Harold Thomas Henry "Boake"Carter (28 September 1903 – 16 November 1944) was a British-American broadcast news commentator in the 1930s and early 1940s.
Carter was born inBaku,Russian Empire (now the capital ofAzerbaijan), the son of British parents Thomas Carter and Edith Harwood-Yarred,[1][2] from London and Leicestershire, respectively.[3] His father worked for a British oil company. Carter would later claim his father had been in the British Consular Service (his father was the British Honorary Consul). Carter grew up in theUnited Kingdom, and enlisted in theRoyal Air Force at the age of 15, serving with the RAF's Coast Patrol for eighteen months. He attendedTonbridge School from 1918 to 1921, and would later claim to have attendedChrist's College inCambridge. Carter arrived in the United States on September 25, 1921, after his father was assigned toMexico.[4]
Carter worked at thePhiladelphia Daily News as a journalist.[5] He entered broadcasting as a news commentator withWCAU inPhiladelphia in 1930, initially as the announcer for arugby game,[6] getting the job by default as he was the only person WCAU's director knew who was familiar with the sport. In 1931,[4] he became the narrator forHearst-Metrotone newsreels.[5] Carter rose to fame as a broadcast journalist when he covered theLindbergh kidnapping trial, beginning in 1932.[7] He continued to work for WCAU, with his broadcasts distributed through the CBS network.[5]
After achieving fame, Carter was a familiar radio voice, but his commentaries were controversial, notably his criticisms ofFranklin D. Roosevelt'sNew Deal and the powerfulCongress of Industrial Organizations. Carter was an accomplished salesman for the sponsor of his program from 1933 to 1938,Philco Radios, blending his reporting and commentary with plugs for the company's sets. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1934.[8]
In 1936, Carter had more listeners than any other radio commentator.[9] He also appeared in aLife magazine advertisement forLucky Strike cigarettes.[10] Carter published several books in the 1930s, and began writing a widely syndicated column (for theLedger Syndicate) in 1937. But by 1937, the Roosevelt White House already had three federal agencies investigating him.[11] Carter's praise for theAnschluss proved to be the final straw.[12] In 1938, under pressure from Roosevelt's allies, Carter lost his WCAU job, was barred from CBS, and lost hisGeneral Foods sponsorship that had replaced Philco.[5] With his removal, there was no longer any popular radio commentator who opposed Roosevelt's foreign policy.[13]
That year, Carter went on a speaking tour throughout the States. In 1939, he returned to radio with a thrice-weekly evening commentary on theMutual Broadcasting System, adopting a pro-Roosevelt stance. Mutual gradually moved his broadcasts to less prominent time slots.[14]
A newspaper article by Carter, published in theCleveland News on March 25, 1939, claimed that "responsible statesmen of the world do not expect the recent events in Europe [e.g., the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland by Nazi Germany] of themselves will produce a general European war .... despite all the scare headlines in America from day to day."[15][16]
In the early 1940s, Carter was drawn intoBritish Israelism byMoses Guibbory.[17] He legally changed his name toEphraim Boake Carter prior to his death.[18]
Carter was almost a forgotten figure when he died of a heart attack in 1944 inHollywood.[19] A messy fight between his three former wives followed over his estate.[20] Stewart Robb'sThe Strange Death of Boake Carter, published in 1946, suggested Boake was murdered,[17] perhaps by Guibbory.[citation needed] In 1949, his final years were documented in a book,Thirty-Three Candles, by fellow cult adherentDavid Horowitz.[17]
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