Bill Baggs
Encyclopedia
William Calhoun "Bill" Baggs was editor of The Miami News
from 1957 until his death in 1969. Bill Baggs was one of a group of Southern
editors who campaigned for civil rights
for African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. Others in this group included Ralph McGill
at The Atlanta Constitution
, Hodding Carter
at the Greenville Delta Democrat-Times and Harry Ashmore
at the Arkansas Gazette
.
Baggs became an early opponent of the Vietnam War
. In 1967 and 1968 Bill Baggs traveled to North Vietnam
with Harry Ashmore on a private peace mission. While there, they interviewed Ho Chi Minh
about what conditions would be necessary to end the war. Unknown at the time, Bill Baggs was also one of the journalist
s involved in the CIA's Operation Mockingbird
particularly during the latter stages of The McCarthy Era which he opposed very firmly and convincingly as a reporter. He joined philosophically with both Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner of the C.I.A. at Operation Mockingbird in supporting and defending Cord Meyer when Senator McCarthy began to target the C.I.A., which he claimed harbored more than 100 closeted Communists which turned out to be a gross distortion of the facts. Bill Baggs was a very active anti-Communist himself, publishing numerous anti-Castro articles during the very early days of the Castro regime in Cuba beginning in 1959. Baggs cultivated numerous news sources from within the anti-Castro Soldier-of-Fortune community in South Florida including Gerry Patrick Hemming, Roy Hargraves, Eddie Collins and William Whatley as well as Alex Rorke and several others. He also worked with eventual Watergate burglars Frank Sturgis and Bernard Barker to develop news leads and sources about the South Florida anti-Castro exile community long before they were involved with Watergate.
Baggs also conferred with South Florida C.I.A. case officers like David Atlee Phillips and E. Howard Hunt on various topics related to the intrigue among South Florida anti-Castro Cuban exiles. One of his reporters, Hal Hendrix known as "the spook" at The Miami News, once broke the story about the alleged coup d'état against Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic, the day before it actually happened which was an obvious embarrassment for both the C.I.A., and The Miami News but especially for Hal Hendrix.
Baggs was a longtime supporter of liberal Democrats like Rep. Claude Pepper and Senator Dante Fascell and was instrumental in writing articles and editorials supporting legislation which helped the numerous retirees who were already dominating the population in the South Florida area and represented the core readership base of The Miami News. He was often a target of criticism launched by the right wing for his early efforts at advancing Civil Rights, for opposing the Vietnam War and for defending and promoting various social welfare programs for the elderly, the infirm and the disadvantaged in South Florida and throughout the nation.
Bill Baggs worked tirelessly on his very early pioneering conservation efforts to rescue the section of Key Biscayne from over-development by real estate developers. That section was later named Bill Baggs State Park in his honor. And he also worked indefatigably on his lifelong resuscitation project The Miami News which was an afternoon newspaper that always trailed The Miami Herald, the dominant morning paper, in total circulation and advertising revenues during his tenure as Editor-In-Chief.
Bill Baggs died of a heart attack in 1969 at the age of 48 due at least partially to his devotion to the success of The Miami News on a 7-days a week basis throughout the year. He was often the first employee to arrive every morning before 5:30 A.M. and the last one to leave at night after 6:00 P.M. after the paper had been published and distributed to be available for rush hour traffic starting at 4:00 P.M. when the newsboys hawked the paper at traffic lights throughout South Florida. Bill Baggs was a genuine admirer of President John F. Kennedy and was noticeably saddened after his assassination. The fact that he personally knew several of those South Florida Soldiers of Fortune and C.I.A. case officers who later admitted playing a role in JFK's demise like Frank Sturgis, Gerald Patrick Hemming, Roy Hargraves and E. Howard Hunt would have caused him no small amount of consternation and pain. His close associates said that he was never the same after the death of his longtime friend and political hero.
The Miami News
The Miami News was the dominant evening newspaper in Miami, Florida for most of the 20th century, its chief concurrent competitor being the morning-edition of The Miami Herald. The paper started publishing in May 1896 as a weekly called The Miami Metropolis. The Metropolis had become a daily paper...
from 1957 until his death in 1969. Bill Baggs was one of a group of Southern
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
editors who campaigned for civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
for African-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s. Others in this group included Ralph McGill
Ralph McGill
Ralph Emerson McGill , American journalist, was best known as the anti-segregationist editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper. He won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1959....
at The Atlanta Constitution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the only major daily newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, and its suburbs. The AJC, as it is called, is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the result of the merger between The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta...
, Hodding Carter
Hodding Carter
William Hodding Carter, II was a prominent Southern U.S. progressive journalist and author. Carter was born in Hammond, the largest community in Tangipahoa Parish, in southeastern Louisiana, to William Hodding Carter, I , and the former Irma Dutartre...
at the Greenville Delta Democrat-Times and Harry Ashmore
Harry Ashmore
Harry Scott Ashmore was an American journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials in 1957 on the school integration conflict in Little Rock, Arkansas....
at the Arkansas Gazette
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is the newspaper of record in the U.S. state of Arkansas, printed in Little Rock with a northwest edition published in Lowell...
.
Baggs became an early opponent of the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. In 1967 and 1968 Bill Baggs traveled to North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
with Harry Ashmore on a private peace mission. While there, they interviewed Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh
Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...
about what conditions would be necessary to end the war. Unknown at the time, Bill Baggs was also one of the journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s involved in the CIA's Operation Mockingbird
Operation Mockingbird
Operation Mockingbird was a secret Central Intelligence Agency campaign to influence foreign media beginning in the 1950s.The activities, extent and even the existence of the CIA project remain in dispute: the operation was first called Mockingbird in Deborah Davis' 1979 book, Katharine the Great:...
particularly during the latter stages of The McCarthy Era which he opposed very firmly and convincingly as a reporter. He joined philosophically with both Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner of the C.I.A. at Operation Mockingbird in supporting and defending Cord Meyer when Senator McCarthy began to target the C.I.A., which he claimed harbored more than 100 closeted Communists which turned out to be a gross distortion of the facts. Bill Baggs was a very active anti-Communist himself, publishing numerous anti-Castro articles during the very early days of the Castro regime in Cuba beginning in 1959. Baggs cultivated numerous news sources from within the anti-Castro Soldier-of-Fortune community in South Florida including Gerry Patrick Hemming, Roy Hargraves, Eddie Collins and William Whatley as well as Alex Rorke and several others. He also worked with eventual Watergate burglars Frank Sturgis and Bernard Barker to develop news leads and sources about the South Florida anti-Castro exile community long before they were involved with Watergate.
Baggs also conferred with South Florida C.I.A. case officers like David Atlee Phillips and E. Howard Hunt on various topics related to the intrigue among South Florida anti-Castro Cuban exiles. One of his reporters, Hal Hendrix known as "the spook" at The Miami News, once broke the story about the alleged coup d'état against Juan Bosch of the Dominican Republic, the day before it actually happened which was an obvious embarrassment for both the C.I.A., and The Miami News but especially for Hal Hendrix.
Baggs was a longtime supporter of liberal Democrats like Rep. Claude Pepper and Senator Dante Fascell and was instrumental in writing articles and editorials supporting legislation which helped the numerous retirees who were already dominating the population in the South Florida area and represented the core readership base of The Miami News. He was often a target of criticism launched by the right wing for his early efforts at advancing Civil Rights, for opposing the Vietnam War and for defending and promoting various social welfare programs for the elderly, the infirm and the disadvantaged in South Florida and throughout the nation.
Bill Baggs worked tirelessly on his very early pioneering conservation efforts to rescue the section of Key Biscayne from over-development by real estate developers. That section was later named Bill Baggs State Park in his honor. And he also worked indefatigably on his lifelong resuscitation project The Miami News which was an afternoon newspaper that always trailed The Miami Herald, the dominant morning paper, in total circulation and advertising revenues during his tenure as Editor-In-Chief.
Bill Baggs died of a heart attack in 1969 at the age of 48 due at least partially to his devotion to the success of The Miami News on a 7-days a week basis throughout the year. He was often the first employee to arrive every morning before 5:30 A.M. and the last one to leave at night after 6:00 P.M. after the paper had been published and distributed to be available for rush hour traffic starting at 4:00 P.M. when the newsboys hawked the paper at traffic lights throughout South Florida. Bill Baggs was a genuine admirer of President John F. Kennedy and was noticeably saddened after his assassination. The fact that he personally knew several of those South Florida Soldiers of Fortune and C.I.A. case officers who later admitted playing a role in JFK's demise like Frank Sturgis, Gerald Patrick Hemming, Roy Hargraves and E. Howard Hunt would have caused him no small amount of consternation and pain. His close associates said that he was never the same after the death of his longtime friend and political hero.