Seven Days in May

Abstract

President Kennedy’s concerns over the Radio Right grew throughout his term in office. At the time, the administration worried about the prospect of a right-wing military coup led by someone like recently cashiered Army General Edwin Walker, especially after he headlined a campaign-style national tour called Operation Midnight Ride with conservative broadcaster Billy James Hargis. The final straw was the wave of conservative attacks on the president’s proposed Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union in the summer of 1963. Kennedy responded to the rise of the Radio Right by commissioning a strategy document from labor union leaders Walter and Victor Reuther. This “Reuther Memorandum,” as it became known, called for targeting conservative broadcasters with extra regulatory scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Communications Commission.