coke Roberts and future U. S. Senator Mark Begets, lost
Speaker 1: their fathers. The weather that day in two was turbulent,
Speaker 1: the skies a violent gray. The plane was last heard
Speaker 1: from near a rugged mountain pass. It was presumed to
Speaker 1: have iced up and crashed, perhaps crumpled into a glacier
Speaker 1: or submerged in frigid water. That presumption that the plane
Speaker 1: was felled by ice explains in part why so little
Speaker 1: attention has been paid to this story during the past
Speaker 1: fifty years. Alaska, bad weather, a small plane, nothing special. Sure,
Speaker 1: there were two congressmen on board, so what right? But
Speaker 1: the story that was never told, the story I uncovered
Speaker 1: during a nine year investigation, is much more complex. My
Speaker 1: name is John Wallzac. I'm an investigative journalist based in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, and since I've obtained thousands of pages of
Speaker 1: government documents, interviewed dozens of people, and traveled all over
Speaker 1: the nation researching the disappearance. What I learned is bizarre
Speaker 1: and until now largely untold. Nearly fifty years after the
Speaker 1: plane vanished, people are dying and time is running out.
Speaker 1: This mystery will be solved now or will likely never
Speaker 1: be solved. And to be honest, I'm exhausted, but I'm
Speaker 1: making one final push to solve this case. I'm not
Speaker 1: giving up yet, but I need your help. One last thing.
Speaker 1: I struggled with whether or not I should even tell
Speaker 1: this story or just let it be publishing It will
Speaker 1: hurt people, It will drag out allegations of affairs and murder.
Speaker 1: A few people, including FBI agents, journalists, and politicians, end
Speaker 1: up looking good at the end. If you're in Alaska,
Speaker 1: and you're hearing this for the first time. Ask yourself why,
Speaker 1: because well connected people in your state no significant parts
Speaker 1: of this story and they're not telling it to you.
Speaker 1: But first some background. Let's flash back to October fift
Speaker 1: n two. The only thing I remember was dead. My
Speaker 1: husband tell me we were reception and expecting I don't
Speaker 1: know people or something. That's Susan Millish. She and her
Speaker 1: husband Donald, hosted a cocktail fundraiser for the congressman in
Speaker 1: Anchorage the night before they disappeared. Donald remembers that Boggs,
Speaker 1: who had just flown in from d C, was jet
Speaker 1: lagged but jovial as he spoke to a small crowd
Speaker 1: in front of a fireplace, was having a good time,
Speaker 1: and they talked about their trip, and you know, Bobs
Speaker 1: was excited about going down to southeast and country. And
Speaker 1: that's about it. After the reception, the Congressman drove to
Speaker 1: a dinner fundraiser in a packed hotel ballroom. Their final
Speaker 1: public event. Alan Dodds Frank was a young reporter who
Speaker 1: covered it for the Anchorage Daily News. Energetic, thoughtful speaker
Speaker 1: who pumped up the crowd. He's got everybody is on
Speaker 1: their feet and more important he was he was a
Speaker 1: big attraction to raise money for Vegas and draw a
Speaker 1: big crap box. Was indeed a v I p His
Speaker 1: visit to Alaska was a big deal. He been friends
Speaker 1: with the presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Was
Speaker 1: expected to be elected the next Speaker of the House,
Speaker 1: and in the nineteen sixties, during a pivotal moment in
Speaker 1: American history, he had supported civil rights legislation, something which
Speaker 1: almost cost him his seat in nine because I come
Speaker 1: from a deep ship, but I have consistently believed in
Speaker 1: the Bill of Rights, and I have voted for civil rights,
Speaker 1: and I have voted for voting rights. Des I didn't
Speaker 1: think the people of the territory of Alaska shouldn't be
Speaker 1: second class citizens. I didn't think that the people who
Speaker 1: have had a color of skin that was open from mine,
Speaker 1: who lived in my community community, shouldn't be second class.
Speaker 1: So I voted that boy. But perhaps what Boggs is
Speaker 1: best known for war is his service on the Warrant Commission,
Speaker 1: which investigated JFK's assassination. Inevitably, when people here I'm working
Speaker 1: on this story, they ask whether or not I think
Speaker 1: the congressman's disappearance had anything to do with Kennedy's death.
Speaker 1: My answer is emphatically no. In private letters and public remarks,
Speaker 1: Box expressed confidence in the commission's findings. The Warrant Commission
Speaker 1: took testimony from many, many witnesses, well over a thousands uh.
Speaker 1: The testimony runs in twenty six bound volumes and many,
Speaker 1: many millions of words. It had its disposal, the complete
Speaker 1: resources of the FBI, the Secret Service, c i A,
Speaker 1: the Intelligence of the Army, Navy, Air Force, the State Department.
Speaker 1: The only admonition we had was to find the truth,
Speaker 1: and we sought the truth, and I my own conviction
Speaker 1: is that we found it. I have my my own
Speaker 1: conviction is it. There's no doubt about it. Even though
Speaker 1: I found nothing indicating Box's disappearance had anything to do
Speaker 1: with the Kennedy assassination, I did uncover serious allegations of
Speaker 1: a different conspiracy. I'll get to that in due time.
Speaker 1: For now, though, let me say this, it's amazing what
Speaker 1: you can dig up with the Freedom of Information Act
Speaker 1: request or a deep dive in an archive. Here are
Speaker 1: two quick examples. One, on the night of July nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: someone in a late model Lincoln Continental forced Bogs off
Speaker 1: the road in d C near the intersection of Woodley
Speaker 1: Road and thirty fourth Street. Boggs gave chase and took
Speaker 1: down a license plate number. Beyond that, I don't know
Speaker 1: much the incident, which picture it a congressional car chase,
Speaker 1: was only documented on a single sheet I obtained from
Speaker 1: the FBI. Two. While digging through documents at Tulane University,
Speaker 1: I found a letter dated December nineteen sixty three indicating
Speaker 1: Bogg's plan to keep a diary while serving on the
Speaker 1: Warrant Commission. That diary, if it existed, would obviously be
Speaker 1: of immense interest to historians and conspiracy buffs alike behind
Speaker 1: the scenes account of the investigation into the Kennedy assassination. Sadly,
Speaker 1: though I found no proof Bogs followed through and actually
Speaker 1: kept one, a member of his family told me they
Speaker 1: were unaware of the existence of any diary. If Bogs
Speaker 1: wasn't murdered because of his service on the Warren Commission,
Speaker 1: some people say maybe he was killed because of his
Speaker 1: feud with j Edgar Hoover, the infamous FBI director. I
Speaker 1: don't buy it, but the feud was real. In April,
Speaker 1: Bogs had taken to the floor of Congress to slam
Speaker 1: Hoover and the FBI, which he compared to the Gestapo.
Speaker 1: Hail Boggs, the Democratic leader of the House, insists that
Speaker 1: his telephone has been tapped, that the FBI has spying
Speaker 1: on his personal life, and, as he puts it, we
Speaker 1: are living in a police state today. The FBI said
Speaker 1: the charge was, in its words, absolutely and utterly false,
Speaker 1: but Boggs was insistent. He said j Edgar Hoover was
Speaker 1: incompetent and should resign. And he asked the question, if
Speaker 1: this can happen to the majority leader of the House
Speaker 1: of Representatives, what do you think could happen to an
Speaker 1: ordinary citizen. The Nixon administration was piste off, and it
Speaker 1: pushed back. Attorney General John Mitchell accused Boggs of quote
Speaker 1: tap anoia. At the White House. President Nixon was ironically
Speaker 1: caught on tape discussing Bogs with then Congressman Gerald Ford,
Speaker 1: who didn't know he was being recorded. Good morning, the surprise, Jerry,
Speaker 1: are you what's the matter with your opposite number? He's
Speaker 1: not my god. I when I read the spar last night,
Speaker 1: and incidentally, I thought you made fine comment it I uh,
Speaker 1: I said Jesus Key right. Did you know that the
Speaker 1: FBI has not had a tip I don't knowing, not
Speaker 1: only on no congressman or no old senator, but not
Speaker 1: even any place anybody that is ever the moment that
Speaker 1: crossed into that capital for did you know that? I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. But I mean, oh, Hoover has got
Speaker 1: the record. I mean, this is the most ridiculous stamping.
Speaker 1: And but the fellow is uh, it's he's on the sauce,
Speaker 1: isn't it it? Well, I I'm afraid that's right now.
Speaker 1: Is crazy. I mean he's either drinking too much or
Speaker 1: he's taking some pills that that are upsetting him mentally.
Speaker 1: Last Thursday when we were getting the program for the week,
Speaker 1: he was mumbling. He was almost incoherent. It was very
Speaker 1: embarrassing to Carl and to everybody who was on the floor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bogs like to drink, sure, but Nickson like to slander people.
Speaker 1: And I have no idea of any of this is true. Regardless,
Speaker 1: as NBC's David Brinkley pointed out, their Bad Blood did
Speaker 1: highlight bitter tensions in the body politic. As Bog said,
Speaker 1: numerous members of Congress believe at least that their phones
Speaker 1: are tapped and they're being spied on, or both. Even
Speaker 1: if they believe this wrongly, the fact they believe it
Speaker 1: at all tells a great deal about the mood and
Speaker 1: temper in Washington these days. Ultimately, there's no evidence Hoover
Speaker 1: had anything to do with Box's disappearance. In fact, Hoover
Speaker 1: himself died in May, five months before Bog's vanished. When
Speaker 1: Boggs landed in Alaska on October, he found a state
Speaker 1: undergoing a rapid transformation. Only four years earlier, Alaskans had
Speaker 1: discovered they were sitting on a sea of gold, black gold.
Speaker 1: That's the camp on the first oil well struck on
Speaker 1: the North Slope in Alaska. This country's biggest oil strike
Speaker 1: in a generation, bigger than Texas. This is the shore
Speaker 1: of Prudeo Bay. But it's hard to tell where the
Speaker 1: shore stops in the bay starts, because the so called
Speaker 1: land in summer is two thirds water and one third
Speaker 1: mud tundra it's called In the winter, it's all frozen.
Speaker 1: Since we're well inside the Arctic Circle up toward the
Speaker 1: North Pole. It's so cold here in the winter, sixty
Speaker 1: below zero with the wind blowing. Even the Esquimos left
Speaker 1: a long time ago, and until now the Caribou had
Speaker 1: it all to themselves. But now with the oil strike,
Speaker 1: the oil companies are moving in and drooling and building
Speaker 1: camps for their workers. It's about as rough as in
Speaker 1: the Alaska gold rush of the eighteen nineties, and the
Speaker 1: man are just as tough. But before Alaska could reap
Speaker 1: the benefits of that oil, a pipeline needed to be constructed.
Speaker 1: And before a pipeline could be constructed, there were legal
Speaker 1: and political obstacles to overcome, including demands from Alaska Natives
Speaker 1: that they'd be compensated for their land across which part
Speaker 1: of the pipeline would be built. This is how Nick
Speaker 1: Beggett got a chance to make a massive, lasting impact
Speaker 1: on the state and the nation. In his first and
Speaker 1: only term in Congress, Beggatt's helped pass the Alaska Native
Speaker 1: Claims Settlement Act, or ANKSA, which President Nixon signed into law.
Speaker 1: ANKSA gave Alaska Natives forty four million acres of land
Speaker 1: and nearly one billion dollars, paving the way for pipeline
Speaker 1: construction to eventually begin. Beggatt's raw political talent driven by
Speaker 1: an earnest nerdy charm and infectious laugh and a hard
Speaker 1: charging work ethic through the attention of leaders like hell Bogs.
Speaker 1: By this time I've gotten very fund of him, and
Speaker 1: also admit his wife and I liked it. But if
Speaker 1: any ways, This is the final recording of Bogs, taken
Speaker 1: the night before he disappeared. In it, he discusses the
Speaker 1: turbulent political moment and fears of creeping authoritarianism, but ultimately
Speaker 1: I took chalitarian phone government comes along. Of course, the
Speaker 1: idea of any such thing occurring of necessary in this
Speaker 1: country is ridiculous. The idea that we should have twenty
Speaker 1: five percent of the industrial capacity of the United States
Speaker 1: lying on today, when every city needs rebuilding, when project
Speaker 1: after project after project, cry is out, you're shopping that.
Speaker 1: I reject off that. After Bogs finished speaking, Begette took
Speaker 1: the podium. Though he was expected to easily win re election,
Speaker 1: he didn't want to take victory for granted, that wasn't
Speaker 1: his style. He had a busy few weeks planned, will
Speaker 1: be in the state the next approximate twenty one days
Speaker 1: through the end of making approximately two appearances from now on,
Speaker 1: and we want you to know that Hale says, where
Speaker 1: do you get the energy when you get people turned
Speaker 1: out like this? For you, you you get the energy and return.
Speaker 1: It's spontaneous with me and I sort of lived off
Speaker 1: the match, off the galls of crowds. Anything more than
Speaker 1: two gets me going tonight. We got quite a few tunes,
Speaker 1: so okay, not sleep tonight. This tape rediscovered in fades
Speaker 1: in and out to Carol and Carol, Lonnie and Barbara
Speaker 1: and doctor and mus Lay and A Cram and all
Speaker 1: of you made this affair such a success tonight. This
Speaker 1: is one time I was not too closely associated with
Speaker 1: the event as I have in the past. That too
Speaker 1: many things along the last two the recent and with
Speaker 1: that the video cuts out. Eight days earlier, on October seventh,
Speaker 1: Beggae had given his final recorded interview to Tom Duncan
Speaker 1: of k u a C, a radio station in Fairbanks.
Speaker 1: Congressman Baggage, I'd like to shift the scene from Alaska
Speaker 1: to Washington. Do you feel that the Watergate affair will
Speaker 1: have any influence on President Nixon's campaign for re election? Oh? Shared, well,
Speaker 1: I think all of these things. In fact, I call
Speaker 1: that I'm sure you've heard of mission impossible. I call
Speaker 1: that mission incredible, the most incredible thing I've ever imagined.
Speaker 1: When Mr Nixon way back in those days, way way
Speaker 1: ahead points totals, and to get connected with this kind
Speaker 1: of thing and just it was well, it was insulting
Speaker 1: to the American system, a fair play. Americans react to that,
Speaker 1: and I could see why he's trying to disavow any
Speaker 1: association with that affair. I would if I were in
Speaker 1: his position too, because the most incredible that you'd have
Speaker 1: it tied to the higher ischela that's being tied right now,
Speaker 1: and there's been some real revelations the last couple of days. Baggage,
Speaker 1: a clean, scandal free politician, denounced Nixon's behavior but recognized
Speaker 1: that the president remained popular. He predicted Nixon's Democratic opponent,
Speaker 1: Senator George McGovern, who was down in the polls, would
Speaker 1: come out swinging, and said the race was still unpredictable,
Speaker 1: so it might be an interesting campaign. Yet, don't underestimate
Speaker 1: the American public this year. Nobody can come count what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Strange year. Indeed, whoever thought the year ago
Speaker 1: the McGovern would be the cadidate? I didn't be very
Speaker 1: honest about it. Neither did my government. Maybe with six
Speaker 1: percent of the vote. You know, back in Florida, look
Speaker 1: what happened, Congressman beg thank you very much as Begat
Speaker 1: and Bogg's campaign an anchorage. On October, Don John's, a
Speaker 1: thirty eight year old blonde haired, blue eyed bush pilot
Speaker 1: in Fairbanks, three d and sixty miles to the north,
Speaker 1: got an unexpected call. His friend Tom Cora Mettis was
Speaker 1: with him when the phone rang. And I went over
Speaker 1: to Don's place and gave that call, and Don says, Tom,
Speaker 1: let's go. I said, where are we going? He said,
Speaker 1: I got to go to Anchor supply. This guy too
Speaker 1: Beggage and this guy to Juno. I said, I can.
Speaker 1: I left Sandra over at Barry's place. Sandra was Tom's wife,
Speaker 1: and he said, okay, I've got to go, and that's
Speaker 1: when he backed up and took off. But before he
Speaker 1: drove to the airport, John's called one of his mechanics,
Speaker 1: Phil Hugh, who had just finished a hundred hour maintenance
Speaker 1: inspection on the plane. John's wanted to take the anchorage,
Speaker 1: and he called me in the evening about six o'clock
Speaker 1: and nice says, it's sitting in the hangar warm. He says, well,
Speaker 1: could you roll it out? I need that aircraft and
Speaker 1: roll it out and feel it up for me. I says, okay. Well,
Speaker 1: when he got there, the airplane was sitting outside, fueled up,
Speaker 1: ready to go, and I met him. He says he
Speaker 1: was going to anchor each with it and spend spending
Speaker 1: the night. Do you remember the last thing he said
Speaker 1: to you? Goodbye? I will you know? Yeah. He walked
Speaker 1: around the air plane, done a pre flight check, and
Speaker 1: I did most of the talking. I told him about
Speaker 1: the airplane. Everything was button up, everything looked good. It
Speaker 1: was fixed, fueled oils fine, spark plugs are clean. This
Speaker 1: would be the first flight out of it. And he
Speaker 1: went and got an airplane and closed the door, and
Speaker 1: before he did, I said, they have a good flight.
Speaker 1: Fired up the engine. He waved to me out the
Speaker 1: cockpit window and start taxing out and then get kind
Speaker 1: of windy standing in the back of the props. And
Speaker 1: so I turned around and walked to the truck. When
Speaker 1: I walked back to the hangar, which was real close,
Speaker 1: shut the lights out, closed the door, and went home.
Speaker 1: At M John's landed an Anchorage fifty minutes later, as
Speaker 1: Bogs and Beggett spoke only a few miles away, Cheryl James,
Speaker 1: then Cheryl Mitchell met him at the airport. John's and
Speaker 1: James had dated for about a year. I picked him
Speaker 1: up the airport. We went out and we had dinner
Speaker 1: new Um. He wouldn't drink. I think he had one drink,
Speaker 1: and that's it. Because he was flying, he really restricted
Speaker 1: his alcohol intake. I remember during the night he woke
Speaker 1: up like two times and checked the weather forecast because
Speaker 1: he was really concerned about weather, and that back then
Speaker 1: was a matter of picking up a phone landline phone
Speaker 1: and calling. And then I took him to the airport
Speaker 1: the next day. That morning, John's and James arrived at
Speaker 1: the airport sometime before eight am. We went to the
Speaker 1: airport and we had breakfast, and then after breakfast, and
Speaker 1: I think that may have been where he called John's
Speaker 1: who was divorced, placed a brief call to his ten
Speaker 1: year old son, Aaron, and then we um went to
Speaker 1: the aircraft. It was parked below the tower, got in
Speaker 1: the aircraft and we taxied over and got gas, Um
Speaker 1: filled up the plane and then we taxied back That
Speaker 1: probably took maybe half an hour, I'm guessing. When we
Speaker 1: got back there were three men standing there waiting for us,
Speaker 1: and uh, he parked the plane and we both got out.
Speaker 1: We kind of introduced ourselves to each other, and um,
Speaker 1: they got him ber the aircraft. Cheryld. James left shortly after.
Speaker 1: She didn't see the plane take off. Is it surreal
Speaker 1: to you that you played a small part in history,
Speaker 1: that you were the very last person to see these
Speaker 1: men alive? These men who had families and bogs, who
Speaker 1: was a historic figure, who was on the Warrant Commission
Speaker 1: and played a role in passing civil rights legislation, and
Speaker 1: you were the very last human being on the planet
Speaker 1: to see them alive. I it's really hard to believe
Speaker 1: that I was the last person. I mean, it just
Speaker 1: and I don't think of it in that. I just
Speaker 1: think of them all getting on board that airplane and
Speaker 1: that being the end um the last one. It's hard
Speaker 1: to believe. At John's requested permission to taxi down Runaway
Speaker 1: twenty four, R found a drive that four minutes later
Speaker 1: he lifted off. Melvin South, a controlled tower operator, was
Speaker 1: the last person to spot the plane, A white and
Speaker 1: orange cessa of three Tennessee, everything appeared normal. At nine
Speaker 1: o nine, John spoke with Robert Mahoney, an f A,
Speaker 1: a flight service specialist for years. I tried to locate
Speaker 1: a tape of their conversation, but had no luck. The
Speaker 1: f A says it no longer exists. John's estimated the
Speaker 1: flight would take about three and a half hours. Mahoney
Speaker 1: asked whether or not he had emergency gear and a
Speaker 1: locator beacon on board, and John's replied affirmative. Then silence.
Speaker 1: At one pm, forty five minutes after the plane was
Speaker 1: scheduled to land in Juno, word reached the US Air
Speaker 1: Force Rescue Coordination Center that the men were overdue. At three,
Speaker 1: when the plane still hadn't arrived and when it theoretically
Speaker 1: would have run out of fuel, concern ratchet it up.
Speaker 1: It affected everyone in town. It was like wildfire package box.
Speaker 1: The plane didn't arrives baggage, and the whole town was paralyzed.
Speaker 1: It was it was just frozen moment, and of course
Speaker 1: it always is with a plane crash. Um. We in
Speaker 1: the state of Alaska don't have many roads, so our
Speaker 1: means of transportation or airplanes, so it's nothing and we
Speaker 1: don't even think about it. I'm gonna just top the
Speaker 1: plane and go to Juno, go to Anchorage, go to
Speaker 1: non Contibute. It's our means and mode of travel. So
Speaker 1: it's always frightening when you hear the plane didn't derive.
Speaker 1: Ah missing late, and everyone has the same paralysis in
Speaker 1: their brain. Oh my god, where are they? TERSA Gergson
Speaker 1: was a Civil Air Patrol volunteer in Juno. She was
Speaker 1: working at a shoe store when the call came in
Speaker 1: that the plane was overdue. I just remember it was serious.
Speaker 1: It was you know, time stopped. It was very serious.
Speaker 1: People then were just hushed. Everyone was talking. The planet
Speaker 1: is messing out, you know. It was just because then
Speaker 1: people because then activity started happening in the little shoe store.
Speaker 1: People were in and out the door, and what would
Speaker 1: soon morph into a massive search operation began simply enough,
Speaker 1: with the help of fishing boats, volunteer pilots, and a
Speaker 1: few military planes. But there was only so much they
Speaker 1: could do. The weather was bad and it was getting
Speaker 1: dark across the country. And besides the Maryland Lyndy Boggs,
Speaker 1: Hale's wife was dozing off at her kitchen table with
Speaker 1: Rowan and Martin's laughing and blaring on the TV. Here
Speaker 1: she is recalling that moment. It was almost asleep. I
Speaker 1: was waiting for hal to come in from the airport
Speaker 1: in Washington, and I I had a telephone call that
Speaker 1: startled me just because I was half asleep, and completely
Speaker 1: startled my little dog. And the dog tried to get
Speaker 1: between me and the telephone. He jumped on to the
Speaker 1: table where the phone was, tried to knock the phone
Speaker 1: out of my hand. Yes, like he knew. And it
Speaker 1: was Carl Albert telling me that he didn't want me
Speaker 1: to hear the ten o'clock news. To the speak of
Speaker 1: the half, I really wanted to interview Lindy, but in July,
Speaker 1: only two weeks before I moved to New Orleans, she
Speaker 1: died at the age of of course, was shot and
Speaker 1: and apprehensive and all of that. But by the time
Speaker 1: we hung up the phone, of course, and began to
Speaker 1: ring off the hook, and two of the people who
Speaker 1: called were Teddy Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, both of whom
Speaker 1: had been down in planes with the pilot with Don
Speaker 1: Johns on other occasions, and who testified to me in
Speaker 1: glowing terms about what an ingenious and remarkable person, and
Speaker 1: pilot Don was and that I should not lead too
Speaker 1: apprehensive about all of this. Meanwhile, about ten miles away,
Speaker 1: the Beggatte family, Nick's wife, Peggy, and their six young
Speaker 1: kids were watching a cop show called The Rookies when
Speaker 1: their phone rang. Ten year old Mark picked up. It
Speaker 1: was Alaska Governor Bill In Peggy took the phone. When
Speaker 1: she returned to the living room, she abruptly told the
Speaker 1: kids to go to bed. They scurried off, and she
Speaker 1: started calling family and friends to let them know Nick
Speaker 1: was missing. Later that night, several Ham radios crackled to
Speaker 1: life in rural northern California. Operators heard a man a pilot,
Speaker 1: begging for help. Next time on Missing in Alaska, they
Speaker 1: notified of what they heard of the plane going down
Speaker 1: close to some islander land and he out and they
Speaker 1: going down. Before we go, I want to let you
Speaker 1: know that at the end of each episode, I'll be
Speaker 1: giving you a task, something you can do or some
Speaker 1: way you can help move the story forward. And then
Speaker 1: I'll give you our tipline and details on how to
Speaker 1: anonymously send us information or even documents via email. Some
Speaker 1: of these hasks will be interactive and relatively easy. Some
Speaker 1: will be specialized and difficult. The goal is to add you,
Speaker 1: our audience, to our investigative team. This week, you have
Speaker 1: three tasks. First, help me find a recording of the
Speaker 1: final conversation between Don John's, the missing pilot, and Robert Mahoney,
Speaker 1: an f A, a flight service specialist. A tape existed
Speaker 1: at least in nineteen seventy two. So far, the FAA
Speaker 1: has been unable to locate it, saying it was likely destroyed.
Speaker 1: If you know where it might be in some musty box,
Speaker 1: feel free to contact us. Second, help me figure out
Speaker 1: who took the last known photo of the missing congressman.
Speaker 1: It's a black and white image of them getting into
Speaker 1: a car at the Anchorage Airport, probably right after hill
Speaker 1: Bogs arrived from DC on October two. Multiple newspapers around
Speaker 1: the nation published it, crediting the Associated Press, but I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if it was taken by an AP photographer
Speaker 1: or more likely by a photographer for one of the
Speaker 1: anchor's papers. We'll post the photo online for you to see. Finally,
Speaker 1: if you know anyone who attended the congressman's final events,
Speaker 1: the cocktail fundraiser at the Melish's house or the dinner
Speaker 1: at the anchor's Westward Hotel. Check with them to see
Speaker 1: if they have any photos from that night. If so,
Speaker 1: let us know. You can reach us by phone at
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Speaker 1: P s at I heeart media dot com. Ben Bolan
Speaker 1: is our executive producer. Paul Decan is our supervising producer,
Speaker 1: Chris Brown is our assistant producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson is
Speaker 1: our producer. Sam T. Garden is our research assistant. And
Speaker 1: I'm your host and executive producer, John Wallzac. You can
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Speaker 1: n w A l c z a K. Footage for
Speaker 1: this episode was provided by CBS, NBC k u A
Speaker 1: C Louisiana Public Broadcasting in the Vanderbilt Television News Archive
Speaker 1: special thanks to the Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane University,
Speaker 1: the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Alaska and Polar Regions Collections,
Speaker 1: and Archives at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Christophe
Speaker 1: Zappery in New Orleans. Missing in Alaska is a co
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