Orders to Kill

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Orders to Kill Page 38

by William F Pepper Esq


  I decided to open up another legal front and bring a civil action against Loyd Jowers on behalf of James. Jowers had, after all, actually admitted on national prime-time television that he played a key role in the case for which James had spent twenty-five years in prison. Jowers had also publicly admitted that James was a patsy and did not know what was going on. Thus Jowers’s acts and his continued silence had resulted in the unjust imprisonment of James.

  We filed the complaint for the civil suit against Loyd Jowers, Raul _________ and other unknown parties on Thursday, August 25. We alleged that Jowers had participated in the tort of conspiracy as a result of which James had been deprived of his liberty and been wrongly imprisoned for twenty-five years. On top of that we added the newly developed ancillary tort of outrage, which was justified by the very nature and continuation of the wrongful acts. Damages sought were $6,500,000 actual and compensatory and $39,500,000 punitive.

  BACK IN LONDON IN SEPTEMBER, we came across a photograph in the Commercial Appeal’s pictorial history, I Am A Man.2 It was a shot of MPD officer Louis McKay guarding the bundle in Canipe’s doorway. At first glance I thought I had seen this photo dozens of times before. Then I noticed that unlike other photographs I had seen, this shot was taken looking south toward the fire station, and in the background in the upper right was a hedge running down to the sidewalk between the parking lot and the fire station. I was curious. Although there had been rumors of a hedge in that spot we had never seen any photographs of it. Upon checking the evidence photographs from the attorney general’s office, this hedge did not appear standing in any of the evidence photos. Then I came across a photograph of the hedge having been cut down to its very roots. I was amazed, and wondered how I could have overlooked it before. From all of the other photographs one would never know that a hedge had ever been there. The significance, of course, is that the official investigators had contended that on leaving the rooming house James had seen a police car parked up near the sidewalk which caused him to panic and drop the bundle. As we have seen, there was no police car in this position (it being parked about sixty-feet back from the sidewalk) but even if there had been, the hedge would have obstructed the view and made the official story untenable.

  It was clear as could be. At the time of the killing a hedge was there. Sometime shortly thereafter (probably the next morning when the bushes at the rear of the rooming house were cut) it was cut to the ground and all trace of its existence obliterated. The photograph which Ewing used for illustrative purposes at the television trial showed a police car in clear view pulled up to the sidewalk. That photograph and others like it must have been staged, taken after the scene had been physically altered. In fact, in the staged photographs where the billboards are visible the billboard advertisements are different from the ones in place on the day of the killing and the day after. The photographs of the cut hedge reveal the same billboard ads as those in place at the time of the killing. Further confirmation of the existence of the hedge is provided by the HSCA drawing of the crime scene (MLK Exhibit F-19)3 which actually depicts it in place. Later, former fireman William King also confirmed the existence of the hedge. So it was not only the rear brush area of the rooming house that had been changed to suit the state’s case but the South Main Street side as well. (See photographs #20, 21, and 23.) It was scandalous, but par for the course.

  BY A 2 TO 1 VOTE the court of appeals made permanent the temporary restraining stay that prevented us from testing the weapon, and also prevented Judge Brown from holding the evidentiary hearing that would have allowed us to present a wide range of evidence. Strangely enough, a vitriolic dissent was written by Judge Summers, who had signed the initial stay. In his dissent he said that it was outrageous that the appellate court should go so far as to actually overrule a trial court judge’s historic right to control evidence in his court. The judge thought it was a dangerous and unconstitutional action and indicated that we (defense counsel) would be derelict in our duty if we did not appeal the matter to the Supreme Court. We filed an appeal requesting an emergency hearing..

  CHASTAIN, I, AND LOCAL INTERMEDIARY Thurston Hill finally met with Willie Crawford in his living room, where we visited for over an hour. I wanted to ask him about the cutting down of the hedge as well as about who from the MPD actually oversaw the cutting of the brush.

  During the course of this session, the retired former Memphis sanitation department supervisor alternately praised Dr. King and denied being anywhere near the brush area behind the rooming house at any time. There was, he said, no way that he was part of a two-man cleanup team dispatched to raze the area which backed on to Mulberry Street and overlooked the Lorraine. He admitted knowing Dutch Goodman, who Director Stiles had said was the other member of the team, but denied that he would be sent on such a duty. He kept insisting that their total focus was on picking up garbage and not cutting down weeds.

  When I confronted him with Stiles’s comments, he became aggravated and defensive in his denial. Anyway, he said, the right man was in jail and none of this mattered anyway. He also denied making any admission of being there to Ken Herman, who had reported such a statement to me prior to the trial. Crawford was obviously frightened and determined not to admit having been on the scene.

  JIM LAWSON’S OLD FRIEND JOHN T. FISHER represents the old-time Memphis establishment and wealth. They had become friends at the time of the sanitation workers’ strike. Lawson suggested that I speak with him to get a first-hand account of his conversation with Percy Foreman in January 1969 as they sat next to each other on a flight from Houston to Memphis.

  Fisher pulled no punches. He said that Foreman was very direct. He said that he had made a mistake agreeing to represent Ray. He did not, as a rule, represent white trash because they couldn’t pay. He said that he was going to get rid of Ray for good by arranging for him to plead guilty. Then, because of the virtual impossibility of opening up the case again under Tennessee law, Ray would be inside and out of his hair for good. Foreman told him that it made no difference whether Ray was guilty or not—he was going to finish him.

  Fisher had been astounded and not a little uncomfortable about a lawyer talking that way about his client. He said it was deplorable and that he was willing to provide a sworn statement.

  ON THE DAY OF OCTOBER 15, I drove out to the Shelby County Correctional Center—the “Penal Farm”—in order to meet with Arthur Wayne Baldwin. I had wanted to talk to Art Baldwin for a very long time, having first heard about him as a result of Tim Kirk’s first affidavit in 1978 concerning a contract on James’s life. The timing had never been right. For a number of years Baldwin had been on top of the world, running a very lucrative topless club in Memphis. During those years he certainly was not approachable. Then, when he came under the control of the federal government in their effort to convict Governor Ray Blanton and members of his staff, he was, if anything, more unavailable. Not seeing a way through to him during all of this time, I just waited.

  Now, sixteen years later, Art Baldwin appeared to be at his lowest point ever, having been locked up for a relatively minor theft. I thought that this would be as good a time as any to meet him face-to-face but I was prepared to be disappointed. I wasn’t.

  Sitting in the small attorney’s-interview room, with several days’ growth of beard, Baldwin was soft-spoken and alert. He said that he now sympathized with James. He volunteered having heard that James was assisted in escaping from Brushy Mountain Penitentiary in June 1977 and that he was not supposed to be brought back alive. I told him that I had also come to believe that this was the case. (I had been told by Steve Jacks, James’s counsellor at the time, that the tower nearest the escape route had been unmanned, and I was aware of the large FBI SWAT team which took up their positions immediately after the escape.) I told him that it seemed that some people feared what James might have testified to before the HSCA. At the time of the escape the committee’s investigation was just getting underway. Baldwin nodded. Referring to th
e escape, he said, “They tried to get me that way too.” He then went on to describe how during his sentence in Nashville, after he had finally turned down the “Ray contract” (believing that he was being set up), he was offered an opportunity to escape but refused because he learned that a team of shooters was waiting for him just outside the walls.

  He then told me about two contracts on James’s life with which he was involved. The first, he now clarified for me, came from the “Memphis Godfather” who in 1977 told him that the people in New Orleans wanted this matter cleared up once and for all. He quoted him as saying that the killing had been botched up. Ray was supposed to have been killed in Memphis. The Godfather reportedly said, “One, two, three, bam,” slamming his fist on the table. “It was simple.” Since it didn’t get done as planned it had been an embarrassment ever since and he wanted it ended. It was like “a stone in his shoe which he wanted out,” and he said that if Baldwin could accomplish it for him he would forever be in a good position.

  Baldwin was not keen to get involved but did not want to offend the man. He had been present on other occasions when the Godfather talked to produce man Frank Liberto on other matters. He said that the Godfather treated Liberto like a “puppy dog,” ordering him about in brutal fashion. Baldwin said he offered the contract to Tim Kirk in a face-to-face meeting in the autumn of 1977. Some months later he raised it again with him on the telephone. This was the approach reported by Kirk. Ultimately it went nowhere.

  The approach from the bureau came some months later. Though it clearly came from Washington and had to come through both the Nashville and Memphis SAC’s, it was broached by one of the agents who were controlling him in 1978 at the time he was their key witness during the prosecution of Governor Ray Blanton. He said that the agent raised it with him as they drove from Memphis to Nashville during this time. The scheme proposed was that he and a state official would go to Brushy Mountain prison with transfer papers for James who ostensibly was to be moved to Nashville. They would arrive around 3 a.m. and take him. Baldwin was expected to kill James en route. They would bury him. He would go out of the Brushy Mountain population count, and since Nashville was not expecting him he would not be missed for some time. The transfer papers at Brushy Mountain would then be pulled. Baldwin said he became uneasy when he could not get answers to questions concerning how long they expected the story to be kept quiet and what the ultimate explanation was to be. He began to believe that perhaps he and even the official were to be killed as well as James. He pulled back.

  He said they offered him lifetime immunity from all prosecution. The second FBI control agent also knew about the scheme, he said, and he said he heard the two agents discussing the other efforts to get rid of James (the June 10, 1977 prison escape and the Godfather’s plans). James’s continued presence was a sore spot for all concerned. Both the mob and the government wanted him dead because they believed that it was only his continued presence that kept questions about Dr. King’s assassination alive. In their view the doubts would largely die with James.

  Eventually, after James testified and nothing startling came out, the idea of killing him seemed to go away. It was not raised again and it appeared to me that perhaps all concerned had come to realize that James was not going to reveal even the peripheral information he might have learned or pieced together after the fact.

  Baldwin was willing to take a lie detector test. His candor surprised me. It was obvious that he was fed up with being used by the government. His disclosure was the first time that I had heard about the Memphis Godfather’s involvement in the case.

  I NEXT WENT TO ORLANDO for one of the most sensitive meetings to date. I met for three hours on October 16 with a man whom I will call Carson, who I believed had vital information that could confirm—and provide independent verification of—the military presence in Memphis around the time of the sanitation workers’ strike.

  Carson and I fenced for some time. He was one of those bright, initially idealistic and patriotic warriors who almost inevitably reach a point where they can no longer swallow the corruption, deceit, and sheer criminal activity that often characterizes official but deniable covert operations. Carson began slowly but then opened up. His story was more than I hoped for. Because of the compatibility of the details with those emerging from other sources, it swept away any lingering doubts I had about the picture of events that was developing. I asked him to check out some details and he reluctantly agreed, being very uneasy about becoming involved. Carson agreed to fax the information to me.

  Just before we ended, Carson said, “This meeting never took place.” I agreed. “You have to be very careful,” he said. “They’ll drop you where you stand.”

  NEW ORLEANS HADN’T CHANGED. It was a living testament to the consequences of the type of all-pervasive corruption that not only permeated every aspect of life but was accepted as inevitable by its citizens. There were potholes the size of which I had not seen outside of the Bronx or a third world city. Bridges were decaying, brownouts occurred regularly, and in 1994 Louisianans had the worst health in the nation. Carlos Marcello, who had treated New Orleans as his private fiefdom, had died, but the culture of crime, violence, greed, and official corruption that he institutionalized lived on.

  The New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission had been forged into an active watchdog by its executive director in the 1960s, Aaron Kohn, who was now dead. Kohn was constantly critical of D.A. Jim Garrison’s failure to go after organized crime or even to acknowledge its existence. In my meeting with commission investigator Tony Radosti (who, having become disgusted by the corruption, left the New Orleans police department to go to work for the commission), I learned that Kohn had also produced a highly sensitive investigatory report on the Kennedy assassination which, he said, “made a number of people in Texas very unhappy.” Radosti had not seen the report, however, and did not know where it was. The commission had recently begun to restrict access to its anecdotal files as a result of lawsuits. With respect to my particular interest it was agreed that Tony would pull specific files I requested, examine them, and unless there was some reason for them to be withheld, allow me to read them. We found a very thin, basically uninformative file on the Libertos, but there was a good deal of information on the criminal activities of Marcello associate Joe “Zip” Chimento (who according to 20th SFG soldier Warren was the contact man in New Orleans for their gunrunning) and Randy Rosenson, who was often represented by Marcello’s lawyer—C. Wray Gill—mostly concerning drug possession and dealing. I found it interesting that Carlos Marcello had yet another connection to a person who had surfaced in this case.

  I found Charlie Stein in a rehabilitation hospital and interviewed him at length. A stroke had affected his memory but he was clear about certain things. James, whom he had known as Eric Galt, was no racist. He got along well with blacks, particularly with black women. On the trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans, James did make a telephone call to the people—"contractors” or “engineers”—he was to meet in New Orleans, but Stein did not observe the number he dialed. One evening in New Orleans James told him that while he (James) was in a meeting in a bar in lower Canal Street (Le Bunny Lounge), he saw Stein pass by and wanted to call to him but the person with him (presumably Raul) did not want to be seen and so he did not call out. Stein said he believed that James went to a meeting in a huge building at the end of Canal Street and that he also met with some people from Gentilly Road. (He believed that James told him about this activity but he really wasn’t certain how he learned about it.)

  I next spent some hours going through the New Orleans street directory in the public library and despite a brownout which interrupted the work, I learned that the big building Charlie Stein was talking about could only have been the International Trade Mart, which in 1967 was still run by none other than Clay Shaw, the long-time CIA asset prosecuted by Jim Garrison for conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. I noted the names and telephone numbers of a number o
f the tenant companies. Right around the corner from the Trade Mart were the offices of Buck Kreihs Machine Company, whose vice president and general manager was Salvatore J. Liberto.

  As noted earlier, James had long thought that the back up Baton Rouge telephone number which Raul had given him belonged to a man named Herman Thompson who, at the time, was Baton Rogue Deputy Sheriff. Thompson was a close friend of Edward Grady Partin, the Baton Rouge Teamsters leader whose testimony for the government resulted in Jimmy Hoffa being put away on jury tampering charges. During the 1960s Ed Partin was clearly controlled by the government which had enough on him to put him away for a very long time. There had long been rumors about Partin’s possible involvement in the killing.

  In a telephone conversation and subsequent meeting, Doug Partin (who in 1994 was the business manager of the Baton Rouge Teamsters local number five, which had been run for years by his brother) was very candid. His brother Ed had engaged in a great deal of activity of which he disapproved and much that he knew nothing about. He surprised me by saying that it was not impossible that his brother might have had some role to play in the killing, though he had no indication of this. I asked him about Herman Thompson and he confirmed that Thompson had been a local deputy sheriff and at the time was close to his brother. He also confirmed that Ed had had a relationship with Carlos Marcello that he said was probably driven by the fact that nothing happened in Baton Rouge in those days without Ed’s approval. After a local investigation, that included a discussion with a local investigative reporter who observed Partin clearly, I found no indication of any involvement of Thompson or Partin in the conspiracy.

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