The Plot to Kill King

by William F. Pepper

  As noted earlier, when Dr. King keynoted the convention, a note was passed to me over my shoulder warning me to get him out of the Palmer House Convention site and Chicago or the so-called “Black Caucus” already formed would take him hostage and embarrass him before the world.

  Dominated by black Chicago (Blackstone Rangers) gang leaders in the pay of the government, the provocateurs went on to deeply divide the convention and the peace and justice movement. The temperature of the fear which Dr. King was generating in official circles was beyond anything we appreciated at the time.

  After the Detroit riots, when military intelligence officers interrogated young blacks who had been apprehended, they were astounded to learn that their idol was not H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, or other Black Power leaders—but Martin Luther King Jr. His increasingly strong position against the Vietnam War threatened to force the government to end it before all profit had been wrung from it. As though that was not enough, in the autumn Dr. King turned his attention to the plight of the growing impoverished masses whom he pledged to lead in the establishment of a massive tent city in the nation’s capitol, where the poor, in the hundreds of thousands, would non-violently lay siege to their representatives and demand a refunding of social programs with money long absorbed by the war budget.

  With that act, his bridging of the requirements of foreign and domestic peace, Dr. King became intolerable, and all indications are that the decision to rid the nation of this pastor and prophet was taken in the spring of 1967, and accelerated that autumn and winter.

  In the long history of political assassinations that have afflicted human society since the dawn of its existence, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has had as profound an impact on this nation and its future as any other. His execution, ordered by the ruling forces of the Republic and carried out by officials of the State and their minions, eliminated a powerful force for change.

  The “Prayer List” of J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson, implemented by a cadre of officials and their civilian agents, reshaped the social, economic, and cultural life of our Republic. Given the absence of independent print, audio, or visual mass media, two generations of citizens have been raised in a milieu of ignorance about these events that have shaped their world.

  I publish these findings in the hope that one day we might achieve the justice that the truth of this seminal and tragic event demands.

  One should not, however, underestimate the consolidated power and control by the ruling forces over the mass media, (see Epilogue) though I expect it will be far more difficult for them to continue to suppress the full truth of Dr. King’s assassination. After all, as Dr. King was fond of saying: “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” And so, as we near the end of this long journey, it appears that with respect to his own demise, we may finally witness the risen truth of this demonic event.

  Epilogue

  DISINFORMATION

  Truth smothered with lies

  Suffocates and dies

  In our midst injustice reigns

  And despite our plea liberty wanes

  Ignorance abounds throughout the land

  Programmed well by a hidden hand

  But a glimmer survives, a forlorn light

  To harbor truth in darkest night.

  As noted earlier, in the thirty-seven years I have been involved with this case, there has been one effort after another to dis-inform the public about what really happened. Though, uniformly, this has involved collaboration between government and the mainstream media, those activities have taken on a number of forms.

  Books and articles have been written at various stages. Television documentaries have been produced and shown repeatedly by mainstream media. Radio and television interviews have been aired focusing on the official story. In contrast, our work was suppressed. For example, there was the use of blackouts or mainstream news embargoes of events associated with our work, such as the 1999 civil trial of the King Family v. Jowers. Another such example was the failure of my first two books on the case, Orders to Kill (1995) and An Act of State (2003) to be reviewed by the mainstream media. The 1995 book was almost reviewed in The New York Times, whose chief reviewer told the publisher’s representative that he was ordered by his editor—for the first time in twenty-five years—to pull the review.

  The disinformation efforts took on more sinister activity when, as set out in an earlier work, there was clearly an official effort in 1996 to infiltrate our investigation by someone claiming to be Colonel John Downie, who offered to provide us with inside information about his role. The real Colonel Downie, it turned out, had died some years prior to the contact, requiring the agent to claim he had been given a new identity. We came to believe that efforts like this one were undertaken often for the purpose of leading us astray or planting false information that could potentially undermine the credibility of our investigation.

  All of the above tactics were employed by the docile, compliant, mainstream publishing houses, national television stations, and print media. With these consistent practices and policies, actually dating back to the assassination itself, manifesting their presence down to the present time or over a period of forty-six years, it is impossible to accept coincidental good faith or naïveté as being the moving force.

  I have too often been advised that the truths uncovered by our work were “not worth [losing] the job” by one or another media figure. Then, there is the well-known (thanks to Carl Bernstein) presence of intelligence agency operatives in every aspect of media, including The New York Times, which, he contended, agreed to take twelve agents in 1959 in a variety of positions from the very senior to stringer. What emerges is a compulsive systemic media policy of protecting the consumer-driven economy and masses from any anxiety that could conceivably interfere with the flow of retail and wholesale commercial activity. This works hand in glove with the desire of government to protect the credibility and integrity of its agencies and their budgets. The revolving door of the corporate and official world mutually benefit from the preservation of an undisturbed status quo.

  Over the last half-century, the consolidation of these tactics has become ever more evident. I remember that this was not always the case. For its significance in terms of how government deals with dissent, it is worth repeating the Look magazine story, when, in 1967, my Ramparts article was published with gruesome photographs. Bill Atwood of Look (mainstream as one could find) was interested in running the piece. When we met, his first words were to inform me that the previous week he had a visit from Averill Harriman (former governor of New York, Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and senior wiseman of the Democratic Party).

  Bill told me that Harriman carried greetings from the president and a request for a favor. The favor was that Look would never publish anything that Bill Pepper wrote. Atwood said, “How does that make you feel? You’re not yet thirty years old and the president has taken on such concern about your work.”

  I smiled and said, “I am much more interested in what you told him.”

  Bill said, “I told him that we were going to meet with you, and if we liked what we heard and saw, we were going to publish, and by the way give the president my best regards.”

  The rest, of course, is history. Shortly thereafter, Bill Atwood had a heart attack and left the magazine. Chandler Brossard, the associate working editor who had set up the meeting between Atwood and me, was let go, and the article never ran.

  Such journalistic independence and persona/character as displayed by Chandler Brossard and Bill Atwood disappeared. In 1978 to 1979, Rolling Stone magazine bought an article written with Ralph Abernathy on my initial work on the case. They paid for it, read it, and buried it.

  It may be instructive to look at some examples of disinformation, which have been aimed at shaping and perpetuating mass public opinion with respect to the assassination of Dr. King.

  The 1979 official report of the house select committee (HSCA) must stand out as the primar
y government sanctioned account of the assassination. The HSCA assassination began in 1976 about eight years after the event. As we shall see, during those eight years, the official story was nourished by the mainstream media.

  The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA)

  The momentum in support of the official story, with a nuance, was continued in 1979 with the release of the HSCA’s multimillion-dollar investigative report.

  I suggest that with these critical instances of malfeasance, and by not, dealing with, ignoring, or distorting the evidence related to these events and issues, the HSCA officially set the format for all subsequent disinformation in print and visual examinations of this case.

  Richard Sprague, the first general council, proved to be too uncooperative and was summarily replaced by professor Robert Blakey, who went about the business closing doors rather than following leads.

  As was the case with many others far more knowledgeable than I was at the time about the facts of the case, I felt let down and was greatly disappointed by the result. It was small solace that the lone gunman, found to be James Earl Ray, might have been part of a wider, vague conspiracy in respect of which no hard evidence was presented.

  As has always been the case, the HSCA had to eliminate the involvement of the shadowy figure, Raul, who James said provided him with directions and funds, after they met at the Neptune Bar in Montréal.

  Raul and the Alton, Illinois Bank Robbery

  Simply put, Raul could not exist if the official story was to hold up. The HSCA concluded that he was a figment of James’s imagination and that his funds came from the robbery of the Alton Bank on July 13, 1967, pulled off by James and his brother John.

  In late 1978, around the time of the final HSCA hearings, Mark Lane had been disqualified by the committee for representing Jerry Ray who had been subpoenaed to testify. Mark asked me to jump in for this one-off representation of Jerry, and I brought my New York associate Florynce “Flo” Kennedy. Anticipating questions about the Alton bank robbery, I called the sheriff in Alton and the president of the bank; they gave the same statement. The Ray brothers had nothing to do with the robbery. No one from the HSCA, the FBI, or The New York Times had sought their opinion. They believed that they knew who the perpetrators were. Shortly afterward these individuals bought a taxicab company. But there was not enough hard evidence. Furthermore, contrary to the New York Times article, no one from the HSCA or the FBI had ever interviewed them.

  Precisely around the time of Jerry’s scheduled testimony before the committee, The New York Times ran a front-page, column one article by Wendell Rawls Jr. announcing the results of the Times investigation of the Alton bank robbery.

  It stated that the Times had interviewed police and bank officials in Alton and stated that the results of their investigation matched those of the FBI and the HSCA. The conclusion was that James and one of his brothers pulled off the robbery.

  As my telephone queries established, the Times article was complete fiction published by the media which disinformed the public.

  When the committee began to deal with the robbery during the questioning of Jerry, I told them of these conversations and wondered why no relevant interviews had been undertaken.

  Counsel moved the committee from the Alton bank robbery and on to something else.

  Nevertheless, in terms of funding Ray, there seemed to be nowhere else to go and the final report concluded, ignoring the available facts, that James got his money from this robbery, not from a nonexistent Raul.

  This conclusion by the HSCA, along with the allegation that one of his brothers was Raul, gave credence to the official story throughout the mainstream media.

  The St. Louis Conspiracy

  Engaging in pure speculation, though putting it out for the media to promote, the HSCA concluded that there was a “likelihood” that James had heard about a standing offer on Dr. King’s life by some individuals in St. Louis. The fact that he was never seen with the alleged perpetrators or that he never made any effort to collect the money is, of course, not mentioned.

  John McFerren

  The committee dismissed John McFerren’s account of what he heard, maintaining that his credibility was questionable since he had, at one point, believed that he saw James working at Liberto’s produce warehouse and this was clearly not sustainable. Moreover, committee investigators not only accepted Liberto’s denials but incredibly failed to find any evidence of his connection to Carlos Marcello or organized crime. Since I was able very quickly to establish that relationship (which was well-known locally), and Liberto’s clear involvement and admission of involvement was discussed elsewhere, the disinformation of the HSCA was transparent.

  Clifton Baird

  Former Louisville police officer Clifton Baird’s information, along with McFerren’s statement was made part of a section in the report that dealt with conspiracy allegations. Most of these allegations collapsed early on of their own weight of incredulity. Others were discarded after the HSCA, and subsequently, my own, examination. As noted elsewhere, I met Clifton Baird in Louisville and found this former local police officer to be very credible as he set out the details he learned about a proposed assassination attempt in Louisville (where Dr. King’s brother AD lived). He named FBI and local police officers, which he was able to confirm by an illicit tape recording of a conversation he had with one of the plotters.

  Though the committee found Baird to be “highly credible,” they chose to accept the denials of fourteen of the named FBI agents and the explanation of the named Louisville police officers that it was a practical joke.

  The committee similarly dismissed the relevance of the following:

  • The MPD’s failure to assign the small group of black officers who normally provided security for Dr. King when he was in Memphis (focusing instead on the pullback of the substituted white security team).

  • The removal of black detective Ed Redditt from his surveillance post in the fire station. (Ostensibly, word of a threat on his life had been called in from a federal official.)

  • The removal of the only two black firemen scheduled to be on duty in the fire station that afternoon. (Supposedly they posed a threat to the surveillance being conducted by Redditt—and Richmond—who thought no such thing.)

  Basically, this multimillion-dollar investigation and report ignored or denied all evidence that raised the possibility that James Earl Ray was innocent, allowing only for the concession that it was likely that he had assistance. With respect to the latter however, the committee explicitly rejected the idea that there was official complicity at any level of government.

  It should be noted that while most of the information and conclusions being examined in this chapter of disinformation are contained in non-official publications and productions, that this HSCA report published in 1979 sought to confirm the official story, setting the foundation for much of the disinformation which followed over the succeeding thirty years. While it is true that considerable evidence that I have been able to unearth was probably not available to HSCA investigators between 1976 and 1978, there is no doubt that much of it was in front of their noses, for example:

  • Evidence of the two Mustangs, one with Arkansas plates.

  • Evidence that the cutting-down of the bushes was ordered by the MPD the morning after the crime and greatly altered the crime scene.

  • The existence of the footprints leading into the alley toward the entrance to the cellar, between the wings of the rooming house.

  • The failure to match the throw-down gun with the death slug, though ample striations were present, and the failure to explain why the sight on the rifle was off.

  • The cutting-down of the large hedge between the fire station and the vacant lot which would have blocked the view of someone in James’s location as he purportedly “fled,” thus making it impossible that he panicked at seeing a police car pulled up to the sidewalk.

  • The fact that the MPD car was actually
parked well back on the Fire Department property next to a side door nearer to the middle or rear of the fire station.

  • The indisputable fact that the main witness, Charlie Stephens, was dead-drunk.

  • The fact that the rooming house bathroom was empty and the door was open, minutes before the shooting.

  • The fact that Dr. King’s room was changed from a protected one, 202, to an exposed balcony room, 306.

  • The relationship of Frank Liberto to organized crime.

  • The failure to form the all-black police security unit which had previously always protected Dr. King in Memphis.

  • The presence, seen by eyewitnesses, of individuals in the bushes behind the rooming house at the time of the killing.

  • The disappearance of the Yellow Cab driver, “Buddy,” who called in a report about seeing a man come down over the wall right after the shooting, and who confirmed that observation to fellow cab driver Louie Ward.

  • The reason why James Earl Ray bought, returned, and exchanged one rifle for another on the same day.

  • The failure to locate and interview two eyewitnesses who saw James Earl Ray drive away in his white Mustang some twenty minutes before the shooting.

  • The failure to interview Betty Spates and her sister Bobbi in an effort to learn what they observed or heard.

  • The failure to interview the captain in charge of the fire station on that day regarding who assisted the army Psy-Ops photographers in getting on the roof of his station that afternoon.

  • The failure to interrogate Reverend Billy Kyles as to why, in light of Officer Richmond’s surveillance notes, he had lied about being with Dr. King before the shooting.

  • The failure to interview New York Times reporter Earl Caldwell, the Reverend James Orange, and Solomon Jones about what they saw in the bushes behind the rooming house.

  • The failure to interview patrolman J. B. Hodges, about the density of the bushes he encountered right after the shooting.