An Act of State

The Execution of Martin Luther King

William F. Pepper

• Publisher: Verso
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781786635976
• eBook ISBN: 9781786635983
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

On April 4 1968, Martin Luther King was in Memphis supporting a workers' strike. By nightfall, army snipers were in position, military officers were on a nearby roof with cameras, and Lloyd Jowers had been paid to remove the gun after the fatal shot was fired. When the dust had settled, King had been hit and a clean-up operation was set in motion-James Earl Ray was framed, the crime scene was destroyed, and witnesses were killed. William Pepper, attorney and friend of King, has conducted a thirty-year investigation into his assassination. In 1999, Loyd Jowers and other co-conspirators were brought to trial in a civil action suit on behalf of the King family. Seventy witnesses set out the details of a conspiracy that involved J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Richard Helms and the CIA, the military, Memphis police, and organized crime. The jury took an hour to find for the King family. In An Act of State, you finally have the truth before you-how the US government shut down a movement for social change by stopping its leader dead in his tracks.

PART ONE

1

THE BEGINNING

In spring 1966, US carpet-bombing had systematically devastated ancient village-based rural culture in South Vietnam as napalm rained from the sky, slaughtering helpless peasants. As a freelance journalist, I had witnessed and chronicled these atrocities and in early 1967 opened my files to Dr Martin Luther King Jr, who had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize two years earlier.

At this time when I discussed the effects of the war on the civilian population and the ancient village road culture of the Vietnamese people with Dr King, he was already inclined to formally announce his position on the war. He had previously voiced his growing concern about his country’s ever greater role in what appeared to be an internal struggle for control of the nation by a nationalist movement seeking to overcome an oligarchical regime in the south, which was previously beholden to western economic interests.

It occurs to me that he would likely react in much the same way today, opposing American, unilateral opposition to nationalist revolutionary movements around the world, which ostensibly is being mounted against terrorist organizations.

In the Museum of History in Hanoi is a plaque with the following words: “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” It was with these words and pro-American spirit, which Ho-Chi Minh said he took from the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, that he proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on 2 September 1945.

It was not lost on Martin that Ho-Chi Minh’s reverence for Jefferson, Lincoln, and American democracy, as he idealized it, made him the legitimate father of a unified Vietnam. So, on April 4 1967, Martin declared his formal opposition to the increasing barbarities in Vietnam. By July 1967, against the disastrous backdrop of the Vietnam War, America began to burn not only through enemy attack but from racial tensions and riots sparked by mounting anger over living conditions at home.

At the Spring Mobilization anti-war demonstration in New York on April 15, before 250,000 cheering and chanting citizens, after I had advanced his name as an alternative presidential candidate to Lyndon Johnson, Dr King called on the government to “stop the bombing.”

He was emerging as a key figurehead in a powerful coalition of the growing peace and civil rights movements, which were to form the basis of the “new politics.” The National Conference for New Politics (NCNP) was established to catalyze people nationwide. I was asked to be its executive director. From this platform, Dr King planned to move into mainstream politics as a potential candidate on a presidential ticket with Dr Benjamin Spock in order to highlight the anti-poverty, anti-war agenda. He called for conscientious objection, political activity, and a revolution in values to shift American society from materialism to humanism. As a result, he came under increasing attack.

During the Second World War, Ho-Chi Minh parachuted, as part of an American OSS team, behind Japanese lines to supply his nationalist Vietminh forces. Only when America turned its back on his nationalist-anti-colonialist movement against the French, did he seek help elsewhere. Eventually, of course, the Americans, whom Ho-Chi Minh saw as being an anti-colonialist republic and very different from the Europeans, replaced the French, and mounted their own effort to control and rule Vietnam.

During the years of that futile and wasted effort which resulted in a humiliating defeat for the United States, it dispatched its greatest ever land army to Vietnam, dropped the greatest tonnage of bombs in the history of warfare, forced millions of people to leave their villages and homes and by accrual bombardment used chemical agents in a way which devastated and altered the exposed environmental and genetic structures, virtually petrifying some of the most beautiful and lush lands in the world. In excess of 1,300,000 people were killed (I estimated over a million by 1967) and many others were maimed for life; of these 58,022 were American.

By 1970, Vietnamese babies were being born without eyes, with deformed hearts and stumps instead of legs. Six pounds of toxic chemicals per head of population were dumped on the people of Vietnam. President Reagan referred to this as a “noble cause.”

Therefore, when in 1967 I confronted King with the devastating effects of napalm and white phosphorus bombing which had been unleashed on the young and the old of that ancient land, his prodigious conscience compelled him not only to formally announce his opposition to that war but to actively work and organize against it in every corner of America he visited.

There was great concern in the halls of power in America that this most honored of black Americans had decided to use the full force of his integrity, moral authority, and international prestige to challenge the might and moral bankruptcy of the American state, which he freely characterized as the “greatest purveyor of violence on earth.”

His formal announcement of opposition and condemnation of his government generated serious apprehension in the boardrooms of the select list of large American corporations which were receiving enormous profits from the conflict. These, of course, included the range of armament, aircraft, and chemical manufacturers as well as favored construction companies (like Texas and Lyndon Johnson’s own Brown and Root) which had multi-billion-dollar contracts, and the oil companies, again including those owned by Texans Johnson and Edgar Hoover’s friends, H. L. Hunt and Clint Murchison.¹ It is hard to imagine oilmen becoming more upset about this threat to public policy which had benefited them since John Kennedy’s commitment to end the 27.5 percent oil depletion allowance. This list, of course, should not omit the powerful multinational banks, who are the bankers to these corporations and which arrange financing so that they themselves greatly profit from the loan syndications and leasing contracts. And there are the large law firms who advise and provide legal services on every aspect of every deal, contract, lease, and sale.

When one assesses this awesome array of private established, nongovernmental, institutional power, it is eminently reasonable to consider those in government decision-making positions as being compelled to listen to, protect and serve the unified interests of this corporate establishment. When business speaks with one voice, as it did in respect of the war or the purported extreme threat of war at the time when Martin King set himself up in opposition, the relevant government agencies and their officials become mere footsoldiers for the mighty economic interests. Out in front in time of war are the armed forces, the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Not far behind are the executive, the legislative and the judicial legitimizers, who sanction the necessary actions, and the media conglomerates who, as the publicists of government policy, posing as independent voices of the people, vigorously support and defend the official policy in serious national security instances of significant concern to the corporate establishment.

Virtually unanimously, and with one voice, the mass media condemned Dr King’s opposition to the war. In the shadows were the forces they serve.

When one understands this context and those times, more than three decades ago, it is understandable that when Martin King began to crusade against the war, he would cast a long shadow over the economic forces of America. Little wonder that they shuddered at the possibility that his efforts might result in the tap of the free-flowing profits being turned off. Should the American people come to demand an end to the war and should the war end, the losses were not something they could accept.

Perhaps it was for this reason alone that King had to be stopped.

If this was not reason enough Dr King gave these awesomely powerful forces another inducement to eliminate him. He had been wrestling with the problem of economic injustice for some time. It was, he said, one thing to gain the civil right to eat at a formerly segregated lunchroom counter but quite another to be able to pay the bill. This was the next and, in a capitalist society, an essential component of freedom and equality, and one which was the essence of the movement for social justice. The war had made things worse. Not only were a disproportionate number of blacks being sent 10,000 miles from home to serve as cannon fodder, but the cost of the war increasingly required that essential social services and programs in their communities be curtailed. The poor knew better than anyone that President Johnson’s commitment to “guns and butter” could not be fulfilled. In effect there was an undeclared cease in the “war on poverty.”

So, for Martin King, opposition to the war against the people of a poor, non-white ancient culture was in harmony with, and a natural extension of, the civil rights struggle against oppression and the denial of basic freedoms and essential services at home.

By mid-1967, he began to formulate a strategy to address the widening gap between the rich and the poor. The project gradually took the form not of a march by itself but the extensive Poor People’s Campaign and mobilization culminating in an encampment in the shadow of the Washington Memorial. The projection was for the establishment of a tent city of some 500,000 of the nation’s poorest and most alienated citizens, who would regularly lobby their elective officials for a range of socio-economic legislation. They would remain as long as it took to get action from the Congress.

If the wealthy, powerful interests across the nation would find Dr King’s escalating activity against the war intolerable, his planned mobilization of half a million poor people with the intention of laying siege to Congress could only engender outrage – and fear.

They knew that it was not going to be possible for the Congress to satisfy the demands of the multitude of poor, alienated Americans led by Dr King, and they believed that the growing frustration could well lead to violence. In such a situation with the unavailability of sufficient troops to control that mass of people, the capital could be overrun. Nothing less than a revolution might result. This possibility simply could not be allowed to materialize, and neither could Martin King’s crusade against the war be permitted to continue.

When the NCNP convention was held on Labor Day weekend, many of us believed that nothing less than the nation’s rebirth was on the agenda. But a small, aggressive group had urged each arriving black delegate to join an obviously planned Black Caucus which at one point threatened to take Dr King hostage. He made a spirited speech, calling for unity and action, after which I had to arrange for him to leave the stage quickly under guard for his own safety. Black Caucus delegates voted en bloc. There were walkouts, hostilities, and splits. Though we didn’t admit it at the time, the NCNP died as a political force that weekend. We had not realized the power of the forces ranged against us to divide the emerging coalition and to infiltrate and manipulate movement organizations.

Dr King stepped up his anti-war efforts and threw himself into developing the Poor People’s Campaign which was scheduled to bring hundreds of thousands of the nation’s poor blacks, Hispanics, whites, and intellectuals to Washington in the spring of 1968. He would, of course, not live to see it.

Since their plight was the very epitome of the condition of the wretched of America, Dr King lent his support to the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike by predominantly black non-union workers. On March 18 1968 he addressed a meeting at the Mason Temple and called for a general work stoppage in Memphis. He agreed to return to lead a march and did so on March 28. Chaos descended, and the march was disrupted. Because he was determined to lead a peaceful march, it was rescheduled for April 5. He returned to Memphis on April 3, checking into room 306 at the Lorraine Motel. At 6:01 PM the next evening, he was shot dead on the motel balcony.

The FBI hunt led to fingerprints on a map of Atlanta found in a room in the city hired by a man calling himself Eric S. Galt. They matched those of a fugitive from a Missouri penitentiary – James Earl Ray. He fled to England, but eventually, on Saturday June 10, he was arrested at Heathrow Airport and extradited to the United States.

The case never came to trial because James Earl Ray entered a plea of guilty on Monday March 10 1969. He was subsequently sentenced to 99 years in the state penitentiary. Within three days of arriving there, Ray had written to the court requesting that his guilty plea be set aside and that he be given a trial.

Any reservations I had about another lone-assassin explanation for the removal of a progressive leader were sublimated by the combined feelings of grief, sadness and disgust with all politics.

During the next nine years, I had virtually nothing to do with the civil rights and anti-war movements. I had no hope the nation could be reconstructed without Martin King’s singular leadership. Then, in late 1977, Ralph Abernathy, who had succeeded Dr King as the President of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) but had been replaced in 1976 by the Reverend Joseph Lowery, and who had been a close friend of Dr King, told me that he had never been completely satisfied with the official explanation of King’s murder. He wanted a face-to-face meeting with the alleged assassin. Although I was surprised by his interest I told him that I had assumed that the right man was in prison and that I knew very little about the case. If I was to help him, I would need time to catch up on the facts.

In the absence of a trial, the prosecution’s scenario had been put out to the world as the final word, bolstered by books written by publicists of the official story and media coverage. To the general public, Ray was a loner, motivated by race hate, who sought to make his mark in history.

The state claimed Ray began stalking Dr King on the weekend of March 17 in Los Angeles, arriving in Memphis on April 3 with the murder weapon and booking into a seedy rooming house above Jim’s Grill. It had a bathroom overlooking the Lorraine Motel balcony, where Dr King was standing when he was killed. Ray, according to the state, locked himself in and fired the fatal shot.

Then, in haste, he neglected to eject the spent cartridge. Straight afterwards, he gathered up a few belongings from his room and ran down the front stairs, allegedly seen by rooming house tenant Charles Stephens who became the state’s chief prosecution witness. Supposedly seeing a police car parked near the sidewalk of the fire station, Ray allegedly dropped the bundle in the recessed doorway of the Canipe Amusement Company on South Main before jumping into his white Mustang and heading for Atlanta, where he ditched the car. He then made his way to Canada. His prints were found on the gun, scope, binoculars, beer can, and copy of the Memphis Commercial Appeal dropped in the bundle.

During this period, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) had been set up to investigate the murders of President Kennedy and Dr King. Following Ralph’s request, I began to read everything I could about the killing. Meanwhile in early June 1977 after a failed escape attempt, James Earl Ray was returned to his cell at Brushy Mountain Penitentiary.

Finally, on October 17 1978, with Ralph Abernathy and a body language specialist in attendance, I met Ray. He told us he had been set up, his actions leading up to the assassination coordinated through a shadowy figure called Raul. He had met this man in the Neptune bar in Montreal in August 1967 while on the run, looking for a way to leave North America.

At the end of the interview, Abernathy and I agreed. Ray was not the shooter. As we left the prison, Ralph Abernathy told waiting journalists that Ray’s answers to questions convinced him more than ever a conspiracy had led to Martin Luther King’s death and Ray should get a trial. I was troubled by the discrepancy between the public image of James Earl Ray and the person we interviewed, as well as by the unanswered questions of which I became aware. The more I thought about the issues, the more concerned I became. I decided to quietly probe the official story. It was the beginning of a quest that was to last more than a quarter of a century and which would ultimately expose the dark underbelly of American government and the covert activities of its military and intelligence organizations and their fealty to corporate interests and organized crime.

The House Select Committee on Assassinations report

In January 1979, the House Select Committee published its final report on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin King. It found no evidence or complicity on the part of the CIA, the FBI, or any other government agency in the assassination of Martin King. Ray, it concluded, was a lone gunman. Raul did not exist, so Ray couldn’t have been a fall guy manipulated by others (even though racism was not the motive). The report itself was widely publicized, but the accompanying thirteen volumes had a very limited distribution. Only the interested few would learn that information buried in these documents frequently conflicts with conclusions in the report itself.

The volumes provide a detailed account of the FBI’s wide-ranging legal and illegal communist infiltration organization (COMINFIL) and counterintelligence programs and activities (COINTELPRO) conducted both before and after the assassination. They were designed to tie Dr King and the SCLC to the influence of the Communist Party and to discredit Dr King.

Way back in 1957, when the SCLC was founded, FBI supervisor J. K. Kelly stated in a memo that the group was “a likely target for infiltration.” As the SCLC mounted an increasingly high-profile challenge to segregation and the denial of voting rights to blacks across the South, the Bureau began actively infiltrating meetings and conferences.

On October 23 1962, Hoover sent ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part One
• Part Two
• Epilogue
• Afterword
• Appendices
• Notes
• Index