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ORDERS TO KILL -- THE TRUTH BEHIND THE MURDER OF MARTIN LUTHER KING

Chapter 28: Setbacks and Surprises: April 16-October 30, 1994

YEARS EARLIER JOHN McFERREN HAD TOLD ME (as he had also told writer Bill Sartor in 1968) about an incident that occurred shortly after James's capture in 1968. He was produce shopping in Palazolla's market store when suddenly the manager saw him and began to cry. Startled, McFerren asked one of the black employees (Robert Tyus), whom he knew as Old Pal, what the problem was. Old Pal took him aside and explained that seeing him must have reminded Mr. Palazolla about the death of his teenage son. The boy had had a stall in Frank Liberto's LL&L wholesale produce store in the market at 815 Scott Street and might have learned too much about Liberto's involvement in the killing of Dr. King. Shortly after McFerren had given his statement setting out the conversation he overheard on April 4, in which Liberto told someone "to shoot the son of a bitch when he comes on the balcony," the Palazolla boy died, supposedly in an automobile accident. By making his statement McFerren had put Frank Liberto clearly in the frame with regard to the King killing. The tightly knit section of the Italian community involved in the produce business knew about McFerren's allegations. Old Pal implied that the death was arranged by Liberto to ensure his silence.

I had long been unable to corroborate this death. When I asked Ken Herman to check it out in 1992 he told me that there was no record of it. Over the years McFerren had become unable to remember the details of the incident. Then, when I asked him about the management of the Palazolla operation, McFerren spontaneously said that Mr. Bob Palazolla, who was running the business for his father, was the one who cried. McFerren said he remembered now that he was told that Mr. Palazolla broke down because the death of his son was somehow associated with him learning information about Liberto's role in the killing of Dr. King. Robert Chapman, a restaurateur who was a friend of Wayne's and a longtime large-volume customer of the Palazolla Produce Company, offered to ask Michael Palazolla, who currently runs the business, about the death of a youngster around that time. He was told that family patriarch Walter had a grandson who had died as a teenager. Walter's son, the boy's father, was Bob Palazolla. John agreed to try to locate 'Old Pal' and see what further information he could obtain.

***

ON APRlL 22, 1994 I left for Dallas to meet with oil man H. L. Hunt's former chief aide John Curington. We would meet again the following November 6, at which time he brought along Clyde Lovingood a former aide and close friend of Mr. Hunt. Months earlier I had instructed one of my investigators Jim Johnson, to raise certain preliminary questions with him when he was available to be interviewed. In meetings that lasted more than thirteen hours, he expanded considerably on the information he'd given my investigator and offered many new revelations on the billionaire oil man's close ties to several of the institutions and individuals that were emerging as having involvement in the conspiracy -- in particular the FBI and the Mafia.

Curington had worked for Hunt Oil for fifteen years and for nearly thirteen of these had worked for H. L. Hunt personally, occupying the office right next to him, only by a door, which usually stood open. As was not unusual with such an employer, he frequently worked eighteen-hour days and seven-day weeks and often traveled with him. In such a position few things should have escaped his notice.

As he explained it, he was basically Mr. Hunt's "follow-through" guy. He did whatever was necessary to get a job done. While not engaging in the dirty work himself, he made the arrangements at the old man's request. My investigator had said at one point that he had even referred to himself as Hunt's "bag man," saying that he carried and delivered cash, sometimes in very large amounts, to any number of places, organizations, and individuals in support of right-wing activities as well as to pay for specific operations. Curington insisted that no one knew all of the old man's business since he would frequently assign confidential tasks to particular individuals whom he trusted.

Though Curington was clearly concerned about his own legal position, since he had participated in many of the illegal activities he detailed, he was remarkably frank overall. While continually referring to documents in an old brown leather suitcase, the sixty-seven-year-old Texan confirmed that a closer relationship than had ever been publicly known existed between his ex-boss and FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover. Their association went back to the early 1950s. My investigator Jim Johnson had witnessed this relationship during his boyhood visit to Monroe Waldridge's east Texas ranch. Apparently they had been poker-playing friends for many years, and their compatible right-wing political views made them allies. Hoover had even seconded a trusted FBI agent, Paul Rothermel, to Hunt as his head of security. Rothem1elleft the bureau in late 1954 and joined Hunt in 1955.

Curington was present at various meetings between the two men when Martin Luther King was discussed. Usually Hoover came to the old man's hotel room. While the two men shared a dislike for Dr. King, Hoover's animosity was more passionate and obsessive, more personal. Hoover regularly provided Hunt with a considerable amount of documentation and material to be used as ammunition against Dr. King in the oil baron's extreme right-wing, daily nationally syndicated Life Line radio broadcasts. King was a favorite and a regular target of Life Line venom, and Hoover provided the poison. Curington recalled one meeting in Chicago between Hunt and Hoover, which to the best of his recollection was held around the time of the American Medical Association national convention in the year that Milford Rouse was elected president (upon checking I learned that that convention was held in June 1967. At that meeting in Hunt's hotel room, he recalled Hunt telling Hoover that he could finish King by constantly attacking him on his daily radio broadcasts. Hoover replied that it would not work. He said the only way to stop King would be to "completely silence" him. After King's murder, Hunt acknowledged to Curington that Hoover had won that argument.

He also said that the old man had a private telephone that he kept in his desk drawer. The phone was in the name of a dead man, John McKinley. It was on this phone that he would receive and occasionally place phone calls about sensitive matters. Very few people had the McKinley phone number. Hoover was one and he would call only on this phone.

In April 1968, Life Line produced a fifteen-minute daily program, six days a week, on 429 stations in 398 cities across America. Between 1967 and 1968 Hunt spent nearly $2,000,000 on this program alone. Curington revealed that the entire effort, as well as other shadowy, often deeply covert political activity, was funded by monies diverted by Hunt from H.L.H. Products Inc. Curington ran this company, which the "old man" had established as a front for funding such political activity. This is why Curington found charges of embezzlement made by Hunt's sons Bunker and Herbert and nephew Tom Hunt in 1969 against himself and Paul Rothermel hard to take: funds were routinely siphoned off, and kickbacks from purchasers were collected and diverted, on the old man's instructions. James's former lawyer, Percy Foreman, who also represented the Hunts, was ultimately indicted for charges connected with the wiretapping of Hunt aides Curington and Rothermel as a part of the effort to prove the embezzlement charges.

Curington also acknowledged that his boss and Hoover shared many of the same friends, including several kingpins of organized crime. Not only was Hunt close to gamblers Frank Erickson (to whom he once owed $400,000) and Ray Ryan (who at the same time owed him a large amount), but he associated with Frank Costello (the mob's liaison to Hoover) and Meyer Lansky. Clyde Lovingood, who handled other sensitive assignments for Hunt, confirmed that he was the direct liaison with Lansky. Hunt's top-level mob ties also included Carlos Marcello and Dallas boss Joe Civello.

Subsequently, in Curington's file I found a Dallas Morning News obituary for Civello, dated January 19, 1970, which indicated that one of H.L.H. Products' senior officers, John H. Brown, was a pallbearer at Civello's funeral. Other pallbearers included Civello's Baton Rouge relatives, the Polito family, long associated with Carlos Marcello. Brown lived across the street from Civello, and when the FBI wanted an informant on Civello, Curington arranged for Brown -- with Civello's permission -- to provide innocuous bits and pieces of information, so that the Hunt relationship with both the bureau and Civello was enhanced. According to Curington, it was not as though Hoover would ever do anything contrary to Civello's interests, but he realized that information was power and he liked to know as much as possible. Hunt also knew and closely relied upon certain Houston individuals who were very close to Marcello.

In politics, he noted that Sam Rayburn, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, and his protege Lyndon Johnson were both lifelong close political assets of Mr. Hunt.

Other political allies of Hunt, and the beneficiaries of his largesse, across the nation, included John Connally in Texas and Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, who headed the right-wing Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Curington aid that all these people received payoffs or unrecorded contributions from Hunt, delivered in a variety of ways. Connally or Eastland, for example, might sell cattle to Hunt, who would vastly overpay them. He said that a Louisiana state official was the conduit for cash payments to jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters Union, whose assistance was bought for the purpose of dealing with labor problems at any of the Hunt operations. In one instance, Hoffa actually pulled the union out of a Hunt operation in Muncie, Indiana. The Teamsters connections were often used to beat up or kill people who created problems at any of the Hunt operations.

Curington also said that H. L. Hunt's daily liaison with President Lyndon Johnson on political matters was former FBI agent Booth Mooney, who was personally close to the president. Mooney not only delivered communications back and forth between Johnson and Hunt but also wrote over half of the Life Line broadcast tracts, including many of those attacking Dr. King.

Turning to the killing of Dr. King, Curington said that on the evening of the assassination, shortly after the shooting, Hoover called Hunt and advised him to cancel his anti-King "Life Line" programs that were to be aired that evening and the morning of April 5. After that call Curington said he was called to Hunt's home and given the task of putting together a team of secretaries to call the radio stations. Then on April 5, the day after the assassination, Hunt told him to make arrangements for him (Hunt) and his wife to travel to a Holiday Inn resort hotel in El Paso, Texas. The tickets were in the names of Curington and his wife, and he took Curington's American Express card with him. They checked in at the Holiday Inn on April 5 in the names of john and Mary Ann Curington. Curington said the hotel was on 6655 Gateway East, El Paso. Providing a copy of the hotel bill, Curingtoll pointed out that before Hunt checked out of the Holiday Inn in El Paso, Texas on April 6 he engaged in a lengthy long-distance telephone call. Curington speculated that whoever was on the other end of that call must have given Hunt a grave message, which caused him to leave the hotel suddenly. He then disappeared for about ten day's. In my review of sections of the Hunt organization file provided to me by Curington, I found a memo that Curington stated had been prepared by Paul Rothermel dated April 9, 1968. It revealed that Martin Luther King was very much on his mind on the morning of April 6. It began, "At 6:50 a.m. April 6, Mr. Hunt called from El Paso, Texas and said that a book on Martin Luther King absolutely had to be written." He wanted the book to prove King "... to be practically a communist ..." The memo recorded a further call at 8:00 a.m. and even "several times" more leaving messages "... always to the effect that the book must be written ..." Hunt was noted as suggesting that the book be called "The Career of King or Martin Luther King."

Curington said he also spoke with Hunt that morning, and all he wanted to talk about was the book on King. Then after a full weekend of work on the project he called it off as abruptly as he began. Curington speculated that someone, perhaps Hoover, pointed out to him that he should distance himself from King at that time and not call attention to his animosity toward him. It is clear that H. L. Hunt was enormously preoccupied with Dr. King during that first weekend after his death.

By the end of our session, I concluded that John Curington, twenty-five years later, still appeared to be in awe of the man who he said moved on an entirely different level from "the rest of us."

***

THAT LAST WEEK IN APRIL I flew from Dallas to Miami and met Jim Johnson at the Hilton in Fort Lauderdale. He had spent the day talking with Harry, the American Indian with whom Rosenson had said he traveled to Mexico for various types of smuggling and gunrunning operations. In 1968 Harry lived in Miami and owned a white Mustang. Johnson told me that he was convinced that he was Raul. I thought it unlikely. The next morning I interviewed him for four hours. Though he had been involved in a wide range of covert activities for government agencies, Carlos Marcello, and even the Dixie Mafia (a loosely knit group of professional criminals- or-hire), he was clearly not Raul. Like many others, however, he may have come into contact with individuals who had some connection to the King killing.

Next I traveled to New Orleans to interview Randy Rosenson to see if he could identify the high-level Tennessee state official as the man who, just prior to him being interviewed by the HSCA in Richmond, Virginia, had urged him to admit knowing Ray. He was unable to do so.

***

A PAROLE HEARING FOR James was set for May 25. This would be the first time he had appeared before the board. Such hearings are confined to a review of conduct during time served and other factors related to an assessment of whether or not a person should be released. They are not concerned with any determination of guilt or innocence. I had no doubt that the decision would be made on purely political grounds and that the board would have made its decision before the hearing began. Consequently, we decided to use this hearing as a forum to focus on James's innocence.

I was struck by the extent of media coverage, which included Court TV broadcasting throughout and extensive newspaper coverage, particularly in light of the fact that Jowers's admissions on network television had been virtually ignored. Jim Lawson and Hosea Williams testified in favor of James being released. James's former wife Anna was her usual vitriolic self in opposition. Attorney general John Pierotti -- attending, so I was told, his first parole hearing -- read from a prepared text and waxed on about the terrible loss of Dr. King. He maintained that James could never even in a hundred years repay his debt to society. Being well aware of the politics represented by the attorney general, I was sickened.

I challenged the board to act independently of the governor who appointed them and who had publicly expressed his wish that they deny parole, and also to disavow the previous statements of the board's former executive director, who said James would not be paroled unless he admitted guilt. After three hours of the board focusing on James's past record, it became clear that the decision had indeed been made before the hearing began. In fact, this was confirmed by a slip of the tongue of one of the members near the end of the hearing. Parole was denied. James was told he could apply again in five years after he had served a full thirty years. James, understandably, reacted angrily.

At a post-hearing press conference, in response to a question about the testing of the rifle, Pierotti made the extraordinary statement that he didn't know if James was guilty and he didn't have to prove it. So much for the requirement that prosecutors shall be primarily concerned with justice.

I was more convinced than ever that our best hope lay in Judge Brown's courtroom. Judge Brown had been pressing us for some time to submit our draft order for the testing of the rifle and the bullets in evidence. I believed it likely that once the judge granted our request the state would appeal his order and seek a delay pending review. It had therefore seemed advisable to submit our motion after the parole hearing so that the parole board would rule prior to any setback in the appellate courts, which I thought was distinctly possible.

***

I RETURNED HOME TO ENGLAND only to turn around eight days later and fly back to Memphis to prepare for the test-firing of the rifle which we planned to attempt on Monday morning, June 6. The judge had ordered the rifle to be tested in Shelby County (preferably at the sheriffs department firing range), but there was no adequate facility there to accomplish this. After consulting with our ballistics expert, Chuck Morton, I decided to build one myself in a designated area at the sheriffs range. We acquired a 600-pound bale of cotton and seventeen 2' X 3' X 1.5' cardboard boxes, which I planned to pack with cotton and join together to form a cotton tunnel receptacle into which the experimental bullets would be fired by investigator Cliff Dates, who had agreed to be the shooter. I bought a box of 150-grain Remington soft points bullets and at Morton's suggestion another box of bronze tips, or military bullets. He advised firing the different bullets in alternate fashion, with each test-fire being retrieved and sealed in an evidence packet before the next one was fired.

Local teacher Wallace Milam, who was knowledgeable about trace element analysis in general and the process of neutron activation analysis in particular, agreed to coordinate the taking of lead samples from the evidence bullets, to weigh and seal them, and then deliver them to a designated laboratory. It would have been preferable, of course, to have the chemist performing the analysis collect the sample himself, and I would have preferred to have Chuck Morton present at all stages of the ballistics test activity, but there were simply no funds available for this.

***

AROUND 10:30 THAT SATURDAY evening (June 4) I received a call from Nathan Whitlock, who had known Frank Liberto in the 1970s, and who I heard had been told by Liberto himself that he had arranged to have King killed. Whitlock usually drove a cab at night; on that evening he was driving a limousine and I rode with him so we could talk. He told me about his conve sation with "Mr. Frank" (Frank C. Liberto) some sixteen years earlier. He said that his mother, Lavada, had owned a restaurant that lay on the route between Liberto's home and his LL&L produce company business in the Scott Street market. Nearly every day the produce man would stop in there for breakfast in the morning on his way to LL&L and for drinks in the afternoon on his way home. Nathan said that when he had had a few drinks, Liberto took to baring his soul to Lavada. She would often leave her post at the bar, sit down at a table, and talk with him. His conversation ranged from complaints about his wife (who he said was a compulsive gambler) and his girlfriend (who he said was only interested in his money) to his admission that he arranged for the killing of Martin Luther King. Nathan said that when his mother told him about this he became upset that Mr. Frank would involve his mother in this "gangster" talk. Nathan played guitar and used to travel, but in between trips he would help out in the restaurant, where he would often serve beer to Mr. Frank. Occasionally he would play the guitar for him -- Liberto, he said, liked to hear "Malaguena." Nathan would sometimes also drive Liberto's truck back to the market to pick up something Liberto had forgotten. For these favors Liberto would tip him ten or twenty dollars.

Nathan said Liberto wanted to appear to be a big shot around him. He showed off a thick roll of bills and a jade, diamond, and gold ring purportedly given to him by Elvis Presley. They became reasonably friendly. Liberto told Nathan that his relationship with his mother reminded him of Liberto's relationship with his own mother.

Another customer of the restaurant once quietly advised Nathan to be careful since Liberto was in the Mafia. Nathan, who was about eighteen at the time, once asked Liberto if indeed he was in the Mafia and what the Mafia was, anyhow. Liberto told him that the Mafia was a group of businessmen who "took care of business." He added that as a youngster he used to push a vegetable cart with Carlos Marcello in New Orleans. At the time this meant nothing to Nathan because he didn't know who Marcello was.

Because he was upset about Mr. Frank's conversation with his mother, he decided to confront him. One afternoon in 1978, just before Nathan was scheduled to go away on a trip, Liberto came in and ordered a beer and sat down at a table in front of his photograph, which hung on the wall along with those of other regular patrons. Nathan engaged the 300-pound produce dealer in conversation and then asked him directly if he had killed Dr. King. He said Mr. Frank looked as though he was going to be sick to his stomach. He immediately asked Nathan if he was wired. The boy thought Liberto wanted to know if he was on drugs, which he denied.

Then Liberto said, "You've been talking to your mother, haven't you?" Nathan admitted that he had, and Liberto then told him, "I didn't kill the nigger, but I had it done."

Nathan said, "Well, that S.O.B. is taking credit for it," (referring to James), to which Liberto responded, "Oh, he wasn't nothing but a troublemaker from Missouri." He added that James was a "front man," a "set-up man." Then Nathan said Mr. Frank turned on him, saying, "You don't need to know about this," and after jumping to his feet and drawing his right hand back as though to hit him, he said, "Don't you say nothin,' boy," and glared at him. He stomped around, thinking for a minute or so, and then said, "You're going to Canada, aren't you?" Nathan said he was. Liberto became quiet and Nathan went to the back of the restaurant to take care of something. When he returned, Liberto's beer was still on the table but Mr. Frank was gone.

He never saw Liberto again, but in early 1979 during his trip his mother sent him a letter stating that Frank Liberto had died. Nathan said he was somewhat sad because they had parted with some hostility between them.

On Monday Nathan gave me a written account of his encounter with Frank Liberto and also showed me photographs of Liberto sitting at a table in his mother's restaurant. (See photograph #18.)

Sometime later Nathan would tell this story directly to the attorney general, after which he was interrogated by members of Pierotti's staff. He said they tried to break down his account, but he stuck to his guns. (Later both Nathan and his mother told their stories under oath.)

***

ON JUNE 5, WAYNE CHASTAIN and I met for the first time with Willie Akins. In a three-hour session he discussed how he had come to know Loyd Jowers and how he gradually learned about Jowers's involvement in the killing. He basically confirmed the acts of violence against Betty but cast them in a different context. He said that he never took a contract on her life but admitted that he had fired shots into Betty's sofa late one afternoon -- but not because he was trying to kill her. He wouldn't have missed if he was really trying to kill her. He had been going with her at the time and found her with someone else on the sofa when he came in. He said that the cause of the later incident, in the early 1980s, was his anger with her for intruding when he was with another woman in a bus belonging to Jowers.

It appeared that Jowers had only fairly recently begun to open up to him regarding the King case. He said that on the evening John Edginton's documentary aired in the States (in which Earl Caldwell spoke about seeing a figure in the bushes), Jowers called him and said, "Big N [Jowers always called him that, he said it stood for Big Nigger], you know that figure in the bushes he talked about -- that was me."

Akins left me in no doubt that he had come to learn that Betty's story was true. Jowers was out in the bushes at the time of the shooting. He said that on one occasion Jowers told him that the person who could do him the most damage was the chauffeur. He was, of course, referring to the long-missing Solomon Jones. Akins also commented on the whereabouts of the actual murder weapon, contending that so far as he understood it, Jowers had kept control of it for a period of time. He said he believed that even today lowers knew where the gun was. I thought that was unlikely, considering the fact that Jowers was probably a low-level participant.

Akins continued to pay lip service to the story about being asked to get rid of Frank Holt. My sense was that Akins had pieced part of the story together but that Jowers certainly had not told him everything.

Although he was clearly lying about some things, Akins's in- formation only added more corroboration to Jowers's involvement. The question still remaining about the actual killing, however, was whether or not he had been out there alone and whether he himself had pulled the trigger. I increasingly believed that the answer to both questions was no. Someone, or some others, were there as well.

***

THAT MONDAY MORNING, June 6, after having breakfast with Nathan Whitlock, I went out to the sheriffs range with investigator Cliff Dates and began to build the bullet trap. Wayne went along to court with Wallace Milam and his associate.

Dates and I were in the process of hand-packing the boxes when a sheriffs deputy came out to tell us that there would be no firing of the rifle that day. The attorney general had requested that an FBI ballistics expert be present, and this would require time to arrange. Though this issue had never been raised before, the judge thought it was a reasonable request and granted it, not only with respect to the ballistics firing but also the taking of the lead sample for trace element analysis. Once again we were on hold. I returned to London.

While Dates and I had been at the rifle range, a man named Robert McCoy arrived at the courthouse looking for me. He had driven all the way from Milwaukee to tell me his story. Being unable to find me he returned home, leaving a message on Chastain 's answering machine. I spoke to him five days later on June 11. He said he believed that in 1967, as an eighteen-year-old black civil rights activist in Carthage, Mississippi, he had stumbled on the conspiracy to kill Dr. King. The local sheriff regarded him as a troublemaker and had picked him up on the evening of December 1 on a phoney charge. This allowed them to hold him until an FBI agent was brought in to interview him. McCoy said they threatened to put him away unless he agreed to go undercover and work for them. In order to get out of the tight spot he was in, he agreed. The agent pulled out a black book and asked him about a number of black leaders and their influence on local movements. Specifically, they wanted him to become involved with the SCLC and to keep them informed about Dr. King's movements and when he would be returning to Mississippi.

He said they were very interested in whether he had heard anything about Dr. King running for president or vice president with Robert Kennedy. After leaving the sheriff's office, McCoy fled the area. Eventually he went to Wisconsin. McCoy's experience only made it more evident how concerned the bureau and its allies were over the possible national political plans of Dr. King.

Early the following week the attorney general notified us that an FBI ballistics expert would be in Memphis on Thursday, June 16, in order to observe the test-firing of the rifle as well as the taking of lead scrapings from the evidence bullet and the death slug. At the same time, however, Pierotti indicated that he was going to appeal Judge Brown 's interlocutory order allowing ballistics testing and the proffer of evidence by the defense.

I left London on Wednesday to carry out the testing, but by the time I arrived, a stay had been granted by the Court of Criminal Appeals. There was little else to do but hold a press conference in order to object to the bad faith of the attorney general. He had obtained a delay on what appeared to be the pretext of getting an FBI expert to attend the testing, allowing him time to obtain a stay. We prepared a motion requesting that we be allowed to proceed.

Wayne and I met the local press corps. Two TBI agents sat off to one side taking notes during the entire press conference. I stated that the desperate action of the attorney general was a continuation of the historical cover-up of the truth and angrily challenged them to ask Pierotti why he was so afraid of allowing the weapon to be tested. In their session with the attorney general, the local reporters went no further than to ask him how he thought I could get this evidence out in the open. He replied tersely that I could always publish. It seemed to me that this might indeed be our best way forward now.

I also advised the media that I was going to ask the United States attorney general to enter the case, not by means of a Justice Department investigation but rather by empowering a federal grand jury to hear testimony. The following week this request was formalized.

Once again I had that old feeling -- the fix was in. My apprehension increased when Wayne gave me a set of the state's motion papers. In sworn affidavits Pierotti had stated that our testing would "irretrievably damage evidence" (categorically untrue), rendering it unavailable for "future proceedings." Would the court of appeals be naive enough to accept this rationale?

***

I WENT TO SEE Art Hanes, Sr., and Art Hanes, Jr. (now a judge). I hadn't seen them in sixteen years but they graciously received me on short notice. I thought it would be useful to obtain any remaining defense file materials that could assist James. I was out of luck. In 1977 their entire file containing all of their initial investigation interview statements was sent off to the HSCA and never returned. Subsequently, it was sealed with the rest of the HSCA investigative files. This meant that James's subsequent attorneys who were entitled to receive that file would be barred from having and using it. This was one more example of a violation of James's sixth amendment right to a full and fair defense.

***

WAYNE CHASTAIN AND I finalized the response to the attorney general's appeal against Judge Joe Brown 's decision to allow a proffer of evidence in support of James's actual innocence.

The Tennessee court of appeals had set August 16 for oral argument of the state's appeal. Since I had a conflict on that date we submitted a motion for a one-week continuance. It was denied because the court ruled that my admission on motion to appear before the lower court in this case was not binding on the appellate courts in the state. Thus, I would have to apply separately to each state appellate court, and there wasn't time. Wayne had never heard of this technicality being asserted before. Consequently, Wayne appeared alone and argued. As expected, the court was hostile. A ruling was promised in September.

I decided to open up another legal front and bring a civil action against Loyd Jowers on behalf of James. Jowers had, after all, actually admitted on national prime-time television that he played a key role in the case for which James had spent twenty-five years in prison. Jowers had also publicly admitted that James was a patsy and did not know what was going on. Thus Jowers's acts and his continued silence had resulted in the unjust imprisonment of James.

We filed the complaint for the civil suit against Loyd Jowers, Raul _____ and other unknown parties on Thursday, Au gust 25. We alleged that Jowers had participated in the tort of conspiracy as a result of which James had been deprived of his liberty and been wrongly imprisoned for twenty-five years. On top of that we added the newly developed ancillary tort of outrage, which was justified by the very nature and continuation of the wrongful acts. Damages sought were $6,500,000 actual and compensatory and $39,500,000 punitive.

***

BACK IN LONDON IN SEPTEMBER, we came across a photograph in the Commercial Appears pictorial history, I Am A Man. [2] It was a shot of MPD officer Louis McKay guarding the bundle in Canipe's doorway. At first glance I thought I had seen this photo dozens of times before. Then I noticed that unlike other photo graphs 1 had seen, this shot was taken looking south toward the fire station, and in the background in the upper right was a hedge running down to the sidewalk between the parking lot and the fire station. I was curious. Although there had been rumors of a hedge in that spot we had never seen any photographs of it. Upon checking the evidence photographs from the attorney general's office, this hedge did not appear standing in any of the evidence photos. Then I came across a photograph of the hedge having been cut down to its very roots. I was amazed, and wondered how I could have overlooked it before. From all of the other photographs one would never know that a hedge had ever been there. The significance, of course, is that the official investigators had contended that on leaving the rooming house James had seen a police car parked up near the sidewalk which caused him to panic and drop the bundle. As we have seen, there was no police car in this position (it being parked about sixty-feet back from the sidewalk) but even if there had been, the hedge would have obstructed the view and made the official story untenable.

It was clear as could be, At the time of the killing a hedge was there. Sometime shortly thereafter (probably the next morning when the bushes at the rear of the rooming house were cut) it was cut to the ground and all trace of its existence obliterated. The photograph which Ewing used for illustrative purposes at the television trial showed a police car in clear view pulled up to the sidewalk. That photograph and others like it must have been staged, taken after the scene had been physically altered. In fact, in the staged photographs where the billboards are visible the billboard advertisements are different from the ones in place on the day of the killing and the day after. The photographs of the cut hedge reveal the same billboard ads as those in place at the time of the killing. Further confirmation of the existence of the hedge is provided by the HSCA drawing of the crime scene (MLK Exhibit F- 9) [1] which actually depicts it in place. Later, former fireman William King also confirmed the existence of the hedge. So it was not only the rear brush area of the rooming house that had been changed to suit the state's case but the South Main Street side as well. (See photographs #20, 21, and 23.) It was scandalous, but par for the course.

BY A 2 TO 1 VOTE the court of appeals made permanent the temporary restraining stay that prevented us from testing the weapon, and also prevented Judge Brown from holding the evidentiary hearing that would have allowed us to present a wide range of evidence. Strangely enough, a vitriolic dissent was written by Judge Summers, who had signed the initial stay. In his dissent he said that it was outrageous that the appellate court should go so far as to actually overrule a trial court judge's historic right to control evidence in his court. The judge thought it was a dangerous and unconstitutional action and indicated that we (defense counsel) would be derelict in our duty if we did not appeal the matter to the Supreme Court. We filed an appeal requesting an emergency hearing.

CHASTAIN, I, AND LOCAL INTERMEDIARY Thurston Hill finally met with Willie Crawford in his living room, where we visited for over an hour. I wanted to ask him about the cutting down of the hedge as well as about who from the MPD actually oversaw the cutting of the brush.

During the course of this session, the retired former Memphis sanitation department supervisor alternately praised Dr. King and denied being anywhere near the brush area behind the rooming house at any time. There was, he said, no way that he was part of a two-man cleanup team dispatched to raze the area which backed on to Mulberry Street and overlooked the Lorraine. He admitted knowing Dutch Goodman, who Director Stiles had said was the other member of the team, but denied that he would be sent on such a duty. He kept insisting that their total focus was on picking up garbage and not cutting down weeds.

When I confronted him with Stiles's comments, he became aggravated and defensive in his denial. Anyway, he said, the right man was in jail and none of this mattered anyway. He also denied making any admission of being there to Ken Herman, who had reported such a statement to me prior to the trial. Crawford was obviously frightened and determined not to admit having been on the scene.

***

JIM LAWSON'S OLD FRIEND JOHN T. FISHER represents the old-time Memphis establishment and wealth. They had become friends at the time of the sanitation workers' strike. Lawson suggested that I speak with him to get a first-hand account of his conversation with Percy Foreman in January 1969 as they sat next to each other on a flight from Houston to Memphis.

Fisher pulled no punches. He said that Foreman was very direct. He said that he had made a mistake agreeing to represent Ray. He did not, as a rule, represent white trash because they couldn't pay. He said that he was going to get rid of Ray for good by arranging for him to plead guilty. Then, because of the virtual impossibility of opening up the case again under Tennessee law, Ray would be inside and out of his hair for good. Foreman told him that it made no difference whether Ray was guilty or not -- he was going to finish him.

Fisher had been astounded and not a little uncomfortable about a lawyer talking that way about his client. He said it was deplorable and that he was willing to provide a sworn statement.

***

ON THE DAY OF OCTOBER 15, I drove out to the Shelby County Correctional Center -- the "Penal Farm" -- in order to meet with Arthur Wayne Baldwin. I had wanted to talk to Art Baldwin for a very long time, having first heard about him as a result of Tim Kirk 's first affidavit in 1978 concerning a contract on James's life. The timing had never been right. For a number of years Baldwin had been on top of the world, running a very lucrative topless club in Memphis. During those years he certainly was not approachable. Then, when he came under the control of the federal government in their effort to convict Governor Ray Blanton and members of his staff, he was, if anything, more unavailable. Not seeing a way through to him during all of this time, I just waited.

Now, sixteen years later, Art Baldwin appeared to be at his lowest point ever, having been locked up for a relatively minor theft. I thought that this would be as good a time as any to meet him face-to-face but I was prepared to be disappointed. I wasn't.

Sitting in the small attorney's-interview room, with several days' growth of beard, Baldwin was soft-spoken and alert. He said that he now sympathized with James. He volunteered having heard that James was assisted in escaping from Brushy Mountain Penitentiary in June 1977 and that he was not supposed to be brought back alive. I told him that I had also come to believe that this was the case. (I had been told by Steve Jacks, James's counselor at the time, that the tower nearest the escape route had been unmanned, and I was aware of the large FBI SWAT team which took up their positions immediately after the escape.) I told him that it seemed that some people feared what James might have testified to before the HSCA. At the time of the escape the committee's investigation was just getting underway. Baldwin nodded. Referring to the escape, he said, "They tried to get me that way too." He then went on to describe how during his sentence in Nashville, after he had finally turned down the "Ray contract" (believing that he was being set up), he was offered an opportunity to escape but refused because he learned that a team of shooters was waiting for him just outside the walls.

He then told me about two contracts on James's life with which he was involved. The first, he now clarified for me, came from the "Memphis Godfather" who in 1977 told him that the people in New Orleans wanted this matter cleared up once and for all. He quoted him as saying that the killing had been botched up. Ray was supposed to have been killed in Memphis. The Godfather reportedly said, "One, two, three, bam," slamming his fist on the table. "It was simple." Since it didn't get done as planned it had been an embarrassment ever since and he wanted it ended. It was like "a stone in his shoe which he wanted out," and he said that if Baldwin could accomplish it for him he would forever be in a good position.

Baldwin was not keen to get involved but did not want to offend the man. He had been present on other occasions when the Godfather talked to produce man Frank Liberto on other matters. He said that the Godfather treated Liberto like a "puppy dog," ordering him about in brutal fashion. Baldwin said he offered the contract to Tim Kirk in a face-to-face meeting in the autumn of 1977. Some months later he raised it again with him on the telephone. This was the approach reported by Kirk. Ultimately it went nowhere.

The approach from the bureau came some months later. Though it clearly came from Washington and had to come through both the Nashville and Memphis SAC's, it was broached by one of the agents who were controlling him in 1978 at the time he was their key witness during the prosecution of Governor Ray Blanton. He said that the agent raised it with him as they drove from Memphis to Nashville during this time. The scheme proposed was that he and a state official would go to Brushy Mountain prison with transfer papers for James who ostensibly was to be moved to Nashville. They would arrive around 3 a.m. and take him. Baldwin was expected to kill James en route. They would bury him. He would go out of the Brushy Mountain population count, and since Nashville was not expecting him he would not be missed for some time. The transfer papers at Brushy Mountain would then be pulled. Baldwin said he became uneasy when he could not get answers to questions concerning how long they expected the story to be kept quiet and what the ultimate explanation was to be. He began to believe that perhaps he and even the official were to be killed as well as James. He pulled back.

He said they offered him lifetime immunity from all prosecution. The second FBI control agent also knew about the scheme, he said, and he said he heard the two agents discussing the other efforts to get rid of James (the June 10, 1977 prison escape and the Godfather's plans). James's continued presence was a sore spot for all concerned. Both the mob and the government wanted him dead because they believed that it was only his continued presence that kept questions about Dr. King's assassination alive. In their view the doubts would largely die with James.

Eventually, after James testified and nothing startling came out, the idea of killing him seemed to go away. It was not raised again and it appeared to me that perhaps all concerned had come to realize that James was not going to reveal even the peripheral information he might have learned or pieced together after the fact.

Baldwin was willing to take a lie detector test. His candor surprised me. It was obvious that he was fed up with being used by the government. His disclosure was the first time that I had heard about the Memphis Godfather's involvement in the case.

***

I NEXT WENT TO ORLANDO for one of the most sensitive meetings to date. I met for three hours on October 16 with a man whom I will call Carson, who I believed had vital information that could confirm -- and provide independent verification of -- the military presence in Memphis around the time of the sanitation workers' strike.

Carson and I fenced for some time. He was one of those bright, initially idealistic and patriotic warriors who almost inevitably reach a point where they can no longer swallow the corruption, deceit, and sheer criminal activity that often characterizes official but deniable covert operations. Carson began slowly but then opened up. His story was more than I hoped for. Because of the compatibility of the details with those emerging from other sources, it swept away any lingering doubts I had about the picture of events that was developing. I asked him to check out some details and he reluctantly agreed, being very uneasy about becoming involved. Carson agreed to fax the information to me.

Just before we ended, Carson said, "This meeting never took place." I agreed. "You have to be very careful," he said. "They'll drop you where you stand."

***

NEW ORLEANS HADN'T CHANGED. It was a living testament to the consequences of the type of all-pervasive corruption that not only permeated every aspect of life but was accepted as inevitable by its citizens. There were potholes the size of which I had not seen outside of the Bronx or a third world city. Bridges were decaying, brownouts occurred regularly, and in 1994 Louisianans had the worst health in the nation. Carlos Marcello, who had treated New Orleans as his private fiefdom, had died, but the culture of crime, violence, greed, and official corruption that he institutionalized lived on.

The New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission had been forged into an active watchdog by its executive director in the 1960s, Aaron Kohn, who was now dead. Kohn was constantly critical of D.A. Jim Garrison's failure to go after organized crime or even to acknowledge its existence. In my meeting with commission investigator Tony Radosti (who, having become disgusted by the corruption, left the New Orleans police department to go to work for the commission), I learned that Kohn had also produced a highly sensitive investigatory report on the Kennedy assassination which, he said, "made a number of people in Texas very unhappy." Radosti had not seen the report, however, and did not know where it was. The commission had recently begun to restrict access to its anecdotal files as a result of lawsuits. With respect to my particular interest it was agreed that Tony would pull specific files I requested, examine them, and unless there was some reason for them to be withheld, allow me to read them. We found a very thin, basically uninformative file on the Libertos, but there was a good deal of information on the criminal activities of Marcello associate Joe "Zip" Chimento (who according to 20th SFG soldier Warren was the contact man in New Orleans for their gunrunning) and Randy Rosenson, who was often represented by Marcello's lawyer -- C. Wray Gill -- mostly concerning drug possession and dealing. I found it interesting that Carlos Marcello had yet another connection to a person who had surfaced in this case.

I found Charlie Stein in a rehabilitation hospital and inter- viewed him at length. A stroke had affected his memory but he was clear about certain things. James, whom he had known as Eric Galt, was no racist. He got along well with blacks, particularly with black women. On the trip from Los Angeles to New Orleans, James did make a telephone call to the people -- "contractors" or "engineers" -- he was to meet in New Orleans, but Stein did not observe the number he dialed. One evening in New Orleans James told him that while he (James) was in a meeting in a bar in lower Canal Street (Le Bunny Lounge), he saw Stein pass by and wanted to call to him but the person with him (presumably Raul) did not want to be seen and so he did not call out. Stein said he believed that James went to a meeting in a huge building at the end of Canal Street and that he also met with some people from Gentilly Road. (He believed that James told him about this activity but he really wasn't certain how he learned about it.)

I next spent some hours going through the New Orleans street directory in the public library and despite a brownout which interrupted the work, I learned that the big building Charlie Stein was talking about could only have been the International Trade Mart, which in 1967 was still run by none other than Clay Shaw, the long-time CIA asset prosecuted by Jim Garrison for conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. I noted the names and telephone numbers of a number of the tenant companies. Right around the corner from the Trade Mart were the offices of Buck Kreihs Machine Company, whose vice president and general manager was Salvatore J. Liberto.

As noted earlier, James had long thought that the back up Baton Rouge telephone number which Raul had given him belonged to a man named Herman Thompson who, at the time, was Baton Rogue Deputy Sheriff. Thompson was a close friend of Edward Grady Partin, the Baton Rouge Teamsters leader whose testimony for the government resulted in Jimmy Hoffa being put away on jury tampering charges. During the 1960s Ed Partin was clearly controlled by the government which had enough on him to put him away for a very long time. There had long been rumors about Partin's possible involvement in the killing.

In a telephone conversation and subsequent meeting, Doug Partin (who in 1994 was the business manager of the Baton Rouge Teamsters local number five, which had been run for years by his brother) was very candid. His brother Ed had engaged in a great deal of activity of which he disapproved and much that he knew nothing about. He surprised me by saying that it was not impossible that his brother might have had some role to play in the killing, though he had no indication of this. I asked him about Herman Thompson and he confirmed that Thompson had been a local deputy sheriff and at the time was close to his brother. He also confirmed that Ed had had a relationship with Carlos Marcello that he said was probably driven by the fact that nothing happened in Baton Rouge in those days without Ed's approval. After a local investigation, that included a discussion with a local investigative reporter who observed Partin clearly, I found no indication of any involvement of Thompson or Partin in the conspiracy.

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