Legacy of Secrecy (115 page)

against Dr. King and other civil rights leaders. Taylor Branch writes that

“within hours [the FBI] disseminated to ‘cooperative news sources’ a

blind memorandum stating that ‘the result of King’s famous espousal of

nonviolence was vandalism, looting, and riot.’” The next day “Hoover

approved a second effort ‘to publicize hypocrisy on the part of [Dr.

King].’”13

One of these was an infamous memo chiding Dr. King for “leading

the lambs to slaughter,” then fleeing to the safety of “the plush Holiday

Inn” instead of the Lorraine Motel, “owned and patronized exclusively

by Negroes.” When the memo was first revealed in the mid-1970s, some

saw it as part of an FBI effort to get Dr. King to the Lorraine Motel as

part of a massive assassination plot. But the House Select Committee on

Assassinations found that theory wasn’t true, since King often stayed at

the Lorraine on his trips to Memphis and would have stayed there on

his next trip regardless.14

The FBI continued waging its propaganda war against Dr. King and

the other civil rights leaders and groups, as well as conceiving various

dirty tricks. Branch found that Hoover wanted to tie Dr. King to both the

Nation of Islam and boxer Muhammad Ali, who had refused military

service in Vietnam in 1966. The head of Chicago’s FBI office pointed out

that blacks knew that Dr. King and the Nation of Islam weren’t allied,

and Ali was so popular that the FBI’s plans “might backfire,” but the

autocratic Hoover ordered them implemented anyway. Mississippi’s

FBI office sent Hoover a proposal “to distribute leaflets skewing King

as a fancy dresser who deserted his people,” an idea that Hoover had

under consideration at the time of Dr. King’s murder.15

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

Such efforts sound almost silly in hindsight, but some American

newspapers picked up on Hoover’s propaganda. Branch points to the

Memphis Commercial Appeal
’s story headlined “Chicken à la King” and

a
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
story that denounced Dr. King as “one of the

most menacing men in America today.” While not parroting Hoover’s

spin, even newspapers like the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post

took a cautious tone regarding Dr. King and his efforts.16

One day before Dr. King would return to Memphis, Hoover tried to

use the Memphis riot as an excuse to get approval for more wiretaps

against King and the SCLC. But LBJ’s attorney general, Ramsey Clark,

turned down Hoover’s request, just as he had back in January, leav-

ing Hoover even more dependent on his allies in the country’s secret

domestic surveillance network, from police intelligence units to military

intelligence to the CIA.17

Members of the 111th Military Intelligence Group were sent to Mem-

phis starting “on March 28, 1968,” as documented by authors Hancock

and Wexler. They write that “this Civil Disorder Operation (Lantern

Strike) involved coordination with Memphis Police, the FBI, and the

Tennessee National Guard . . . to monitor and respond to any civil dis-

order involved with . . . the sanitation workers’ strike. Members of this

group [would] maintain surveillance on Dr. King and were observing

his rooms at the Lorraine Motel” when he returned to Memphis on April

3, 1968.18 Because of the riot, Dr. King would be under unusually heavy

official surveillance upon his return, a situation that could yield helpful

opportunities for those able to penetrate the surveillance network for

the Mafia.

One Mafia-affiliated person with access to intelligence about King

was Sgt. Jack de la Llana, Trafficante’s man on the Tampa police force,

who could access information nationwide using the Law Enforcement

Intelligence Unit (LEIU) or his direct contacts. De la Llana would also be

able to feed information or disinformation into the intelligence system.

His boss, Trafficante, shared the drug network through Memphis with

Marcello and would not want to see it disrupted again.

Marcello’s ally Johnny Rosselli also had ways to learn about or pen-

etrate the government’s domestic surveillance network. In late March

1967, Rosselli met with his old CIA friend, William Harvey. Such a meet-

ing could have been helpful in case Rosselli’s connection to James Earl

Ray ever surfaced after Dr. King’s murder. While Harvey was no longer

in the CIA, his many high-level contacts in the Agency included the

CIA’s liaison with the FBI.19

The Memphis riots would have affected the plans of Joseph Milteer and

Carlos Marcello. For Milteer, the Atlanta press coverage of the riots no

doubt generated additional pressure on him, Hugh Spake, and their

other two Atlanta partners. For Marcello, the riots would have con-

firmed his worst fears about the civil rights leader’s potential for dis-

rupting his Memphis drug network’s profits and his Mafia allies’ vice

operations in that city, and potentially other cities in his territory. The riot

could have accelerated the timing of Dr. King’s assassination, in hopes

that King would be killed before his next march could trigger another

riot. Reports of the massive damages from the riot would be all the more

reason not to kill Dr. King in Atlanta, which meant the assassination

would happen in Memphis.

We cited earlier the Justice Department memo, withheld from the

HSCA, which said that one person helping Marcello implement the King

contract from the racist group was “Frank [C.] Liberto . . . a Memphis

racketeer and lieutenant of Carlos Marcello,” who had both family and

business ties to the New Orleans godfather. One of the regular customers

at Frank C. Liberto’s Memphis produce store was black civil rights

worker John McFerren, who had heard rumors that Liberto might have

ties to the Mafia. On one shopping trip, “he overheard [Liberto] say

about Martin Luther King: ‘Somebody ought to kill that son of a bitch.’”

Later, the FBI would talk to “Frank C. Liberto [who admitted he] may

have made derogatory remarks about King because of the loss of rev-

enues caused by his activities.” Liberto also “admitted making [those]

remarks . . . in the presence of their customers,” further buttressing

McFerren’s credibility.20 According to the Justice Department memo,

“[James Earl] Ray’s contacts in New Orleans were with Mafia–Cosa

Nostra representatives who referred him to Frank [C.] Liberto.”21

On March 31, 1968, the nation was hit with a bombshell when President

Johnson announced at the end of his prime-time televised speech about

Vietnam that he was withdrawing from the race for another term. His

statement dramatically changed the political landscape for America,

and for Dr. King and Bobby in particular. Earlier that day, Dr. King had

delivered a rousing sermon at Washington National Cathedral, making

comments indirectly criticizing LBJ, saying the US was in “one of the

most unjust wars in the history of the world.” At a press conference later

that day, Nick Kotz writes, “King declared that he could not support

President Johnson for reelection.” King closed his remarks by saying he

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

was going to return to Memphis on April 2, to “prove that nonviolent”

protest could still work.22

At home in Atlanta that night, Dr. King was buoyed by LBJ’s announce-

ment that he was withdrawing from the race. According to Kotz, “the

next morning, King decided to postpone the Poor People’s Campaign.”

However, most historians, including Taylor Branch, cite information

showing that the oft-delayed campaign was still progressing despite

its many problems, which included finding enough volunteers to make

the trek to Washington. Meanwhile, Dr. King’s return to Memphis was

rescheduled until April 3.23

Bobby Kennedy was probably just as shocked as the rest of the coun-

try by President Johnson’s unexpected announcement. Perhaps because

their recent negotiations via Sorensen and Clifford had been at least

cordial, Bobby asked to meet with LBJ. President Johnson agreed to see

Bobby and Sorensen on April 3.24

The meeting between Bobby Kennedy and President Johnson was as

friendly as it was unlikely. The two long-standing adversaries seemed to

make a genuine effort to gloss over, if not patch up, their differences. It

probably helped that Bobby was accompanied by Ted Sorensen, whom

LBJ admired and had originally wanted for his own administration. As

Taylor Branch recounted, Bobby told LBJ, “Your speech was magnifi-

cent.” Bobby “said he appreciated the heavy burdens on Johnson and

regretted letting their difference leave him out of touch.” Taking a share

of the blame, Bobby said, “A lot of . . . the feud ‘was my fault.’”25

After the mutual compliments, and LBJ’s revelation that North Viet-

nam had just agreed to start the process leading to peace talks, Bobby got

down to the political business both men knew so well. LBJ told Bobby he

wouldn’t be giving advice to his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who

was now making his own run for the nomination. According to Branch,

LBJ said that “while reserving his options . . . he would try to stay out of

the race.” After delving into more political details, the meeting ended

on a hopeful note as LBJ said that “he regarded all he had done as a con-

tinuation of the Kennedy-Johnson program—in education, poverty, and

civil rights.” Bobby replied, “You are a brave and dedicated man”—and

then repeated the words, to make sure Johnson heard the compliment

that few would ever have imagined just days earlier.26

LBJ’s withdrawal from the race, his meeting with Bobby, and the

start of the peace process with North Vietnam all raise two issues about

Martin Luther King. The cordial meeting between the two former foes

suggests that LBJ and Dr. King might have eventually had a similar

rapprochement. Their antagonism had not lasted nearly as long as that

between LBJ and Bobby, and even in the wake of the Memphis riots,

LBJ had avoided publicly criticizing Dr. King by name, making only

general comments about the need for protesters to obey the law. Their

biggest difference was over the Vietnam War, which was now going to

be the subject of negotiations with North Vietnam. However, disputes

still existed between the two—most prominently, the need for enacting

the Kerner Commission’s recommendations, which Dr. King embraced

but LBJ wanted to ignore. Dr. King’s murder, the day after LBJ’s meeting

with Bobby, ended any possibility of seeing what might have developed

between the two men who had done so much for civil rights.

LBJ’s decisions to not seek another term and to begin the peace pro-

cess with North Vietnam are also significant factors in evaluating Dr.

King’s assassination. Many of those who think LBJ was part of a huge

government conspiracy to murder Dr. King ignore the fact that LBJ had

dropped out of the race and started the peace process prior to King’s

murder. It’s difficult to see what LBJ had to gain by Dr. King’s death,

but he certainly had a lot to lose. The resulting nationwide riots ended

any chance of LBJ’s cementing civil rights and fighting poverty as his

major legacy, leaving his dream of a Great Society literally in ashes. That

the Vietnam peace process had begun before King’s assassination has

been largely overlooked for decades, because LBJ’s efforts were sabo-

taged in late October 1968 by Republican candidate Richard Nixon, as

is now well documented by declassified files. Finally, black leaders like

Rep. Louis Stokes, on the House Select Committee for Assassinations,

looked for any signs that LBJ and other federal agencies were part of a

plot to kill Dr. King, and concluded that no evidence existed for such a

massive plot.27

Chapter Forty-nine

On April 1, 1968, Atlanta newspapers reported that Martin Luther King

would soon return to Memphis for a peaceful demonstration. On April

3, 1968, around 7:00 PM, James Earl Ray checked into the New Rebel

Inn, a motel on the outskirts of Memphis. Memphis was 398 miles from

Atlanta by the most convenient route, meaning that Ray could have left

Atlanta early that morning or the previous day. One of Ray’s brothers

later claimed to have received a call from him on April 3, in which Ray

“just acted excited, jubilant.”1

Many of Ray’s actions over the following days and weeks have been

the subject of controversy for decades. While we won’t dwell on Ray’s

claims that have repeatedly been debunked or altered by him, we will

cite information, uncovered by his various defense attorneys, that has

withstood the test of time. Because of the FBI’s bias against Dr. King, we

try to use government reports that were both critical and skeptical of

the FBI. These include the 1977 Justice Department Task Force Review

and the House Select Committee on Assassinations, headed by African-

American civil rights figures like Rep. Louis Stokes (a former prosecu-