A Spy in Canaan

by Marc Perrusquia

  The possibility of exposure was something Withers lived with for years. He likely turned it over many times in his mind: What exactly would he say if his secret was forced into public view? He told the congressional committee he was never directed—the FBI didn’t give him assignments or control his actions, he said. Records tell a far different story. Unlike activists like Julian Bond, Andrew Young, and H. Rap Brown or journalists like Moses Newson—all of whom had innocent contacts with the FBI—Withers was paid.

  Not only was he paid, as ME 338-R, he was among a select group of informers assigned a code number, known in the business as a symbol number.

  “Informant symbol numbers are not assigned to all informants of the FBI,” Dennis J. Argall, the assistant chief of the FBI’s records dissemination section, said in an affidavit in our lawsuit. “They are only assigned to informants who have been developed, instructed, closely monitored and, in many cases, paid for their services.”

  Critically, Withers named names. He gave agents inside details underscoring Rev. James Lawson’s alleged subversion; he told them about the sympathies of government workers Bobby Doctor and Rosetta Miller, both of whom nearly lost their jobs; he reported nuggets of intel that landed Charles Cabbage and Coby Smith on the Security Index. He provided personal and political details on scores of others.

  Does this erode Withers’s legacy? The answer remains subjective, and I’ve tried over the years to steer away from offering an opinion. My pursuit has been to expose this hidden history, to tell an untold story. The records released through my newspaper’s lawsuit are now part of the public domain, available for anyone to scour and form his or her own conclusions.

  But I will offer this: between 1946 and his death in 2007, Withers shot some of the most powerful images of his time, boldly and faithfully recording stories that many wanted to suppress, often at great personal risk.

  Among the million or so photos he shot in his life, if he’d only snapped three—King on the bus; Moses Wright pointing his accusing finger; and those abused garbagemen unburdening their timeless message, “I AM A MAN”—he would secure a place of honor in history. Perhaps with these three images, the Holy Trinity of that righteous movement, Ernest Columbus Withers finds his absolution.

  * The December 4, 1963, memo, released through the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act, shows Lawrence contacted thirteen informants and confidential sources as he fished for leads relating to President Kennedy’s murder in Dallas twelve days earlier. Lawrence appears to have reached out mainly to sources familiar with white extremism in the Memphis area. Two of the eight named were segregationist Willis Ayres and Rolland J. Johnston, a Memphis electrician. Both are listed as prospective PCIs or Potential Confidential Informants. Johnston appeared again in an October 29, 1965, report Lawrence wrote on the doings in West Tennessee of the United Klans of America. According to the report, an informant said Johnston was mentioned at a Covington, Tennessee, Klan meeting as one who might be interested in joining. Johnston died in 1976 at age seventy-seven and Ayres died in 2004 at eighty-five.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are many people to thank, but I’ll start where this book took root, at The Commercial Appeal. The venerable Memphis newspaper continues to struggle financially, yet its soul lives on in the power to inform—to investigate, to educate, to discover. So many talented people have passed through its well-worn halls. I was fortunate to work many years with one, my longtime editor Louis Graham, among the most gifted journalists I’ve known. For all his knowledge, Louis admittedly knew little of civil rights history. But he knew a good story when he saw it. He gave me the freedom and the resources to do what needed to be done. He patiently endured mounds of paper that piled up and encouraged even the most incremental progress. He let me fly to North Carolina on little more than a wing and a prayer; by grace it paid off. Chris Peck encouraged me, too. Chris has taken a lot of heat through the years, some earned, some not. But he was the ultimate force that made this happen. The former editor-in-chief pushed the tight-fisted executives at parent-company E. W. Scripps in Cincinnati to finance our FOIA lawsuit. It cost so much it hurt. But it changed history—it deepened our understanding of government surveillance in Memphis. To that end, I’m indebted, too, to Scripps CEO Rich Boehne, who kept the money coming.

  Credit for our most unlikely victory over the FBI belongs to Chuck Tobin, our Washington counsel. Simply put, Chuck outsmarted the government. He beat them at their own game. He got plenty of capable assistance from talented junior counselors Christine Walz and Drew Shenkman, and from Dave Giles, Scripps’s affable in-house counsel. Others made valuable contributions. We got early assistance from veteran FOIA litigator Scott Hodes. James Lesar offered encouragement, too. Judge Amy Berman Jackson deserves kudos for her wisdom in navigating the government’s artifice and its repeated obstructions. That said, I always will admire the Justice Department’s Betsy Shapiro for coming to the table in mediation and negotiating a settlement both parties could live with—one that primarily benefits history.

  Special thanks to Athan Theoharis and David Garrow, brilliant historians who have graciously provided advice and insight over the long course of this effort, starting in 2009, when I first matched ME 338-R to Ernest Withers, right up to the present, reading drafts of my book, reviewing FBI reports, and offering expert commentary. My initial news stories would have been impossible without them; this book, too. I am especially indebted to David. We first met as I covered James Earl Ray’s unsuccessful legal bid to spring from prison. He has always been helpful and kind, always available despite his many accomplishments and busy schedule—a great teacher. Thanks, too, to the various retired officers of the U.S. Army, FBI, and Memphis Police Department who helped me. That help stretches back twenty years, to the first, foundational interviews I did that shaped my understanding of domestic intelligence operations in Memphis in the 1960s. In recent years, three former FBI agents stand out—Hank Hillin, who headed the Clemency for Cash investigation; Corbett Hart, whose many adventures bridged Tennessee’s civil rights and corruption periods; and Bob Campbell, who patiently helped with understanding the Bureau’s intricate policies and procedures. I can’t forget W. Hickman Ewing, the former federal prosecutor, who allowed me to tap his sharp memory and incredible mind for detail.

  Numerous others made valuable contributions in gathering records from public and private collections. Harold Weisberg first got it all going back in 1997 when he let me into his file cabinet–filled basement. Many people know Weisberg as a conspiracy writer. But he was also a Freedom of Information hero. It was through him I learned of the FBI’s files on the Invaders and the sanitation strike. After he passed, and I discovered Withers’s FBI code number, his friend, scholar Gerald McKnight, graciously shipped me boxes of Weisberg’s old records to search for more clues. Former Lt. Eli Arkin loaned me records he salvaged from MPD’s Domestic Intelligence Unit; attorney Bruce Kramer supplied assorted records from the ACLU’s lawsuit that halted MPD’s unlawful political surveillance. The staff at the University of Memphis’s Special Collections tirelessly helped in my research of the sanitation strike and West Tennessee’s Tent City struggle. After settlement of our lawsuit, Martha Murphy and her staff at the National Archives and Records Administration were most professional in processing the large records release and in fielding my many questions.

  Many thanks go to the daughters of special agent William H. Lawrence. Nancy Mosley and sister Betty Lawrence are two of the kindest, most earnest people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. I am especially grateful to Betty, who first opened her home to me on a chilly autumn day in 2010 and gave me access to her late father’s handwritten notes, photos, and mementoes. In the years since, she has kindly provided tips, advice, and encouragement. Never has she tried to whitewash her father’s story. She doesn’t agree with me a hundred percent. But her interests involve accuracy, fairness, and decency. She is a gem of a person and I am deeply indebted. Similarly, Barbara Sulliva
n, daughter of the late FBI agent Hugh Kearney, opened her home, sharing precious keepsakes and memories of her father. Targets of the FBI’s intelligence investigations cooperated, too. Kathy Roop Hunninen generously shared the photos Withers shot of her wedding along with personal papers and the painful memories of her years of victimization. Allan Fuson, Bobby Doctor, Mark Allen, Danny Beagle, Rosetta Miller-Perry, Jerry Jenkins, Heath Rush, and others graciously shared accounts of the abusive treatment they received from their government for doing little more than standing up for equal fights, for fighting against the war—for holding unpopular political views.

  I cannot forget Coby Smith, the ex-Invader, who’s devoted many hours through the years showing me his old haunts and introducing me to forgotten civil rights soldiers. G. Wayne Dowdy at the Memphis Public Library and Information Center provided valuable insight and advice. Craig Gill at the University Press of Mississippi encouraged me to keep pushing forward. I’d also like to thank the dozens of people who signed privacy waivers allowing me to get their FBI files, though many of those FOIA requests remain unfilled.

  A very special thanks goes to my friend and colleague Daniel Connolly, who in his young age has already navigated the perilous world of book publishing and who provided invaluable tips, advice, and words of encouragement when I was ready to give up. This book would not have been possible without him. Similarly, the Fund for Investigative Journalism came through in a big way with a grant in my darkest hours.

  But more than anyone, my wife and best friend, Tina, deserves credit. She put up with years of distractions, of me working after hours, on weekends, and on vacation to finish “the book.” She endured piles of paperwork and the loss of our walk-in closet, which became my office. Through it all, she offered endless hugs, home-cooked meals, wise counsel, and love for me and our three kids. She’s the bond that holds us all together. For that, I’m eternally grateful.

  ENDNOTES

  Unless otherwise noted, all citations of FBI reports relate to records released through The Commercial Appeal’s 2013 settlement agreement with the FBI, known as the Withers settlement. FBI records obtained independent of the settlement are referred to as Non-Withers records or NW.

  Chapter One

  1 Memphis Police Department report of officer Willie B. Richmond (Richmond report), “Surveillance of Martin Luther King & vicinity of Lorraine Motel, April 4, 1968,” (April 4, 1968) See also statement of Willie B. Richmond, from the B. Venson Hughes private collection of King assassination–related files (April 9, 1968).

  2 stiff and guarded: “Man of the Year,” Time magazine, Jan. 3, 1964, 13. The magazine reported King dressed with “funeral conservatism” and that “he has very little sense of humor.”

  3 “Pictures Don’t Lie,” CNN, Black in America special report, February 2011.

  4 FBI report, Memphis Sanitation Strike file, 157-1092-273&274 (April 5, 1968).

  5 A quick online overview of the history of the Lorraine, “The Famous Lorraine Motel,” can be found at the National Civil Rights Museum’s website http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/​news/​posts/​the-famous-lorraine-motel.

  6 “crazy genius”: Author interview with Andrew Young, January 30, 2013. There are multiple accounts of Bevel’s erratic behavior. More details appear later in this chapter.

  7 For a characterization of the Mason Temple speech, see Joan Turner Beifuss, At the River I Stand, 256–59. Also, Taylor Branch, At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–68, 718–20.

  8 Beifuss, At the River, 291–317.

  9 See David J. Garrow, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 611–20. Also, Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 732–44, 752–54.

  10 catfish lunch: Beifuss, At the River, 378–80. phoned their mother: Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 761. pillow fight: Andrew Young, An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America, 464. The author interviewed several SCLC associates including executive staff members Young, Dorothy Cotton, and Jesse Jackson as well as King’s friend, Kentucky state senator Georgia Davis Powers, resulting in a digital narrative on the civil rights leader’s final hours called “6:01,” the time King was shot. See http://601.commercialappeal.com/.

  11 one unidentified female: FBI report, Memphis file on MLK, “Martin Luther King Jr., Security Matter—C,” 100-4105-60&61 (March 20, 1968). The reference to a female is not explained in the eight-page report that covers a range of topics. The reference, however, is believed to be at least potentially significant, given J. Edgar Hoover’s obsession with King and women. There is no evidence in the Memphis field office files that agents gathered any salacious material on King in the final days of his life. However, they were under explicit orders to do so. A series of memos that winter and spring alerted agents to King’s “sexual aberrations.” A memo on March 29, 1968, instructed Memphis agents to be watchful for any “improper conduct on the part of King,” and to “stay on him until he leaves Memphis.” It’s possible Withers or another informant might have caught wind of such conduct and withheld it. It’s possible, too, the FBI had developed such information and simply dropped it when King suddenly died. If Ralph Abernathy can be believed, King was engaging in the very sort of personal conduct in Memphis that the FBI so desperately wanted on the married Baptist preacher. In his memoir, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, Abernathy linked King to three different women in those final hours. One, Georgia Davis, a state senator from Kentucky, later wrote her own book, revealing her year-long affair and last night with King at the Lorraine.

  12 “extramarital relationship”: FBI memos, 100-4105-1 (January 4, 1965), and 100-4105-4 (January 7, 1965). degenerate: David J. Garrow, The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis, 121–22.

  13 100-4105-4.

  14 The brief biographical sketch of agent William H. Lawrence is from personal and FBI records as well as family accounts laid out in greater detail later in this book.

  15 cut them off: Testimony of Det. Ed Redditt, U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), Investigation of the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Vol. IV, 204. mesmerizing speech: Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 758. See also Ralph David Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, 432–33.

  16 disappeared again: Beifuss, At the River, 377. Abernathy gave a hotly disputed account of where King was that night in And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, 433–36.

  17 This characterization largely comes from David Halberstam, The Children, 396–99, 437. hear voices: Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 12.

  18 FBI memos. sex “hang-ups”: “American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees file,” 157-1516-494 (January 27, 1970). According to the report, Withers heard from Memphis NAACP leader Ben Hooks that Bevel “has weird sexual ‘hang-ups.’ ” It doesn’t elaborate. His personal life was the focus of wide rumor. Months before he died in 2008, Bevel was convicted of incest and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. separated: 100-4105-60&61. obscenities: “American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees file,” 157-1516-494 (January 27, 1970). According to the report, Bevel had shocked a Los Angeles church congregation by “using extreme vulgarities and obscenities in his speech.”

  19 FBI memo, 100-4105-62&63 (March 21, 1968).

  20 Another witness to Bevel’s lecture that day, Rev. Harold Middlebrook, says he was not disturbed by it. “I don’t remember him proposing with young people anything that was violent,” Middlebrook told the author in an April 18, 2017, interview. “Now if Withers was selling that to the FBI I did not know it, OK?” Middlebrook, a one-time SCLC staff member with close ties to the King family, said he often heard Bevel go off on tangents but never knew him to veer from nonviolent tactics.

  21 FBI memos. backgrounds: “NAACP” file, 100-662-1137&38 (February 26, 1968). This report is one of many examples of background Withers provided on multiple individuals. In the report, Withers, as Source One, discusses Lawson’s previous involvement i
n the peace movement and his involvement in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. power struggle: ME-157-1092-16 (February 23, 1968) (NW). Withers and a second source said the sanitation strike was suffering from a “power struggle” between the conservative NAACP and the more militant Unity League, each trying to “outdo the other” to become the spokesman for the black workers. move swiftly: One example of the FBI’s quick response to a tip from Withers is found in Lawrence’s report 100-662-1154&55 (March 12, 1968). Lawrence wrote that Withers told him on March 12 that Rev. Ezekiel Bell had preached at a rally at Clayborn Temple the night before, telling marchers to prepare for another sit-in at City Hall. Scores of demonstrators had been arrested during a sit-in there a week earlier (“117 Strike Backers Take Stroll to Jail Escorted By Police,” CA, March 6, 1968, 1). Withers, listed in the report as Source One, “stated that it appeared that Bell was attempting to tell them to provoke disorderly conduct arrests” again. MPD and military intelligence were quickly notified “of the above proposed plans,” Lawrence wrote. That afternoon, FBI agents and police watched as the marchers converged on City Hall, taking seats in the council chamber. But, evidently, they changed plans. When the City Council rejected another request for a dues checkoff for the striking garbage workers, the protestors engaged in a walkout and left.

  22 “how rotten”: Author interview with Bobby Doctor, March 18, 2013.

  23 Author interview with Kenneth O’Reilly, March 18, 2013.

  Chapter Two

  1 “Violence is necessary”: Branch, At Canaan’s Edge, 633–34. Also, Bryan Burrough, Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence, 41.

  2 “Minister of Transportation”: HSCA, Vol. VI, 430.

  3 Richmond report. The officer noted “MAX drove up into the parking lot” with Orange and Bevel. His report lists no specific time for McCollough’s appearance but places it between 5:50 and 6:00 p.m.