The Plot to Kill King

by William F. Pepper

  JD told Terrell that on April 4, the main body of the Alpha 184 team arrived in cars from Camp Shelby, which was their staging base and the training home for the Twentieth SFG reservists. He said that all weapons, material, and immediate orders for the Memphis mission were generated from the base, although the actual preparation for a triangulation shooting had been previously practiced at a site near Pocatello, Idaho. At an early stage, the scenario called for a triangular shot at a moving vehicle in an urban setting. At the time no official details were provided about the mission and the men believed it was to be directed at an Arab target.

  JD said that he soon learned that the mission was to be executed in Memphis, Tennessee. He believed that some of the team had gone to the city earlier. JD identified those sites to Terrell: a rooftop, a water tower, and a third-story window, with the team expecting to have to fire upon and hit their targets (and there were more than one) when they were in a moving car entering or leaving the motel parking lot. The team knew that the King party was going to dinner that evening, and they didn’t believe for a minute that Dr. King would appear on the balcony in such an exposed position. They believed they were going to have to work for the kill.

  The weapons that Terrell said JD told him were carried by the team were in line with the list provided by Warren. Terrell said it was obvious from the way JD spoke that something went wrong and that they had to leave unexpectedly and quickly. Some members of the team were flown out from West Memphis.

  Terrell said he had always had reservations about JD’s death. The official account made no sense to him. JD was allegedly shot to death at point-blank range by his wife, sometime after midnight on January 12, 1979. She apparently fired five bullets from his .357 Magnum into a closely confined area of his chest. He was dead before he hit the floor. It had, said Terrell, all the signs of a professional killing. He had known JD’s wife and did not believe that she had the strength or the capability to handle the large firearm with the precision described.

  Terrell believed that JD, a heavy drinker, might have begun to talk to others about the Memphis operation. Warren had said that he had left the country because he believed a clean-up process had begun within a year of the assassination and that if he returned to the United States he would be “immediately killed.” I obtained a copy of the court records relating to JD’s death and confirmed that there was no indictment for his murder. JD’s wife was released and lives today in another town in Mississippi.

  I asked Terrell to check out some details and he reluctantly agreed. Just before we ended, he said, “This meeting never took place.” I agreed. “You have to be very careful,” he said, “They’ll drop you where you stand.” Terrell faxed a note to me a couple of weeks later. It confirmed what he told me and provided further information. JD’s team was positioned on a Taylor Paper Company water tower. Terrell wrote that JD confirmed that something had gone wrong and the mission was aborted. They disengaged, were picked up, and driven out of South Memphis to West Memphis Arkansas airport where they were placed on a small aircraft and flown to Amory, Mississippi, after releasing their weapons and other gear to the logistics officer who remained behind. They apparently dispersed at that point, JD returning to his home in Columbus, where he learned Dr. King had been assassinated.

  Warren said that he had heard “scuttlebutt” that the 111th MIG had a black agent inside Dr. King’s group. Using an intelligence source, I asked for a check to be completed on Marrell McCollough, who I had previously confirmed from two independent sources had gone to work for the CIA in the 1970s. The report bore fruit. McCollough was not who he appeared to be. He had been in the regular army between February 1964 and December 1966 and was a military policeman (an MP). On June 16, 1967, he was reactivated and hired as a military intelligence informant and attached to the 111th MIG headquartered at Camp McPherson, Georgia.

  McCollough, therefore, had ultimate reporting responsibility to the 111th MIG, though he was deployed to the MPD as an undercover agent, and officially reported to MPD Lieutenant Arkin.

  Warren, whom I had come to believe was credible and reliable, also said that a photograph of the actual shooting from the brush area existed and sometime after the event he had seen it. Warren provided the name and address of the now-retired officer who supposedly had a copy of the photo and agreed to approach him. The former Psy Ops officer, whom I call “Reynolds,” agreed to have contact, but initially he insisted on the same procedure that had been used with his Latin American buddies. My questions would be carried to him by Steve Tompkins. The meeting was set for early December 1994 in the coffee shop of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago.

  Reynolds was about five feet ten inches tall, 160 to 170 pounds, with gray, short cropped hair. He said that in Vietnam he had been assigned to the First SOG based in Can Tho and that he worked for the 525th Psychological Operations Battalion. Reynolds said that he and his partner (whom I will call “Norton”) were deployed to Memphis on April 3 as a part of a wider mission they believed was under the overall command of Colonel Downie of the 902nd MIG, for whom he had worked on a number of assignments. They carried the necessary camera equipment and were armed with standard issue .45 caliber automatics. Norton also carried a small revolver in a holster in the small of his back. They were ordered to be in position on April 4, and on that day they arrived before noon and went directly to Fire Station No. 2, where the captain, Carthel Weeden, gave them access to the flat roof. They took up their positions on the east side of the roof. From that vantage point they overlooked the Lorraine Motel and picked out any individuals in photos who might be identified as a communist or national security threat. They had an unobstructed view of the balcony in front of Dr. King’s room, 306. My colleagues and I long wondered why the army would want to take photographs of the events unfolding on that day.

  I have come to believe that the main reason for the photographing was likely to enable Downie and the relevant army counterintelligence officers not only to be able to identify everyone in the vicinity of the crime scene but also, in particular, to have a clear picture of what they were doing immediately before, at the time of, and immediately after the assassination. This photographic intelligence would certainly give them a head start in being able to take whatever steps were necessary to suppress observations that could potentially jeopardize the operation.

  On New Year’s Day 1996, Steve Tompkins received an unexpected telephone call. It was purportedly from Colonel John Downie of the 902nd military intelligence group. I had tried to locate him for three years, concluding that his little-known unit, based inside the office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, played the primary organizing and coordination role in the assassination. He was now living outside the United States, and said he had found my earlier book Orders to Kill remarkably accurate, though it gave him too much responsibility for the operation. He insisted he was only an officer in a chain of command following orders. He wanted to correct my impression of his role so the history of these events would be accurately recorded.

  He called Steve again on January 28 and suggested they should meet in Southhampton, Bermuda, on March 9. He asked for a modest good faith sum, up front, to offset his expenses for as many meetings as I deemed necessary. In addition, he asked for one Krugerrand at the beginning of each meeting. This was the same procedure Warren had used.

  Steve traveled alone to the meeting. The next morning there was a knock on his door. Downie introduced himself. He stood almost six feet tall, weighed around 185 pounds, and appeared to be in his mid-sixties. He was pleased that Steve had arrived alone and reiterated he would not meet me. He said I was not in danger since my earlier book had been buried and no one would believe my story. Surprisingly, he said he had met me in Vietnam when I was a journalist. He stated he had been legally dead for a number of years, and was living under a new identity.

  He said he would provide all the details possible, but explained, in true military style, that he would have been outside the loop in some
aspects of planning and implementation. Five meetings took place over the next eighteen months. The information this man provided gradually served to corroborate what was provided earlier by other military and government personnel.

  Downie confirmed he played a key role in coordinating the task force consisting of the various military units in Memphis during the week of April 1, up to and including April 4. However, he contended that while he met Yarborough on a regular basis, his orders were passed through a trusted civilian associate. The emissary, whose name I had never heard before, was a retired army intelligence officer who had served at Fort Bragg under Yarborough. Though the operation came under the jurisdiction of the ACSI’s office it was handled indirectly through his trusted loyal colleague.

  Downie said the Memphis operation seemed to have been put in motion following a meeting that took place about a week after the riot in Detroit that he attended with Yarborough and others. Dr. King’s popularity with urban blacks, his opposition to the Vietnam War, and his determination to bring impoverished masses to the nation’s capital all helped seal his fate. Downie confirmed Warren and Murphy’s account of the Memphis mission, even such details as “friendlies not wearing ties.” He said the 902nd began to plan the killing of black community leaders as early as 1963 and 1964 when it seemed cities might get out of hand. He said the unit was still in existence.

  Downie provided details that revealed for the first time the relationship between the Marcello crime organization and the 902nd. They were jointly involved in an extensive gunrunning venture. Weapons stolen from army bases and armories were delivered to the Marcello organization, which arranged for their sale in Latin and South America and elsewhere. The proceeds were split equally, and the 902nd used this “black” money for covert operations. The operational link between the army and the mob was, apparently, a now deceased Twentieth SFG captain in New Orleans, who died in a suspicious car crash. I recalled Warren’s account of running guns from Camp Shelby to New Orleans where they were delivered to Marcello’s man Zip Chimento. I also recalled Glenda Grabow’s description of Raul and his associates picking up guns that were delivered by water and unloaded at Houston docks.

  Downie also tied two other people to this activity. One was a senior Mossad agent working in South America who acted as a senior liaison to the US military and CIA. The second was an officer of the 111th MIG based at Fort McPherson in Georgia. Downie urged us to stay away from these individuals.

  Eric S. Galt

  As for James, Downie said that he was one of many minor crooks with an army history who were used as “patsies” in various operations. Downie said he, too, had seen photographs of the shooter taken at the time of the killing. It was not James. He said that though James would not have been aware of it, he had been assisted and guided in Canada. He said that there was an identities expert used by both Yarborough and Helms at the time James was provided with the Galt identity. James had not known the source. He always tried to protect the person who gave him the Galt name, believing it was someone who was trying to help.

  He began to use it in late July 1967, having just entered Canada. This was around the time of the Detroit riots and heightened army concern over Dr. King. At one point during my investigation of the involvement of the army, a source placed a photograph in front of me. It was a full frontal head shot of Eric St. Vincent Galt—the man whose identity James had assumed and used for most of the time between July 18, 1967, and April 4, 1968. I was told not to ask any questions because it had come from and was part of an NSA file. I learned that Galt, the executive warehouse operator at Union Carbide’s factory in Toronto, had top secret security clearance. Galt had worked for Union Carbide, Inc. of the United States since the early 1980s. The company was engaged in high-security research projects controlled by its US parent. I learned that in August 1967, shortly after James assumed the Galt identity, the real Eric Galt met with Colonel John Downie’s aide. They met again in September.

  Somehow James had acquired the name of a highly placed Canadian operative of US army intelligence. He began using the name on July 18, 1967, around the time the real Eric Galt was meeting with Downie’s aide. Though James likely obtained the other aliases by himself, there was little likelihood that he had accidentally chosen the Galt identity. His manipulation now appeared to involve not only elements of organized crime but also the specific, senior level, highly covert military intelligence group, the 902nd MIG, whose involvement could be traced back at least to July 18, 1967, when he began to use the Galt identity.

  At the time, Galt appeared to me to be a critical link, facilitating the use of James Earl Ray as a scapegoat by this covert part of army intelligence and using the task force structure involving the Twentieth SFG, the FBI, and the other associated and collaborating members of the government and intelligence community involved with the assassination of Dr. King. Providing the scapegoat with an identity with Top Secret clearance was a means of securing and protecting him from problems before he was needed. Any routine police check would come up against a protected file, and the result would be that the government agency (in this instance the NSA and the army through the ACSI’s office) could control the situation and instruct any law enforcement authorities to let the scapegoat go.

  It was a highly classified secret that the NSA became involved in the effort to locate James after the assassination. It has never been revealed in any official investigation. Frank Raven, the NSA’s officer, received the watch lists from the rest of the law enforcement and intelligence community and acted upon them. He received a direct order to place Ray’s name, along with several aliases, on the watch list. Usually, the order came from the office of the Secretary of Defense, Clark M. Clifford, who has no recollection of issuing it. Raven said that he tried to object to the order on constitutional grounds but was told that “… you couldn’t argue with it—it came from the highest level.”

  It now appears that army intelligence was involved in the task force through the presence of the 111th MIG on the ground in Memphis and the 902nd MIG, which coordinated the operation. From at least July 1967, James acquired the identity of one of the 902nd’s assets with top-secret security clearance. This may have prompted the subsequent unconstitutional involvement of the NSA using the “watch list” to locate him. It appears likely or at least possible that the order which was routed through the Defense Secretary’s office found its way there from the office of the ACSI. An operation of mind-boggling complexity was emerging.

  By summer 1997, John Downie had disappeared, perhaps concerned that word had gotten out about his contact with me via Steve Tompkins. This relatively brief communication provided me with further confirmation that the account of a military back-up presence was basically correct. It provided a tantalizing glimpse behind the Pentagon’s closed doors where the assassination of Dr. King was viewed as one event in a much larger context.

  Steve Tompkins continued to meet with Warren during the period that Downie’s story began to unfold. On January 27, 1996, Warren confirmed that his target, Andrew Young, was in the Lorraine parking lot at the moment Dr. King was shot. On August 17, Warren turned over the remaining Twentieth SFG rosters he had. One name leapt from the Mississippi list. It was the man who Jack Terrell, best friend of Alpha 184 team member JD Hill (shot dead in 1979), had said was the briefing officer for the Memphis mission attached to the Mississippi contingent. Terrell had said no one was quite certain exactly who he worked for.

  When I obtained the photograph of Raul, included in the spread of six, I asked Steve to make a trip and show it to Warren. Warren instantly picked him out. He identified him as the person he had seen with Marcello’s man Zip Chimento when they were picking up guns delivered from Camp Selby to New Orleans. Warren said Raul went by the name James R. Richmond and always insisted on using the initial “R.” This clearly placed Raul in the frame of the gunrunning operations conducted by the army and the Marcello organization.

  At 6:01 p.m., the fatal moment wh
en the shot rang out, Reynolds quickly snapped four or five photos following Dr. King as he fell to the balcony floor. Reynolds said Norton almost instinctively swung his camera from the parking lot to the left and, focusing on the brush area, caught the assassin (a white man), on film as he was lowering his rifle. He then took several shots of him as he was leaving the scene. Reynolds said that though Norton had caught the assassin clearly in his camera, he personally only saw the back of the shooter as he left the scene. They hand-delivered the pictures to Downie but Norton kept the negatives and made another set of prints, seen by both Reynolds and Warren. They both categorically stated that the sniper in the photograph was not James Earl Ray.

  In February 1997, ABC News’s Turning Point program decided to do a documentary on the King assassination. It planned to focus on the King family, my investigation and quest for a trial, and James Earl Ray’s terminal illness. From the outset, we all cooperated. I persuaded Terrell to be interviewed. In the hour interview he told them what he had learned from his best friend J.D. Hill and about the presence of the Alpha 184 team in Memphis on April 4, 1968, and their mission. I had been informed that the leader of the eight-man team was dead. With the cooperation of the army, however, ABC News located him alive and living in Costa Rica. With no prior notice, they brought him, along with General Henry Cobb, who commanded the Twentieth Special Forces Group, into an interview with me. I was surprised and told them I had obviously been given wrong information about the team leader’s death.