James Ellroy_Underworld U.S.A. 03 (11 page)

1.—Electronic surveillance equipment, perhaps of Bureau manufacture, was discovered on the premises at the Grapevine Tavern in early to mid-June of this year. Confidential Bureau informants frequenting the tavern have reported that the apparatus was discovered by
NORBERT DONALD KLING & ROWLAND MARK DE JOHN
, convicted felons and tavern habitués and the acknowledged “leaders” of several other tavern habitués
(CLARK DAVIS BRUNDAGE, LEAMAN RUSSELL CURRIE, THOMAS OGDEN PIERCE & GEORGE JAMES LUCE)
, all convicted felons active in numerous far-Right paramilitary organizations.

2.—The discovery of the apparatus has led to growing conjecture among the above mentioned. IE: that the apparatus was part of a monitoring process developed to lure accused King assassin
JAMES EARL RAY
into a “FBI-mandated” King assassination plot. While obviously preposterous, it should be noted that this rumor
might prove to be damaging to the Bureau's prestige, given Mr. Hoover's many recent derogatory comments about King, and given that Ray's brother
CHARLES ELDON RAY
is a part owner of the tavern.

3.—This office had no part in installing electronic surveillance apparatus, if indeed it was Bureau-manufactured equipment that was discovered on the tavern premises. If some other Bureau field team installed the equipment, I did not know about it personally, nor was such equipment installed by any agent under my command.

4.—According to statements made by the above-referenced tavern habitués, there was frequent discussion of a $50,000 “bounty” on King, allegedly to be paid by a cabal of wealthy segregationists to any “White Race Warrior” who would “buck LBJ's liberal hegemony to off Martin Luther Coon.” This preposterous line of talk was frequently indulged by numerous tavern habitués in the months preceding King's death.

5.—The “FBI hit plot” rumors are growing in both virulence and frequency. Alarmingly, confidential sources within the St. Louis Office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have informed me that the tavern will soon be placed under ATF surveillance, pertaining to evidence of gunrunning taking place on the tavern premises proper. The above-referenced tavern habitués are not gunrunning suspects, but I find ATF's proximity to the tavern disturbing, given the virulence and frequency of the anti-Bureau rumors &
CHARLES ELDON RAY'S
part ownership of the tavern.

Respectfully, SAC Wilton J. Laird, St. Louis Office/
EYES ONLY/PLEASE DESTROY UPON READING
.

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 7/26/68.
Los Angeles Herald Express
article:

Tuesday, February 24, 1964. It was chilly in Los Angeles, with storm clouds hovering. The early morning silence was shattered by the collision of a milk truck and a Wells Fargo armored car carrying a multimillion-dollar cargo of U.S. currency and priceless emeralds. The quiet corner of 84th and Budlong streets became the scene of a holocaust, and within minutes four armed guards
and two members of a daring robbery gang were dead—the latter obviously betrayed and shot by a fellow gang member—and the robbery-murder case has remained unsolved for four and a half years now.

“Not exactly,” Sergeant Robert S. “Scotty” Bennett stated at Piper's Coffee Shop. “It's been four years, five months and two days.”

One does not quibble with Sergeant Bennett on anything pertaining to the case he has worked on so hard and for so long. He has been the lead investigator since that bloody morning, and his determination to crack the case has become legend within the Los Angeles Police Department. The man, all six-foot-five of him, is a legend himself. He has killed 18 armed robbers in the line of duty and commemorates the LAPD record with small 18's embroidered in the Scottish-plaid bow ties he always wears. When asked about those shootings, he replied, “When you let that buckshot go, there's no taking it back.”

It's a funny line with a harrowing truth behind it: detectives working the LAPD's Headquarters Robbery Squad go up against armed-and-dangerous criminals routinely, and they are a determined breed of man proud to be wearing “211” tie bars, the number noting the California Penal Code designation for armed robbery. “The Heist,” as it's known around the Robbery Division squadroom, is a near-constant topic of speculation, and Scotty Bennett addresses it with great relish. “It was planned down to a ‘T,' ” he said. “The fake milk-truck collision was very forceful and potentially fatal, which obviously convinced the guards that it was real. The robbery gang knew what the armored car would be transporting, and we've never determined exactly how they got that information. More importantly, we've never determined whether the heist gang was comprised of white men or Negroes.”

Sergeant Bennett sipped coffee and continued. “The heist was conceived and executed boldly,” he said. “And I believe that the leader of the gang decided beforehand to kill his underlings at the scene and obscure their identities, and their races, by burning their bodies past recognition. All fine and good, but obscuring racial identification requires more than burning the surface of the skin, and the man first dosed the bodies with a chemical accelerant that greatly enhanced the tissue damage of the burning. We've never been able to identify the chemical that he used, which is another reason why the heist has remained such a baffler.”

Some other reasons?

“Well,” Sergeant Bennett said, “we know that many of the cash stacks stolen from the armored car were wrapped with ink-exploding bands, and ink spill was found at the crime scene. Also, ink-stained bills have surfaced periodically in south Los Angeles, so I'm convinced that there was at least a partial Negro component to the gang. Also, the origin of the emeralds remains undetermined. It was a very valuable cargo, and intermediaries for the consigner and the consignee signed secrecy waivers with Wells Fargo, which has impeded the investigation.”

And the persistent rumor that the emeralds hailed from Central America or the Caribbean?

Sergeant Bennett said, “Just that, a rumor. Entirely unsubstantiated.”

And the rumor that black-militant organizations plotted and executed the heist?

Scotty Bennett laughed heartily. “Why mince words? Black militants are grandstanders who always claim credit for their deeds. The Panthers and US are informant-infiltrated, and we would have picked up leads by now. We've got two rowdy militant groups causing woo-woo in L.A. now, the Black Tribe Alliance and the Mau-Mau Liberation Front, but for the life of me I can't see them executing anything more complex than a liquor-store job or a purse snatch.”

And the leader of the gang? The ruthless mastermind who killed his own men at the scene?

Scotty Bennett laughed even more heartily. “Tell him this,” he said. “When I let that buckshot go, there's no taking it back.”

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 7/27/68. Internal FBI memorandum. Marked: “
Stage-1 Covert”/“Director's Eyes Only”/“Destroy After Reading
.” To: Director Hoover. From: SA Dwight C. Holly.

Sir,

The following states the design and goals of our
COINTELPRO
aimed at discrediting and disrupting the black-militant movement at large and more circumscribed and localized black-nationalist groups in specific. Pending your approval, I have named the program
OPERATION BAAAAD BROTHER
. It is a nod to our less-than-successful
OPERATION BLACK RABBIT
and ironically celebrates the Negro verbal tic of using “bad” to mean “good.” Male Negroes often address each other as “brother,” which I thought you might
appreciate. As I'm sure you know, a Negro extremist group called the “Black Nationalists of New Libya” precipitated racial violence in Cleveland, Ohio, this past week that left eleven dead, including three white policemen. This is the perfect time to initiate a physically small-scaled
COINTELPRO
that may well achieve large-scale national results.

It is my firm belief that both the
BLACK PANTHER PARTY
(BPP) and the
UNITED SLAVES
(US) are too well known and well infiltrated already. I believe that our goals would be better served by operating the Los Angeles–based
BLACK TRIBE ALLIANCE
(BTA) and
MAU-MAU LIBERATION FRONT
(MMLF). Our
COINTELPRO
could put them on the map and wholly discredit them concurrently. By controlling the public perception of two lesser-known groups at the outset, we would also discredit the black-militant movement as a whole. I have studied the initial Bureau intelligence reports on the BTA and MMLF that you sent me and have requested Intel Division dossiers on their members from LAPD. I firmly contend that they are perfect
COINTELPRO
targets and that their destruction should be the ultimate goal of
OPERATION BAAAAD BROTHER
. I believe our goal should be accomplished in this manner:

1.—Both groups are rumored to be considering the sale of narcotics as a means to finance their activities, which might provide us with avenues to exploit their inherent criminality and publically underscore the point that criminal activity and subversive political activity are one and the same thing.

2.—We must find a high-caliber confidential informant who will ingratiate him or herself with one or both groups and report back with assiduously detailed briefs on their political activities. I believe that a female informant would be the most effective. A woman schooled in left-wing-revolutionary jargon would have a greater chance of eliciting confidences and inspiring indiscreet conversation and would most likely be better able to maneuver between the two (male-dominated) groups without creating rancor. Toward the end of recruitment, I have confidential Bureau informant #4361 assisting me.

3.—The linchpin of the incursion should be the placement of a male Negro infiltrator, mandated to uncover and report the criminal activities of the BTA and MMLF. Ideally, the infiltrator should have had police experience. Also ideally (but much more unlikely), he should possess a past history of racial animus for whites. Toward that possibility, I have requested a wide array of police
agency personnel files and am currently seeking to secure a viewing of the hate-mail subscription lists of the late Wayne Tedrow Sr. and Bureau confidential informant Dr. Fred Hiltz. Wayne Tedrow Jr. has refused to grant me access to his father's lists, but I will persist with him.

4.—Pending your consent, I would move to Los Angeles and establish a full-time temporary residence there, along with a cosmetically obscured front office for
OPERATION BAAAAD BROTHER
. Per initial operating expenses, I would request $60,000 in cold funds.

In conclusion:

I strongly believe that the
BLACK TRIBE ALLIANCE
and
MAU-MAU LIBERATION FRONT
offer us an unparalleled opportunity to disrupt and discredit the subversive designs of the black-militant movement at large. I await your appraisal and response.

Respectfully,

SA Dwight C. Holly

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 7/28/68. FBI telex communiqué. From: SAC Marvin D. Waldrin, Las Vegas Office. To: Special Agent Dwight C. Holly. Marked: “
Confidential 1-A: Recipient's Eyes Only.
”

SA Holly,

Per your preceding memo (Confidential 1-A memorandum #8518) requesting information on rumors pertaining to the 6/9/68 death of
MR. WAYNE TEDROW SR.
, I have developed the following information:

A.—Rumors that
MR. TEDROW'S
death was in fact a homicide, all unsubstantiated, are circulating, according to Bureau informants within the Las Vegas Police Department and Clark County Coroner's Office.

B.—One source would seem to be an LVPD officer who allegedly saw
MR. TEDROW'S
body on the night of his death.

C.—A coroner's assistant told our informant, “It wasn't any heart attack, not with his head caved in like that.”

D.—Eyewitness neighbors of
MR. TEDROW
allegedly told canvassing officers that Mr. Tedrow's son and ex-wife (former
LVPD SERGEANT WAYNE TEDROW JR.
and
JANICE LUKENS TEDROW)
were seen near
MR. TEDROW'S
home on the p.m. of 6/9/68.

Will forward all future data on this matter per Conf 1-A guidelines.

Marvin J. D. Waldrin, SAC, Las Vegas.
Eyes Only/Please Destroy Upon Reading
.

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 7/30/68. FBI telex communiqué. From: SAC Wilton J. Laird, St. Louis Office. To: Special Agent Dwight C. Holly. Marked “
Confidential 1-A: Recipient's Eyes Only.
”

SA Holly,

Per Conf. 1-A memo #8506: rumors of the “FBI bugging” & “FBI-mandated hit” on Rev. M. L. King are growing in both virulence and frequency, according to informally placed sources frequenting the Grapevine Tavern.

Respectfully,

Wilton J. Laird, SAC, St. Louis.
EYES ONLY/PLEASE DESTROY UPON READING
.

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 8/1/68. FBI telex communiqué. From: SAC Marvin D. Waldrin, Las Vegas Office. To: Special Agent Dwight C. Holly. Marked: “
Confidential 1-A: Recipient's Eyes Only
.”

SA Holly,

Per #8518 & my 7/28/68 response, an addendum:

A—Sources outside LVPD & CCCO are now reporting “rife” & “widespread” rumors of homicide per the death of WAYNE TEDROW SR.

B—Confidential Bureau informants at the
Las Vegas Sun
report that the newspaper may be considering an inquiry, chiefly because of the “checkered past” of
WAYNE TEDROW JR.
and his alleged current involvement with
JANICE LUKENS TEDROW
.

Will forward all future data per Conf. 1-A guidelines.