He Slew the Dreamer

My Search for the Truth about James Earl Ray and the Murder of Martin Luther King

William Bradford Huie

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781496820624
• eBook ISBN: 9781496820648
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Afroamerikanische Geschichte

Author William Bradford Huie was one of the most celebrated figures of twentieth-century journalism. A pioneer of "checkbook journalism, " he sought the truth in controversial stories when the truth was hard to come by. In the case of James Earl Ray, Huie paid Ray and his original attorneys $40, 000 for cooperation in explaining his movements in the months before Martin Luther King's assassination and up to Ray's arrest weeks later in London. Huie became a major figure in the investigation of King's assassination and was one of the few persons able to communicate with Ray during that time.Huie, a friend of King, writes that he went into his investigation of Ray believing that a conspiracy was behind King's murder. But after retracing Ray's movements through California, Louisiana, Mexico, Canada, Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, and London, Huie came to believe that James Earl Ray was a pathetic petty criminal who hated African Americans and sought to make a name for himself by murdering King. He Slew the Dreamer was originally published in 1970 soon after Ray went to prison and was republished in 1977, but was out of print until the 1997 edition, published with the cooperation of Huie's widow.This new edition features an essay by scholar Riché Richardson that provides fresh insight, and it includes the 1977 prologue, which Huie wrote countering charges by members of Congress, the King family, and others who claimed the FBI had aided and abetted Ray. In 1970, 1977, 1997, and now, He Slew the Dreamer offers a remarkably detailed examination of the available evidence at the time the murder occurred and an invaluable resource to current debates over the King assassination.

TEN

After we had worked a month on the case, both Mr. Hanes and I concluded that Ray would never directly tell us the truth about the murder. But while he wouldn’t tell us directly, he seemed willing for us to have the truth if we could worm it out of him in a protracted contest of wits between him and us. Or if we could guess the truth despite his best efforts to hide it. What he wanted was the contest: it made him feel like he belonged in the Top Ten. Evidently he felt that, if he ever told anyone the whole truth, the contest would be over, and he wants the contest to continue so he can continue to receive attention. He killed Dr. King to get attention, and he’s afraid of losing it.

Both Mr. Hanes and I came to feel that we were being exploited by Ray for his own gratification. He lived comfortably in an air-conditioned cell at public expense, reading and watching and listening to his press notices, with television to watch and guards to talk with and play gin rummy with, while we chased about the earth gathering information for him. He looked forward to visits by Mr. Hanes and his son, and to communications from me which they delivered to him, so he could play another inning of catch-me-if-you-can with us.

Because I couldn’t question Ray face to face, both Mr. Hanes and Arthur, Jr., tried to describe for me how Ray played the game. Art, Jr., wrote:

Ray always greets us with a silly, sheepish grin which is higher on the left side of his face than on the right. He seems to be enjoying a joke which only he knows. When I walk into his cell I always feel that he has just pulled a fast one on me and I arrived a minute too late to catch him at it.

When Ray is talking, if he is lying his eyes blink and keep shifting downward. If his lie is challenged, he will shake his head briefly, then drop his head and admit his lie. When we seem to be having a productive conversation, containing questions and relatively truthful answers, he opens his eyes wide, holds his head erect, believes that he is making a good impression, and is therefore pleased with himself. But these good conversations in which Ray seems pleased with himself come only when we talk of relatively unimportant activities, such as all the places Ray has been, or when he is pointing out errors he claims he has detected in what has been written or said about him.

When you ask Ray a hard question, like for a better description of Raoul, or when did he decide to kill Dr. King, or when did he first learn that somebody else wanted him to kill Dr. King, he hangs his head, runs his fingers through his hair, and says nothing. After a moment he may lean back until his chair is sitting on only two legs and rub his paunch. Then he changes the subject.

In 1954 Ray burglarized a dry-cleaning firm in East Alton, Illinois. He was arrested and questioned by Police Chief Harold Riggins. In 1968 Mr. Riggins said:

There’s one thing I remember clearly about Ray. When I’d ask him a question he’d just duck his head down and grin. Whatever I asked him, that was his only response. He’d just duck his head and grin.

In 1959, after he held up a food store in St. Louis, Ray was questioned by Detective Harry Conners. After reviewing the evidence with Ray, the detective told Ray that he could hardly deny that he committed the crime. In 1968 Mr. Conners said:

I’ll never forget his reaction. He sat there with a silly grin on his face and said: “I can’t deny it but I’ll never admit it.”

Mr. Hanes and his son, separately and together, talked with Ray for more than one hundred hours. In retrospect Mr. Hanes wrote for me:

Those hundred hours were a baffling experience because Ray never gave us his confidence on critical issues. Preparing his defense was like preparing for moot court in law school. We worked, but we had no defendant to work with us.

At all times Ray was courteous and respectful. Probing for motivations I often attempted to discuss race or politics with him. He is well informed, but his views are neither extreme nor bitterly held. I never heard him express or saw him display resentment, hatred or malice toward anyone.

At each conference with Ray we had to consider first a written list of topics he had prepared, some relevant to the case, some not. His questions were serious to him, and he seemed interested in my responses. He showed most interest in such personal matters as my bringing him new shirts and ties for his courtroom appearances. On a human-to-human basis we seemed to be close. But when I began asking the questions he changed in attitude and demeanor. He insisted that his accomplice, Raoul, actually fired the fatal shot, but when I questioned him about Raoul he became tense and devious. Each time I saw him I felt I had to make a new start at trying to gain his confidence. I never met a man quite so alone.

After I knew that Ray would never tell me directly the truth about the murder, why did I continue working on the story? The answer to that question is in the story as I have told it here. I continued because I believed that, if I kept him communicating with me, I would get the truth indirectly. I believe I got most of it, I believe that indirectly, over a period of eight months, Ray told me why he murdered Dr. King more clearly than he is capable of telling me directly. For another instance, while he was insisting to Mr. Hanes that he had an accomplice in killing Dr. King, he wrote this to me:

I have had accomplices twice on convictions. The first time I got three years and nine months, and the other party got three years. This was a federal crime. The other time I got twenty years and the other party got seven years. So I’m a little gunshy on committing crimes with other people.

Moreover, as I have reported, Ray backed down when I refused to accept his statement that he stopped in Selma on March 22 because he “got lost.” He backed down and acknowledged that he spent a night in Selma because he was stalking Dr. King. Once Ray had been sentenced and I could face him, I’d have the advantage in the contest. He’d know then that, if he gave me silly grins instead of some sort of answers, I could cut off the contest, the attention, and the money.

Another of Mr. Hanes’s difficulties was that Ray was more interested in discussing libel suits to be filed against magazines than in preparing his own defense. All such discussion, of course, was silly. Mr. Hanes would listen to Ray no more than a moment before he cut him off; and when Ray wrote to me about libel suits, I ignored him. This irritated him, so he liked to receive visits from J. B. Stoner, the old Ku Klux Klan lawyer and counsel for the National States Rights party. Despite Mr. Hanes’s refusal to associate with Stoner, Stoner could talk with Ray in the Memphis jail whenever he chose. And Stoner pleased Ray by telling him that he (Stoner) would file all the libel suits for Ray; that “hundreds of thousands of dollars” could be raised by the National States Rights party for Ray’s defense; that “millions of red-blooded Americans” were proud of Ray and pulling for him; and that Ray deserved and should have “not just one lawyer but a whole battery of fine lawyers.” As an old adversary of mine, Stoner told Ray that “Huie and Hanes are just using you to make money.”

Ray loved to listen to Stoner—and ultimately succumbed to him—but at first Ray was afraid of him. Ray wrote to me:

I guess Mr. Hanes is right in not wanting Stoner associated with the defense. I agree that we should leave politics out of it at this time. But Stoner wants to file the libel suits right now, while Mr. Hanes wants to put the libel suits off till after the trial. I want the libel suits filed now. In fact I want the libel suits filed at the same time that you publish how much people who have known me like me. So while I’m not going to push Stoner in on Mr. Hanes in the main case, I’m going to retain Stoner to file the libel suits. Also Stoner says he can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for me if I need it. But Mr. Hanes is right about keeping Stoner and politics out of the main case. I don’t want to use politics in my defense unless I have to.

Ray loved to hear Stoner tell him that he deserved “a battery of fine lawyers.” Because Ray kept informed about his competition: he read and watched the publicity in the Sirhan case. He had noted that Sirhan had a “battery” of no fewer than three famous lawyers. So Ray thought he deserved three lawyers, at least one of whom should be famous.

What Stoner said about raising money interested Ray’s two brothers. In August and September 1968, John Ray’s tavern in St. Louis was an unofficial Wallace-for-President headquarters. So John and Jerry Ray decided that, if their fellow Wallaceite, Stoner, could raise “hundreds of thousands” for the slayer of Dr. King, then they ought to be able to raise “thousands.” They came to Memphis, where a lawyer drew up a “legal plan” whereby they could appeal for contributions to be deposited in a bank as a “nationwide defense fund.” They held a press conference, called for contributions and waited. After a week of waiting, with no contributions to deposit, they went back to St. Louis.

This publicized failure of his brothers to raise money was a bitter dose for James Ray. But he rationalized that what had defeated his brothers was the publicity about how I was paying $30,000 to him and Mr. Hanes.

Noting how Ray’s brothers had come to Memphis expecting a “golden rain” to fall on them and remembering that Ray had kept in contact with his brothers before the murder, Mr. Hanes suggested to me that the expectation of this “golden rain” could have been the motive for the murder. We had learned early in the investigation that Ray had not been paid after the murder; later we learned that he had not expected to be paid. Not in the usual manner of a hired assassin. So couldn’t he have murdered Dr. King in the expectation that, after he was caught, he and his brothers would be the beneficiaries of a “golden rain”? We weighed the “golden rain” theory for a while, then discarded it.

Ray had to swallow his bitterest dose about October 1. His trial, put off until after the election, was set to begin November 12, 1968. Early in September Mr. Hanes filed his “discovery motions.” In all states of the United States the defense has a right to a pretrial examination of the “physical evidence” the state expects to use against the defendant. In addition, the state must furnish the defense a list of all witnesses it expects to call. Tennessee may have the most liberal “discovery statute” in the union. Under it there is very little the state can hide from defense counsel. Late in September Mr. Hanes was permitted to examine all the physical evidence against Ray—the Mustang, the rifle, the fingerprints, the fatal bullet, and the items found in Ray’s zipper bag which was dropped with the rifle. This examination was a sobering experience for Mr. Hanes. When he saw what the state had and compared it to the little he had, he shuddered.

Normally, when a white man in the South has murdered a white or Negro civil rights advocate, the defendant never speaks at the trial. He is more of a spectator than a participant. While the state presents its witnesses, the defense lawyers, by cross-examination and innuendo, try to show the sympathetic jurors that “reasonable doubt” remains as to the identity of the killer. When their turn comes, the defense lawyers present a parade of alibi witnesses: men and women who perjure themselves by swearing that they saw the defendant somewhere else while the killing was being done. Then comes a parade of character witnesses: preachers, public officials, and ordinary folks testifying to the spotless character and nonviolent nature of the defendant. And that’s the trial, except for the summation, the final attack on the victim and all such “Communists and atheists” who are trying to change “the Southern way of life.”

That’s the sort of trial Arthur Hanes understands. But, in trying to defend Ray, he would have no alibi or character witnesses. He could discredit only one state witness, Charles Stephens. He could argue with the ballistics and fingerprint experts. Then he could present Solomon Jones and Cornbread Carter to say they thought the shot came from the “bushes.”

Would he present Ray as a witness? In the United States the state cannot call a defendant to the witness stand: the defendant testifies only if he is called by the defense or if he insists on testifying against the advice of his counsel. Well, what could Ray say in his own defense? He suggested to Mr. Hanes that he might take the stand and say that he thought he and Raoul were at the rooming house to show the Remington rifle to some prospective Mexican or Cuban purchasers; and that at 6:01 P.M. he was sitting in the Mustang when he was surprised to hear a shot, after which Raoul came running down the stairs, threw down the rifle, and he and Ray drove off.

No defense lawyer in his right mind would willingly put Ray on the stand to tell that story. Every juror would know that the Remington rifle can be purchased anywhere in the United States, so why would Mexicans or Cubans be looking at a Remington rifle in a Memphis rooming house? And in Tennessee the penalty for aiding and abetting a felony is the same as for committing the felony. So how could Ray help himself by saying that he was trying to sell a Remington rifle and that he didn’t fire the shot but he aided the man who did?

“You have the right to testify,” Mr. Hanes told Ray. “But you can’t testify with me as your lawyer. If you insist on testifying, you can discharge me now and get another lawyer. If, during the trial, you insist on testifying, I’ll inform the court that you wish to proceed against my advice, and I’ll ask to be discharged as your counsel. As long as I’m your lawyer, my duty is to defend you to the best of my ability. I can’t perform that duty if I allow you to testify. Any defense lawyer who allowed you to testify would be further jeopardizing you, not trying to help you.”

After Mr. Hanes had examined the physical evidence and weighed it against the defense possibilities, he went to Ray’s cell and said:

Old Buddy, it’s my duty now to lay it on the line with you. I’ve spent ten weeks trying to build a defense for you. You haven’t helped me much. Now here’s the situation. Capital punishment is still legal in Tennessee. They haven’t used their electric chair since 1960. But that doesn’t mean that they won’t use it. I believe I can keep them from using it on you. But I can’t be sure. With all the evidence that exists against you, there is no way you can go to trial on a not guilty plea without risking a death sentence. The people of Tennessee are talking a lot about law and order now. They are tired of so much crime. So this could be the time that they decide to use the chair again.

Now what do you want to do? You say there was a conspiracy, but you have given me no evidence of it. You say you had an accomplice, but I’ve seen no sign of him trying to help you. How about telling me the truth about the conspiracy and the accomplice and let me make a deal for you? Or do you want to change your plea to guilty or to not guilty by reason of insanity?

What I’m telling you is this: I’ll go to trial with you on a not guilty plea. I think I can save your life. I see some chance of a compromise sentence like thirty years. I see some chance of a mistrial. I see no chance whatever of an acquittal. But what you must understand is that unless you give me more information, or unless we change your plea, we must risk you going to the electric chair!

Now you think about it. Tell your brothers if you want to. They won’t even come to see me, much less cooperate with me. And tell me what you want to do.

Subsequently Ray informed Mr. Hanes that he would tell him nothing more, that he’d risk the death penalty. But from that point on, Mr. Hanes suspected that Ray and his brothers were planning to discharge him as a means of delaying the trial until the spring of 1969.

W. Preston Battle, the judge assigned to the Ray case, was a scholarly man, a reformed alcoholic who at sixty neither drank nor smoked. He despised Arthur Hanes, who is a courteous and decent man, and he hated me. He went out of his way to slander me from the bench. I didn’t hate him. I treated him respectfully, spoke to him candidly and thought that his assignment to the Ray case was a mistake. He was unsure of himself. He was overly concerned with the “image of Tennessee.” He told me three times that he had been ashamed of Tennessee’s image since the Scopes “monkey” trial in 1928 and that it was his destiny to improve the state’s image by his correct handling of the Ray case. I told him that my folks had lived near the Alabama-Tennessee border for eight generations, that we didn’t think Tennessee’s image was all that bad, and that perhaps he shouldn’t overexert himself to correct it. I had two extended conversations with him and, had he not died suddenly in March 1969, I would report these conversations in full. But since he is no longer alive to continue the conflict, I will report little more than what I said to him. I showed him the contract between me and Ray. Then I said:

I don’t want any secrecy about this contract, Judge. I’m showing it to you, and I’ll show it to any reporter w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• New Foreword
• Foreword to the 1997 Edition
• Prologue to the 1977 Edition
• One
• Two
• Three
• Four
• Five
• Six
• Seven
• Eight
• Nine
• Ten
• Afterword: The First Great Checkbook Journalist
• Appendix: Letters to James Earl Ray
• Chronology
• Works
• Index