Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the International Hunt for His Assassin (20 page)

J. EDGAR HOOVER had been monitoring the events in Memphis, and that morning, March 29, he came to work with a feeling of vindication. To him, the mayhem on Beale Street was a fulfillment of all his earlier warnings: King might talk nonviolence, but it was an act. The Memphis debacle only foreshadowed what would happen if King was allowed to march on Washington. Hoover's ties to the Memphis authorities were unusually close--fire and police director Frank Holloman had been an FBI agent earlier in his career, and had even served as Hoover's "office manager" in Washington. Hoover made sure his COINTELPRO agents were on the case, working with the Memphis police to gather all the information necessary to heap maximum blame on King--and make every accusation stick.

Early on the morning of March 29, the FBI field office in Memphis was in high dudgeon. The assistant director William Sullivan called from Washington and spoke with the second-in-command in the Memphis office, Special Agent C. O. Halter. Sullivan wanted Halter's men to find out if King had been sleeping around, drinking too much, or engaging in any other "improper conduct" or "activities both official and personal" while in Memphis. "Mr. Sullivan requested
²⁴²
that we get everything possible on King and that we stay on him until he leaves," Halter later recalled. Among other things, agents tried to learn the identity of the woman whose Pontiac Lee and Abernathy had flagged down the previous day--presumably on the suspicion that she and King might have had a tryst.

Sullivan wanted the Memphis agents to prove that King was personally responsible for much of the Beale Street fracas. Agents were instructed to answer such questions as: "Did Martin Luther King do anything
²⁴³
to trigger the violence? Did he make any statements which could have had an effect on the crowd? Did King do anything to prevent violence? ... Although Martin Luther King preaches non-violence, violence occurs just about everywhere he goes."

The FBI in Memphis was unable to find anything suggesting that King had in any way provoked the violence, but specialists with the Racial Intelligence Division did seize on one potential line of attack: King, who had urged Memphis blacks to boycott white businesses downtown, was "a hypocrite" for securing a room in the white-owned Rivermont when he could have stayed at the black-owned Lorraine Motel only a few blocks away.

The FBI sent out a blind memorandum to what it termed "cooperative media"--pro-Hoover newspapers around the country. "The fine Hotel Lorraine
²⁴⁴
in Memphis," the memo stated, "is owned and patronized exclusively by Negroes, but King didn't go there from his hasty exit. Instead, King decided the plush Holiday Inn, white-owned, operated, and almost exclusively white patronized, was the place to 'cool it.' There will be no boycott of white merchants for King, only for his followers." (The memo made no mention of the fact that it was a Memphis motorcycle cop, on orders from police headquarters, who had chosen the Rivermont, led King there, and personally checked him in.)

In the end, the FBI succeeded in making only minor hay out of this "hypocrisy" charge, but the smear had a more consequential effect: it ensured that the next time King and his party came to Memphis, they would stay at his old hangout, the thoroughly exposed, open-courtyard (but black-owned) Lorraine Motel.

The violence in Memphis, meanwhile, prompted the FBI's leadership to renew its age-old request to wiretap the SCLC offices in Atlanta and Washington. William Sullivan sent a memo to Cartha DeLoach outlining "the gravity" of King's upcoming Poor People's Campaign and the need for enhanced intelligence on King. The Washington demonstrations, he said, "could end in great violence
²⁴⁵
and bloodshed. This being the capital city, it would do us irreparable propaganda damage around the world. We have been girding ourselves for this task ever since King's announcement to march on Washington. We should leave no stone unturned."

DeLoach and Hoover concurred with Sullivan's assessment. A wiretap request signed by Hoover promptly landed on Ramsey Clark's desk, but the attorney general refused to dignify it with a reply.

LATER THAT MORNING, around 10:00, King awakened in his Rivermont suite and pulled himself together. He knew it would be a bad day. He cringed at the prospect of reading the morning papers. In fact, the reaction in the news that morning--and for several days to come--would be even worse than he'd feared.

The epithets were as prolific as they were colorful. The
Memphis Commercial Appeal
called him "Chicken a la King."
²⁴⁶
The
Dallas Morning News:
"The headline-hunting high priest
²⁴⁷
of nonviolent violence." The
St. Louis Globe-Democrat:
"A Judas goat
²⁴⁸
leading lambs to slaughter."

Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia described King as "a man who gets other people into trouble
²⁴⁹
and then takes off like a scared rabbit." The Memphis riot was "a powerful embarrassment
²⁵⁰
to Dr. King," argued the usually sympathetic
New York Times
, calling the disturbance further indication that he should call off the Poor People's Campaign. Senator Howard Baker of Tennessee said that in view of the Beale Street violence, King's proposed march on Washington would be "like striking a match
²⁵¹
to look in your gas tank to see if you're out of gas."

King read enough of the offerings to get the gist of it. Disgusted, he took a shower and pulled on some clothes. He was just buttoning his shirt
²⁵²
when Abernathy knocked on his bedroom door. "Martin," he said, "we have visitors."

King padded out to the common room to greet three young men in their twenties. "We're with the Invaders," one of them said. "We've come to explain what happened yesterday." They were Charles Cabbage, Izzy Harrington, and Calvin Taylor--leaders of the organization widely blamed for the Beale Street violence.

King took a seat with his guests. He offered cigarettes, and they had a smoke. Bright light from the balcony streamed in through the sliding glass doors. The Mississippi River swirled eight stories below them. The conversation got off to an awkward start when Charles Cabbage mentioned that a man had knocked on his door the previous night and warned him of a plot
²⁵³
on King's life.

King replied dismissively that he got those kinds of threats every day. "If someone really wants to kill me, there's nothing I can do about it," he said. Indeed, Cabbage was amazed that King had no security at the Rivermont--and that no one had bothered searching him or his fellow Invaders for weapons.

They finally circled around to the subject at hand. The Invaders claimed they had not caused the previous day's violence. None of the Invader leaders was even present on Beale. But they knew the young militants who had started the trouble, and they had done nothing to discourage it. This was because Jim Lawson had insulted them, they said. He'd refused to allow the Invaders to be part of the planning; he'd kept them out of the discussions altogether. The ministers didn't understand the young brothers and what was really going on in the streets.

King listened with a sorrowful expression. He seemed to see right through them. He wasn't entirely buying their story, but he appreciated the spirit of their gesture--dropping by and speaking face-to-face. He was puzzled, though. He said he couldn't believe anyone would resort to violence. "We should have sat down and talked before the march," he said. "Jim didn't tell me about the black power elements in the city. He led me to believe there were none."

King was less interested in determining the riot's precise cause than in ensuring that violence didn't break out again: he had already decided to return to Memphis.

"What can I do to have a peaceful march?"
²⁵⁴
he asked. "Because, you know that I have got to lead one. There is no other way." King vowed that the SCLC would thoroughly plan the next event and that the Invaders would be included in the discussions. "You will be in on it," King promised. "You will not be left out."

The meeting concluded, and the three Invaders left the Rivermont touched with awe. Even if they didn't subscribe to King's philosophy of nonviolence, they agreed they had been in the presence of a great man. "He wasn't raising his voice,"
²⁵⁵
Calvin Taylor recalled. "He wasn't bitter. When he came into the room it seemed like all of a sudden there was a real rush of wind and calm settled over everything. You could feel peace around that man. He
looked
like peace."

A FEW HOURS later, Eric Galt drove his Mustang to a large sporting goods store
²⁵⁶
in Birmingham called the Aeromarine Supply Company. Located by the Birmingham airport, it boasted one of the South's largest selections of firearms of all descriptions. As an avid newspaper reader, Galt had likely seen the large classified advertisement that Aeromarine had been running all that week in the
Birmingham News
. "Guns--Guns--Guns," the ad announced. "Browning, Remington, Colt. Over 1,000 arms in stock for your selection. Buy, sell, trade. 5701 Airport Hiway."

Now Galt wandered over to the Aeromarine counter and was met by a man named U. L. Baker (who would later relate the conversation in detail to authorities). This time, Galt seemed to have more definite ideas about what he wanted. "Let me look at that Winchester there," he said. It was a bolt-action Model 70 .243-caliber rifle designed for shooting deer at mid- to long range.

Baker pulled it off the rack for Galt to inspect. After a while, Galt set it aside and asked Baker to take down several other models. Galt studied the rifles for a few minutes but then declared, "I like that one there," pointing to a Remington Gamemaster .243 caliber. "You got a scope that'll fit it?"

Baker brought out a variable scope manufactured by Redfield. Galt liked the look of it and asked what the price tag would be for the rifle and scope.

Baker tallied it up. "That'll be $248.59, sir."

Galt said he'd take it, and while Baker went to work mounting the scope to the rifle, another customer, a local gun enthusiast and NRA stalwart named John DeShazo, sidled up to Galt and gave him a start. "What're you gonna do with
that?"
DeShazo said.

"Oh," Galt replied, "I'm going deer hunting ... with my brother."

DeShazo thought he smelled liquor on Galt's breath. "That one's powerful," he said.

Galt stammered something about going hunting up in Wisconsin. DeShazo thought the customer didn't look like an outdoorsman and concluded, after watching him handle other weapons in the store, that he didn't know much about rifles. "You've really got quite a gun there," DeShazo said. "You'll have to learn how to use it."

Galt chose some boxes of ammo for the rifle and told Baker he was ready to pay up. He signed the sales slip "Harvey Lowmeyer" and said he lived at 1907 South Eleventh Street in Birmingham. He opened his wallet and paid the bill in cash--all in twenties--and shambled out of the store with the rifle box under his arm.

Later that afternoon, Galt called Aeromarine Supply Company and said he wanted to exchange the rifle. "My brother says I got the wrong one," he told Don Wood, the storeowner's son, who answered the phone. "I'm going to need a heavier gun."

Wood told Galt he would gladly accept an exchange. However, the store was closing up, so Galt would have to drop by in the morning. Galt took a room at the Travelodge motel in Birmingham, with the intention of returning to Aeromarine with the .243-caliber rifle first thing the next morning.