One of them reminded me of an obscure news item from back in the day. Who remembers “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”
On October 4, 1986, while walking along Park Avenue to his New York apartment, CBS news anchor Dan Rather was attacked and punched from behind by a man who demanded to know “Kenneth, what is the frequency?”
In 1997, a TV critic writing in the New York Daily News solved the mystery, publishing a photo of the alleged assailant, William Tager, who received a 12.5-to-25-year prison sentence for killing NBC stagehand Campbell Montgomery outside The Today Show studio in 1994. Rather confirmed the story: “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the person.” New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said “William Tager’s identity as the man who attacked Mr. Rather was established in the course of an investigation by my office.” Tager claimed he thought television networks were beaming signals into his brain. When he murdered the stagehand, Tager was trying to force his way into an NBC studio with a weapon, in order to find out the frequency the networks were using to attack him, so that he could block it.
I don’t think the significance of the name “Kenneth” has ever been determined.
