Reporter who broke story on Wilbur Mills dies

Associated Press | February 12, 2004

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WASHINGTON — A Washington, D.C., journalist whose work included the story of the 1974 traffic stop of then-Arkansas U.S. Rep. Wilbur Mills and a stripper has died.

Larry Krebs spent four decades covering the streets of the nation's capital. Krebs began as a television news cameraman and later became a radio reporter.

Krebs' specialty was covering police and firefighters. His biggest scoop came when authorities stopped a car for speeding near the Tidal Basin. Mills and a striptease artist Fanne Foxe were inside the vehicle, and Foxe jumped into the Tidal Basin.

Mills' office initially denied the incident happened, but Krebs had caught the two on film.

Krebs retired in 2001. A year later, he received the Washington Achievement In Radio lifetime honor award.

Krebs died Wednesday from a long illness. He was 81.

Mills, who was from White County, died in Searcy in 1992. He served in Congress from 1939 through 1977.

After Foxe's plunge, Mills released a statement in which he praised the alertness of the U.S. Park Service and said, "It cannot go unnoticed that the TV cameraman who happened to be on the scene at the precise moment to record this unfortunate occasion deserves the highest award for his swiftness and perceptiveness."

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Oct. 11, 1974 - Mills Admits Being Present During Tidal Basin Scuffle

[theDentist]

Talk about the irony.

[syriacus]

Am I misreading or did they forgot to imention Mills was a Democrat?

[ClearCase_guy]

I liked his brother Maynard G. Krebs better.

[donozark]

Old joke-from that era...Teddy Kennedy runs into Wilbur Mills after this incident and says,"Hey Wilbur, how the hell did you get her out of the water?"