We certainly have no friend in Jim Bohannon.  I learned a hard lesson when I appeared on his syndicated radio show March 8 at 11 p.m. EST, and will never again let my guard down going into an interview with someone I don’t know.  The next time a host tries to intimidate me and disrespect my work, I will know exactly how to deal with him.

The discussion is about the book and the facts presented therein, NOT the uninformed host’s opinions. He hadn’t even bothered to so much as look at the PDF of the book that I sent him twice, a few weeks earlier, telling me, “I never got it.”  He knew nothing of the Earhart matter, not even Fred Goerner’s name! 

From the start he questioned everything I said, and I missed the opportunity to tell him that he was wrong about the Japs admitting to most of their wartime atrocities, and let him get by with the false assertion that since they admitted their atrocities, they would have admitted to AE.  They’ve barely admitted the Comfort Women and have never fully come clean about such things as the Rape of Nanking and their biological warfare horrors.  I feel badly about blowing that sequence. 

Jim Bohannon: It’s safe to say he’ll never invite me back to his nationally syndicated program. His preparation for the segment about Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last amounted to absolutely nothing. Nobody I have yet met has been less informed about the Earhart disappearance, yet he had the chutzpah to sit in judgment of my work.  It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

All who have contacted me have been highly critical of Bohannon, and say I behaved in a professional, “knowledgeable and authoritative” manner, among other positive comments.  Bohannon may have thought I was a nut job to begin with, but that can only mean he had no regard for the man’s judgment who recommended me for his show, Charles Heller of Liberty Watch Radio, in Tucson, Ariz., whose efforts I much appreciate and who gets no blame and only thanks here.

But in the end, I think Bohannon, jaded and cynical as he is at 69 after so many years of late night radio, knew he was wrong and I had won over most of those in the audience with two brain cells to rub together.  Once we got more into the evidence of the case in the second half hour, I noticed he grudgingly showed a bit more respect for me. 

Bill Prymak, the greatest living Earhart researcher, 85 and nearing a birthday in late March, told me today he was proud of me for the way I recovered in the second half of the program and stood up to Bohannon.  That meant a lot to me.  If I wasn’t so aware of his lofty status as one of the USA’s top 100 talkers and an elder statesman of radio, so to speak, I think I would have been able to stand up to him sooner.  This is another encounter that proves age and experience don’t always guarantee wisdom. Live and learn. As it is, we sold a few books that wouldn’t have been sold had I not gone on the show, but nothing like I had hoped.

At this point I can see that the days of radio interviews about Amelia Earhart: The Truth at Last, and indeed, this blog, are severely numbered.  Recently I completed contacting every talk radio station in the country, many hundreds that I refuse to count exactly, and I have been ignored by well over 99 percent of them.  I can take a hint.