This request was apparently unprecedented. The army began to send over page after page of the names of protestors gathered by army intelligence units from all over the country whom they wanted surveilled. The CIA, the Secret Service, the FBI, and the DIA followed suit. The result was that this “watch list” grew enormously and went far beyond its original purpose. The NSA had a vacuum cleaner approach to intelligence gathering, sucking up all telecommunications of targeted individuals into the system. The use of a targeted person’s or organization’s name triggered the interception and recording of the conversation which was then subsequently analyzed. Thus, if an organization or a person was targeted, the communications of everyone in contact with them would be subject to this process. Thousands upon thousands of private communications were scooped up and scrutinized by the big ear of the government.
The NSA became involved in the search for James Earl Ray in May 1968. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and a number of Supreme Court decisions had frustrated the FBI’s efforts to institute microphone and electronic surveillance of James’s brothers and sisters. Eventually an FBI internal memorandum conceded that such a measure would likely be unconstitutional, and it was dropped.
Then, however, Frank Raven, the NSA’s officer who received the watch lists from the rest of the law enforcement and intelligence community and acted upon them, received a direct order to place Ray’s name, along with several aliases, on the watch list. What was unusual about this occurrence was that it was not a request from the FBI or the Justice Department but an order directly from the office of the Secretary of Defense, Clark M. Clifford, who has no recollection of issuing it.71 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.”72
The NSA’s involvement in the investigation of James Earl Ray has never been revealed in any official investigation. What was emerging, then, was the involvement of army intelligence (more precisely the 902nd MIG)—which was under the direct control of the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (Mayor General William P. Yarborough)—with James from at least July 1967, through his use of the identity of one of the 902nd’s assets who had top secret security clearance. This led to the subsequent unconstitutional involvement of the NSA to use the watch list to locate him. It appears likely that the order which was routed through the Defense Secretary’s office found its way there from the office of the ACSI.
The scope and complexity of this operation was literally mind-boggling. I needed to understand how it had all developed during that last year.
Chronology of Relevant Events
From the time that the eyewitness accounts of the Alpha 184 team members and related personnel began to become available to me, I set about the task of acquiring from other sources information and documentation (some of which is still classified 28 years later) which revealed what was happening in 1967–68 at senior levels of the government and the intelligence community.
As noted earlier, at the same time that General Yarborough took over as ACSI in December 1966, director Hoover seconded to Yarborough’s staff a trusted and, until now, virtually unknown agent named Patrick D. Putnam. (It should be remembered that Hoover had had a close working relationship with the army since the late 1920s, when his number one, Clyde Tolson, came over from army intelligence to join the bureau and established the tie for his boss, who was gratuitously given and maintained the rank of Lieutenant colonel in army Intelligence until after the Second World War.) Putnam was to remain as the daily liaison between Hoover and Yarborough until the latter left the office of ACSI in July 1968, at which time he wrote to Hoover lavishly praising agent Putnam. A copy of this letter dated 2 July, 1968, was among the documents provided to me.
The senior staff of the 111th MIG met on January 17, 1967, at their Fort McPherson headquarters to look at photographs that were part of a surveillance summary report of Martin Luther King’s arrival in Jamaica. The 111th had been on his trail as he left, and then continued surveillance in the Caribbean.
The next day at FBI Headquarters, starting at 11:00 a.m., General Yarborough met in his new capacity for the first time with director Hoover. Also present was CIAB head Colonel F. E. Van Tassell. The discussion focused on the army and the bureau working together to counter the growing antiwar movement, which Yarborough and Hoover agreed was the result of a communist conspiracy. They were kindred spirits. The importance of this strong anticommunist, anti-civil rights, pro-war attitude, which dominated Hoover’s FBI and the army’s intelligence staff in 1967, should not be underestimated.
They agreed that information produced by the massive army intelligence surveillance operation of Dr. King was to be routinely and regularly shared with the bureau. (Walter Fauntroy had told me during my preparation for the television trial that in the documents obtained as a part of the HSCA investigation—though mentioned nowhere in the committee’s report—he had seen examples of such army intelligence reports which were sent to Hoover).
In February, wiretapping and ELINT (covert electronic surveillance) were carried out by the ASA. The tapes and transcripts were reviewed at Fort Meade, though often passed through the MIG in which area the activity took place. For example, a telephone conversation between Dr. King and his friend New York lawyer Stanley Levison on February 18 was recorded by the ASA and passed through the 108th MIG. In this particular conversation army intelligence, the FBI, and other intelligence agencies in the loop learned about Dr. King’s emerging awareness that many blacks considered the war to be a form of genocide and of his determination to participate in the April 15 antiwar demonstration at the United Nations where I would float his and Ben Spock’s names on a third party ticket.
The various components of the intelligence community seemed to be in nonstop meetings concerning the antiwar movement at this time.
On February 23 at 10:30 a.m. the umbrella organization, the USIB, held its weekly meeting with both the CIA’s Richard Helms and ACSI Yarborough attending.
The 115th MIG photographed and recorded a speech of Dr. King’s in Los Angeles on February 25 when he shared the platform with antiwar senators Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. The photos and transcript sent to the Pentagon for analysis revealed King’s contention that the war was a manifestation of “white colonialism,” and reported his statement that “We must demonstrate, teach, and preach until the very foundations of our nation are shaken.”
The analysis of these remarks, completed two days later at CIAB headquarters at Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia, concluded that Dr. King’s speech was “a call to armed aggression by negroes against the American people.” At 10:30 a.m. this report and analysis was sent over to ACSI Yarborough. At 2:30 p.m. that day, the 111th MIG out of Fort McPherson sent a report identifying two black agents who were available to infiltrate the SCLC.
IN EARLY 1967, though the American people were regularly given optimistic forecasts regarding the war, army intelligence was very much aware of how badly it was actually going. On March 18 Vietnam Commander General William Westmoreland sent a request to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for 201,250 more troops (4.5 additional divisions). At the same time antiwar pressures were also steadily building at home.
In Chicago six days later on March 24, members of the 113th MIG (headquartered at Fort Sheridan, Illinois) photographed and recorded Drs. King and Spock addressing the rally of 5,000, during which Dr. King called for the fervor of the civil rights movement to now be applied to the antiwar movement. Surveillance continued on the 25th of March and then, as we have seen, on April 4 at Riverside Church in New York Dr. King delivered his formal and most powerful denunciation of the war up to that time, personally committing himself to the effort to end it. The speech was photographed and recorded by agents of the 108th MIG.
Since the devastating effects of the war on Vietnamese civilians were being highlighted by Dr. King’s speeches everywhere he went, at 10:30 a.m. on April 7 Colonel Van Tassell and his
staff at the CIAB reviewed the massive photographic evidence of the effects of the bombing on women and children in Vietnam, which were now, more and more, becoming available for the masses to see. Napalm-burned children (such as that set out in photograph 1) figured prominently. (I had helped to form a nationwide Committee of Responsibility, backed by prominent Americans, which began to bring badly burned and injured children to hospitals all over the United States. Consequently, horrifically injured children became increasingly visible in America’s towns and cities.) A strategy was obviously needed to counter the growing sympathy of American public opinion for the plight of Vietnamese civilians. One week later, on April 14 at 4:00 p.m., Colonel Van Tassell’s CIAB staff met with General Yarborough and staff from the DIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Intelligence Unit. The focus of this meeting was to discuss ways and means of infiltrating the antiwar movement for purposes of intelligence gathering and subversion.
ALL OF THE ACTIVITY surrounding the massive April 15 antiwar march and rally in front of the United Nations was recorded and photographed by the 108th MIG. The 108th MIG photos and transcripts routinely went off for CIAB analysis, which when they landed on Yarborough’s desk, contained the analysis that Martin Luther King was continuing to work with subversive groups which were planning “war in the streets of our towns and cities.” The analysis also tied together Dr. King and SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael, calling them “allies in a role of subversion and revolution.”
Five days before the launching at Harvard of “Vietnam Summer” (the student-driven series of antiwar educational activities) Hoover sent a memo on King to the White House, with a shortened version being delivered by Putnam to Yarborough. In it Hoover contended that King “is an instrument in the hands of subversive forces seeking to undermine our nation.”
On April 30 Dr. King’s sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church was recorded by ASA microphones and sent from the 111th MIG at Fort McPherson to the CIAB. In that session, with Stokely Carmichael in the congregation, Dr. King called America “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.”
On May 16 Hoover declared before the House Appropriations Committee that Stokely Carmichael, whom he labeled as Dr. King’s ally, was secretly recruiting a black army to wage a revolution against white America.
The 66th MIG in Stuttgart, West Germany, recorded Dr. King’s antiwar speech in Germany on May 29.
On June 6 in a 2:00 p.m. meeting General Yarborough formally approved an ambitious plan to plant HUMINTS (informers) inside major black nationalist groups. Half an hour later he met with his close ally and confidant USAINTC Commander Blakefield.
AS THINGS BEGAN TO HEAT UP in the cities, all sectors of the administration feared that riots would break out that summer. The president, looking for preemptive answers, convened a high level meeting on June 12. In attendance were Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Earle Wheeler, the director of the CIA Richard Helms, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy. Out of this session, which focused on ever-growing combined antiwar and civil rights movements, decisions were made to mobilize the 20th SFG for special duty assignments in urban areas and for the 111th MIG to provide a new analysis of the intentions of Dr. King and his organization. This order was given on that day to his staff by the commanding officer of the 111th, Colonel Robert McBride.
The first report by a 20th SFG unit from the area of a racial disturbance in Prattville, Alabama, arrived at the 111th MIG Headquarters on June 13 and stated that blacks involved in rioting were quoting Dr. King’s comments against the war. Between June 12 and June 15 the 20th SFG also deployed two alpha sniper teams to Tampa during riots in that city. Warren was on one of those teams, which I learned from an independent intelligence source in that city were under the control of the 902nd MIG.
Three days later, on June 16, former Military Policeman Marrell McCollough, who had been discharged in December 1966, was brought back to active duty and assigned to the 111th MIG and onward to the Memphis Police Department.
Newark exploded on July 12, and no end of meetings took place at the headquarters of the 109th MIG in that city, at the Pentagon, and elsewhere in Washington. The primary issues were how to keep the lid on the situation, how to preempt the outbreaks, and how to efficiently suppress them.
On July 18, 1967, after arriving in Canada, James Earl Ray began to use the name Eric S. Galt. In August 1967 and again in September, the real Eric S. Galt (who had top secret security clearance and a classified NSA personnel file) met with Gardner’s aide.
Detroit exploded on July 23, and the 82nd Airborne under Lieutenant General John L. Throckmorton was sent in. The 20th SFG was sent there as well, and in that team was staff sergeant Warren. The 113th MIG began to interrogate apprehended rioters, preparing extensive transcripts and reports for transmission to Washington. At midnight on July 23 Yarborough entered the army’s Operations Center in the Pentagon and declared that a revolution was underway by blacks. That night Yarborough ordered all MIGs to be put on full alert and all potential guerilla targets—armories, power stations, gun shops, radio and television stations, and other vital installations—to be put under surveillance.
During this week Dr. King, along with civil rights leaders Whitney Young, A. Philip Randolph, and Roy Wilkins, issued a joint appeal for the riots to stop, terming them dangerous to the civil rights movement and to the nation. At the same time SNCC leaders Carmichael (in Havana on July 25) and H. Rap Brown (in Washington, D.C., on July 27) spoke of a guerilla force and black revolution. On July 25 rioting also broke out in Cleveland, Phoenix, and in both Flint and Saginaw, Michigan. On July 26 violence erupted in South Bend, Indiana.
ON JULY 28 MEMPHIS was added to the 111th MIG’s “watch city” list, and at 8:00 a.m. General Yarborough convened a meeting of his senior staff to consider the Detroit crisis. Feedback from the 113th MIG clearly indicated that no foreign or domestic enemy of the United States was behind the riots, which the agents saw as being entirely homegrown and a result of deteriorating living conditions and hostility over the war. CIAB analyses of the June 21, 1943, Detroit riot and the Watts riots in 1965 produced the same conclusions. Yarborough was advised that there was no credible evidence that these uprisings were planned or premeditated by subversive elements, but rather that they spontaneously flowed from isolated incidents.
Yarborough rejected this analysis and insisted to the group that either Havana or Peking would ultimately be found to have been behind an urban conspiracy. He went on to state that “there are indications weapons have been stolen from a number of military ports including Dugway Proving Grounds where there are some pretty sophisticated weapons.” (Ironically, much of the theft was the result of operations carried out from inside the army itself by a number of people including the army’s own Provost marshall, who was eventually charged and convicted for armaments thefts and sales.)
During all of this period, the uniformity of the positions taken by ACSI Yarborough, Hoover, and even the CIA is striking. (Remember the Jay Richard Kennedy information to the agency’s Office of Security which alleged that Dr. King was controlled by Peking line communists.) Throughout the turmoil, and in spite of the availability of intelligence reports to the contrary, it seemed necessary for these leaders to blame all the troubles on a foreign enemy.
Because of the official mindset that was conveniently determined to treat King, Carmichael, and H. Rap Brown as one and the same, Stokely Carmichael’s meetings with North Vietnamese Premier Phan Van Dong and Dong’s July 31 broadcasts, which were relayed by the NSA and which associated his government with the “anti-imperialist” struggle of black people in America, were taken as also representing Dr. King’s position. Animosity was further heightened by alleged threats by Carmichael in Havana against President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
On August 8 the CIAB reported on the survey of 496 men arrested in Detroit at the time of the riots. The revelation that King, not Carmichael or Brown,
was the black leader most admired by the rioters, was greeted with shock.
Two days later, in the course of the weekly USIB meeting chaired by CIA director Helms, the discussion focused on the CIA setting up a special group to work with army intelligence in order to infiltrate antiwar groups and also identify subversive radicals and groups. Five days later, on August 15, Helms ordered one of his agents, Thomas Karamessines, to set up a Special Operations Group (SOG) to penetrate the domestic movement. I was advised that the operation was housed at 1770 I Street in N. W. Washington. Under its umbrella, among others, came: Operation CHAOS, devoted to mail opening and developing files on U.S. citizens, and Project MERRIMAC, whose goal was to infiltrate and spy on ten major peace and civil rights groups. It appears that at some time between the beginning of the riots in Newark on July 12, and the middle of August [after Detroit had exploded and been analyzed] the decision was made to establish the domestic SOG. The purpose of this joint effort was to counter what was regarded as revolutionary activity in CONUS. The SOG combined intelligence operations and resources of the CIA, the army and the FBI, as well as those of other agencies which though in the informational loop were on the periphery of actual operations.
On August 31, unknown to us, the 113th were present at the NCNP convention opening meeting and they photographed and recorded Dr. King’s keynote address. Earlier that day, ACSI General Yarborough met with NSA representatives and urged them to monitor international cable traffic to support the army’s counterintelligence operations and pinpoint the foreign governments that were helping black radicals and the antiwar movement (this became known as Operation MINARET).
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