Legacy of Secrecy (112 page)

entering the race only to be greeted by a new series of articles by Jack

Anderson about Bobby’s 1963 Cuban operations and JFK’s assassina-

tion. To deal with that, Bobby apparently pursued two strategies. One,

whose results wouldn’t be widely available until April, will be discussed

in Chapter 54. The other was a little-known plan that could have dramat-

ically changed the course of US history and perhaps saved Bobby’s life.

Evan Thomas described it as “a last-ditch attempt to keep Kennedy out

of the race.” Bobby had his aide Ted Sorensen offer the White House “a

deal: If the president would appoint a special commission to figure out

how to extricate the United States from Vietnam, RFK would not run.”11

Sorensen negotiated for three days with LBJ’s latest defense secre-

tary, Clark Clifford. (Robert McNamara had turned against the war and

announced his resignation the previous November.) By the time Clifford

officially assumed office on March 1, 1968, he was no war booster, and

declassified files and tapes show that even LBJ was coming to realize

the war was essentially unsustainable, with five hundred US soldiers

dying in Vietnam each week. The US commander in Vietnam, General

Westmoreland, would soon be asking for two hundred thousand more

troops, raising the total US forces to seven hundred thousand—and

that was just to maintain the status quo, not achieve any type of vic-

tory. Even worse, the general said an additional two hundred thousand

troops might be needed the following year, bringing the US presence

to nine hundred thousand. Yet LBJ couldn’t bring himself to give up

his tight control, especially to a commission suggested by Bobby, so the

negotiations ended on March 14 with no deal reached. Still, the discus-

sions served to put LBJ on notice that Bobby was planning to challenge

him. The Jack Anderson articles about Bobby didn’t resume at that time,

perhaps because LBJ was coming to his own dramatic decision.12

Bobby must have wrestled with one other consideration about enter-

ing the race: the possibility of assassination. As his brother Edward Ken-

nedy admitted in 1996, “We weren’t that far away from ’63 and that was

still very much of a factor.” Jackie Kennedy told Bobby that she thought

if he ran, “the same thing that happened to Jack” would happen to him,

because “there was so much hatred in this country, and more people

hate Bobby than hated Jack.” But Bobby seemed determined to run and

was not going to let fear dictate his life—even though Hoffa’s operative

Frank Chavez had planned to assassinate him only a year earlier, and

Bobby’s secret investigations had indicated that Carlos Marcello was

behind JFK’s murder.13

558

LEGACY OF SECRECY

As if in defiance of such concerns, on March 16, 1968, Bobby entered

the race for president in the same Senate hearing room where he had first

grilled both Jimmy Hoffa and Carlos Marcello, nine years earlier.14 There,

Bobby read a speech written primarily by Ted Sorensen, but Bobby must

have debated privately what he would do if he were elected—and could

finally finish the job against Marcello and the other mob bosses that he

and Jack had begun in that very room. Since Bobby’s own secret inves-

tigations had pointed to Marcello in JFK’s murder, that quest would be

more important than ever.15

Chapter Forty-seven

In Los Angeles, James Earl Ray continued to engage in activities that

were at odds with his past behavior during January, February, and

March of 1968. That the fugitive was spending months in the United

States was unusual enough, since he could have stayed in Canada or

Mexico, where he wasn’t a wanted man. But instead of laying low in

Los Angeles, someone had Ray pursuing a variety of activities that left

a well-documented trail, mostly as “Eric Starvo Galt,” but sometimes

under his real name, which he gave to his first hypnotherapist.

The high school dropout suddenly seemed consumed with learning

in Los Angeles, from continuing his bartending classes to attending

more dance lessons. Ray also enrolled in a correspondence course in

locksmithing, which could be useful in case he had to gain surreptitious

entry to get a good shot at Dr. King. Ray continued his interest in self-

hypnosis, and his third hypnotherapist, the “head of the International

Society of Hypnosis,” said later that Ray “was impressed with the degree

of mind concentration which one can obtain.” Anxious to be sure that

he could do what was necessary when the time came, Ray even bought

and studied the books the hypnotherapist recommended.1 Ray also tried

writing for a female pen pal through a “swingers’” magazine, sending

a photo of himself and eventually writing five letters.2 In all, Ray met

dozens of people in Los Angeles, who would later provide authorities

with an image of him that was far different from what he really was—a

low-level drug runner with mob connections.

In early March 1968, Ray’s spending spree continued as he under-

went plastic surgery, paying $200 in cash (more than $1,200 today) “to

change my facial features so it would be harder to identify me though

pictures circulated by law officials.” Ray had his pointed nose altered,

and planned to have his large, prominent left ear fixed as well, but later

said he “didn’t have time for the ear” because he had been summoned

back to New Orleans.3

According to Ray, “in late February [1968, my contact] wrote and

560

LEGACY OF SECRECY

asked me to meet him at the bar we had met in before, in New Orleans,

[and] that we would go from New Orleans to Atlanta, Ga.” Ray said he

made a follow-up telephone call to New Orleans, and when he spoke

to his contact, he received “more detail in the phone call than I usually

got.” According to Congressional investigators, Ray assumed “this trip

was going to be the first leg of the gunrunning deal mentioned” on his

previous New Orleans visit, the deal involving Cuba that could net

him $12,000 and a new identity, complete with passport. The investiga-

tors received evidence that Ray told an associate about going to New

Orleans, saying he “had a deal down there about some stuff to go into

Cuba.”4

In preparation for the trip, Ray wrapped up his dealings in Los Ange-

les. When he graduated from bartending school on March 2, 1968, Ray

closed his eyes in his graduation photo, thinking it would make him

harder to recognize. (An FBI artist would draw in the eyes for its first

wanted poster, which used the photo.) After Ray’s last visit to the plastic

surgeon, on March 11, Ray said he pushed his bandaged nose to one

side, so it wouldn’t match any description the surgeon might later give

of him or his work.5

The day before leaving Los Angeles, Ray probably heard about Klan

convictions in the burning death of Mississippi civil rights worker Ver-

non Dahmer, since it was front-page news in the
Los Angeles Times
on

March 16, 1968. While four men were convicted, justice in such cases

was so lax that one of them didn’t have to start serving his life sentence

until thirty years later. Eleven more men indicted for the slaying were

not tried at all, and it would take until 1998 for Klan leader Sam Bowers,

who ordered the murder, to finally be convicted.6

That’s why Ray apparently told one of his brothers “it had to be a

southern state where he killed MLK.” Ray thought he stood an excellent

chance of being acquitted, even if he were caught and put on trial, as

long as he killed Dr. King in the South. Ray had said “the main thing was

Alabama—but if not there, Memphis,” a preference that became very

important on March 16, 1968, when Dr. King arrived in Los Angeles on

a trip that would also take him to Alabama and Memphis over the next

three days.7

On March 17, 1968, James Earl Ray would be within three miles of

Martin Luther King, who was giving a speech in Los Angeles. At the

same time, Ray was submitting a change of address (to “General Deliv-

ery, Main Post Office”) for his move to Atlanta. Even though Dr. King’s

visit was widely reported in the press, Ray claimed he didn’t know King

was in Los Angeles on March 17, 1968. While it does not appear that Ray

planned to kill Dr. King in Los Angeles, he may well have done some

quick surveillance, to see what King’s security was like. The following

days would begin a cat-and-mouse chase across much of the US, as Ray

began actively stalking Dr. King.8

While Dr. King was finishing his foray to Los Angeles, a late change

to his schedule added a trip to Memphis, where he would address strik-

ing garbage workers. Because Dr. King’s flights had to be rescheduled,

after he left Los Angeles King would detour through New Orleans. Ray

admits he left the city that same day for New Orleans. One of Ray’s

brothers reportedly said, “When Jimmy left Los Angeles he knew he

was going to do it.”9

Ray was unusually vague about his solo drive to New Orleans, mean-

ing he could have remained in Los Angeles another day or left late in the

evening, giving himself plenty of time to watch Dr. King. Ray offered

to take some boxes of clothes to New Orleans, for the small daughter

of a Los Angeles relative of Charles Stein, but the narcotics-linked Stein

didn’t go with Ray on this trip.10

According to Congressional investigators, unlike Ray’s last drive to

New Orleans, “this trip east was leisurely and took several days. Ray

stopped at a couple of unidentified motels at night,” using his Galt alias.

The investigators note skeptically that even though Ray claims he “was a

full day late getting to New Orleans,” he didn’t bother to call his contact

from the road to tell “him he was behind schedule.” Ray arrived in New

Orleans after Dr. King’s brief detour there en route to Memphis, which

probably was nothing more than a coincidence—unlike the stalking

Ray was about to begin. After arriving in the Crescent City, Ray called

the “contact number,” only to be told the person he was supposed to

meet had already left, and would meet him at a lounge in Birmingham,

Alabama, the next day.11

Ray was hazy about whom he spoke with on the phone in New

Orleans, though it was apparently someone he trusted, since Ray says

he followed the person’s orders. As noted earlier, Ray’s two regular

New Orleans contacts were his drug supplier, named “Eddie,” and his

longtime, much older acquaintance known as “the Fence.” But the per-

son Ray spoke to would have been acting as a cutout, an intermediary,

for one of Marcello’s men involved in the King hit, like Frank Joseph

Caracci. As with JFK’s assassination, this setup illustrates the value of

using those involved in Marcello’s already cautious and secure heroin

network for the King hit. Whoever Ray talked to wouldn’t had to have

562

LEGACY OF SECRECY

been a knowing part of the King hit contract; the person could have just

been an experienced member of the drug pipeline, used to pass along

messages securely.12

In Memphis on March 18, 1968, Dr. King addressed a rally for the city’s

striking black garbage workers, who had been laboring under appalling

conditions. The workers were barred from having union representation,

even though Memphis bus drivers, teachers, and police were allowed to

have unions. As a result, their starting pay was only a nickel above the

minimum wage, there was no overtime pay, and workers were allowed

no breaks. Matters had come to a head six weeks earlier, when two

workers died after seeking shelter from a rainstorm in a garbage truck,

where they had been crushed.13

Martin Luther King had been so alarmed by the workers’ plight, and

their so-far unsuccessful strike, that he had agreed to squeeze in a visit

and supportive speech before his planned trips to Mississippi and Ala-

bama. Dr. King’s Memphis speech, before a crowd of seventeen thou-

sand, was a resounding success, so King’s aide Andrew Young passed

him a note saying he might want to revisit Memphis soon. Another aide,

Ralph David Abernathy, got the crowd to wait while Dr. King returned

to the rostrum to tell the delighted crowd, “I am coming back to Mem-

phis on Friday, to lead you in a march through the center of Memphis.”

The following day, Dr. King began his previously planned tour through

Mississippi and Alabama.14

James Earl Ray couldn’t have had much advance notice about Dr.

King’s first speech to the Memphis garbage workers, and the same is

true for Milteer and the Marcello associates working on the King hit.

However, Dr. King’s visits to Mississippi and Selma, Alabama, were a

different story, since they had been publicized ahead of time to generate

crowds and volunteers for his Poor People’s March to Washington. Ray’s

accounts of his actions during Dr. King’s tour are very inconsistent, and

made Congressional investigators highly suspicious that he was track-

ing Dr. King. Ray told William Bradford Huie he was in New Orleans