Some more coincidences

[John Dolva]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"A League of Their Own:

A Look Inside the Christian Defense League

By D. Boylan

The United States during the 1950s experienced an unparalleled growth of extremist organizations from the John Birch Society on the right to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee on the left. The heating up of the Cold War, the Supreme Court's decision to end segregation in 1954, and the establishment of a Communist Cuba in 1959 spurred this growth. One of the lesser known but more influential right wing fringe organizations that were formed during this period was the Christian Defense League (CDL). The CDL managed to meld anti-communism, anti-Semitism, anti-Castro activities, and a hatred of the "liberal" policies of the Kennedy Administration into a cohesive whole. It is in this context that the CDL will be examined.

The driving forces behind the rise of the CDL were Reverend Wesley A. Swift and Colonel William Potter Gale. It seemed inevitable that they would gravitate toward each other. Their religious beliefs were similar: both were adherents of what is now called Christian Identity, an updated version of the earlier British Israelite Movement that originated in the late nineteenth century. Christian Identity adherents believe that those of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, or Aryan origin were the true Israelites, "the sons of Adam", and that those of Jewish origin were "the sons of Satan."

The origin of the Christian Defense League is clouded. Some accounts credit its founding to the Reverend Swift, while Colonel Gale gives credit to Reverend San Jacinto Capt. Capt, a Baptist minister, was one of the early pioneers in the Identity Movement. Gale says "the idea of the Christian Defense League was entirely that of Reverend San Jacinto Capt. He proposed it to me [Col. Gale] who prepared the initial material in the form of a letter entitled, "The NAACP represents the negro; the ADL represents the Jews; who represents YOU — the white Christian?" "

--------------------

"The first indication that the Swift/Gale complex was interested in more than preaching religion came from George Harding in April 1963 when he informed the FBI that he was being recruited to become part of an eight man team to assassinate three hundred public officials in high positions of government. According to WCD 39 and WCD 1107 "Harding claimed that the leaders in the group were Dr. Wesley Swift, James Shoup and others.... The second in command was a Colonel William Gale...who was supposed to have been the youngest intelligence officer under MCARTHUR (sic)."

A related incident also occurred that April. Los Angeles physician Dr. Stanley Drennan approached Captain Robert K. Brown, who was also involved in anti-Castro activities during this period, stated that "while at Drennan's home, Drennan stated in general conversation that he could not do it, but what the organization needed was a group of young men to get rid of Kennedy and the Cabinet…Brown stated that he considered the remark crackpot; however …he gained the impression that Drennan had been propositioning him on this matter. Drennan, a member of the National States Rights Party and associate of William Gale." Drennan complained in a letter to Dean Clarence Manion, a prominent member of the John Birch Society, that on June 10, 1963 two Secret Service agents visited two of his friends at 7:30 am to inquire about his "patriotism, integrity, dependability, and emotional and mental stability. These people were twenty miles East of my dwelling while I was only two miles from where the President was riding in an open convertible sitting high on the back of the seat."

The Secret Service and FBI generated another report in August 1963 by the arrest of Gale's associate George King, Jr. King was overheard discussing the possibility of assassinating the president and was later arrested that month for the sale of illegal firearms. A later FBI field report, CO2-26104 #6419, stated "King is extreme right wing, hates Jews, was arrested by ATF O'Neil for illegal possession of firearms. Emotionally unstable. Arrested 2-29-68 again. This time for CCU, John Bircher, Christian Def. League (sic), Am Nazi Party, Christian Defense League."

There was yet another pre-assassination report (November 15, 1963) of a plot to assassinate "the President and other high-level officials" by a "militant group of the National States Rights Party." The FBI dismissed the report because they felt the subject was trying to make a deal because of pending criminal charges. This was not the well-documented November 9, 1963 report of Joseph A. Milteer's accurate prediction that Kennedy would be shot "from an office building with a high powered rifle." Milteer was also a member of the NSRP and ran for governor of Georgia on the Constitution Party ticket the same year that William Gale switched from the Constitution Party to the Republican Party to run for governor of California.

Evidence suggests that Gale and Milteer were acquainted. Both attended the gathering of the Constitution Party in Indianapolis, Indiana during October 18-20, 1963. Also in attendance were notable right wing extremists General Pedro Del Valle, Curtis Dall of the Liberty Lobby, Colonel Arch Roberts who was the architect of General Edwin Walker's "Pro Blue" program in the military, Richard Cotten, editor of The Conservative Viewpoint, Jack Brown, Klan leader James Venable[28], and Kenneth Goff, Constitution Party Committee member and leader of the paramilitary group Soldiers of the Cross, a Minutemen affiliate. Goff wrote an article for The White Sentinel, that Oswald "called me, before a meeting in a Dallas hotel about a year ago (December 1962) he poured out his pro-Communist venom….His Red record was no secret to those fighting Communism in the Texas area.""

Vietnam post 36

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...indpost&p=43778

[John Dolva]

My contribution to the "Who killed J.F.K." topic:

"My theory is still 'in the making' ...

Motive : money, power, money

Capitalism is a system that depends on imbalance in the form of diverse markets. It also depends on room to grow. Where this room to grow contracts it seeks new fields and failing that takes steps to creatre them. This takes the form of wars of commercial and military nature. Whole populations and industries are wiped out, rebuilt and reorganised. War is also an impetus for technology creation. Unequal markets and instability is important. (one can say that 'Japan and Germany won WWII'. Simlarly, perhaps, in time one may be able to say 'Russia won the cold war')

The socialist revolutions of the 20th century, and the division of markets after WWII, were severely contracting the capitalist world. As such, winning the cold war was a must.

Along came Kennedy. His voice of reason and peace was perhaps the greatest enemy of rampant capitalism. (I think it was a failure to recognise that he had an agressive anti-communist stance, just not a militaristic one, rather a war for hearts and minds by example, education and judicious funding.) Kennedys approach was a radical shift. He had been warned by Eisenhower and he set about to create alternative structures to turn the US away from the confrontations that may have resulted in the destruction of the entire world. Nuclear weapons was the new factor. Contrary to Reagan's and others statements, there are no friendly atomic bombs. However to people whom I would class as sociopaths, Kennedy was an obstruction in the quest for 'divide and rule'. Kennedy was into 'unite and live'. Hence he was prepared to seriously tackle issues such as civil rights. In this environment in southern of USA, these sociopaths found ready elements of fanatics to do their bidding.

Means : hate, bigotry, strife

These right wing elements in the south, the racist bigots, could easily be manipulated as their interests and those of the 'Bankers' coincided. Someone like Walker would have been well placed as the bridge to the actual assassins. Separate but allied in common purpose were agency and gocvernment elements prepared to participate in a coverup.

Opportunity : a presidential visit to The heart of Texas, Dallas. The heart of Dallas, Dealey Plaza.

Here conflict was right up front, thus the first layer of concealment already in place. Fertile ground for conspiracy to take any of a number of directions, just not in the right one. Capital.

The population of Dallas in tight control of its Citizens Council and law enforcement. People, black and white, knew what it meant to step out of line. An area whos interests coincided with those of the 'Bankers' of the assassination. In a way here Oswald is unimportant. If it hadn't been him it would have been someone else. Similarly, Ruby was peripheral to this closed society, his non-local status combined with his Jewishness put him on the outer. He despearately wanted in. He was used and discarded.

Others that in this way were manipulated were elements of agencies, (CIA, FBI and DPD) and anti Castro activists. I don't subscrire to the Mob scenario except insofar as individuals stood to gain finacially (itsa just business), perhaps elements of rightwing union structures, but then only where membership overlapped.

The actual assassins were drawn from connections within the Dallas ruling bodies. These were likely KKK, fanatical white supremacists who had a warped view of black people, communists, catholics and Jews. they also had a secret society where members were very aware of the consequences of breaking ranks."

A three tiered conspiracy?

Top : Dispassionate practical, would never rat on self, Industry leaders?

Middle : The tie, the middleman, aspirations of moving with the top, motivated by selfish needs, momney power. Walker?

Lower : The assassins, Lumpen elements, motivated by base emotion, immediate gain. Belonging to secretive groups where betrayal means death. KKK?

Edited November 10, 2005 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Because there are connections between Bannister, Walker and the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission (staffed in part by former FBI agents, I suggest that anyone with access look at any way of getting hold of said files.

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=3852

"From AJR, April/May 2005

Out of the Past

Jerry Mitchell has an unusual beat. The reporter for Jackson, Mississippi’s Clarion-Ledger specializes in uncovering new evidence about unsolved civil rights-era murders. His stories have helped lead to arrests in long-dormant cases...

...His epiphany came in 1989 when he saw the movie "Mississippi Burning," a dramatization of the Klan killings of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner.

By the time Mitchell left the theater, the horrifying images of Klan violence had gripped his consciousness. "Frankly--I say this and my wife gets on to me--but I am a Southerner and I knew zero about the civil rights movement back then," admits the reporter, who has become a walking encyclopedia on murder, torture and intimidation in a state that once abetted brutality against its own citizens.

His parents taught him that God saw everyone as equal, but "I just didn't notice the things happening around me."

Mitchell, who joined the Clarion-Ledger in 1986, was on the courts beat when he saw that fateful movie. He continued to cover the courts but began reporting on civil rights as well. In 1994, he became an investigative reporter. Mitchell says he has "certainly written other stories, done other projects," but civil rights "has remained my devotion, so to speak."

He spent much of 1989 wheedling his way into the clandestine network that continued to shield Mississippi's past. Then came the payoff. One day, a familiar voice on the telephone said, "Come see me, Jerry." He walked away with 2,400 pages of highly secret documents from the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commis-sion, a segregationist spy agency, as he describes it.

"I loaded them into my little Honda, and when I drove away, I was higher than a kite," recalls Mitchell. "I didn't even drive back to the newsroom. I pulled over to the first pay phone, called in and said, 'I've got them.'"

The files turned out to be a bonanza, with references to Klan killings, including names and details of how they were carried out. They described the infiltration of civil rights groups and the surveillance of outsiders. "Some of it was very scary; some of it was Keystone Cops," says Mitchell, who was seeing just a tiny portion of the files. In total, there were some 132,000 pages of commission records, most of them unseen by outsiders at the time."

Edited November 10, 2005 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...indpost&p=12106

(logging a link to a couple of interesting letters posted by Jim Root)

[John Dolva]

-tailormade for the conspiratorially minded freethinking paranoiac...or is it?

(to be read in conjunction with "Ford Hardtop" topic)

If nothing else a strange set of coincidences involving people of interest...

Were things going on behind the scenes?

Frank Sinatra's daughter, Oil, Dallas, walking boots(shoes), Walker, Shreveport and a suicide.

"Barton Lee Hazlewood (born July 9, 1929 in Mannford, Oklahoma) is an American country singer, songwriter, and record producer.

The son of an oilman, Hazlewood spent most of youth living between Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Louisiana. Hazlewood spent his teenage years in Port Neches, Texas where he was exposed to a rich Gulf Coast music tradition.

Hazlewood studied for a medical degree at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

He served with the United States Army during the Korean War.

Following discharge from the military, Hazlewood worked as a disc jockey whilst honing his songwriting skills. ...

Hazlewood is perhaps most famous for writing the Nancy Sinatra hit, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"."

(Bogard (testified having been driven in car by Lee Oswald) left Dallas, and returned to Louisiana*, where he commited suicide in his car on [b]February 15, 1966[/b], leaving his shoes and a pile of JFK related papers in the car trunk)

19th Feb 1966 release - NANCY SINATRA - one hit wonder

These Boots Were Made For Walking

You keep saying you've got something for me.

something you call love, but confess.

You've been a messin' where you shouldn't have been a messin'

and now someone else is gettin' all your best.

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do

one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.

You keep lying, when you oughta be truthin'

and you keep losin' when you oughta not bet.

You keep samin' when you oughta be a changin'.

Now what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet.

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do

one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.

You keep playin' where you shouldn't be a playin

and you keep thinkin' that you'll never get burnt.

Ha!

I just found me a brand new box of matches yeah

and what he knows you ain't HAD time to learn.

These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do

one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.

Are you ready boots? Start walkin'!

*(Shreveport, General Walkers home away from home)

Edited April 11, 2007 by John Dolva

[Guest Mark Valenti]

Carlos Marcello: "Take this stone out of my shoe."

Oswald's mother worked for Burt's Shoe Store (1117 Canal Street) in New Orleans.

Oswald was a stock boy for the Dolly Shoe Store. (Warren Report, 679-80).

Edited April 11, 2007 by Mark Valenti

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Carlos Marcello: "Take this stone out of my shoe."

Oswald's mother worked for Burt's Shoe Store (1117 Canal Street) in New Orleans.

Oswald was a stock boy for the Dolly Shoe Store. (Warren Report, 679-80).

Well!

There are "coincidences", and then there are communications channel networks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date 11/26/63

Airman Second Class PALMER E. McBRIDE was interviewed at Air Police Headquarters, Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, and furnished the following signed statement:

"Patrick Air Force Base,

Florida

November 23, 1963

"In April or May, 1958, OSWALD stated he was moving to Ft. Worth, Texas, with his mother. In about August, 1958, I received a letter from him saying he was employed as a shoe salesman in Ft. Worth. In this letter he also stated he had gotten mixed up in an Anti-Negro or Anti-Communist riot on a high school grounds in Ft. Worth, Texas. OSWALD did not elaborate on this statement.

"I did not answer this letter, and I have not had further contact or communication with OSWALD.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: BURT'S SHOE STORES, INC.

Domicile Address: 1006 HIBERNIA BANK BUILDING, NEW ORLEANS, LA 70112

File Date: 10/10/1955

President: BERNARD EDISON, 501 N. BROADWAY, ST. LOUIS, MO 63102

Vice President: THOMAS MCCAIN, 501 N. BROADWAY, ST. LOUIS, MO 63102

Secretary: ERIC P. NEWMAN, 501 N. BROADWAY, ST. LOUIS, MO 63102

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Don't know exactly who "Burt" was supposed to be, but the Edison Shoe Company is quite well known.

http://www.answers.com/topic/edison-brothers-stores-inc

By the mid 1960s, Edison stores were continuing to achieve record sales and profit growth. Sales in 1964 were growing at a rate of ten percent, and the four main Edison store chains, Baker's, Chandler's, Leed's, and Burt's reported a net income of $1.15 per share, up from $1.04 per share from the year

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Anyone recall any specifics in regards to St. Louis, MO and the organized crime network?

Answer here:

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How about Jack Ruby and any connectins to St. Louis, MO?

Answer here:

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How about New Orleans, LA to St. Louis, MO connections?

Answer here:

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Other connections?

Answer here:

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A "new pair of shoes" is not necessarily a new pair of shoes!

[Kathleen Collins]

What if...the assassination had failed? What if Kennedy had emerged unscathed?

I seem to remember reading that there was a plan B if Kennedy was not shot. Apparently there was a car bomb that was to be detonated close to the motorcade.

I recall reading that there were shooters on Stemmons Freeway and at the Trade Mart. Kennedy wasn't getting out of there alive. In 3 films, including the Z-film, I think the Nix film and possibly the Bell film, you can see a man running as though his life depended on it, from the triple underpass and across to Commerce St. I dubbed him "Running Man" sometime back because he was running toward the assassination. That afternoon, the FBI received an anonymous call from a man claiming he had stood under the underpass and saw a signal and heard bullets ring out. Strangely, as he's running towards the Assassination, you can see him flinching as he gets near Kennedy's limo. Someone on another forum suggested he'd seen a baseball go up in the air. But there was also the Cuban and the Umbrella Man -- more signals. Maybe he saw a rifle at the 6th floor window (Lee Oswald, not Harvey).

Kathy

[William O'Neil]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"A League of Their Own:

A Look Inside the Christian Defense League

By D. Boylan

The United States during the 1950s experienced an unparalleled growth of extremist organizations from the John Birch Society on the right to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee on the left. The heating up of the Cold War, the Supreme Court's decision to end segregation in 1954, and the establishment of a Communist Cuba in 1959 spurred this growth. One of the lesser known but more influential right wing fringe organizations that were formed during this period was the Christian Defense League (CDL). The CDL managed to meld anti-communism, anti-Semitism, anti-Castro activities, and a hatred of the "liberal" policies of the Kennedy Administration into a cohesive whole. It is in this context that the CDL will be examined.

The driving forces behind the rise of the CDL were Reverend Wesley A. Swift and Colonel William Potter Gale. It seemed inevitable that they would gravitate toward each other. Their religious beliefs were similar: both were adherents of what is now called Christian Identity, an updated version of the earlier British Israelite Movement that originated in the late nineteenth century. Christian Identity adherents believe that those of Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, or Aryan origin were the true Israelites, "the sons of Adam", and that those of Jewish origin were "the sons of Satan."

The origin of the Christian Defense League is clouded. Some accounts credit its founding to the Reverend Swift, while Colonel Gale gives credit to Reverend San Jacinto Capt. Capt, a Baptist minister, was one of the early pioneers in the Identity Movement. Gale says "the idea of the Christian Defense League was entirely that of Reverend San Jacinto Capt. He proposed it to me [Col. Gale] who prepared the initial material in the form of a letter entitled, "The NAACP represents the negro; the ADL represents the Jews; who represents YOU — the white Christian?" "

--------------------

"The first indication that the Swift/Gale complex was interested in more than preaching religion came from George Harding in April 1963 when he informed the FBI that he was being recruited to become part of an eight man team to assassinate three hundred public officials in high positions of government. According to WCD 39 and WCD 1107 "Harding claimed that the leaders in the group were Dr. Wesley Swift, James Shoup and others.... The second in command was a Colonel William Gale...who was supposed to have been the youngest intelligence officer under MCARTHUR (sic)."

A related incident also occurred that April. Los Angeles physician Dr. Stanley Drennan approached Captain Robert K. Brown, who was also involved in anti-Castro activities during this period, stated that "while at Drennan's home, Drennan stated in general conversation that he could not do it, but what the organization needed was a group of young men to get rid of Kennedy and the Cabinet…Brown stated that he considered the remark crackpot; however …he gained the impression that Drennan had been propositioning him on this matter. Drennan, a member of the National States Rights Party and associate of William Gale." Drennan complained in a letter to Dean Clarence Manion, a prominent member of the John Birch Society, that on June 10, 1963 two Secret Service agents visited two of his friends at 7:30 am to inquire about his "patriotism, integrity, dependability, and emotional and mental stability. These people were twenty miles East of my dwelling while I was only two miles from where the President was riding in an open convertible sitting high on the back of the seat."

The Secret Service and FBI generated another report in August 1963 by the arrest of Gale's associate George King, Jr. King was overheard discussing the possibility of assassinating the president and was later arrested that month for the sale of illegal firearms. A later FBI field report, CO2-26104 #6419, stated "King is extreme right wing, hates Jews, was arrested by ATF O'Neil for illegal possession of firearms. Emotionally unstable. Arrested 2-29-68 again. This time for CCU, John Bircher, Christian Def. League (sic), Am Nazi Party, Christian Defense League."

There was yet another pre-assassination report (November 15, 1963) of a plot to assassinate "the President and other high-level officials" by a "militant group of the National States Rights Party." The FBI dismissed the report because they felt the subject was trying to make a deal because of pending criminal charges. This was not the well-documented November 9, 1963 report of Joseph A. Milteer's accurate prediction that Kennedy would be shot "from an office building with a high powered rifle." Milteer was also a member of the NSRP and ran for governor of Georgia on the Constitution Party ticket the same year that William Gale switched from the Constitution Party to the Republican Party to run for governor of California.

Evidence suggests that Gale and Milteer were acquainted. Both attended the gathering of the Constitution Party in Indianapolis, Indiana during October 18-20, 1963. Also in attendance were notable right wing extremists General Pedro Del Valle, Curtis Dall of the Liberty Lobby, Colonel Arch Roberts who was the architect of General Edwin Walker's "Pro Blue" program in the military, Richard Cotten, editor of The Conservative Viewpoint, Jack Brown, Klan leader James Venable[28], and Kenneth Goff, Constitution Party Committee member and leader of the paramilitary group Soldiers of the Cross, a Minutemen affiliate. Goff wrote an article for The White Sentinel, that Oswald "called me, before a meeting in a Dallas hotel about a year ago (December 1962) he poured out his pro-Communist venom….His Red record was no secret to those fighting Communism in the Texas area.""

John, Do you remember where you got that qoute source from Goff, re Oswald calling him? That is very interesting to me. Did you actually find the issue of the White Sentinal?

Thanks

[Ernie Lazar]

With respect to the last paragraph concerning Former FBI Special Agent Jack Levine:

Levine was employed by the FBI for 11 months. Three of those months consisted of the standard training which all FBI Special Agents receive. Consequently, his active service amounts to, perhaps, 8 months.

Does anyone seriously believe that someone who worked at the FBI for only 8 months would have been given access to such highly confidential information as the number of informants which the FBI had inside the CPUSA?

the FBI showed clearly on whose side they were. In this extract is a outlinf of a program to force Martin Luther King to commit suicide before being able to collect his Nobel Prize. To me, this sort of thing reveals something that is about as low as anyone can go. That such an organisation was allowed to run roughshod over peoples lives and seemingly get away with it condemns the ruling groupings. The idea that these people would balk at assassination doesn't seem so far fetched.

""In an internal FBI monograph dated September 1963 found that, given the scope of support it had attracted over the preceding five years, civil rights agitation represented a clear threat to "the established order" of the U.S., and that Martin Luther "King is growing in stature daily as the leader among leaders of the Negro movement ... so goes Martin Luther King, and also so goes the Negro movement in the United States." This accorded well with COINTELPRO specialist William C. Sullivan's view, committed to writing shortly after King's landmark "I Have a Dream" speech during the massive civil rights demonstration in Washington, D.C., on August 28 of the same year:

We must mark [King] now, if we have not before, as the most dangerous Negro in the future of this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security ... it may be unrealistic to limit [our actions against King] to legalistic proofs that would stand up in court or before Congressional Committees.

The stated objective of the SCLC, and the nature of its practical activities, was to organize for the securing of black voting rights across the rural South, with an eye toward the ultimate dismantlement of at least the most blatant aspects of the southern U.S. system of segregation. Even this seemingly innocuous agenda was, however, seen as a threat by the FBI. In mid-September of 1957, FBI supervisor J.G. Kelly forwarded a newspaper clipping describing the formation of the SCLC to the Bureau's Atlanta field office - that city being the location of SCLC headquarters - informing local agents, for reasons which were never specified, the civil rights group was "a likely target for communist infiltration," and that "in view of the stated purpose of the organization you should remain alert for public source information concerning it in connection with the racial situation."

The Atlanta field office "looked into" the matter and ultimately opened a COMINFIL (communist-inflitrated group) investigation of the SCLC, apparently based on the fact that a single SWP member, Lonnie Cross, had offered his services as a clerk in the organization's main office. 14 By the end of the first year of FBI scrutiny, in September of 1958, a personal file had been opened on King himself, ostensibly because he had been approached on the steps of a Harlem church in which he'd delivered a guest sermon by black CP member Benjamin J. Davis. 15 By October 1960, as the SCLC call for desegregation and black voting rights in the south gained increasing attention and support across the nation, the Bureau began actively infiltrating organizational meetings and conferences.

By July of 1961, FBI intelligence on the group was detailed enough to recount that, while an undergraduate at Atlanta's Morehouse College in 1948, King had been affiliated with the Progressive Party, and that executive director Wyatt Tee Walker had once subscribed to a CP newspaper, The Worker.

Actual counterintelligence operations against King and the SCLC seem to have begun with a January 8, 1962 letter from Hoover to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, contending that the civil rights leader enjoyed a "close relationship" with Stanley D. Levison, "a member of the Communist Party, USA," and that Isadore Wofsy, "a high ranking communist leader," had written a speech for King. 18

On the night of March 15-16,1962, FBI agents secretly broke into Levison's New York office and planted a bug; a wiretap of his office phone followed on March 20.

Among the other things picked up by the surveillance was information that Jack ODell, who also had an alleged "record of ties to the Communist party," had been recommended by both King and Levison to serve as an assistant to Wyatt Tee Walker. Although none of these supposed communist affiliations were ever substantiated, it was on this basis that SCLC was targeted within the Bureau's ongoing COINTELPRO-CP,USA, beginning with the planting of five disinformational "news stories" concerning the organization's "communist connections" on October 24, 1962. 21 By this point, Martin Luther King's name had been placed in Section A of the FBI Reserve Index, one step below those individuals registered in the Security Index and scheduled to be rounded up and "preventively detained" in the event of a declared national emergency; Attorney General Kennedy had also authorized round-the-clock surveillance of all SCLC offices, as well as King's home. 22 Hence, by November 8,1963, comprehensive telephone taps had been installed at all organizational offices, and King's residence.

By 1964, King was not only firmly established as a preeminent civil rights leader, but was beginning to show signs of pursuing a more fundamental structural agenda of social change. Meanwhile, the Bureau continued its efforts to discredit King, maintaining a drumbeat of mass media-distributed propaganda concerning his supposed "communist influences" and sexual proclivities, as well as triggering a spate of harassment by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 24 When it was announced on October 14 of that year that King would receive a Nobel Peace Prize as a reward for his work in behalf of the rights of American blacks, the Bureau - exhibiting a certain sense of desperation - dramatically escalated its efforts to neutralize him.

Two days after announcement of the impending award, COINTELPRO specialist William Sullivan caused a composite audio tape to be produced, supposedly consisting of "highlights" taken from the taps of King's phones and bugs placed in his various hotel rooms over the preceding two years.

The result, prepared by FBI audio technician John Matter, purported to demonstrate the civil rights leader had engaged in a series of "orgiastic" trysts with prostitutes and, thus, "the depths of his sexual perversion and depravity." The finished tape was packaged, along with an accompanying anonymous letter (prepared by Bureau Internal Security Supervisor Seymore F. Phillips on Sullivan's instruction), informing King that the audio material would be released to the media unless he committed suicide prior to bestowal of the Nobel Prize.

"King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes. White people in this country have enough frauds of their own but I am sure that they don't have one at this time that is any where near your equal. You are no clergyman and you know it. I repeat you are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that. ...

King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant. You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation."

Sullivan then instructed veteran COINTELPRO operative Lish Whitson to fly to Miami with the package; once there, Whitson was instructed to address the parcel and mail it to the intended victim. 26 When King failed to comply with Sullivan's anonymous directive that he kill himself, FBI Associate Director Cartha D. "Deke" DeLoach attempted to follow through with the threat to make the contents of the doctored tape public:

The Bureau Crime Records Division, headed by DeLoach, initiated a major campaign to let newsmen know just what the Bureau [claimed to have] on King. DeLoach personally offered a copy of the King surveillance transcript to Newsweek Washington bureau chief Benjamin Bradlee. Bradlee refused it, and mentioned the approach to a Newsday colleague, Jay Iselin."

___________________________

"Malcolm X was supposedly murdered by former colleagues in the Nation of Islam (NoI) as a result of the faction-fighting which had led to his splitting away from that movement, and their "natural wrath" at his establishment of a separate mosque, the Muslim Mosque, Inc.

However, the NoI factionalism at issue didn't just happen. It had been developed by deliberate Bureau actions, through infiltration and the "sparking of acrimonious debates within the organization," rumor-mongering, and other tactics designed to foster internal disputes. The Chicago Special Agent in Charge, Marlin Johnson, who also oversaw the assassinations of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, makes it quite obvious that he views the murder of Malcolm X as something of a model for "successful" counterintelligence operations:

"Over the years considerable thought has been given, and action taken with Bureau approval, relating to methods through which the NOI could be discredited in the eyes of the general black populace or through which factionalism among the leadership could be created. Serious consideration has also been given towards developing ways and means of changing NoI philosophy to one whereby the members could be developed into useful citizens and the organization developed into one emphasizing religion - the brotherhood of mankind - and self improvement. Factional disputes have been developed - most notable being Malcolm X Little.""

_________________________________

I put together the following graph based on a number of graphs showing where COINTELPRO were focusing its attention. It clearly shows that, while a major threat to the rights of American citizens were from the shadowy organisations of the right, the FBI did most damage to the organisations on the left, that claimed to be fighting to protect those rights.

Article page 12 Time magazine October 26, 1962

"COMMUNISTS

Gee, Men

Last week in The Nation, former FBI Agent Jack Levine reported that nearly 1,500 of the Communist Party's 5,500 members are FBI informants -- almost one out of six. [actually almost one out of four: one out of 3.66 or 100 out of 366] Since members must pay party dues, this would make the FBI the largest single financial supporter of the Communist Party, USA. Concluded Levine : "The day will soon come when FBI informants, who are rising rapidly to the top, will capture complete control of the party." "

[John Dolva]

Yes