During the Thursday version of his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast, Olbermann described in his “Things I Promised Not To Tell” segment the details of how he nearly became the successor to Paul Harvey at ABC Radio, and how he learned what Harvey viewed as his “terrible, dark, evil secret”.
“No one could mention this,” said Olbermann. “Nor the name of the other person involved. Nor the nature of the terrible thing that had happened on fear of absolute banishment from the world of Paul Harvey. The ABC executive who told me this story would not even tell it to me inside the ABC Radio news headquarters. We went and had coffee at a diner and he kept looking around to make sure nobody else was there from the network.”
Olbermann shared how ABC Radio executives liked the young newcaster so much they helped him move from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Chicago and would use him as a backup host.
“The guy that Paul Harvey backed up in the late 40s and early 50s was named H.R. Baukage. He called himself just Baukage on the air and he was already a star news reporter in this country when they invented radio. He had covered World War I for several newspapers. He had gone to work for ABC Radio’s predecessor, the NBC Blue Network, in 1932.”
In 1951, Baukage was ABC TV’s news anchor, and also did a daily 15-minute news roundup on ABC Radio. But when he went on a vacation in 1951, his role changed.
“They asked that kid from Chicago, Paul Harvey, to fill in for Baukage,” Olbermann shared. “Baukage was 62 and it was sure great that he had covered World War I but that was literally an entire World War before the one everyone was still talking about in 1951. ABC executives liked the young, brash, dramatic Paul Harvey and so when Baukage came back, they fired him. They gave Paul Harvey Baukage’s show. But you weren’t allowed to know that. It’s not on the web, except in a transcript o the obit I did when Paul Harvey died.
Olbermann then stated another secret: He updates Paul Harvey’s Wikipedia page “every couple years” to share that Harvey took over for H.R. Baukage, and waits to see how long it takes someone else to remove it. He then went on to share how Harvey feared the same situation might happen to him someday.
“This was Paul Harvey’s terrible, dark, evil secret. His big break was the guy he was filling in for got fired. I don’t think — having studied this as best I could — that Paul Harvey got H.R. Baukage fired. Nor did my boss at ABC think that. But over 50 years, Paul Harvey began to believe, not only that he got H.R. Baukage fired, but that some day God would avenge poor Baukage, and on that one day, Paul Harvey would get fired and be replaced by some guy who filled in for him while he was on vacation.
“Thus, Paul Harvey never took all the vacation time ABC owed him. Not even in year 58 of his tenure at the network. And he got up at 3:30 every morning to get to the studio or 1:30 when he was broadcasting from his other home in Arizona because he was convinced ABC would someday ‘Baukage’ him.”
Olbermann then detailed how the same ABC executive who told him Harvey’s fear of the Baukage story getting out told him they needed to plan for an eventual replacement for the venerable newsman. It centered around Olbermann beginning a Sunday format similar to Harvey’s, as someone familiar to Harvey’s listeners would be the easiest way to replace the legend…until someone mentioned the plan to Harvey.
“‘This what will now happen,” Olbermann said as he imitated Harvey. “‘You will fly to Chicago tomorrow with a new contract for me, Paul Harvey. This contract will be for the same terms and length as the current one but it will include one paragraph spelling out that Keith Olbermann will never again appear on Paul Harvey News and Comment. And another paragraph stating there will never be a seventh day of Paul Harvey News and Comment with or without Paul Harvey or I resign’.
“Paul knew in his heart the time had come. Paul Harvey’s Paul Harvey was at the door. So, he had to kill him.”
