Legacy of Secrecy (120 page)

performance in the wake of Dr. King’s murder. While the Committee

documented the department’s bad decisions and its lack of a contin-

gency plan for problems at the Lorraine—and pointed out things that

could have been done more effectively—it didn’t find any member of

the Memphis police who was involved in Martin Luther King’s assas-

sination. As the assistant district attorney noted earlier, if the bag hadn’t

been dropped at Canipe’s, Ray would have gotten away with “a per-

fect assassination”—and without any assistance from the police being

required.

Because Memphis lies at the intersection of three states, within

minutes of the shooting, Ray could have been in any of them. After

confirming Officer Douglass’s initial report, the dispatcher issued a

system-wide alert at 6:03 PM. The HSCA found that “at 6:08 PM [a gen-

eral] description of the suspect was broadcast as a young, well-dressed

white male”—but by then, “Ray could have been in Arkansas.” At 6:10

PM, the description of the suspected getaway car as a late-model white

Mustang was broadcast (at least three were eventually stopped), but at

that time, “Ray could have been halfway to the Mississippi state line.”

Even though “roadblocks were not established on major arteries leaving

Memphis,” they probably couldn’t have been set up in time to stop Ray.

Worse, “an all points bulletin for a white Mustang was never broad-

cast to . . . Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama,” apparently because

of problems the Memphis police had experienced with previous alerts

to Mississippi.13 Congressional investigators were able to debunk the

story of the so-called “fake broadcast,” originally thought to be part

of a conspiracy. In addition, the HSCA found that the reason why the

many police tactical units (with 49 to 110 vehicles) didn’t join the search

for the Mustang “was that their primary concern was with the rioting,

firebombing, and looting that occurred throughout the city following

news of the assassination.”14

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As James Earl Ray drove through Mississippi and toward New Orleans,

riots exploded in more than a hundred American cities. The raw figures

are staggering, but can’t convey the true extent of the pain, suffering,

and destruction that raged in the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s

murder: almost seventy thousand troops deployed, forty-five people

killed (all but five of them black), twenty thousand arrested, and almost

$50 million in property destruction. Outbreaks were especially bad in

Washington, D.C., Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. Some

riots lasted for days—in Chicago, they continued through the following

week, until Mayor Richard Daley issued “shoot to kill” orders.15

Two large cities that seemed relatively immune to the widespread

destruction were Atlanta, Dr. King’s home, and Indianapolis. Bobby

Kennedy had gone to Indianapolis to address a rally in what Evan

Thomas called “the heart of the ghetto.” While still in the air on the

way to Indianapolis, Bobby learned that Dr. King had been shot. The

news shattered whatever positive feelings he still had after the previous

day’s cordial meeting with LBJ. According to an aide, Bobby’s “eyes

went blank” and he “sagged” visibly. After he landed, Bobby learned

that Dr. King had died.16

In the days before 24-hour TV news and radio networks, informa-

tion traveled far more slowly. Many of the thousand or so people who

were gathered to hear Bobby didn’t know that Dr. King had been shot,

let alone killed. Police officials were worried about a riot, so Bobby was

advised to cancel his appearance. He went anyway, despite the fact that

his police escort left as soon as he reached the predominately black part

of Indianapolis.

As Bobby faced the crowd in the chilly night air, he was wearing one

of JFK’s overcoats, something he had begun doing at times after his

brother’s murder. It must have been a daunting prospect for a white

politician to face an African American crowd and tell them their great-

est and most beloved leader had just been shot and killed. But Bobby

delivered what was perhaps his greatest speech—and without the aid

of teleprompters or spin doctors:

Ladies and gentlemen . . . I’m only going to talk to you just for a

minute or so this evening, because I have some—some very sad

news for all of you . . . I think, sad news for all of our fellow citi-

zens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that

Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis,

Tennessee.

Gasps, screams, and cries arose from the audience. Bobby continued,

saying that “King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fel-

low human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. . . . For those of

you who are black—considering the evidence . . . that there were white

people who were responsible—you can be filled with bitterness, and

with hatred, and a desire for revenge. . . . Or we can make an effort, as

Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace

that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land,

with an effort to understand, compassion, and love.”

Speaking from the heart and drawing on the experience he and they

knew all too well, Bobby said earnestly that

For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with hatred

and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people,

I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind

of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by

a white man.

After making it clear that he knew the kind of pain they were feel-

ing, Bobby didn’t talk down to his audience. Instead, he quoted his

favorite poem saying, “My favorite poet was Aeschylus,” the ancient

Greek writer in whose words Bobby found solace after JFK’s murder.

He recited the poem, talking of pain that first brings despair, but even-

tually engenders wisdom. He closed by asking the audience to “return

home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King . . . but more

importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love—a

prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.”

After the speech, Bobby called Coretta Scott King and arranged to

have Dr. King’s body flown back to Atlanta.17

Chapter Fifty-two

After Martin Luther King’s murder, James Earl Ray claims he left Mem-

phis, driving south to New Orleans, but while he was in Mississippi,

he began heading east to Atlanta, Georgia. New information, presented

here for the first time, finally explains why Ray went to Atlanta and who

helped him once he arrived. Ray’s original explanations for his change

of direction and destination were suspicious. He claimed that he first

heard that Dr. King had been shot and killed over his car radio, which

made Ray think “he was somehow involved in the assassination and

that the police were looking for his white Mustang.” Ray testified that

he then decided to go to Atlanta to get his pistol, which he maintained

he hadn’t taken with him to Memphis.1

Congressional investigators and journalists found holes in Ray’s story:

First, the radio in his Mustang was found to be inoperable. Second,

the HSCA thought it unlikely Ray hadn’t taken his pistol with him to

Memphis—or that he would have made an almost four-hundred-mile

trip just to get it.2

By the very early morning of April 5, 1968, Ray was on his way to

Atlanta, and would be in Canada the following day. The HSCA found

that “Ray’s decision to flee . . . to Atlanta, rather than directly north

to Canada, was also significant, since it . . . created an increased risk

of arrest.” The Committee looked at two possible explanations. “First,

Ray returned to Atlanta to receive money for the assassination. Second,

there was highly incriminating evidence in Atlanta that Ray needed to

eliminate before leaving the country.” However, the HSCA could find

no evidence to substantiate either possibility.3

Ray may well have originally headed toward New Orleans, intending

to collect the $5,000 that Frank C. Liberto had mentioned over the phone

the previous afternoon. Ray said that once he was in New Orleans, he

planned “to telephone [his contact’s] associates in that city.” From there,

Ray could drive to Mexico; one of his brothers said that Ray “had every-

thing set up in Mexico for a life after killing King.” Ray had spent far

more time in Mexico than in Canada, and by all accounts, including his

own, was much more comfortable south of the border.4

Exclusive facts about whom James Earl Ray contacted in Atlanta,

information not available to the HSCA, finally help to explain Ray’s

actions. While Ray may have intended to go to New Orleans, get his

payoff, and then go to Mexico, at some point he was ordered to Atlanta

instead. As he had done before, Ray probably stopped at a pay phone

to call his New Orleans contact. Because of the riots sweeping the

country, and the outpouring of sympathetic press coverage about Dr.

King’s murder, the assassination was clearly having a far larger national

impact than racists like Joseph Milteer and Carlos Marcello might have

anticipated.

Marcello had only brokered the contract to kill King, and now it was

too risky to have Ray drive through Louisiana to New Orleans, then

drive through Marcello’s Texas territory to Mexico. While authorities

had not yet issued any good descriptions or sketches of Ray, such infor-

mation could be released to law enforcement or the public at any time.

By daybreak, it would be too dangerous to allow Ray to remain on the

road in his white Mustang, a car that authorities were already looking

for.Marcello transferred the risk to those paying for the contract, Joseph

Milteer and his three Atlanta partners. After Milteer had helped Ray

in Atlanta, it would be safer for Marcello—and closer for Ray at that

point—to have Ray go to Canada, rather than Mexico. It’s important to

remember that on as little as an hour’s notice, the hit on King may have

been moved up by as much as four days, to ensure it wasn’t stopped by

the court injunction. However, while Ray wasn’t a professional hit man,

Marcello and his lieutenants had decades of proven success in that area,

and knew how to whisk someone out of the country—while avoiding

blame themselves.

In addition, Atlanta was a safe destination that was relatively

unscathed by the riots plaguing other parts of the country. In stark con-

trast to Memphis, Atlanta’s mayor, Ivan Allan, was a moderate on race

who, four years earlier, had helped to host Dr. King’s lavish Nobel Prize

banquet. Atlanta’s police chief, Herbert Jenkins, was friends with Dr.

King’s father, the respected Daddy King, who presided over Ebenezer

Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue, Dr. King’s home pulpit. Since Atlanta

was home to the now widowed Coretta Scott King and her children, it

was as if the angry and distraught African American residents of even

Atlanta’s poorest neighborhoods—some near Auburn Avenue—felt it

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LEGACY OF SECRECY

would be disrespectful to erupt in violence. Then, too, King hadn’t been

killed in their city, and they had no reason to think that anyone in Atlanta

was involved with the murder.

Sadly, Joseph Milteer’s instincts had been proven correct: It was bet-

ter for him and his three partners to have had Dr. King killed outside of

Atlanta. Now though, they faced the problem of what to do about James

Earl Ray. According to Ray’s account, he drove nonstop to Atlanta and

threw out his expensive photographic equipment along the way.5

Ray arrived in Atlanta around 6:00 AM on April 5, 1968, twelve hours

after he left Memphis. Ray’s next action, well-documented by Congres-

sional investigators and Atlanta police, was witnessed about 9:00 AM,

when Ray was seen abandoning his car in an Atlanta housing project

that was three miles south of his rooming house. Investigators have

never been able to determine what Ray did in Atlanta between 6:00

and 9:00 AM on the day after King’s murder, why he left his car in that

particular place, and how he traveled the three miles to his rooming

house.6

For the first time, exclusive new information answers those questions

and helps to explain why Ray returned to Atlanta. Based on a witness

who heard a portion of the call, we can now report that on the morn-

ing of April 5, James Earl Ray phoned Hugh R. Spake, Joseph Milteer’s

Atlanta partner. Our source remains confidential because racist associ-

ates of Milteer and his ally J. B. Stoner (later Ray’s attorney) are still alive,

and active in the sometimes violent white supremacist movement. Our

source was not involved in any racist activities and has a long-standing

reputation for honesty and integrity, with no criminal record. We veri-