Norman G. Baker (November 27, 1882 – September 10, 1958) was an early American radio broadcaster, entrepreneur and inventor who secured fame as well as state and federal prison terms by promoting a supposed cure for cancer in the 1930s.
He operated radio stations KTNT in Muscatine, Iowa and the border blaster XENT in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.
His father, John Baker, had reportedly patented 126 inventions, and his mother, Frances Mary (née Anshulz), was a writer before she married.
In operation by November 1925, the station received the call sign KTNT, chosen for its explosive connotations but explained as "Know The Naked Truth."
It used the calliaphone for a sign-on signal, and Baker put his skills as a veteran carnival barker to exquisite use as a radio promoter and announcer.
[8] Throughout his career, Baker was involved in almost continuous litigation of various kinds, often libel suits against his detractors, real or imagined.
Baker also operated a traveling campaign bus equipped with a calliope, and he was in demand as a speaker for populist causes in the region.
[10] For example, he denounced mandated cattle TB tests, water fluoridation, vaccinations and also aluminum cookware, which he claimed caused half of all cancers.
[3] In 1932, Baker organized the short-lived "United Farm Federation of America" and appointed himself a permanent honorary member and chairman, drawing a salary, which caused a lawsuit.
The (very expensive) cure for cancer, and other diseases as requested, consisted of injections of a mix of common substances including corn silk, watermelon seeds, clover, water, and carbolic acid.
Baker's platform, to the extent it had coherence, followed tenets of prairie populism of the time – i.e., asserted that the common people were being exploited by monopolistic conspiracies in various guises.
[citation needed] In spring 1936, Baker returned to run for the Republican senatorial nomination and received a few thousand votes.
[citation needed] In 1933, having been run out of Iowa, Baker obtained Mexican permission to operate XENT in Nuevo Laredo on the Rio Grande.
This station was a so-called "border blaster" operating nightly on 1410 kc/s with a power variously reported at from 50 to 150 kilowatts, and outside the reach of the new U.S. Federal Communications Commission.
[citation needed] Among several libel suits, in 1938, Baker sued RKO for $1.1 million after the March of Time newsreel had portrayed him as a quack.
The case, opened in September 1939, was complicated by the fact that Baker had no formal post in the business, exercising control through proxies.
In January 1940, the court found Baker's cure a "pure hoax" and "utterly false" and jailed him pending appeals.
[citation needed] Mexico had an export ban on radio gear, but it could be overridden in certain circumstances, which turned out to include the Alamo's payment of $35,000 to the Mexican Minister of Communications.
Despite Baker's injunction, he said: "as the result of well-known tricks, artifices, and devices common to the Mexican border, said trucks did move across the bridge approximately 30 minutes before" the papers arrived.
[19] In 1946, Norman Baker attempted to return to "healing" by establishing a research foundation in Muscatine for the purpose, but the state of Iowa refused permission "in the public interest.
[3] In his heyday, Baker was known for wearing white suits, purple shirts, and lavender ties, as well as driving an orchid-colored car.
"[5] Norman Baker was not the only unlicensed "radio doctor" of his era but is remembered by the medical profession as one of the most ruthless quacks in American history.
"[3] Baker's radio case ran parallel to that of John R. Brinkley's Kansas broadcaster KFKB, known popularly as the "goat-gland station."