Let's take a peek at the Herbaceous office back in 1963.
Nice.
"Now, at last, new executive offices have been completed for Mr. Armstrong and his son. They are very beautiful and modern - and afford a stunning view of the city of Pasadena with the Sierra Madre Mountains in the background... On the south end of the roof - just outside the main offices - is a terrace and sun-deck arrangement for sunning, visiting in the fresh air and table tennis. Many of you readers will be interested to learn that Mr. Armstrong is an avid athletic fan of many sports, but has found that table tennis - combined with much walking - suits his schedule and requirements to keep him in good physical condition for doing God's Work."Herb was a ping-pong aficionado?
Even by today's standards, this was pretty swank. Not sure where the drinks cabinet was, but you can bet there was one. Rod assures us that Herb's office was bigger than Ted's, so all was right in the world.
Rod also assures us that the radio studio was where "Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Ted Armstrong spend many hours of labor in a grueling responsibility.""First of all, let me say that there are many hours of preparation put into each broadcast! BUT - these hours are not necessarily put in just before or right at the time of making the broadcast. Rather, these are hours spent in earnest, personal prayer - fervent Bible study and meditation - the constant study of world news, and conditions, and alert thinking about how God's Word and the prophetic revelation of the Bible really affect and apply to the lives of us all in this twentieth century."Translation: they winged it.
It's a great source for historical perspective. As the years went by the executive offices got bigger and the Bullgeschichte machine more outrageous, but the basic ingredients were all there in spades back in 1963.
You can download your own copy of Rod's "Inside Story" here.
9 comments:
On page 55 of that booklet Meredith scare mongered about the bad things what would supposedly happen. Among his dire predictions was the following: "race riots increase".
Yes, indeedy, from the same church that offers The Sabbath Test (should you eat out on the Sabbath) -- a church whose founder will never be allowed to become a minister in United.
It's a rather odd place to find such a booklet, so kudos for finding it in such an obscure place as yet another indication that the Radio Church of God was a cult.
Maybe it could become a flipping book (at a whopping 33.7 megabytes) -- what do you think?
"Many of you readers will be interested to learn that Mr. Armstrong is an avid athletic fan of many sports,"
I understand that HWA would watch Laker games on TV on Friday Nights, and Ted even attended them on Fri nights as well.
And, in fact, you may see the flipping book version at The Inside Story of The World Tomorrow Broadcast.
Much more readable, half the size, should be searchable.
I knew a guy who went to AC back in the 60's who said he used to work on the recordings for the radio broadcasts, and he said Herberiffic always used to come in with no notes and just speak off-the-cuff. This was intended to be interpreted as something good, otherwise he wouldn't have said it. Why, I'm not sure. It could have been to extol Herbalicious' god-given talent for speaking, or it could have been to imply that Herbtastic was speaking under inspiration. I don't deny he had some talents in this area, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten as wealthy as he did on the backs of poor dupes like the guy telling me about his recording experiences with ol' Herbmazing. Herb-wonderful also had a talent for fibbing, like telling us many hours went into each broadcast, when this is probably not the case, especially after he'd been doing it for a few years and gotten practiced at the art of the con, which, by the 60's, he certainly had.
As for Herb talking off the cuff, I don't doubt that was true much of the time. But not all of the time.
At some point in the 70s (maybe during GTA's brief exile in the mid-70s??) they aired some old HWA programs on the radio.
When we started listening in 1965, GTA was already the spokesman, and I didn't hear Herb speak until our first Feast of Tabernacles in 1968. (I skipped his sermon at every FOT after our second one, because I figured out he gave the same sermon every year... "Why are We Here" which included a litany of the early feasts in "Belknap Springs.")
But during that time period when they were re-running old HWA shows (from either late 1950s or early 1960s), I remember tuning in and being surprised that what he was saying sounded WAY too familiar. I had been led to believe he always talked extemporaneously. But as he talked I pulled an old booklet off the shelf and opened it. Yes, he was just reading it word for word, but with the kind of inflection that implies spontaneity.
I suppose maybe this is what he did when the program was about doctrinal topics, rather than current events.
This booklet is representative of the final years of naivete of the church. I believe that at this point in the early '60s, most members would not have thought to question whether HWA and his hand-picked assistants or associates were exactly who and what they said they were. That became more and more difficult with the dawning of the 1970s, unless one happened to be a member of struthio camelus.
For its time, the booklet was a tremendous recruitment tool for Ambassador College. As '60s counter culture became the dominant culture on the national scene, however, it quickly became dated and lost its relevance.
BB
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