Legacy of Secrecy (116 page)

tor) and King associate Walter Fauntroy. In addition, we sometimes

quote FBI reports that are at odds with what became the Bureau’s offi-

cial “lone assassin” story, or that appear to have been withheld from the

HSCA. Finally, we cite the findings of independent researchers where

they can be documented. While the HSCA found that many of the key

facts surrounding Dr. King’s murder can’t be determined with scien-

tific precision, the essential story that emerges is consistent with James

Earl Ray’s being part of a contract hit that Carlos Marcello brokered for

Joseph Milteer and his Atlanta partners.

Martin Luther King’s trip to Memphis on April 3, 1968, got off to a bad

start that foreshadowed the difficulties to come. As Bobby Kennedy

and LBJ were meeting in Washington, Dr. King was waiting in a com-

mercial airliner at Atlanta’s large Municipal Airport. There had been a

bomb threat, which said, “Your airline brought Martin Luther King to

Memphis, and when he comes again a bomb will go off, and he will be

assassinated.”2

As was the FBI’s usual procedure, it had not passed word of the threat

to Dr. King. He first heard about it when the pilot finally announced they

were ready for takeoff and blamed the delay on the threat against King.

Since Dr. King already knew he was going into a very tense situation in

Memphis, the bomb threat only magnified the strain he was under.3

When Dr. King finally arrived in Memphis, he checked into the Lor-

raine Motel, where, Congressional investigators confirmed, he had

stayed many times before. Dr. King wound up in his usual room, num-

ber 306, in the newest part of the motel on the second floor. Its outdoor

balcony, overlooking the parking lot, was typical for the time. The motel

faced Mulberry Street, and anyone driving past it would have a per-

fect view of someone on the balcony. Across Mulberry Street were the

backs of several older two- and three-story buildings, which faced a

run-down portion of South Main Street. Numerous rear windows in

those buildings also had an unobstructed view of the Lorraine Motel

balcony.

More unobstructed views of the balcony were available from the roof

and rear windows of Fire Station 2, where undercover black Memphis

police officers, including Ed Redditt of the intelligence unit, had set up

surveillance on Dr. King. Because of police behavior on his last visit

(and before that, against the strikers), as well as his stance against armed

security, Dr. King’s group had refused protection from the Memphis

Police. In addition, some of Dr. King’s aides believed it was sometimes

hard to tell whether local police were providing protection or running

surveillance.

Military Intelligence was also running surveillance on Dr. King, and

the FBI had an informant in Dr. King’s entourage, later identified as an

SCLC financial official. When Dr. King met with the young black mili-

tant group known as the Invaders, on the afternoon of April 3, he didn’t

realize that one of them—Marrell McCullough—was also an undercover

Memphis police officer.4

Dr. King was under intense surveillance for two reasons. First was to

monitor his actions leading up to his next large demonstration, planned

for April 8. City officials were trying to stop the march with an injunc-

tion, which federal marshals served to Dr. King at 2:30 PM on April 3.

Second was to protect him, since an attack on Dr. King by racists or even

black militants (not a realistic threat, except in the minds of some white

city officials) could trigger more rioting in a downtown business district

still recovering from its previous turmoil.5

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After an exhausting day of meetings, punctuated by thunderstorms

and reports of tornadoes, Dr. King learned that the crowd expected

for that night’s speech at the Mason Temple was far smaller than his

last crowd, only about two thousand people. Worried that Dr. King’s

support would appear to be sagging, the group instead sent Ralph

David Abernathy to speak, accompanied by Jesse Jackson and Andrew

Young. But the crowd was obviously disappointed by King’s absence,

so, despite the worsening weather (tornadoes would kill five people

and demolish forty mobile homes around Memphis that night), Dr. King

went to speak.

The last speech Martin Luther King ever gave, on April 3, 1968, was

one of his greatest, full of emotion. Nick Kotz writes that, after praising

the bravery of the striking workers and their families, Dr. King “told

about his brushes with death as a civil rights leader,” including the

day in 1958 when he was stabbed in the chest in Harlem. After telling

the crowd that the attending physician said the blade was so close to

his heart that a sneeze would have killed him, Dr. King launched into

a litany of all the important moments he would have missed “if I had

sneezed.”6

Dr. King had delivered those lines many times before and was on a roll

that night, but as he said, “And they were telling me . . . ” he paused. Sud-

denly, his tone shifted, and he became far more serious. He continued,

saying, “It doesn’t matter now. It really doesn’t matter.” He explained

that when he’d left Atlanta that morning, there had been a bomb scare.

After arriving in Memphis, “some began to say the threats—or talk

about the threats—that were out, what would happen to me from some

of our sick white brothers.”7 Dr. King couldn’t have known how tragi-

cally accurate he was about “sick white brothers,” such as Ray, Milteer,

Marcello, and Spake, but the recent strains made his own mortality all

too clear. King continued, saying, “I don’t know what will happen now,”

then appeared to be fighting back tears as he declared, “We’ve got some

difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now.8

“Because I’ve been to the mountain top,” Martin Luther King’s voice

rang out, even as it started to break with emotion. He said that “Like

anybody, I would like to live—a long life—longevity has its place. But

I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And

he’s allowed me to go up the mountain . . . and I’ve looked over. And I

have seen the Promised Land. And I may not get there with you, but I

want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised

Land!” His expression softened as he added, “So I’m happy tonight. I’m

not worried about anything. I’m not worried about any man. Mine eyes

have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” The already rapturous

crowd erupted as an exhausted and emotionally drained Dr. King fell

into the arms of Abernathy, who helped him to his seat.9

On April 4, 1968, the daylong battle being fought in a Memphis court-

room may have influenced the timing for the hit on Martin Luther King.

The fight was over the injunction to stop not just Dr. King’s planned

April 8 demonstration, but any other march through the Memphis busi-

ness district as well. Trying to get the injunction lifted was the SCLC,

buttressed by additional attorneys from the American Civil Liberties

Union. Some aides, like Andrew Young, were at the hearing as wit-

nesses, while Dr. King remained at the Lorraine Motel, resting from his

taxing schedule before making calls and having more meetings.

If the city of Memphis prevailed in court and the injunction were

upheld, Martin Luther King could have returned to Atlanta at any time,

since appeals to higher courts might take weeks. Should that happen,

Marcello’s representatives working with Ray on the King contract would

lose a prime opportunity. Two independent sources referenced in the

1968 Justice Department memo, including one of journalist William

Sartor’s mob informants from New Orleans, said that “the assassina-

tion was originally scheduled to take place after the march for which Dr.

King had returned to Memphis.” That might make sense, because the

march itself and the hours leading up to it would have called for very

tight security, perhaps including thousands of National Guard troops,

so getting to Dr. King—and getting away afterward—would have been

difficult. Yet the period after the march, when the crowds had gone

and those around Dr. King had relaxed, could have been an opportune

time.10

As for who was helping Ray in Memphis, one of Sartor’s named

sources spoke about that directly to a Justice Department investigator in

1968. The informant was “a petty gambler with sources of information

close to Frank [C.] Liberto,” the Memphis produce dealer who worked

with Carlos Marcello. The Justice Department investigator wrote that

“in my presence,” the named informant said that “Ray met Joe Caca-

meci at a Lion Service Station [in Memphis] on the night before or the

day of the shooting.” As we noted earlier, that person’s actual name

was likely Frank Joseph Caracci, a Marcello lieutenant who owned an

amusement company in New Orleans. Caracci had been questioned

after JFK’s assassination about his contacts with Jack Ruby, and the FBI

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had opened an unrelated criminal-intelligence investigation on Caracci

in the fall of 1967.11

Apparently because of the mobsters involved, the informant

“expressed concern for the safety of his wife and children.” Apparently,

the FBI withheld the Justice Department account of this incident—like

much of Sartor’s other information about Marcello’s brokering the hit

contract for an out-of-state group of racists—from the HSCA, even

though the Bureau did provide less important information about the

frightened informant. The Justice Department memo also names a “pro-

fessional killer” (and two of his aliases) said to be involved in the Mar-

cello contract with Caracci. None of those names or aliases surfaced in

the HSCA investigation and, like all the leads linked to Marcello, appear

to have not been investigated seriously by the FBI—at least, based on

the files released so far.12

Because of the court hearing that could cause Dr. King to leave Mem-

phis as early as the night of April 4, the plan to kill King had to move fast.

The Memphis newspaper said Dr. King was at the Lorraine Motel, and a

radio news report even gave his room number. A copy of that Memphis

newspaper, with Ray’s fingerprint on it, would later be found among

his possessions. According to the 1977 Justice Department Task Force,

“Ray left the Rebel Inn before the 1 PM checkout time.” His next two

hours are unaccounted for. Then, “between 3:00 and 3:30 PM . . . a man

generally answering Ray’s description rented” a room at a flophouse “at

422 1/2 South Main Street.” The back of that building faced the Lorraine

Motel. Ray turned down the first room he was offered, on the first floor,

but took the next room offered, on the second floor, without bothering

to look inside first to check the view. If he had, he would have seen that

to have an unobstructed shot at the balcony in front of Dr. King’s room,

he would have to lean far out of the window. Before accepting the room,

Ray also didn’t check out the shared bathroom at the end of the hall,

which did have an unobstructed view.13

The fact that Ray didn’t inspect either view first could indicate that

he had been directed to the rooming house by someone who had, or

who at least was more familiar with Memphis than Ray. Like Atlanta,

Memphis was a city Ray had never visited before. Typically, in order

to avoid problems, an out-of-town hit man will be given information

about where to go and what to do. Ray registered under the name “John

Willard,” and was later unable to explain how he came up with the

alias. “John Willard,” like “Eric S. Galt,” was one of four Toronto names

of real men that Ray used as aliases. They all lived within two miles of

each other, and three of the men generally resembled Ray. All four were

legitimate businessmen with no criminal past, whose identities had been

stolen—most likely by the Montreal/Toronto arm of the Marcello-linked

drug network Ray had worked for, which also specialized in providing

fake identities.14

Ray then left the rooming house and drove his Mustang to the York

Arms Company store at 162 South Main Street, where, he later admit-

ted, he bought “a pair of Bushnell binoculars for . . . $41.55.” According

to the Justice Department, Ray returned to the rooming house “by 5

PM at the latest [and] parked his Mustang” approximately four spaces

south of the entrance to his flophouse. Ray also “had taken his zipper

bag and bedspread to Room 5-B.” However, Ray may have done more

than buy binoculars while he was out—he could have also called Frank

C. Liberto.15

On the afternoon of April 4, 1968, at approximately 4:30 PM, civil rights

worker John McFerren entered Frank Liberto’s produce market to buy

stock for his “small country grocery store [located] in the hills [more