The next day, March 15, FBI Director Hoover met one-on-one with Gardner of the 902nd MIG.
On the morning of March 16 the massacre of the village of My Lai began. (Though known virtually immediately by army intelligence, it was initially covered up and would only be brought to public attention when journalist Seymour Hersh broke the story on November 13, 1969.) That day in Washington Senator Robert Kennedy announced that he was running for president and in Anaheim, California, Dr. King spoke to the powerful California Democratic State Council while agents of the 115th MIG watched and recorded.
On March 17, Reverend James Lawson in Memphis telephoned Martin King in Los Angeles to give him an update on the strike. King had agreed to address the strikers and their supporters in Memphis at a rally on March 18. The conversation was recorded by ASA agents on Dr. King’s end. Then the 115th MIG photographed and recorded King’s speech at Los Angeles’ Second Baptist Church.
On March 18 King arrived in Memphis at 7 p.m. under the surveillance of the 111th MIG and spoke at a rally of 15,000 people at the Mason Temple Church. In the audience was the 111th MIG’s undercover agent Marrell McCollough. Martin pledged to return and lead a march four days later. After the speech he went to the Lorraine Motel to meet with community leaders. Then he went to the Rivermont Holiday Inn where he stayed that night under electronic and wiretap surveillance conducted by ASA agents assisted by MPD special services/intelligence bureau officer Jim Smith.
The next morning at 10:00 a.m. ACSI Yarborough hosted a two-hour meeting on the growing domestic turbulence held in Pentagon Conference Room 2E687 (office of Major W. M. Vickers, Chief, Consolidated Intelligence Support Facility). At 2:30 p.m. on that day, there was a fifteen-minute telephone conversation between the office of the 20th SFG and the Pentagon’s National Defense Center regarding deployment plans.
On March 20 former Marine Corps commandant and Medal of Honor winner David M. Shoup virtually pronounced the Vietnam War incapable of being won. His comments deepened public depression and army frustration over the seemingly endless quagmire of Vietnam.
On March 21 the president replaced Westmoreland as commander, kicking him upstairs, making him chief of staff. Also on that day at 3:30 p.m. senior 20th SFG staff met for two hours to discuss the Memphis situation. Simultaneously, at Camp Ravenswood, Illinois, according to a report by a black undercover agent of the 113th MIG, 175 white and fifty black community leaders met secretly to plan protest activity for the Democratic National Convention. Dr. King had two representatives in attendance.
Four days later on March 25, President Johnson appeared to be a beaten man as he met in the White House dining room at 10:30 a.m. with Joint Chiefs Chairman Wheeler and new Vietnam Commander General Creighton Abrams. He said, “Our strategic reserves … are down to nothing. Our fiscal situation is abominable … the country is demoralized. You must know about it…. The [New York] Times and the [Washington] Post are all against us. Most of the press is against us.”
That evening, in an upbeat mood, Dr. King spoke at the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in New York City. Recorded by the 108th MIG, he announced that his nonviolent, civil disobedience campaign had targeted Washington, D.C., as well as both major party political conventions.
ON MARCH 28 KING ARRIVED in Memphis at 10:30 a.m. to lead the march, which had been rearranged because of snow, beginning at Clayborn Temple at 11:06 a.m. Violence instigated by provocateurs broke out, and he was taken to the Rivermont Holiday Inn, where his suite and phones were bugged by ASA agents. On that day, 68 C-130 and C-5 troop transports were placed on alert to move army troops to Memphis, and FBI Division 5 Section Chief George C. Moore sent Yarborough a report on the riot. Yarborough also obtained a report that day that the army’s strategic U.S. reserves were down to 60,000 men and these troops were not front-line quality. They were in need of training and up-to-date weapons. The report questioned whether the army had enough regular forces left in CONUS to be able to put down major simultaneous riots in American cities.
Finally, on March 28 at 6:45 p.m. Gardner of the 902nd MIG met with the FBI’s Division Five Chief George C. Moore and Special Agent Steve Lancaster to discuss the final arrangements for the 902nd’s Memphis deployment.
At 7:30 a.m. March 29 at the Camp Shelby, Mississippi, training base for the 20th SFG, Captain Billy R. Eidson was given his orders on the Memphis deployment and mission of the Alpha 184 unit he was to lead. Later that morning at 9:45 a.m. at the Falls Church, Virginia, headquarters of the 902nd MIG, Gardner received a current briefing report on the plans for the 20th SFG Alpha 184 team deployment in Memphis.
At 10:00 a.m. in his suite at the Rivermont Hotel, while being electronically surveilled by ASA agents, King met with Charles Cabbage, Calvin Taylor, and Charles “Izzy” Harrington, and committed himself to return to Memphis to lead another march on April 5. Transcripts of this meeting were cabled to the Pentagon.
Also that day at the MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa CINCSTRIKE went on a DEFCON 1 alert and at SCLC headquarters in Atlanta a letter arrived from Vice President Hubert Humphrey to Dr. King, urging him to postpone his Poor People’s Campaign.
On Sunday morning, March 31, Dr. King preached at the National Episcopal Cathedral in Washington, D.C. That evening Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection. The Reverends Andrew Young, James Orange, and Jim Bevel flew to Memphis and on arrival were placed under surveillance by the 111th MIG agents who followed and watched them check into the Lorraine Motel. (In anticipation of their arrival, ASA agents, with local MPD assistance, had installed hidden microphones in three rooms of the Lorraine Motel, one of which was Room 306, where Dr. King was to be placed upon his arrival on April 3.)
The next morning ASA agents electronically surveilled the SCLC staff members meeting with the Invaders as they began preparations for the march. At the same time tensions in Washington and around the country were heightened by black Congressman Adam Clayton Powell’s speech, at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, in which he called for the “total revolution of young people black and white against the sick society of America.” Agents of the 111th MIG in attendance recorded his remarks.
On APRIL 3 AT 9:30 A.M. CINCSTRIKE met in Tampa on the mobilization plans for an anticipated riot in Memphis. Two hours later Dr. King and his SCLC party arrived in Memphis from Atlanta. Under the watchful eye of agents of the 111th MIG, he held a brief press conference and then went to the Lorraine Motel where he was checked into balcony room 306 (though, as we know, initially he had been scheduled to occupy the more cloistered and protected ground level room 202). Throughout the day he attended various planning meetings. Those at the Lorraine as well as telephone conversations were recorded and monitored by ASA agents from a vehicle parked in the area.
Around noon, Carthel Weeden, the captain at fire station 2 (which backed onto Mulberry Street and overlooked the Lorraine Motel) discreetly showed Reynolds and Norton, the two Psy Ops officers under Gardner’s command, to the roof on the east side of the station from which vantage point they would begin to conduct visual and photographic surveillance of activity at the Lorraine Motel. (To appreciate their vantage point, see photograph #37.) Beginning at 1:00 p.m. there began the transmission of the Psy Ops surveillance reports to the 111th MIG headquarters at Fort McPherson via 111th MIG officers in the IEOC office located in the MPD’s headquarters.
Also during the day SCLC controller and FBI paid informant Jim Harrison, after arriving with Dr. King, checked in with Memphis FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Jensen.
ON THE MORNING OF APRIL 4, at 4:30 a.m. at Camp Shelby, Captain Billy Eidson briefed his seven other Alpha 184 team members on their mission. The team left by cars for Memphis around 5:00 a.m. They would be met by on-site handlers and taken to their perches. Also that morning all of the surveillance teams and activities were back in place.
At 3 p.m. Phillip R. Manuel, a former army intelligence officer and in 1968 chief investigator for the McClellan (Senate Permanent Invest
igations) Committee who had been in Memphis for two days, met with MPD intelligence bureau Lieutenant E. H. Arkin.
Martin King and most of the SCLC executive staff remained in meetings, in room 306 during that afternoon, electronically surveilled by the ASA agents and visually observed by the MPD officers in the fire station, the Psy Ops agents on the roof of the fire station and the Alpha 184 sniper teams on their perches on the roof of the Illinois Central Railroad building, and the Tayloe Paper Company water tower.
At 5:50 p.m. the Rev. Billy Kyles, an MPD intelligence bureau informant, was observed by the various surveillance personnel knocking on the door of room 306 with Dr. King answering and then going back inside. Shortly afterward the SCLC staff meeting broke up and the various participants left to go to their rooms.
AT 6:01 P.M. A SNIPER FIRED a single shot which struck Dr. King at the same time the Alpha 184 snipers had King and Young in the crosshairs of their scopes. Reynolds’s camera instantly photographed the falling King, taking four or five photographs, as Norton panned the brush area, catching the sniper as he lowered his rifle and left the scene.
Also immediately after the shot 111th MIG/undercover MPD agent Marrell McCollough raced up the stairs and knelt over the prone body of Dr. King.
Around 6:04 p.m., after a pause following the shot, Captain Eidson ordered his men to disengage, pack up, and withdraw according to their egress plans. Part of the team met at the river and went on the water by boat to waiting cars. The other group went by road to West Memphis airport, where they were flown to Amory, Mississippi.
Around 6:30 p.m. a police broadcast described a false chase of a suspect in the northern section of the city, diverting attention from the downtown area (these egress routes had previously been surveyed by the 20th SFG recon. team).
At 7:05 p.m. the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was pronounced dead at St. Joseph’s Hospital.
The “invasion” of the nation’s capitol greatly feared by its military and intelligence leaders became a nonevent without the leadership of Dr. King. The fires, the anger, and the rebellions of the 1960s faded away after his death. Calm slowly returned to the nation, and the rights of people at home and in Vietnam, once in the forefront of public attention, disappeared once again from view.
31
Chronology
1995 WOULD HAVE BEEN DR. KING’S sixty-sixth year. Now, nearly eighteen years after I began this journey, I set out in chronological order the details of how and why I believe he was assassinated.
AS EARLY AS 1957 the FBI identified the SCLC as a potential target for communist infiltration. In 1962 the bureau established a COMINFIL file on the organization and Dr. King, and in 1963 it increased its attention. A wide range of COINTEL-PRO activities was used in an effort to harass, discredit, and demoralize Dr. King.
Through 1964 the focus of the government’s activity was aimed at discrediting and removing him from any position of prominence or leadership in the civil rights movement. By early 1965, however, they were no longer dealing with just a black Baptist preacher, for on December 10, 1964, Dr. King was a Nobel Peace Prize winner with international stature. The strategy became redirected toward his elimination.
It is now clear that two attempts to kill Martin Luther King took place in 1965. There may have been others. The 20th SFG was present during the early stage of the Selma-to-Montgomery march which began on March 21, 1965. One of the members of a sniper team in that unit, J. D., briefly had Dr. King center mass before he turned away.
The second attempt was in September 1965, when an effort was made to involve Louisville police officer Clifton Baird. It was only because Baird tape-recorded and disclosed the actual approach, which emanated from named Louisville police officers who were collaborating with FBI agents from the Louisville field office, that it became known.
ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE CONTINUED on Dr. King. In the fall of 1966 Acting U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark refused to grant the bureau permission to bug and wiretap Dr. King. However, J. Edgar Hoover had access to army intelligence and ASA surveillance which had vastly more resources. In addition, the CIA’s Office of Security was developing its own file.
From the beginning of 1967 until his assassination on April 4, 1968, King was subjected to a massive blanket of surveillance through the army MIG network and the ASA. The often daily reports were shared with FBI director Hoover (who had also seconded a trusted agent, Patrick Putnam, to Yarborough’s staff) and with CIA director and USIB chairman Richard Helms. ACSI Yarborough appeared to be the bridge not only between Hoover and Helms but also between army intelligence and each of the other national intelligence entities.
From early 1967, King tied civil rights, peace, and economic justice together. While H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael and others advocated a more violent response, they were seen as fringe figures with relatively small followings. Dr. King spoke to and bridged the poor and the middle classes, blacks, whites and Hispanics, the young generally and students in particular. His base was broad and his credibility as a moral leader (despite the FBI’s dirty tricks and smear campaigns) was unequalled.
During this time every record of every meeting involving government intelligence officials reflects the conclusion that he was the enemy—a dangerous revolutionary controlled by communists. At the top, against all reason, there were no doubts, no second thoughts, and only minimal dissent in the ranks. His antiwar speech in Los Angeles on February 25—which focused on the Vietnamese casualties—advocated teaching, preaching, and demonstrating, yet the ACSI’s counterintelligence analysis incredibly called it “a call to armed aggression by negroes against the American people.” Four hours later, the 111th MIG at Fort McPherson, in Atlanta, had two black agents ready to infiltrate the SCLC. Jim Harrison, the SCLC controller, had already become a deep cover FBI informant under the control of special agent Al Sentinella. Other informants were run by special agent Art Murtagh of the Atlanta field office.
ACSI Yarborough, CIA director Helms, and the FBI’s Hoover became increasingly alarmed as Dr. King increased the pressure on the administration during 1967, even considering running as a potential presidential candidate.
When in June, during the AMA national convention in Chicago, Director Hoover met with fellow gambler, friend, and political ally Texas oil billionaire H. L. Hunt (whose daily syndicated Life Line radio programs frequently attacked King), Hoover said he thought a final solution was necessary. Only that action would stop King.
Other attempts to assassinate Dr. King originated during this period, apparently involving elements of organized crime for the first time. A meeting was held at the Blue Note Lounge in Jackson, Mississippi. Joe “Buck” Buchanan, a paraplegic involved in various Dixie Mafia criminal activities throughout the South, including New Orleans, offered a $50,000 murder contract. Present at the meeting were Tim Kirk and one of the Tiller brothers. The contract came out of New Orleans directly from Carlos Marcello and was eventually picked up by Red Nix of Tipton County, Tennessee, who was given a car and a gun to enable him to stalk and shoot Dr. King.
IN RESPONSE TO HEIGHTENED tensions throughout the country, the 20th SFG was mobilized on June 12 with a unit being sent to Tampa. Warren, a sniper, was a member of one of the 20th SFG alpha teams run by the 902nd MIG and sent to that city (the 902nd MIG was attached directly to the ACSI’s office). Riots continued in Tampa from June 12–June 16.
On June 15, Raul Pereira became a naturalized American citizen.
On June 16, in the midst of the escalating turbulence, Marrell McCollough, a discharged black soldier, was brought back on active duty. Assigned to the 111th MIG, he was deployed to the Memphis Police Department to engage in undercover work.
In July and August 1967, Gardner’s aide of the 902nd MIG met with Eric S. Galt, an employee of U.S. defense contractor Union Carbide with top secret security clearance. Also sometime in mid July, James Earl Ray, who following his escape in April had worked his way to Montreal, somehow obtained and began to use the name Eric
S. Galt as an alias.
In 1967, Warren participated in the delivery of weapons to New Orleans. The equipment was stolen from his 20th SFG Camp Shelby training base and the theft was organized by a master sergeant. The deliveries were made to Marcello’s associate Zippy Chimento on property owned by the New Orleans Mafia leader. Army intelligence/CIA operative Jack Youngblood was also present on occasion.
During this time Raul Pereira and his cousin Amaro were receiving some of these weapons at the Port of Houston which were shipped by water from New Orleans. Raul and Amaro also met during this time with Carlos Marcello in Houston.
RIOTS BROKE OUT ACROSS the country that summer, with the most serious explosions taking place in Newark and Detroit (where Warren was also deployed). Despite contrary intelligence reports, Martin Luther King was branded as the source of the disruptions and as being under the control of foreign communist elements.
In response, Generals Yarborough (ACSI) and Blakefield (USAINTC), and CIA director Helms pushed a new domestic Special Operations Group (SOG) into high gear. Projects CHAOS and MERRIMAC focused on spying upon dissenting citizens and infiltrating the ten major peace and civil rights organizations, including NCNP whose preparations for a national convention scheduled for the Labor Day weekend were well under way.
In August, James Earl Ray, who was now using the alias Eric S. Galt, had meetings with Raul in the Neptune Bar on West Commissioners Street in Montreal. He entered into discussions with Raul, who said he could provide him with money and travel documents in exchange for James’s assistance in certain smuggling activity. Desperate for money and a way to Europe, James agreed, and finally left Montreal around the end of August to travel to Birmingham where he was to meet up with Raul. Raul gave James a New Orleans telephone contact number.
On August 31, Dr. King delivered a forceful keynote address opening the NCNP convention at the Palmer House in Chicago. A “Black Caucus” which appeared to come out of nowhere was formed, and arriving black delegates were forcibly brought under its control. The group, which appeared to be dominated by urban blacks (the provocateurs were later identified as Chicago Blackstone Ranger gang members and other inner-city thugs) was led by an unknown political cadre and immediately took on a disruptive policy. I received word of their intention to kidnap Dr. King and hold him until a range of their demands was met. King’s exit was quickly organized immediately after he spoke. In retrospect, this was exactly what the provocateurs wanted. King was a bridge, he had the ability to bring people together. His presence was therefore contrary to the interests of the government provocateurs who only wanted to break up the convention and defeat its purpose. They succeeded.
Orders to Kill Page 48