Pillar of Fire

by Taylor Branch

  three times his allotted hour: Int. Cartha DeLoach, June 1, 1984; int. Sarah McLendon, July 2, 1997; Garrow, FBI and Martin, p. 122; DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI, pp. 204-5; Stokes Committee, Hearings, Vol. 7, pp. 51-52.

  “In view of King’s attitude”: Transcript printed in U.S. News & World Report, Nov. 30, 1964, pp. 56-58.

  by Communist advisers: Robert Kennedy Oral History by Anthony Lewis, Dec. 4, 1964, p. 693, JFK; NYT, Nov. 20, 1964, p. 18.

  “The girls”: DeLoach testimony of Dec. 3, 1975, in Church Committee, Hearings, Vol. 6, p. 173.

  “Hoover Assails Warren Findings”: NYT, Nov. 19, 1964, p. 1.

  “Blast at Police Corruption”: WP, Nov. 19, 1964, p. 1.

  Andrew Young knew: Young, Easy Burden, p. 315.

  “While I resent”: Baumgardner to Sullivan, Nov. 19, 1964, FK-537.

  “drop the part”: Ibid.

  “I cannot conceive”: NYT, Nov. 20, 1964, p. 1; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 360.

  Katzenbach walked into Hoover’s office: Int. Nicholas Katzenbach, June 14, 1991.

  “we solidly backed Dr. King”: NYAN, Nov. 28, 1964, p. 1; PC, Nov. 28, 1964, p. 1; Jet, Dec. 3, 1964, pp. 6-8.

  Wachtel and Rustin peppered: Int. Harry Wachtel, Oct. 27, 1983.

  “What motivated such”: MLK to Hoover, Nov. 19, 1964, FK-584.

  Atlanta office compiled: Atlanta to Director, urgent teletype of 10:30 P.M., Nov. 19, 1964, FK-539.

  “King kept the Agent waiting”: Rosen to Belmont, Nov. 20, 1964, FK-581.

  “is old and getting senile”: Garrow, FBI and Martin, p. 125.

  “further evidence”: Ibid., p. 124.

  “O.K. But I don’t understand”: Hoover note on Rosen to Belmont, Nov. 20, 1964, FK-581.

  Propaganda operations expanded: Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 124-26; Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 420. Among new efforts to discredit King with religious groups, DeLoach’s public relations office supervised contacts with several leaders of the Baptist World Alliance, and Assistant Director, Domestic Intelligence Division, William Sullivan personally briefed a “horrified” Dr. Edwin Espy of the National Council of Churches. Jones to DeLoach, Dec. 8, 1964, FK-624; Sullivan to Belmont, Dec. 16, 1964, FK-636; Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 132-33; Findlay, Church People, pp. 87-88.

  first new batch of anti-King material: Sullivan to Belmont, Nov. 22, 1964, FK-NR.

  “a great liability”: “KING, In view of your low grade….” Undated anonymous letter, Section 24, FHOC.

  known as the suicide package: Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 125-26; Sullivan, The Bureau, p. 142. In 1978, the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded of this letter, “The final paragraph clearly implied that suicide would be a suitable course of action for Dr. King….” Stokes Committee, Final Report, pp. 573-75. Since the letter became public, Hoover loyalists from the FBI have maintained stoutly that it was entirely the idea of Assistant Director William Sullivan, who later broke with Hoover and conspired during the Nixon years to replace the aged director. Killed in a 1977 hunting incident, Sullivan died an apostate to the Hoover era—expelled from the Society of Former FBI Agents and demonized as the scapegoat for its excesses. The House committee did not firmly resolve who approved the King suicide package within the FBI, but it did suggest with understated logic that the complexity of the mission, the traces of it in the files, and the climate of fury against King at the time all point to the operation as an institutional product. The question of responsibility remains a gray area of argument almost by nature of the secretive operation itself, somewhat like the issue of whether presidents “knew” or “approved” of assassination attempts by the CIA during the Cold War.

  Joe Sullivan entered the fray: Int. Joseph Sullivan, Feb. 3, 1991.

  patrolled the successful integration: NYT, Nov. 19, 1964, p. 1.

  declined for the fourth and last time: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Law Enforcement, pp. 54-55.

  two hundred reported intimidations: “Running Summary of Incidents During the ‘Freedom Vote’ Campaign, Oct. 18-Nov. 2, 1964,” A/KP7f26; Harris, Dreams Die Hard, pp. 82-89.

  Rumors buzzed the corridors: Int. Robert Scherrer, May 5, 1983, and Nov. 4, 1983; int. Lawrence Heim, March 21, 1991; Frederic Dannen, “The G-Man and the Hit Man,” The New Yorker, Dec. 16, 1996, pp. 68-81.

  “I only put Chaney’s foot”: Statement of Horace Doyle Barnette, Nov. 20, 1964, in prosecutive summary dated Dec. 19, 1964, FMB-1613, pp. 171-77.

  “pressure groups that would crush”: Jet, Dec. 10, 1964, pp. 6-7; Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 420.

  meeting at the Barbizon Hotel: Oates, Let the Trumpet, pp. 317-18; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, p. 392; int. Harry Wachtel, Oct. 27, 1983; int. Clarence Jones, Nov. 25, 1983; int. Cleveland Robinson, Oct. 28, 1983.

  the day’s late-breaking news: WLBT news broadcast of Nov. 25, 1964, Vol. 9, FCC Case No. 16663, NA; NYT, Nov. 26, 1964, p. 1; Mars, Witness, p. 140; Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 195. U.S. News & World Report reprinted the FBI’s entire “King States/Facts” rebuttal, Dec. 7, 1964, pp. 46-47.

  headquarters had inventoried: Blind memo of Nov. 27, 1964, headed “SUMMARY—HIGHLY SENSITIVE COVERAGE—MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.” and marked, “Route in Envelope,” FK-1024.

  Hoover decreed: Hoover handwritten note on DeLoach to Belmont, Dec. 2, 1964, appended to ibid.

  occasional contact Roy Wilkins: Cf. DeLoach to Mohr, Feb. 25, 1960 (on DeLoach’s meeting with Wilkins of Feb. 24), FRW-6; also, Jones to DeLoach, March 16, 1965 (summarizing the FBI’s past contacts with Wilkins before a Gridiron Club dinner at which Hoover was to sit next to him), FRW-NR.

  “I interrupted Wilkins”: DeLoach to Mohr, Nov. 27, 1964, FRW-16.

  “president of Morehouse College”: Int. Cartha DeLoach, June 1, 1984.

  “My dear Mr. President”: Hoover to LBJ, Nov. 30, 1964, FRW-15.

  “as they might feel a duty”: Sizoo to Sullivan, Dec. 1, 1964, Section 24, FHOC.

  correspondents acknowledged being pitched: Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 130-31; Fairclough, To Redeem, pp. 218-19; Theoharis and Cox, The Boss, pp. 356-57.

  Katzenbach himself undertook: Int. Nicholas Katzenbach, June 14, 1991; int. Ed Guthman, June 25, 1984; Garrow, FBI and Martin, p. 127; Church Committee, Hearings, Vol. 6, p. 210.

  fn “Their defense is always”: Katzenbach Oral History by Larry J. Hackman, Oct. 8, 1969, JFK.

  polls favored Hoover: Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 421.

  “have exercised their freedom of speech”: PPP, LBJ press conference of Nov. 28, 1964, pp. 1611-20.

  “the alleged reports of my being replaced”: Hoover to June Winchell, Nov. 30, 1964, FBI File No. 62-31615, Serial 1230. Winchell, wife of ardently pro-Hoover columnist Walter Winchell, had sent Hoover a telegram of crisis support: “Johnson is quote disenchanted unquote. Oh dear God. Shades of the Roosevelt years, Alger Hiss, etc., etc., etc. Billy Sol, Baker, Jenkins. And Johnson is disenchanted? I am now for the first time frightened for this country.”

  “I’d rather have him inside”: Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 393.

  personal response for Bradlee: Bradlee, A Good Life, pp. 271-72. Anthony Lewis refuted Newsweek in print, writing that “Hoover’s position remains basically strong.” NYT, Dec. 6, 1964, p. E4.

  “If I had seriously proposed”: Paul Clancy, “The Bureau and the Bureaus,” The Quill, Feb. 1976, pp. 12-18. In 1970-71, Peter Lisagor of the Chicago Sun-Times talked at a reporters’ lunch of resisting the tapes and other bait against King, then scoffed at the suggestion that he could have written about the FBI’s bugging and propaganda operations themselves, saying it just was not done. He cited the fearful cult of Hoover, dependence on the FBI for other stories, and the questionable ethics of turning against a news source. (Author’s personal recollection.)

  Farmer reached King: Int. James Farmer, Nov. 18, 1983; Farmer, Lay Bare the Heart, pp. 268-71; Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 128-29.

  “Let freedom ring!”: Miller, Voice of Deliverance, pp. 146-47.<
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  1953 field investigation: SAC, Chicago, to Director, July 31, 1953, and report of Special Agent Jesse Syme, Aug. 11, 1953, FAC-NR.

  “a highly controversial colored lawyer”: Jones to Nease, Oct. 20, 1958, FAC-56; Jones to DeLoach, Nov. 18, 1959, FAC-69.

  “voluminous information”: Jones to DeLoach, Nov. 19, 1959, FAC-72.

  “associated with known or suspected”: Jones to Nease, Oct. 20, 1958, FAC-56.

  asked to meet Director Hoover: Jones to Nease, Aug. 21, 1958, FAC-53.

  introduce his niece: Carey to Hoover, June 11, 1959, FAC-58.

  grand-niece Liberty: Carey to Hoover, June 29, 1959, FAC-61.

  “the Director was considerably embarrassed”: DeLoach to Mohr, June 2, 1960, FAC-82.

  fn “I cannot tell you how pleased”: Carey to Hoover, Sept. 1, 1960, FAC-83.

  “any time the Bureau or I”: Hoover to Tolson et al., March 21, 1961, FAC-85.

  Hoover put his own: Carey to Hoover, Nov. 19, 1959, FAC-70.

  accommodation to power: Int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991.

  lack of Negro agents: DeLoach to Mohr, June 2, 1960, FAC-82.

  translated King’s Hoover troubles: Carey wrote King a balanced letter of congratulations after he received the Nobel Prize: “It is my own opinion that Hoover has done some fine things in the civil rights field…. However, I thought his statement was in very poor taste and your statement was just magnificent. I stay proud of you. The Lord bless you.” Carey to MLK, Dec. 11, 1964, A/KP5f13.

  “I interrupted Dr. Young again”: DeLoach to Mohr, Dec. 1, 1964, FK-570.

  nervous but mannerly chat: Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 129-30; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, pp. 362-64; DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI, pp. 208-11; Young, Easy Burden, pp. 318-19; Lewis, King, pp. 256-57; int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991; int. Cartha DeLoach, June 1, 1984.

  King flinched: Drew Pearson, “Meeting with Hoover Amazes King,” WP, Dec. 5, 1964.

  negotiating intensely: Rosen to Belmont, Dec. 1, 1964, FMB-1413; Rosen to Belmont, Dec. 2, 1964, FMB-1414.

  ten legal impediments: SAC, Jackson, to Director, Dec. 3, 1964, FMB-1420.

  did not trust local officials: William H.Johnson, Jr., to Erle Johnson, Jr., Dec. 4, 1967, MSSC.

  Sullivan pressed: Int. Joseph Sullivan, Feb. 3, 1991.

  “indicated that King was calling the shots”: SAC, Jackson, to Director, Dec. 3, 1964, FMB-1420.

  command decision to proceed: Rosen to Belmont, Dec. 4, 1964, FMB-1427; Whitehead, Attack on Terror, pp. 197-202.

  “In a small town like this”: WP, Dec. 5, 1964, pp. 1, 17.

  “the whole country is taking orders”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 436.

  traveling party to grow: Oates, Let the Trumpet, p. 320; Young, Easy Burden, p. 321; Coretta King, My Life, pp. 18-19.

  “I must commend”: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 202.

  “a very dangerous organization”: Robert Kennedy Oral History by John Bartlow Martin, March 1, 1964, pp. 195-97, JFK.

  “Negroes’ brains are twenty percent smaller”: Robert Kennedy (with Burke Marshall) Oral History by Anthony Lewis, Dec. 4, 1964, p. 669.

  “general criticism”: Ibid., pp. 665-68.

  “what I understand from Hoover’s”: Ibid., pp. 670-73.

  fn “I said, ‘Mr. King’”: Time, Dec. 14, 1970, p. 16. Time had published the tough-guy version as an inside news scoop on Aug. 17, 1970.

  “I never really had any”: Robert Kennedy (with Burke Marshall) Oral History by Anthony Lewis, Dec. 4, 1964, p. 682.

  38: NOBEL PRIZE

  packed for a summer trip: Goldman, Death and Life, p. 222.

  stepped off a flight from Paris: New York LHM dated Nov. 25, 1964, FMX-183.

  “felt foolish coming back”: Malcolm X speech of Feb. 15, 1965, in Perry, Last Speeches, p. 116.

  “coming back loaded”: New York LHM dated Oct. 15, 1964, FMX-156, p. 4.

  “Congolese Forced American Officials”: NYT, Nov. 25, 1964, p. 1.

  “President Johnson is responsible”: New York LHM dated Nov. 25, 1964, FMX-183.

  personal reunions: Perry, Malcolm, p. 331.

  visited her in 1952: Ibid., p. 141.

  Muhammad raged privately: Chicago LHM dated Nov. 18, 1964, FMX-181.

  Captain Joseph to warn: Chicago New Crusader, Nov. 28, 1964; NYT, Nov. 8, 1964, p. 48.

  beaten to death on the street: Clegg, An Original Man, p. 226; Perry, Malcolm, p. 341.

  announcement to the Fruit: New York FBI report of Jan. 20, 1965, FMX-215, p. 69.

  Hoover cabled: Director to Legat, London, Nov. 30, 1964, FMX-187.

  To British audiences: Perry, Malcolm, p. 331.

  “No matter how many bills pass”: Malcolm X address of Dec. 3, 1964, in HQLHM dated Jan. 11, 1965, FMX-209.

  At Oxford University: “Cheers for Malcolm X at Oxford,” London Daily Telegraph, Dec. 4, 1964.

  C. L. R. James: Lincoln, Sounds of Struggle, p. 161.

  told a London radio audience: New York Courier, Dec. 19, 1964.

  “never could accept”: PC, Dec. 5, 1964, p. 6.

  first non-Anglican: Lewis, King, p. 259.

  FBI surveillance agents: NY LHM dated Dec. 8, 1964, FMX-199.

  “Mr. Malcolm, we hereby officially”: Sharrieff telegram of Dec. 7, 1964, as printed in the Chicago Crusader of Dec. 12, 1964, and circulated to FBI HQ by Chicago LHM dated Dec. 15, 1964, FMX-NR.

  “That was Elijah”: Malcolm X speech of Feb. 15, 1965, in Perry, Last Speeches, p. 117.

  Louis X of Boston called Malcolm: MS, Dec. 4, 1964, cited in Perry, Malcolm, p. 332, and Clegg, An Original Man, p. 226.

  “Malcolm shall not escape”: Ibid. Also Goldman, Death and Life, p. 247.

  “Top Stories of ’64”: MS, Jan. 15, 1965, p. 15. That same issue also reprinted the March denunciation of Malcolm by his brother Philbert X.

  acquittal in traffic court: Perry, Malcolm, p. 333.

  “a friend of mine”: “HARYOU Panel to Hear Malcolm X,” NYAN, Dec. 17, 1964; news clip in FMX-NR.

  “word is out”: Int. Livingston Wingate, July 8, 1992. Wingate, who was director of HARYOU-ACT and a political ally of Adam Clayton Powell, recalled getting a panicked phone call: “I was late getting in the office that morning, and they called me: ‘Wingate, get down here, get down here, get down here. Everybody’s nervous. Malcolm’s here, and they’re thinking he may be shot at any moment.’”

  to Oslo on December 8: “Schedule for Oslo Trip,” A/KP12f67.

  audience at the Royal Palace: Coretta King, My Life, pp. 24-25.

  considerable tension: Int. Harry Wachtel, Oct. 27, 1983; int. Marian Logan, April 24, 1984; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 366; Young, Easy Burden, p. 320.

  “At least five other men”: Porter cited in FBI HQ LHM dated Feb. 4, 1965, and Legat London to Director, Feb. 4, 1965, FR-NR.

  drafting suggestions: Int. Harry Wachtel, Oct. 27, 1983.

  own handwritten draft: Nobel Prize speech drafts, A/KP18f33 and A/KP12f67.

  “I am mindful”: Text of Nobel Prize acceptance, NYT, Dec. 11, 1964, pp. 1, 33.

  never again submit: Coretta King, My Life, p. 25.

  against the Norwegian protocol chief: Int. Bernard Lee, June 19, 1985; int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991; int. Dora McDonald, Dec. 31, 1990.

  receipt of the gold: NYT, Dec. 11, 1964, p. 1; Jet, Dec. 24, 1964, pp. 18-21.

  hearing that day in Mississippi: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 437; Mars, Witness, p. 148; Whitehead, Attack on Terror, pp. 204-5.

  “We had hoped”: Television transcript of King press conference, Dec. 10, 1964, A/KS.

  spontaneous freedom songs: Young, Easy Burden, p. 321.

  Juanita Abernathy swooned: NYT, Dec. 12, 1964, p. 18.

  “some in King’s inner circle”: Cf. FBI wiretap transcript of phone call between Bayard Rustin and Stanley Levison, July 21, 1968. Rustin: “He [Abernathy] wants her [Juanita Abernathy] there, you know, to get a little limelight.” Levison: “And what will
happen is that she’ll be ignored.” Rustin: “And then it’s going to be like it was up in Oslo, when she had a heart attack.” FLNY-9-1738a, p. 5; int. Bernard Lee, June 19, 1985; int. Dora McDonald, Dec. 31, 1990.

  fn “Will you help relieve”: Eskridge to Greenberg, Dec. 28, 1964, A/SC9f37.

  complained to Harry Wachtel: Int. Harry Wachtel, Oct. 27, 1983.

  “toast to God”: Coretta King, My Life, p. 27; Young, Easy Burden, p. 322; int. Bernard Lee, June 19, 1985; int. Harry Wachtel, Oct. 27, 1983.

  carrying Viking torches: NYT, Dec. 12, 1964, p. 1.

  “war is the most extreme”: “Outline for Nobel Prize Lecture,” Nobel Prize speech drafts, A/KP18f33 and A/KP12f67.

  overran the Grand Hotel: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, pp. 366-67; Williams, The King, pp. 198-99; int. Harry Wachtel, Oct. 27, 1983.

  danced in public: Coretta King, My Life, pp. 27-29.

  “Only Martin’s family”: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 366.

  “Ralph’s estrangement”: Young, Easy Burden, p. 320. A brokenness between King and Abernathy persisted until Memphis in 1968, Bernard Lee would recall before his own death: “That’s how serious it was.” Int. Bernard Lee, June 19, 1985.

  McNamara drew President Johnson: Gravel, ed., Pentagon Papers, Vol. 2, p. 422, Vol. 3, pp. 247-59.

  “Esquire Magazine”: Moyers to LBJ, Dec. 10, 1964, Box 10, Moyers Papers, LBJ.

  fn “I remember the conversation well”: Ibid.

  nearly eight hundred students: NYT, Dec. 4, 1964, p. 1.

  “We are told that the mob”: Heirich, The Beginning, p. 239.

  “helped destroy freedom”: Ibid., p. 232.

  faculty voted to support: Ibid., p. 241.

  “Berkeley Protest Becomes a Ritual”: NYT, Nov. 15, 1964, p. 49.

  “beards and long hair”: NYT, Dec. 3, 1964, p. 50.

  Warner Brothers Studios agreed: Per agreement signed by DeLoach, Dec. 11, 1964, Section 3, FHOC.

  stipulations for the show: ADIC, Los Angeles, to HQ, Feb. 1, 1973, Section 3, FHOC; int. Cartha DeLoach, June 1, 1984.

  DeLoach himself grew weary: Ibid.

  connect the undignified corpse: Wolff, You Send Me, pp. 1-6, 316-29.

  gathered at the Chicago funeral: Ibid., pp. 331-32.