Pillar of Fire (131 page)

“one-shot affair”: WP, Nov. 5, 1964, p. 11.

Proposition 14 carried California: Lynn W. Eley and Thomas W. Casstevens,
The Politics of Fair-Housing Legislation
. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1968, esp. pp. 261-84.

headed toward Supreme Court:
Reitman v. Mulkey
, 87 S. Ct. 1627 (1967).

“the most important civil rights case”: Nathan Lewin to the Solicitor General, Jan. 9, 1967, Admin. Hist./Dept. of Justice, Vol. 7, Part xb[2], LBJ. If the Supreme Court upheld Proposition 14, warned Lewin, “it will doubtless throttle the last hopes for fair-housing legislation in this country.” On May 29, 1967, the Court overturned Proposition 14 in a 5-4 decision, holding that it “involves the state in racial discrimination.” By then, California governor Reagan advocated legislative repeal of the Rumford Act.

oppose the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Cannon,
Role of a Lifetime
, pp. 518-25.

“indisputable proof”: Edwards,
Goldwater
, p. 344.

“a minority party indefinitely”: Ibid.

“an end to a competitive”: Ibid.

“problems likely to arise”: Henry Wilson to Larry O'Brien, Nov. 25, 1964, Box 4, Henry Wilson Papers, 25pp., LBJ.

“based around the right to vote”: NYT, Nov. 5, 1964, p. 1.

SCLC organization chart: Among papers for the SCLC executive staff meeting at the Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Nov. 12-13, 1964, A/KP32f8.

“never reach the point”: Minutes, executive staff meeting, Nov. 12-13, 1964, A/KP32f8.

“the ontological need”: Harry Boyte, “Dialogue—An Interpretation,” presented at SCLC executive staff meeting, Nov. 12, 1964, A/KP32f8.

Bevel proposed Selma: Minutes, executive staff meeting, Nov. 10-12, 1964, A/KP32f8; Garrow,
Bearing the Cross
, pp. 358-59; int. C. T. Vivian, May 26, 1990.

bombardment of proposals: Hoover memos to Katzenbach, Moyers, Marshall, and Yeagley, all Nov. 6, 1964, FK-NR; New York LHM dated Nov. 10, 1964, FK-NR; Hoover cable to Legat London, Nov. 10, 1964, FK-517; blind memo headed “Martin Luther King, Jr.,” dated Nov. 12, 1964, FK-521; New York LHM dated Nov. 18, 1964, FK-NR.

“loom large”: New York LHM dated Nov. 24, 1964, FK-NR.

“peephole journalism”: Raines,
My Soul
, pp. 407-8; int. Eugene Patterson, April 6, 1991.

“carries the seed”: “Discerning the Signs of History,” MLK sermon of Nov. 15, 1964, A/KS7.

New York's Abyssinian Baptist: Lewis,
King
, p. 256; MLK sermon of Nov. 15, 1964, A/KS7.

collection of $1,844.80: Powell to MLK, Nov. 16, 1964, A/KP19f45.

no King girlfriend: Int. Eugene Patterson, April 6, 1991.

“site of renewed SCLC activity”: SAC, Miami, to Director and Mobile, Nov. 17, 1964, FSC-203X.

exclusively female reporters: Int. Sarah McLendon, July 2, 1997; int. Else Carper, July 2, 1997; int. Betty Beale, July 2, 1997; int. Frances Lewine, July 2, 1997; int Mary McGrory, July 1, 1997; int. Helene Monberg, July 2, 1997; DeLoach,
Hoover's FBI
, pp. 203-4.

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.

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.