1963: Dan Rather was a Texas journalist whose reporting on the assassination of John F. Kennedy catapulted him to national prominence.
CBS News made him their White House correspondent during the Nixon Administration.
When longtime CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite retired in 1981 after 19 years, Dan Rather took his place - for the next 24 years.
Five years into Rather’s tenure, he had a strange experience in New York City.
October 4, 1986: Dan Rather was walking home along Park Avenue in Manhattan.
Two men approached. Nothing about them seemed suspicious. They were well-dressed.
One of the men walked up to Rather and said, “Kenneth, what’s the frequency?”
The newsman replied that they must have mistaken him for someone else.
Then the stranger punched Rather, knocked him down, and kicked him while he was on the sidewalk. He repeated his odd question.
Two men from Dan Rather’s apartment building came to his rescue, and the two attackers ran off into the night.
Police arrived, but no suspects were ever found.
Rumors swirled. Was the assault some kind of coded message to get Rather to back off a sensitive news story? Or was it fake news?
Some people wondered whether the newsman was off his rocker. But the matter evaporated like most news stories.
1994: The story was revived when rock band REM released a song titled “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”
Lead singer and songwriter Michael Stipe swore he wasn’t making fun of Dan Rather.
1997: A North Carolina man named William Tager was in prison on manslaughter charges.
He had shot and killed a NBC Today show employee outside Rockefeller Center three years earlier.
Tager claimed the network was sending signals to his brain and that the news media couldn’t be trusted.
While incarcerated and serving 25 years in prison, he confessed to a psychiatrist that he was the man who attacked Dan Rather in 1986.
Tager told the shrink that he was from the future, and he mistook Rather for the Vice President of his future world, a man supposedly named Kenneth.
Authorities suspected Tager was making up the story.
But when Dan Rather was shown a photo of Tager, the newsman identified him immediately as his attacker.
In good humor, Rather joined REM in singing their tune - ‘What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?’ - on David Letterman’s late night show.
Dan Rather retired from CBS News in 2005.
Tager was released from prison in 2010. He lives in New York City.
So does Dan Rather.
Comments