A Spy in Canaan

by Marc Perrusquia

  5 Author interview with Allan Fuson, March 21, 2016.

  6 This information is from a report attached to an FBI form FD-306, “Cover sheet for Informant Report or Material,” dated July 5, 1972, contained in the FBI’s file on the Black Arcade, 157-2112-86. Withers is identified in the report as ME 338-E—the “E” signifying an extremist informant. The FBI tweaked Withers’s code number in August 1971, converting him from a racial to an extremist informant. It’s unclear if Withers contacted Chandler Wrecking Co. posing as a potential employer or creditor or precisely how he obtained Allen’s personal information.

  7 Author interview with Mark Allen, July 22, 2017.

  8 FBI memo, Memphis file “Mid-South Citizens Dissatisfied With United States Policy in Vietnam,” 100-4285 (April 19, 1967), serials 77 and 78.

  9 chaired the Physics Department: “Death Notice—Nelson Fuson,” Physics Today, January 2010. movement’s heroes…visited: Allan Fuson interview.

  10 Fuson interview.

  11 These details on Fuson come from MPD Intelligence Bureau reports forwarded to the FBI. Redactions and other concerns don’t allow Townsend be pinpointed as the source. Yet references to the undercover policeman in the reports suggest him as the source for some if not all the information. Some of these reports are found in the FBI’s “Invaders” file, 157-1067, serials 1911 and 1991.

  12 at…memorial rally: 100-4000-1540. attend…Convention: FBI report, Kathy Roop file, 100-4708-559 (July 12, 1972).

  13 100-4708-623.

  14 FBI memos. shot twenty pictures: 100-4708-1A2. license plate: FBI report, Tennessee Council on Human Relations file, 100-3481-51 (December 31, 1968). four meetings: by FBI special agent Burl F. Johnson to the Secret Service (February 10, 1971), released to author January 30, 2014, hereafter referred to as Johnson Report (NW).

  15 FBI report, HQ file on Black Organizing Project, 157-8460-17&18 (November 27, 1968), pp. 1, 11, 14.

  16 See 100-4708. shot photos: serial 24. confirmed her connection: serial 65.

  17 Johnson report.

  18 conferring with…Braden: 100-4708-1A3 (the FBI released a photo cutout depicting the right profiles of Braden and Hunninen engaging in an evident small-group discussion). Free Angela Davis: 100-4481-216.

  19 Lloyd Holbeck, “Grenade Blast Spurs Inquiry,” CA, April 21, 1971, 21. “Hand Grenade Damages Two Crusader’ Autos,” MPS, April 20, 1971, 1.

  20 Photos supplied to author by Kathy Hunninen. See also Southern Patriot, May 1971.

  21 100-4708-333.

  22 Report by agent Johnson, April 30, 1971.

  23 Southern Patriot, October 1972.

  24 100-4708-559.

  25 “day-to-day appraisal”: see Church Committee, book III, 448. as many as sixty-two meetings…communist front: FBI report, by agent Johnson (February 11, 1972).

  26 FBI report, 100-4708-659 (August 12, 1974).

  27 Details of Hunninen’s name check, termination and reinstatement come from FBI releases to author on January 30 (release #250070) and October 1, 2014 (289369) (NW). Critical details were gleaned from several documents, including an April 8, 1985, letter to the FBI from the Arnold & Porter law firm in the October 1 release and an undated internal FBI memo in the January 30 release.

  28 See Charles Francis, “Perved: Eisenhower Anti-Gay Executive Order Turns 60,” The Huffington Post, May 2, 2013.

  29 Letter, October 29, 1985, from Gersch to Gary L. Stoops, FBI chief of operations section in records management.

  30 Memo, Mary C. Lawton to Floyd I. Clarke, assistant director, FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division (February 14, 1986), released to author by the National Security Division on February 11, 2014 (NW).

  31 Author interview with Kathy Hunninen, February 3, 2016.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  1 Author interview with Charles Cabbage, January 5, 2010.

  2 The scope of criminal activity attributed to the Invaders was broad. In February 1969, three former Invaders were convicted of luring Memphis patrolman James Robert Waddell into an ambush and wounding him in the leg. (Charles Edmondson, “Invaders May Serve About Two years,” CA, February 19, 1969, 19.) Withers helped detect some crime. The day after the body of Anthony “Red” Warren was found in a field in January 1969, Lawrence called Withers for help. Police suspected members of the Invaders were involved but had made no arrests. They had a lead on a name, “Al Frierson.” Withers told the agent that “is probably Albert Frison,” a pastor’s son. Frison and two others were arrested the next day. Frison later pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. (See FBI memo, February 5, 1969, 157-1067-930.) The report says Withers also provided information in the case of a man shot in the foot by an Invader.

  3 FBI report, Coby Vernon Smith file, ME-100-4394-1 (November 29, 1966). Also, report 100-4394-23 (April 12, 1967) and serials 1A-1 to 1A-3, all dated May 5, 1967. Also, report NAACP file, 100-662-1069&70 (April 27, 1967).

  4 100-4394-23.

  5 100-662-1069&70. Also, report, 100-4394-60A (July 21, 1967).

  6 fast friends: Author interview with Coby Smith, January 5, 2010. Withers scoped out…searched his files: 100-4394-60A.

  7 “Ernest called us over”: Smith interview. “Under the pretext”: FBI report, 100-4394-83 (August 18, 1967).

  8 Kay Pittman Black, “Two Names Cause Stir,” MPS, August 4, 1967, 1. Also, Charles A. Brown, “Two ‘Angry Young Men’ Kicked Out,” MPS, August 8, 1967, 1; Kay Pittman Black and Bill Evans, “Senate Prober Checks In Memphis,” MPS, August 10, 1967, 1; Charles A. Brown, “Decision Expected Tonight in Case of Two Dismissed Poverty Workers,” MPS, August 24, 1967, 12.

  9 Kay Pittman Black, “Invaders vs. the Law—Box Score to Date,” MPS, February 20, 1969, 19.

  10 FBI report, COINTELPRO-Black Nationalist Hate Groups, 100-448006 (April 3, 1969). The serial is illegible, but appears to be 811.

  11 The Church Committee reported that FBI headquarters maintained lists of “friendly” media. Field offices also kept unpaid “confidential sources” in the media, journalists who could be counted on to protect the Bureau’s interests. These contacts often were used to place unfavorable articles about targeted groups and to leak “derogatory information intended to discredit individuals.” See Church Committee, book III, 35–36.

  12 FBI report, 100-448006 (March 29,1968). Lawrence wrote in an April 19, 1967, memo that “an established contact” at The Commercial Appeal turned over details he’d gleaned from reporter Barney DuBois, who’d just covered a peace march. See 100-4285-78.

  13 FBI report 100-448006-717 (February 23, 1969).

  14 Seth Rosenfeld, Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals and Reagan’s Rise to Power, 273.

  15 Lawrence testimony, HSCA, Vol. VI, 541. See also “Report of the Department of Justice Task Force to Review the FBI Martin Luther King, Jr., Security and Assassination Investigations” (also known as the Shaheen Report), 24. The reports says the FBI had “five paid confidential informants providing intelligence regarding the racial situation to the Memphis Field Office on a continuing basis.”

  16 Re: Ghetto Informant Program see Church Committee book III, 252-55. Re: Withers as extremist informant, see FBI report, AFSCME file, 157-1516-558 (August 11, 1971).

  17 Amsterdam News, February 21, 1970, 22.

  18 CNN, Black in America special, February 2011.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  1 FBI memos, 100-4575-14&21 (January 5 and 25, 1968).

  2 overheard: FBI report, Memphis “MURKIN” file, 44-1987-Sub E-318. This Teletype from the FBI’s New York to Memphis offices dated April 14, 1968, references New York’s interview with Joseph Louw. A militant accused: FBI memo, 157-2112-6 (July 10, 1969).

  3 FBI memo, Charles Cabbage file, 100-4528-485 (April 27, 1970). The report misidentifies Melhorn as “Sam Melborne.”

  4 Author interview with Jack Cantrell, December 15, 2016.

  5 Withers et al., Pictures Tell The Story, 82.

  6 Lawrence testimony, HSCA, Vol. VI, 552
(November 21, 1978).

  7 FBI memo 157-1067-189 (July 5, 1968).

  8 Author interview with Coby Smith, January 5, 2010.

  9 FBI memo 157-1067-909 (February 5, 1969).

  10 Shirletta J. Kinchen, Black Power in the Bluff City: African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965–1975, 57–8. Details on BOP’s structure can be found in the congressional testimonies of Calvin Taylor, Charles Cabbage, and John B. Smith, HSCA, Vol. VI, 445–538.

  11 “do this…as a symbol”: FBI memo, 100-4528-182&183. “can no longer distinguish”: FBI memo, 157-1067-142 (June 6, 1968).

  12 wanted “objective” information: Lawrence testimony, HSCA Vol. VI, 541. Withers reported: FBI memo, 100-662-1506 (March 12, 1970).

  13 Some details on Withers’s studio as a gathering spot for the Invaders are found in these FBI reports: Calvin Taylor file, 100-4579-1 (November 7, 1967) (a police informer says the studio at 327 Beale “was used as a meeting place” for Coby Smith and Cabbage, but Withers had them leave when he learned “it was a Black Power type meeting”); Clifford Louis Taylor file, 100-4575-9 (December 4, 1967) (an informer says Cabbage, Coby, and John B. Smith used to hang at Withers’s studio but that Black Power associate Calvin Taylor “has since discouraged them from doing so”); and 100-4575-12 (December 27, 1967) (Withers told Lawrence that John Smith visited him but was just “horsing around”).

  14 100-4575-12.

  15 Author interview with John B. Smith, November 1, 2012.

  16 Ibid. See also, Kay Pittman Black, “MAP-South Men Defend Controversial Anti-Poverty Work,” MPS, September 11, 1967.

  17 Smith interview. See also FBI memo, October 20, 1967, National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam file, 62-111181-1732, which mentions an insufficient number of followers.

  18 “intimidated white professors”…“any means necessary”: FBI memo, 100-4528-176 (March 25, 1968). Stokely Carmichael: 100-4575-12.

  19 Little Rock: FBI report, 100-4528-100 (January 11, 1968). hamming: FBI evidence slip, 100-4528-1A5 (October 1, 1967).

  20 Molotov cocktails: FBI memo, 100-4528-182&83 (March 30, 1968), p. 10. “romantically attached”: FBI memo, 157-1092-146 (March 25, 1968). gave…the tag number: Memo, 100-4528-188 (April 2, 1968). arrested: 100-4528-230 and Cabbage’s MPD Bureau of Identification file, in author’s possession. Cabbage’s arrest is described in a May 1, 1968, report by Lt. W. E. Lloyd. relayed…phone numbers: FBI report, 100-4528-177 (March 25, 1968), 2.

  21 told Lawrence…“He will refuse to go”: 100-4528-177, p. 4. Withers told Lawrence that Cabbage lacked a sufficient grade-point average to transfer to Memphis State without taking an entrance exam, which he refused. Holloway wrote: USA v. Charles Laverne Cabbage, 430 F.2d 1037 (6th Cir. 1970).

  22 100-4528-177, pp. 5–6.

  23 two-thirds of eligible blacks: Joseph A. Fry, The American South and the Vietnam War: Belligerence, Protest and Agony in Dixie, 208. march on the Pentagon: 62-11181-1732.

  24 USA v. Cabbage.

  25 Ibid. Also, Cabbage interview.

  26 FBI memos. hiding: 100-4528-304 (August 6, 1968). motel: 100-4528-254 (July 3, 1968). Atlanta: 157-1067-586 (November 20, 1968). getting advice: 100-4528-304. broke: 100-4575-39 (September 13, 1968). raising money: 100-4528-303 (August 6, 1968). bums money: 100-4575-39. “con artist”: 100-4575-34. “gigolo”: 100-4528-452 (May 6, 1969). “pimp and a hustler”: 100-4528-382 (December 12, 1968). army deserters: 157-166-757 (June 12, 1969). burglary: 100-4575-39.

  27 100-4528-176.

  28 ten dollars: FBI memo, 100-4528-237 (May 24, 1968). copy…to FBI: Evidence slip, 100-4528-1A9 (July 25, 1968).

  29 The description of Yahweh’s public life comes from several sources, principally an eighteen-page handout from Yahweh and author interview with Yahweh. Yahweh’s MPD Bureau of Identification file shows he was arrested or charged twelve times before 1968, mostly for minor offenses. Criminal Court records show he was sentenced in 1965 to three years in prison for burglary.

  30 Suhkara Yahweh interview with author, January 14, 2010.

  31 FBI memo, 157-1067-578&79 (November 15, 1968).

  32 FBI reports. Black United Front: 100-4579-26. Philadelphia: “Liaison With Groups Sponsoring Integration” file, 100-3481-29 (September 3, 1968). striking workers: 157-1067-1A55 (October 17, 1968). “called for violence”: 100-4528-366 (October 22, 1968). baby…stabbed: 157-1067-1339 (July 3, 1969). loan: Ibid. James Brown: 157-1067-1577 (September 26, 1969). “White Man”: 157-1067-1A63 (November 22, 1968). “Swing Don’t Sing”: 157-1067-1A62 (November 14, 1968). Re: James Brown, Yahweh has said in interviews the singer made his bail bond once to secure his release from jail.

  33 FBI memos. “lift his wallet”: 157-1067-586. “extortion money”: 157-1067-614 (November 22, 1968). “con man”…“racket”: 157-1067-1594 (October 7, 1969). lack of community support: Kinchen, Black Power in the Bluff City, 114, 178. Kinchen writes that “the failure of Operation Breakfast to gain widespread support was emblematic of the strained relationship between the organization and the community.”

  34 FBI memo 100-4481-216 (March 1, 1971).

  35 FBI memo, “Memphis Mobilizers” file, 157-2269-214 (July 20, 1970).

  36 Yahweh interview.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  1 Author interview with Bobby Doctor, December 4, 2012.

  2 FBI memos. “interracial parties”: 100-4579-1. “power clique”: 100-4528-177, p. 10.

  3 FBI memo, 100-4579-29 (October 2, 1968). Withers named many in attendance, including a school principal and a lawyer. Lawrence’s report notes that guards would not let white activist Baxton Bryant enter.

  4 FBI memos: 100-4528-423 (April 2, 1969); 100-4579-41 (April 3, 1969).

  5 FBI memo, “SCLC” file, 157-166-552 (November 1, 1968). The report doesn’t stipulate that Withers knew how Lawrence intended to use the photo. However, the wording of the report indicates Withers drew the agent’s attention to an association between Doctor and Dandridge. Both Doctor and Dandridge told the author there was no extramarital relationship between them.

  6 FBI memo, 157-166-724 (May 14, 1969).

  7 Withers often documented victims of police brutality. As an example, see “Cops Wage War On Black Community,” TSD, April 6, 1968, 1. The newspaper’s page-one coverage of the March 28, 1968, police melee in downtown Memphis includes a photo Withers shot depicting the graphic head wounds of Morris Webb, a bystander who was beaten by baton-wielding police as he parked a car.

  8 Church Committee, book III, 227–31. The committee noted that abuses often are compounded in intelligence cases. Unlike criminal cases, intelligence matters are rarely prosecuted, hence, there is no court review. See also, Garrow, “FBI Political Harassment,” 17. Fear of the unknown informant could have detrimental effects, he writes: “Widespread suspicion of informant penetration provided fertile ground for accusations of betrayal whenever movement tensions led to angry, personal recriminations.”

  9 FBI reports. identification photos…“rumormonger”: 157-1067-45&1A-2 (May 13, 1968). “lasted only one week”: 157-1067-513 (October 22, 1968).

  10 Marc Perrusquia, “Withers Prolific Spy, FBI reports—Tips Not Limited to ’60s Activists,” CA, July 8, 2012, 1. Withers wasn’t the only one reporting on Miller. MPD detective Ed Redditt claimed Miller had once threatened him and made inflammatory comments about Black Power. (April 1, 1968, report of Det. Ed Redditt and patrolman Willie Richmond.) But Miller told the author, “I was never part of that.” She said, “I was trying to be a socialite. I wasn’t trying to be part of that mess.”

  11 “dismiss these youths”: Nat D. Williams, “A Point of View,” TSD, February 1, 1969, 6. political cartoon: “Black United Front,” TSD, April 6, 1968.

  12 FBI memo, 100-662-1220 (January 10, 1969).

  13 FBI memo, 157-1092-67 (March 12, 1968).

  14 FBI memos. sweeping intelligence reports…“got a job”: 157-1067-189 (July 5, 1968). “troublemaker”: Ibid.

 
; 15 FBI memos. financial report: 157-1092-357 (July 26, 1968). leaflet: 100-4528-182&183. official notebook: 100-4528-413 (February 13, 1969). Three months later, Lawrence said he’d made arrangements to review toll calls on the telephone at Invaders’ headquarters. See FBI memo 157-1067-1159 (May 8, 1969).

  16 arrange night classes: FBI memo 157-1067-519 (October 21, 1968). hire more of the Invaders: FBI memo 100-4528-454 (May 6, 1969). Fisher recalled: Author interview, August 2010.

  17 FBI reports. abusing the relationship: 157-1067-1339. Lawrence’s report says Withers told him Smith had bragged that he “conned” the church into “giving him a $6,000 grant” to open a day care center. The report provides no evidence to support the claim. fourteen pictures: 157-1067-1A81 (July 31, 1969). “allows Melvin”: 157-1067-1468 (August 7, 1969). become active: 157-1516-444 (December 22, 1969). draft resistance rally: 100-4630-42&43 (August 15, 1969). Lyke’s name is misspelled in the report as Light.

  18 Author interview with Fr. Charles Martin, January 6 and 29, 2010.

  19 FBI memos. no longer allow: 100-4528-359 (October 1, 1968). counterintelligence action: 157-1067-1159 (NW) (May 8, 1969).

  20 FBI memo, 100-3481-25 (August 26, 1968).

  21 FBI memos. “untruthful”…“lily white neighborhoods”: 100-3481-25. photos of…“characters”: 100-3481-29 (September 3, 1968).

  22 FBI memo 157-1067-614 (November 22, 1968).

  23 “What concern”: Author interview with Bruce Kramer, December 22, 2016. misapplication: “77-Count Indictment Accuses Pair of Check-Kiting Scheme At 2 Banks,” CA, February 18, 1977. harassing him: “Judge Denies Part In Case Transfer,” CA, October 30, 1969.