alternatehistory.com

So, mister Clarkson, you were getting to the point about the investigation after Senator Byrd's death?

- Oh, yes, yes. FBI did a quick job of catching the fellow. The man did very little to hide. They traced the route of his truck, and found it abandoned not far alway from the crash site. It belonged to a meat packing plant from the local area, from there they checked every employees schedules, who didn't show up to work, that sort of stuff. It was standard police business, hardly the hunt for John Wilkes Booth. They had a name in little time, Victor Hernandez. Latino fellow, completely uninteresting life story until that year. Trust me, I checked. Of course, the name didn't become public knowledge right away. They found him drunk in a bar two days after the incident, took him in, and questioned him for nearly 10 hours. Eventually his talk of innocence turned into the story we know today.

The allegations about the McGovern-Hernandez plot.

- Yeah, that's what we got to calling it eventually. I was lucky. Sure you could praise my journalistic instincts for it but that's just not true. That came to use later on. First I was just lucky. A friend of a friend worked in the precint, he heard the entire confession and called me. Told me to keep his name out of it (not that it made a lot of difference in the long run), and told me to print it fast. After the story was formed the FBI jumped into the investigation pretty quickly, cut off access to Hernandez.

And that's when you came up with the famous headline.

- "McGovern paid me to do it - says killer." It was incredible. We had more papers sold then the freaking moon landing cover for all i know. Every competitor in the field was calling me and asking me for the source. The Times, The Post, Globe, you name it. Just like that, I went from a nobody to the top of the industry.

And what about the claims you inflamed the political discourse?

- How old are you son? Where you even alive in 1976?

Not really sir.

- Then you couldn't know about the political discourse in 1976! You had to be there! Inflame? It was arleady ON fire! It was the late Kennedy years, half the country hated the man, the other loved him. And for McGovern, no one really loved the man you know, not like Bobby. No one agreed on a damm thing. There were southerners praising Wallace, Republicans praising Reagan or Ford or even Rockefeller (and don't get me started on the Goldwaterites), lots of people praising Byrd, and Carter, and any other son of the South. And a lot of praise for Muskie as well. McGovern had come to represent the government. And no one was happy with that thing! Not with the Oil Crisis on it's peak, and tensions high with the reds.

But certainly that article had repercussions...

- Of course it had repercussions, that's what Journalism is there for! Provoke response! Was it a little provocative? Sure, but you can't pass on the opportunity to attract attention. It basically killed McGovern presidential bid. The man withdraw from the race a couple of days later. Carter and Muskie both praised Byrd, and refused to comment on McGovern. Ford also said that people shouldn't speculate. Reagan wasn't so nice, and he saw it as a chance to attack the government hard. Wallace went on full rage mode. Called for a investigation into this "conspiracy", and called it proof that Washington stood against the southern man, that asshole sure knew how to throw blame around.

What about your involvement in spreading the "conspiracy" narrative?

- Hernandez started the conspiracy narrative, lets get this clear. The man stood behind it during investigation and trial. And so what if I followed the narrative? You pick a point of view and you go from there. The man worked in the McGovern campaign for a time. He was a avid Liberal, hated the so called "reactionary views" of Byrd and... that was pretty much it. All we could prove. So what if it took a lot of time to get to that? We had to be thorough. Not my fault the story stuck. You believe Hernandez still claims he was paid to do it? Too late to back down is what I think.

Regardless, you do believe you influenced the election.

- Son, again, im a journalist. I influence people. The headline had a impact. The investigation that came after, and there's no garantee the FBI could have kept that under the ruggs had I not published, also had a inpact. The DNC was a hellhole. In the end they chose Muskie with Carter as VP. A good North/South ticket. Kennedy gave his famous third Aeschylus speech. Praised unity and friendship, called for stability in the troubled times. That man could really talk. Would any of that have happened if it wasn't for my article? That's not the point. The impact is colateral in the search for truth. I was following leads, a line of thought and heck, it sold papers i admit that played some part in it. In the end, I was wrong on my theory, and I wasn't alone in it. That's a shame but that's life. 76 kept going, and so did I.
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Exerpt from the Clarkson interviews, 2018.