In search of answers ....

After leaving the U.K., Hagger toured much of the USA beginning in 1971, and as he did so he stopped off from time-to-time to write and sell freelance articles, and make occasional documentary broadcasts. This is how he met Frank Laseter who had been known as Larry Dean on Don Pierson's 'Radio England'.

Hagger first arrived in North America at Montreal, Canada, and then he gradually made his way across New York State and down the East Coast of the USA until he arrived at South Miami in Florida. Turning on his radio to WFUN, on came Larry Dean and after a phone call the two got together, first at the radio station and then at his home. Moving on from the east coast of Florida, he stopped long enough to replenish his reserve funds by another spell as a visiting journalist and broadcaster in the panhandle of eastern Florida. Then he crisscrossed most of the southern states and went to California via Wyoming and Utah.

Then it was back to Texas where he became editor of a weekly newspaper. It was then that he came to know and appreciate the vastness of the Lone Star State, and to understand the true meaning of the word freedom. This was especially true when working for yet another publisher in the community adjoining the huge King Ranch that straddled the top of the Texas Valley. This was a cattle ranching; fertile fruit growing, and oil pumping area that stretched down alongside beautiful sands flanking the Gulf of Mexico. It terminated at the rather dismal waters of the Rio Grande River which separates the Texas border of the USA from Mexico.

It was in the lower Valley that he met Charles William Weaver who everyone knew as Bill. After retiring as both the manager of Gordon McLendon's KLIF radio station in Houston, where he also served as National Manager for all of the McLendon stations, Bill decided to take a break and for a time he opened and operated an import business that brought in goods from Mexico which he then sold on to vendors in the USA.

It was Weaver who had been sent to Sweden to shut down 'Radio Nord' and try to sell it in 1962 to Allan Crawford. Because Crawford wanted to lease it instead of buy it, Weaver took the radio ship to Galveston Island, Texas where it was stripped of its radio station equipment. Weaver was also station manager of McLendon's KILT in Houston, and so he stored the transmitters and studio gear in a KILT warehouse to use as spare parts for other McLendon stations.

Weaver was a gold mine of information because he told Hagger about the arrival of Ronan O'Rahilly in June 1963 as the agent for Allan Crawford. Weaver went into detail telling Hagger where O'Rahilly stayed and what he did and who he met. O'Rahilly never mentioned this trip of June 1963, and instead he invented a story about flying to New York to buy transmitters.

The time period being discussed was within months of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and despite later claiming to be a big fan of Kennedy. It is also ironic that the same month O'Rahilly went on his secret trip to Houston, Kennedy was making a very public visit to the Republic of Ireland, and Ronan O'Rahilly was not there to meet him.

Throughout the Seventies this investigation was a casual matter that was centered upon the idea of eventually meeting Don Pierson and writing a book about his life, especially with regards to offshore broadcasting. In those years no one was even suggesting that listeners in the United Kingdom and Europe had been fooled into believing a fable about the origins of 'Radio Caroline', and consequently Hagger was not asking questions about that hidden story.

More media adventures in radio and publishing brought Hagger to Houston, the oil capital for much of the USA. It was here that he met many of the people who had a hand in managing the ship mv 'Mi Amigo'; ex-Magda Maria; ex-Bon Jour which had been used as the home of 'Radio Nord' broadcasting from the Baltic Sea into Sweden. They included Gordon McLendon's Chief Engineer Glenn Callison who had reassembled its Texas transmitters in Europe, because they had been previously disassembled and then shipped via New York, in order to avoid U.S. Customs inspection. 

The meeting with Glenn Callison took place at his home at Dallas. He had to hand a copy of Paul Harris' redacted translation of Jack Kotchack's book about 'Radio Nord' while he began to fill in more details about O'Rahilly's June 1963 visit to Houston. Callison made an introduction to Dick Witkovski, his Dallas neighbor and former salesman of the New York company that exported the 'Nord' transmitters to Europe. That firm also acted as sales agents for the 'Spotmaster' cartridge machines.

But in hindsight, what now stands out demanding scrutiny, are Hagger's handwritten notes made back then that just didn't seem to make any sense for many years. Callison mentioned introductions that were made to O'Rahilly in Houston. The names included a Captain de Jong, and a Liechtenstein prince.

Hagger tried unsuccessfully to reconcile those introductions in Houston with O'Rahilly's avoidance of any mention that he had even been to Houston in June 1963. Those meetings did not square with the supposedly enthralling story that captivated the imagination of Ronan O'Rahilly as he gazed at a picture of five years-old Caroline Kennedy. His excuse was that he was really fascinated by her father John, but he never met the man when he had the opportunity.

These were early but subtle clues, and they all pointed to the fact that the tales of yesterday as told by Ronan O'Rahilly, never happened!

Was Caroline Kennedy the reason for the name of 'Radio Caroline'?

Hardly.

That myth did not begin until a year after 'Radio Caroline' came on the air.

Then who was 'Caroline'?

Was it 'Caroline' or was it 'Carolyn' that became the source of inspiration for Beatrix Miller's Style Sheet?

It is more than probable that the name she chose was 'Carolyn', and that has everything to do with the reason why Beatrix Miller resigned as Jocelyn Stevens' editor of 'Queen' magazine on the very same day that Jocelyn Stevens went ahead with his decision to cause the registration of Planet Productions Limited in Ireland.