The News Vault from KCBS Radio

This is a portion of KCBS Radio live coverage around 9am on March 5, 1983 as President and Mrs. Reagan accompanied Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip from San Francisco to end a whirlwind visit by both the First Couple and the Royal Couple. The royal yacht Britannia docked at San Francisco's Pier 50, and the Queen and Prince Philip used the ship to host a dinner in honor of the Reagans' 31st wedding anniversary.

The KCBS Radio team includes field reporter Bob Melrose and studio anchors Stan Bunger and Jerry Wilcox.

"That's feeding, not eating": one of the unrestrained comments from famed chef, broadcaster and writer Julia Child in this interview from the long-running KCBS Radio series "In Depth". The interviewer was KCBS Radio Food and Wine Editor Narsai David. This episode aired on May 14, 1995.

Jane Riley spent 30 years at KCBS Radio. She was hired in 1971 for a secretarial job and spent many years as the administrative assistant to the station’s vice president and general manager.  For 25 years, Riley produced and hosted a program she created, “Bay Area Woman”. She figured she interviewed 2,000 women from all walks of life. She finally retired at age 79.

Riley told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2011, “When I first started, women weren’t allowed to be on the air, and by the time I left the newsroom was practically filled with women,” Riley said. “I wasn’t afraid to push. I hope I helped a little bit” in breaking that glass ceiling.

Jane Riley died in 2014 at age 89.

In this episode, Jane interviews Janis Cooke Newman, author of "The Russian Word for Snow: A True Story of Adoption" (published in 2001)

This collection of pieces by KCBS Radio reporters came from the week of February 17-21, 1986, when historic rainfall inundated Northern California. Reporters include Barry Simmons, Mike Sugerman, Ken Bastida, Jerry Wilcox, Lynn Jimenez, and Wayne Jordan.

A special edition of the "KCBS NewsMagazine", hosted by Michael Dixon. This remote broadcast in the summer of 1983 originates from the Santa Clara County Fair in San Jose. Al Hart and Harvey Steiman, who host the "KCBS Kitchen", have joined Dixon for this broadcast. Segment includes local newsbreak anchored by Al Helmso and a portion of a CBS hourly newscast anchored by Douglas Edwards.

During his 1987 visit to the United States and Canada, Pope John Paul II spent two days in Northern California. KCBS Radio reporters stayed with the pontiff during those two days, covering a Papal Mass at Laguna Seca Raceway, visits to the Basilica of the Mission of San Carlos in Carmel and Mission Dolores in San Francisco, a event at Saint Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, and his final stop, a Papal Mass at Candlestick Park. This recording is a "telescoped" set of highlights from the coverage.

A winter freeze in early 1991 severely damaged millions of dollars’ worth of California crops. But there was also a human toll. On May 29, 1991, KCBS Radio broadcast a special report, “Bleak Harvest”, examining the plight of farmworkers whose lives were made worse by the freeze. KCBS Radio’s Rebecca Corral reported from the Salinas-Watsonville agricultural area.

The anchor lead-in read: “Mention last winter’s freeze to any Californians and the strongest memory you’re likely to trigger is a jump in the price of produce at the grocery store. But many of California’s farmworkers still live with the freeze every day. Acre after acre of destroyed crops have pushed the unemployment rate among field hands to a staggering 25 percent. That Depression-era unemployment rate is making life even more difficult for people who already struggle just to scratch out a living. KCBS Newsradio’s Rebecca Corral spent some time in one farmworker community, the Salinas Watsonville area…for this special report, ‘Bleak Harvest’.”

In 1968, attorney Roy Cohn sat down for an interview with KCBS Radio anchor Frank Knight. At that time, Cohn was less than twenty years removed from his roles in the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg case and the Army-McCarthy hearings, and his work with clients like Aristotle Onassis and Donald Trump was still in the future.

On July 26, 1993, a railroad car being unloaded at the General Chemical plant in Richmond began to leak.  A massive toxic cloud of sulfuric acid soon spread for miles, sending thousands of people for medical treatment.  Eventually, 60,000 people would file claims and lawsuits against General Chemical. KCBS Radio anchors Lois Melkonian, Al Hart  and Bob Price are heard on this reel of excerpts from the station’s coverage. Reporters on the story included George Harris, Dave Padilla, Bob Melrose and Ron Lyons.

The legendary broadcast journalist Walter Cronkite was interviewed for the weekly KCBS Radio series "In Depth" by Rebecca Corral and Ed Cavagnaro in a segment that originally aired on February 16, 1997

After the jury verdict acquitting four Los Angeles Police officers of criminal charges in the Rodney King beating, rioting claimed more than 60 lives, did over a billion dollars in damage, and led to more than 12,000 arrests.

On June 26, 1992, KCBS Radio broadcast a special report called "Beyond the Anger", looking at the issues of inner-city hopelessness and poverty, as well as signs of positive movement.  Reporters Mike Sugerman, Jerry Wilcox and George Harris contributed.

The winter of 1986 saw two weeks of non-stop rain inundate Northern California. The wettest day of that stretch was Monday February 17th, when 10 weather stations scattered across northern California reported 24-hour rainfall totals of more than 10 inches. This segment is captured as KCBS Radio began its 9 p.m. hour. Wayne Jordan is anchoring, with reporters Bob Melrose and Lynn Jimenez contributing.

In 1985, KCBS Radio reporter Barbara Taylor, a longtime San Francisco City Hall reporter, produced a 28-minute "KCBS Reports" segment on the mayoral administration of Dianne Feinstein. By then, Feinstein had already been an elected official in San Francisco for 16 years.

This episode of the KCBS Radio interview series "In Depth" featured former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. The interviewers are KCBS Radio Anchor Mike Pulsipher and News Director Ed Cavagnaro.

On October 8, 1968, Black Panther leader and Peace and Freedom Party Presidential candidate Eldridge Cleaver held a news conference in Oakland.  He reacted to the news that the Supreme Court of the United States had refused to intervene in Cleaver's battle to appear on the California ballot in the 1968 Presidential election. California Secretary of State Frank M. Jordan had ruled that since Cleaver would not be the Constitutionally-required 35 years of age by the time of the Presidential inauguration, he was not a legitimate candidate.

On January 7, 1958, KCBS Radio news editor Dick Leonard appeared as a witness in a San Francisco criminal trial. Leonard's appearance was noteworthy not just because a journalist had been called to testify, but also because Superior Court Judge Raymond Arata allowed him to record the proceedings with the relatively-new tool for radio reporters: a "Mohawk Midgetape" audio recorder.

This audio file was created from a reel-to-reel tape dubbed from the original Midgetape recording and is incomplete due to multiple breaks in the tape.

Between October 12 and 20 1992, KCBS Radio aired a series of pieces by reporter Doug Sovern marking the one-year anniversary of the Oakland Hills firestorm, also known as the Tunnel Fire. That fire killed 25 people and destroyed more than 3,000 homes and apartment units.

On the 25th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, KCBS Radio anchor Stan Bunger compiled a report weaving together excerpts from the 1963 live coverage and memories from Bay Area residents who recalled where they were when they heard the news.  The report begins with the show Arthur Godfrey Time, which was airing on KCBS Radio when the reports began to stream in from Dallas.

On New Year’s Eve 2000, KCBS Radio re-broadcast a special report entitled “Drinking and Driving—The Killer Next Door”.  Reporter Mike Sugerman took listeners beyond the statistics and inside the personal stories.

On April 16, 1992 KCBS Radio aired a lengthy interview by reporter Jerry Wilcox with death row inmate Pedro Arias. Wilcox met with Arias at San Quentin Prison, where Arias, a convicted murderer from Sacramento, had been sent two years earlier to await his execution. The interview was broadcast less than a week before the scheduled execution of Robert Alton Harris marked the resumption of executions in California after a 25-year hiatus.