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Person

Carl McIntire

> McIntire put a transmitter on a boat and anchored it off Cape May. That's the entry to understand him by. Everything else is downstream of the choice to take a sacred broadcast technology outside FCC jurisdiction.

> *The Twentieth-Century Reformation Hour* peaked at six hundred stations. When the FCC pulled WXUR's license, he bought a WWII Navy minesweeper, renamed it the Columbus, and broadcast Radio Free America from international waters. — from the file

A Bible Presbyterian, J. Gresham Machen's protégé, indicted by his own denomination, forced out, founded his own. Then the American Council of Christian Churches in 1941 — the militant fork running parallel to the Federal Council. The diagnostic tool Machen built to defend a real theological commitment, McIntire inherited and inverted. Same instrument, opposite polarity. He used it to anathematize Billy Graham as a compromiser and to attack the Catholic Church and queer people on six hundred frequencies a day.

The boat is the file's point. A pirate transmitter floating in international waters is the 7th ray problem made literal. He had learned an operative technology in a sacred frame — voice modulated for affective uptake, ceremony as broadcast — and when the secular jurisdiction said no, he picked up the transmitter and carried it past the line. Sixteen hours before the Coast Guard injunction the Columbus was on the air, flying an American flag.

He died owing Cape May half a million in back taxes, having proposed both a Florida Temple of Jerusalem and a New Vietnam amusement park. The case became the rallying cry for killing the Fairness Doctrine. Talk radio after 1987 is the inheritance.

The 7th ray was never the problem. McIntire was the proof that what you learn in ceremony scales without asking what fork it's on.

Religious broadcaster whose case catalyzed Fairness Doctrine elimination. 1906–2002, Machen's protégé who inverted diagnostic tool from broadening to narrowing. Bible Presbyterian founder; extremist broadcaster; operated 600-station radio empire 1955-1973. Founded American Council of Christian Churches; militant anti-communist broadcaster.

Connections 19 threads
Organization
Person
  • Billy Graham McIntire rejected Graham as compromised by liberal ecclesiastical support.
  • Billy James Hargis McIntire and Hargis were peers operating parallel extremist broadcaster empires.
  • J. Gresham Machen McIntire was Machen's protégé who inherited the diagnostic tool.
  • J. Gresham Machen McIntire was protégé of Machen at Princeton/Westminster Seminary.
Work
Artifact
  • MV Oceanic McIntire acquired 140-foot WWII minesweeper previously used by Jacques Cousteau.
  • MV Oceanic McIntire transplanted WXUR's 10,000-watt transmitter to vessel, renamed Columbus.
Concept
Operation
Event
Source Threads 5 files

— C., FROM THE FILES

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