The Cold Six Thousand (70 page)

Authors: James Ellroy

BOOK: The Cold Six Thousand

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DOCUMENT INSERT
: 8/12/67. Pouch communiqué. To: FATHER RABBIT. From: BLUE RABBIT. Marked: “Eyes Only”/“Read and Burn.”

FATHER,

Here’s Bob’s memo. His facts & observations are based on his personal relationship with the PROSPECT & on files he stole from
the Missouri State Prison System. I cleaned up his grammar & spelling & included some perceptions. READ, BURN & pouch me your response.

The PROSPECT:

Ray, James Earl/white male/5’10”/160/DOB 3-16-28/Alton, Illinois/1 of 10 children.

PROSPECT grew up in rural Illinois & Missouri. Father was career petty larcenist. PROSPECT first arrested (1942) at age 14 (theft). Became frequenter of traveling carnivals & houses of prostitution. Became friendly with older man (German immigrant) who was pro-Hitler & member of German-American Bund. PROSPECT began to develop anti-Negro attitude at this time.

PROSPECT enlisted in U.S. Army (2/19/46) & requested Germany as duty station. Attended basic training at Camp Crowder, Missouri & assigned (as truck driver) to Q.M. Corps in occupied Germany (7/46). Later assigned as driver to MP battalion in Bremerhaven. Trafficked in black market cigarettes, frequented prostitutes & was treated for syphilis & gonorrhea. Began drinking heavily & taking Benzedrine. Transferred to Infantry Battalion, Frankfurt (4/48) & requested immediate discharge.

Request was denied. PROSPECT charged with being drunk in quarters (10/48) & held in post stockade. PROSPECT escaped, was recaptured & sentenced to 3 months hard labor. Returned to the U.S. (12/48) & given “general discharge.” Spent time at family’s home in Alton, Illinois. Hitchhiked to Los Angeles (9/49), arrested for burglary (12/9/49), sentenced to 8 months county jail time, released early for good behavior (3/50).

PROSPECT traveled east. Arrested for vagrancy (Marion, Iowa, 4/18/50), released 5/8/50. Arrested for vagrancy (Alton, Ill., 7/26/51), released 9/51. Arrested for armed robbery (taxicab hijack, Chicago, 5/6/52, shot while attempting escape).

PROSPECT received two-year sentence. Served time at Joliet & Pontiac facilities. Established reputation as prison “Loner” & habitual user of home-brew alcohol & amphetamines. Paroled 3/12/54.

PROSPECT arrested for burglary (Alton, Ill., 8/28/54). Bailed out & absconded before trial date. Traveled east with criminal companion & shared political views (e.g., all Negroes were inferior & should be killed). Arrested (robbery of post office, Kellerville, Ill.) 3/55. Sentenced to 36 mos. Federal prison. Received at Leavenworth Penitentiary, 7/7/55. Paroled 5/58.

PROSPECT’s parole jurisdiction transferred to St. Louis (family
members lived there). In 7 & 8/59, PROSPECT & 2 accomplices went on supermarket robbery spree (St. Louis & Alton, Ill.). PROSPECT arrested 10/10/59. Attempted jail escape 12/15/59. Sentenced to 20 yrs. Missouri State Penitentiary. Received at Jefferson City Facility, 3/17/60.

Jeff City reputedly the toughest & most harshly run prison in the U.S. White & Negro inmates largely segregated. White inmates mostly of “Hillbilly” lineage & vocal per their hatred of Negroes. Facility had informal chapters of KKK, National States Rights Party, National Renaissance Party & Thunderbolt Legion.

PROSPECT worked in dry cleaning plant & unsuccessfully attempted escape in 10/61. PROSPECT bootlegged prison bakery goods & amphetamines, habitually injected amphetamines & frequently indulged anti-Negro tirades when “high.” PROSPECT also sold & rented contraband pornographic magazines & joined informal meetings of extreme right-wing groups (attended by both convicts & guards) & often discussed his desire to “kill niggers” & “Martin Luther Coon.”

PROSPECT also discussed desire to move to segregated African countries, become a “Merc” & “kill niggers.” BR contends that PROSPECT was especially vituperative, even by white convict standards.

PROSPECT openly fantasized that a “White Businessman’s Association” had a $100,000 bounty out on King. This is enticing when considering recent “bounty-talk” picked up via bug at Grapevine Tavern in St. Louis. BR contends that “Bounty” concept strongly plays into PROSPECT’s “get-rich-quick mentality.”

PROSPECT denied parole in ′64. Attempted escape 3/11/66. Escaped 4/23/67 (hiding in an outbound bread truck).

PROSPECT stated to BR:

That he walked hill roads to Kansas City, did “odd jobs & built up a stake,” bussed to Chicago & got dishwasher’s job at restaurant in Winnetka. PROSPECT visited family members & childhood haunts in Alton, Quincy & East St. Louis & determined that no intensive manhunt was being conducted. PROSPECT robbed liquor store in East St. Louis (6/29/67) & stole $4,100.

PROSPECT traveled south & spent week at BR’s compound (7/5–7/12/67). Grocery store near New Hebron robbed (7/8/67). BR believes PROSPECT was perpetrator. PROSPECT & BR discussed “politics” & PROSPECT apparently was not afraid that BR would report his fugitive status. PROSPECT “kept to himself,” drank &
took amphetamines, ignored BR’s Klansmen, talked to BR exclusively & frequently stated his desire to “kill niggers,” “collect nigger bounties,” “hire on as a merc & kill niggers in the Nigger Congo” & “live in a white man’s paradise like Rhodesia.”

PROSPECT left compound (7/13/67), told BR he was driving to Canada & would call & reestablish contact. PROSPECT called 7/17/67 & gave BR phone # in Montreal.

Summation:

BR characterizes the PROSPECT as moody, acquiescent, limitedly self-sufficient and cunning, socially clumsy, easily led by stronger personalities and easily manipulated on the level of his political beliefs. His frequently stated desire to “kill niggers” and his “bounty” fixation are encouraging and serve to underline the possibility that he may require minimal sheep-dipping. The PROSPECT may be willing to shoot himself and we may be able to manipulate him into and/or control the context he shoots in.

I think he’s the one. Let me know if you agree.

To digress:

I had a long conversation with Mr. Hoover yesterday. I expressed concern about the degree to which his anti-King incursions had already become public knowledge. I mentioned his statements about King, the SCLC’s bug and wiretap accusations and reports on the letter which was sent to King and urged him to commit suicide, which has been detailed in several left-wing periodicals. I told him that to further protect the WHITE-HATE and anti-King arms of OPERATION BLACK RABBIT and any escalations that might arise from them, a cosmeticized, largely downscaled anti-King file should be created and stored in the FBI Archives, where it would remain and stand ready for scrutiny in the event of congressional subpoena or subpoena for civil lawsuit.

Mr. Hoover understood that this mock-file would serve to obfuscate the rowdier aspects of OBR, protect Bureau prestige and buttress the validity of his earlier, less vindictive digs at King and the SCLC. He charged me to create file entries, combine them with file entries pertaining to events within public knowledge and whip them into an overall package.

I will undertake and accomplish this over the next several months. This mock-file will, of course, serve to obfuscate our independent escalations. I’m code-naming the file OPERATION ZORRO, a reference to the fictional do-gooder with the black mask.

I’m open to suggestions per the mock-file entries. Let me know if you have any. I would strongly advise you to burn all your
OPERATION BLACK RABBIT memoranda at this time, along with this memo.

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 8/14/67. Pouch communiqué. To: BLUE RABBIT. From: FATHER RABBIT. Marked: “Eyes Only”/“Read and Burn.”

BLUE,

Per PROSPECT: I enthusiastically endorse. Has he contacted BR from his Montreal location? If so, have Otash establish contact.

Per OPERATION ZORRO: I endorse the concept and laud your farsightedness. I’ll burn my BLACK RABBIT paperwork.

I’m assuming there’s no word on Wendell Durfee. Can you have your people step up their search?

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 8/16/67. Pouch communiqué. To: FATHER RABBIT. From: BLUE RABBIT. Marked: “EYES ONLY”/“READ AND BURN.”

FATHER,

The PROSPECT contacted BR. Otash contacted the PROSPECT in Montreal & advises: He will sever contact until he successfully suborns or recruits.

Per Wendell Durfee: My people are still looking. They’ve brought in three more men.

READ THIS & BURN.

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 8/22/67. Bug-extract transcript. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.

Location: Card room/Fritzie’s Heidelberg Restaurant/Milwaukee/listening-post-accessed. Speaking: Unidentified males #1, #2 & #3, presumed organized-crime associates. (Conversation 5.6 minutes in progress.)

UM #1: (And) he will rue the day he comes here and agitates, because the day he marches in the Saint-Whoever Parade is the day all the white folks put their goddamn internecine and intramural differences aside and unite.

UM #2: They think they’re white. That’s what kills me.

UM #3: I saw a nigger march in the St. Patrick’s Parade. He had this sign that said, “Kiss Me, I’m Irish.”

UM #2: King puts them up to it. They get a toe in our world, then a foot, then an ankle.

UM #1: It’s their peckers I’m worried about. Most of them bucks got ones the size of a bratwurst.

UM #2: I was talking to Phil. You know him? “Phil the Pill.” He runs semis out of St. Louis.

UM #3: I know him. Phil the Pill. He eats co-pilots like they’re popcorn.

UM #2: Phil says there’s a contract out. You know, a bounty. Like Steve McQueen in “Wanted Dead or Alive.”

UM #1: I heard that story. You clip that nigger, you make 50 grand. It’s a story I don’t believe for one second.

UM #3: That’s right. Some cracker clips King, he comes to the Grapevine and says, “Pay me.” Everybody says, “Why? It was just a fucking rumor, and the nigger’s dead, anyway.”

(Non-applicable conversation follows.)

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 9/1/67. Listening-post report. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.

Location: Suite 301/El Encanto Hotel/Santa Barbara/listening-post-accessed.

Sirs,

As per the last 9 monitoring periods (4/2/67 to date), Subject RFK was not in residence at the target location. Subject RFK rents the suite on a yearly basis & it remains empty during his absences. The (voice-activated) mounts have thus far picked up only the non-applicable conversations of El Encanto caretakers & other employees. Per orders, the listening post will continue to be manned full-time.

Respectfully,
SA C. W. Brundage

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 9/9/67. Bug-extract transcript. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.

Location: Banquet room/Sal’s Trattoria Restaurant/New York City/listening-post-accessed. Speaking: Robert “Fat Bob” Paolucci & Carmine Paolucci, organized-crime associates. (Conversation 31.8 minutes in progress.)

RP: You are seeing the fall of civilization as we know it.

CP: It’s just a phase. It’s like the Twist and the Hula Hoop. Right now, the shvoogs want their civil rights, so they burn a few buildings and make some woop-dee-doo. You want to stop all this riot bullshit? Give every shvoog in the country an air-conditioner and some Thunderbird Wine and let them ride out the heat in style.

RP: It’s more than the heat that gets them agitated. It’s that King and his soul brother Bobby Kennedy. They get them seeing things that ain’t there. They give them an excuse that they can pin their shitty fucking lives on, like “the white man fucked you, so what’s his is yours.” You get ten million fucking people thinking like that, and maybe one in ten acts, so you got a million angry niggers out for white scalps like fucking Cochise and Pocahontas.

CP: Yeah. I see what you mean.

RP: Someone should clip King and Bobby. You would save a million white lives, minimum.

CP: I dig you. You save lives in the long run.

RP: You clip those cocksuckers. You do it and save the world as we know it.

(Non-applicable conversation follows.)

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 9/16/67. Bug-extract transcript. Marked: “Confidential”/“Stage-1 Covert”/“Eyes Only”: Director, SA D. C. Holly.

Location: Card room/Grapevine Tavern/St. Louis/listening-post-accessed. Speaking: Unidentified Males #1 & #2, presumed organized-crime associates. (Conversation 17.4 minutes in progress).

UM #1: He saw it. My brother, I mean. He’s in the National Guard.

UM #2: But that’s Detroit. You got a higher ratio of spooks to whites there.

UM #1: Don’t tell me it can’t happen and won’t happen everywhere else. Don’t tell me it won’t happen, because it will. You trace
everywhere Martin Luther Coon goes and you see pins in the map that mark dead white people.

UM #2: That’s true. You got Watts, you got Detroit, you got D.C. You got riots in our nation’s capital.

UM #1: You also got the bounty. I realize that it’s something like half real—

UM #2: Yeah, at best, because—

UM #1: Because it don’t matter as long as Joe Patriot thinks it’s real and does the job.

UM #2: Pow. He does the job. That’s the goddamn thing.

UM #1: You got to believe there’s more bounties out there. Myth or not, it just takes one guy to believe.

UM #2: Coon’s a dead man. It’s—what’s that word?

UM #1: Inevitable?

UM #2: Yeah, right.

UM #1: We outnumber the niggers. Like 20 to 1. That’s why I think it’ll happen.

(Non-applicable conversation follows.)

DOCUMENT INSERT
: 9/21/67. Las Vegas
Sun
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