Hellhound on His Trail
Page 43
CHAPTER 4
ANATHEMA TO EVIL MEN
62 Burrhead--that was one of his many names: Garrow, FBI and Martin Luther King Jr., p. 106.
63 "Based on King's recent activities": Ibid., p. 182.
64 weird phobias: Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 280.
65 "mental halitosis": DeLoach, Hoover's FBI, p. 67.
66 "a mythical person": Buchwald, quoted in Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 395.
67 "Are you familiar": Capote, quoted in Hersh, Bobby and J. Edgar, p. 464.
68 "You must understand": Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 501.
69 "Watch the borders": DeLoach, Hoover's FBI, p. 95.
70 Helen Gandy: Ibid., p. 109.
71 "high and distant and quiet": Hugh Sidey, Life, May 12, 1972.
72 "transformed the FBI": Jack Anderson, Washington Post, May 3, 1972.
73 "dangerous and rather a psycho": Robert Kennedy, quoted in Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 397.
74 "I'd rather have him": Ibid., p. 393.
75 "J. Edgar Hoover is a hero": President Johnson, Executive Order 11154, May 8, 1965, quoted in Ralph de Toledano, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man in His Time (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1973), p. 301.
76 "is a pillar of strength": Johnson, quoted in Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 611.
77 "the most notorious liar": Newsweek, Nov. 30, 1964.
78 "They had to dig deep": Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 416.
79 "top alley cat": Garrow, FBI and Martin Luther King Jr., p. 121.
80 "I am amazed": Ibid., p. 121.
81 "There are as many Communists": King 1965 interview in Playboy, quoted in Dyson, I May Not Get There with You, p. 231.
82 "a tom cat": Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 417.
83 "narrow his eyes": DeLoach, Hoover's FBI, p. 203.
84 "saw extramarital sex": Ibid.
85 "if the country knew": Hersh, Bobby and J. Edgar, p. 386.
86 "I don't understand": Ibid., p. 379.
87 "King, look into your heart": Richard Gid Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 420.
88 "They are out to break me": Garrow, FBI and Martin Luther King Jr., p. 134.
89 "Hoover is old": Ibid., p. 124.
CHAPTER 5
DIXIE WEST
90 the Cicero of the Cabdriver: The reporter James Dickenson, quoted in Lesher, George Wallace, p. 395.
91 "bit himself": Ibid., p. 401.
92 "the surly orphan": Frady, Wallace, p. 253.
93 "pointy-headed intellectuals": Carter, Politics of Rage, p. 313.
94 "the nigra would still be in Africa": Ibid., p. 161.
95 "Let 'em call me a racist": Frady, Wallace, p. 9.
96 "a fraud, marching and going to jail": Lesher, George Wallace, p. 184.
97 "who could go to bed": Ibid., p. 199.
98 "the blood of our little children": New York Times, Sept. 17, 1963, pp. 1, 25.
99 "how costly Wallace": Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, p. 357.
100 "He has just four [speeches]": King to Dan Rather, quoted in Carter, Politics of Rage, p. 156.
101 "In both the North and South": Life, Aug. 2, 1968, pp. 17-21.
102 "The capital of Alabama": Wall Street Journal, Dec. 7, 1967.
103 "political ventriloquism": Carter, Politics of Rage, p. 294.
CHAPTER 6
THE GRADUATE
104 "A nice fellow": This "graduation" scene is primarily drawn from FBI interviews with Tomas Lau and former students at the bartending school. See "Investigation of International School of Bartending, Los Angeles, Attended by Galt from January 19, 1968, to March 2, 1968," FBI, MURKIN Files, 2325, sec. 22, pp. 135-36. I have also relied here on Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, p. 117; Posner, Killing the Dream, p. 214; and Ray, "20,000 Words," in House Select Committee on Assassinations, Appendix Reports, vol. 12.
105 St. Francis Hotel: My description of the St. Francis Hotel is drawn from Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, p. 99, and my own visit to the former hotel--now an apartment house--on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles.
106 he had amphetamines: There are several telltale signs that Ray continued his amphetamine use after escaping from Jeff City, including the discovery, several months later, of a syringe in his bed-and-breakfast room in London. Charles Stein, an acquaintance of Ray's in Los Angeles, told the FBI that Ray may have been "a pillhead." See FBI interview with Stein, May 5, 1968, MURKIN Files, 2751-2925.
107 fizzly neon sign: The large orange neon sign outside the St. Francis is mentioned in multiple documents and books, including Posner's Killing the Dream, p. 210.
108 recently bought himself a set of barbells: Frank, American Death, p. 168.
109 "I don't think that a man": McKinley, "Interview with James Earl Ray," p. 174.
110 "to get his knob polished": McMillan, Making of an Assassin, p. 267.
111 "I find myself attracted": McKinley, "Interview with James Earl Ray," p. 76.
112 "He was the withdrawn type": My rendering of Galt's lessons at the National Dance Studio is largely drawn from the FBI report "Investigation at National Dance Studio, Long Beach, California, Where Galt Attended Classes, December 1967 to February 1968." Also, FBI interview with Arvidson, National Dance Studio, April 13, 1968, MURKIN Files, 1051-1175, sec. 9, pp. 276-77.
113 "overcome his shyness": My account of Ray's visits with Freeman is primarily drawn from the journalist George McMillan's transcription of his interviews with Freeman, box 9, McMillan Papers.
114 "He had the old power idea": Frank, American Death, p. 308. Also, Posner, Killing the Dream, p. 196.
115 "He was a good pupil": McMillan, Making of an Assassin, p. 275. See also FBI interview with Freeman, April 19, 1968, Los Angeles field office.
CHAPTER 7
SURREPTITIOUSNESS IS CONTAGIOUS
116 "a moral crusader": Clark, Crime in America, p. 151.
117 "Here we all were biting our nails": Author interview with Clark, Oct. 9, 2008, New York City.
118 "We must create a reverence": Clark, Crime in America, p. 95.
119 "a humane and generous concern": Ibid., p. 8.
120 "the Jellyfish": Hersh, Bobby and J. Edgar, p. 486.
121 "What kind of person is that?": See Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 599.
122 "I describe our relationship": Ibid., p. 601.
123 "by the excessive domination": Clark, Crime in America, p. 65.
124 "Surreptitiousness is contagious": Ibid., p. 271.
125 "more than a mere dirty business": Ibid., p. 276.
126 "Hoover had three": Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 500.
127 "a man of monstrous ego": DeLoach, Hoover's FBI, p. 11.
128 "crotchety, dictatorial": Ibid., p. 111.
129 "you were not so much": Ibid., p. 24.
130 "Such behavior": Ibid., pp. 202-3.
131 "like the biblical mustard seed": Ibid., p. 200.
132 "We need this installation": Garrow, FBI and Martin Luther King Jr., p. 184.
133 "A.G. will not approve": Ibid.
134 "There has not been an adequate": Ibid.
CHAPTER 8
A BUGLE VOICE OF VENOM
135 Galt told a representative: Posner, Killing the Dream, p. 194.
136 "Several recruits": Carter, Politics of Rage, p. 310.
137 "The Rockefeller interests": Ibid., p. 311.
138 stock car track: My description of the Burbank rally for Wallace is primarily drawn from Carter, Politics of Rage, pp. 314-15.
139 "He has a bugle voice of venom": New Republic, Nov. 9, 1968.
140 "the heat, the rebel yells": Lesher, George Wallace, p. 410.
141 he wrote to the American-Southern Africa Council: Ray's correspondence is reprinted in House Select Committee on Assassinations (hereafter HSCA), Appendix Reports, vol. 13, p. 252.
142 the Friends of Rhodesia: Ray's letter is reproduced in ibid., vol. 4, p. 116.
143 reader of the Thunderbolt: Ray is tho
ught to have read the Thunderbolt while in prison; after his arrest for King's assassination, he eventually hired J. B. Stoner as his attorney, and his brother Jerry Ray served as Stoner's personal bodyguard.
144 "Invariably the bastard": See Carter, Politics of Rage, p. 165.
145 archly effeminate organizer: Ibid., p. 166.
146 "the last chance": Lesher, George Wallace, p. 301.
147 pasted the racist sobriquet: McMillan, Making of an Assassin, p. 285.
148 "a murky, jukebox-riven hole in the wall": Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, p. 99.
149 "a moody fellow from Alabama": Ibid., p. 110.
150 Pat Goodsell: My account of the incident inside the Rabbit's Foot is mainly drawn from interviews with eyewitnesses in bureau reports, especially the FBI interview with Bo Del Monte, April 22, 1968, MLK Exhibit F-168, in HSCA, Appendix Reports, vol. 4, p. 122. Also see Posner, Killing the Dream, pp. 215-17, and Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, pp. 109-12. Ray himself discusses the incident, giving slightly varying versions, in his two books, Tennessee Waltz and Who Killed Martin Luther King?
CHAPTER 9
RED CARNATIONS
151 "Did you get the flowers?": My account of King's gift of artificial carnations comes from Coretta Scott King's memoir, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., p. 308.
152 "a guilt-ridden man": Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 588.
153 "Tonight I have taken a vow": Branch, At Canaan's Edge, p. 653.
154 confessed to her: Ibid., p. 678.
155 "Each of us is two selves": Dyson, I May Not Get There with You, p. 162.
156 "That poor man": William Rutherford, quoted in Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 617.
157 "Martin had ... an ambivalent attitude": Dyson, I May Not Get There with You, pp. 212-13.
158 "There was nothing fashionable": Ibid., p. 210.
159 "I won't have any money": Ibid., p. 276.
160 "We had a sense of fate": Coretta Scott King, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., p. 303.
161 "This is what will happen to me": Dyson, I May Not Get There with You, p. 214.
CHAPTER 10
AN ORANGE CHRISTMAS
162 Marie Tomaso: FBI FD-302 interview with Marie Martin (Tomaso), conducted on April 13, 1968, by Special Agents William Slicks and Richard Ross.
163 "like he didn't get out too often": Ibid.
164 a deeply eccentric man: My depiction of Charles Stein and his relationship with Galt is primarily drawn from the initial FBI interview with Stein on April 13, 1968, conducted by Special Agents Slicks and Ross out of the Los Angeles field office, as well as a follow-up interview on April 15, 1968. The FBI also interviewed Rita Stein on April 13, 1968 (MURKIN Files, 1051-1175, sec. 9, p. 270), and Stein's mother on April 27, 1968 (MURKIN Files, 3762, sec. 45, p. 43).
165 "I got a gun": FBI FD-302 follow-up interview with Marie Martin, April 14, 1968.
166 Galt had one stipulation: Galt's requirement that Charles Stein, his sister, and his cousin stop by the Wallace headquarters and sign their names is found in FBI interviews with Rita Stein, Charles Stein, and Marie Martin.
167 "I figured he was getting paid": McMillan, Making of an Assassin, p. 280.
168 "What's God got to do with it?": Frank, American Death, p. 165.
169 They rode all night: My account of Ray's cross-country journey to New Orleans is largely adapted from "Analysis of James Earl Ray's Trip to New Orleans, December 15-December 21, 1967," House Select Committee on Assassinations, Appendix Reports, vol. 13, pp. 268-69.
170 "Charlie would nudge me": Ray, Tennessee Waltz, p. 65.
171 "It's Galt": Frank, American Death, p. 166.
172 "a train whistle": Posner, Killing the Dream, p. 206.
173 "You ought to know that Christmas": Ray, "20,000 Words," quoted in Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, p. 105.
174 "I didn't do any gambling": Ibid.
175 "a nearly impossible feat": Lesher, George Wallace, p. 400.
176 "All persons": William Bradford Huie interview with Koss, in Huie's He Slew the Dreamer, pp. 114-16.
177 "You must complete your course": Ibid.
178 "I lost him": Ibid.
CHAPTER 11
WALKING BUZZARDS
179 At the wheel of the big truck: My account of the deaths of Robert Walker and Echol Cole is largely drawn from the news story in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Feb. 2, 1968. See also Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, pp. 1-2; Beifuss, At the River I Stand, p. 30; and Branch, At Canaan's Edge, pp. 684-85.
180 in 1964, two garbage workers were killed: Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, p. 2.
181 "He was standing there": Memphis Commercial Appeal, Feb. 2, 1968.
182 Earline Walker: Branch, At Canaan's Edge, p. 685.
183 Elvis Presley--whose wife, Priscilla, had given birth: Guralnick, Careless Love, p. 288. See also Branch, At Canaan's Edge, p. 685.
184 "I am so lucky": Goldman, Elvis, p. 404.
185 "This you can't do": Beifuss, At the River I Stand, p. 40.
186 Henry Loeb III was a garrulous: My sketch of Loeb relies on biographical details adapted from "Profile: Henry Loeb," a comprehensive, two-part article that ran in Memphis magazine in January and February 1980.
187 he called them "nigras": The Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter Joe Sweat, quoted in Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, p. 119.
188 "the world's least likely revolutionaries": Wills, "Martin Luther King Is Still on the Case," reprinted in The New Journalism, ed. Tom Wolfe, p. 392.
189 "This is not New York": Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, p. 117.
190 Lawson had studied the tenets: For a good biographical sketch of Lawson's earlier days in the civil rights movement, see Halberstam, The Children.
191 "You are human beings": Lawson, quoted in Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, p. 211.
CHAPTER 12
ON THE BALCONY
192 King fell into an argument: Frank, American Death, p. 90.
193 "I don't play with them anymore": Ibid., p. 91.
194 Abernathy woke up in the dead of night: This anecdote from King and Abernathy's trip to Acapulco is adapted from ibid., pp. 91-92, and also Abernathy's testimony in House Select Committee on Assassinations, Appendix Reports, vol. 1, pp. 33-34.
195 "a team": Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, p. 478.
196 another letter from the FBI: See Branch, At Canaan's Edge, p. 708.
197 "You see that rock out there?": Frank, American Death, p. 92.
CHAPTER 13
FACES ARE MY BUSINESS
198 "Your brain and nervous system": Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics, p. 17.
199 "The automatic creative mechanism": Ibid., p. 37.
200 "Don't think before you act": Ibid., p. 169.
201 "When you change a man's face": Ibid., pp. vii-viii.
202 Galt visited a prominent plastic surgeon: My account of Galt's visits to Hadley's office is drawn from the FBI's initial interview with Hadley, conducted on October 2, 1968, out of the Los Angeles field office. See also Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, pp. 119-21; McMillan, Making of an Assassin, pp. 285-86; Frank, American Death, p. 311; and Ray's own version in Tennessee Waltz.
203 "I casually told him": Ray, Tennessee Waltz, p. 68.
204 "The ears": Ibid.
205 "in a position": Ibid.
206 "I'm a fairly observant person": Hadley, quoted in Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, p. 121.
207 "The government is emotionally committed": Branch, At Canaan's Edge, p. 717.
208 "I've seen hatred": King's comments were reported in the Los Angeles Times, March 18, 1968, and also reproduced in Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, p. 123.
209 official postal service card: "Investigation at St. Francis Hotel, Hollywood, California," compiled by the FBI's Los Angeles field office. Here I relied on the FD-302 report of an FBI interview with the St. Francis Hotel manager, Allan O. Thompson, conducted on April 12, 1968, by Special Agent Thomas G. Mansfield.
CHAPTER 14
210 "You are demonstrating": My account of King's March 18 speech in Memphis is drawn from the Memphis Commercial Appeal; from news footage of the speech captured in the PBS documentary At the River I Stand; and from secondary accounts in Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, pp. 296-303, and Beifuss, At the River I Stand, pp. 193-96.
211 The Lorraine had long been popular: My sketch of the Lorraine's history largely comes from the National Civil Rights Museum Web site, clippings in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, p. 442.
212 The old part of the lodge: Wills, "Martin Luther King Is Still on the Case," reprinted in The New Journalism, ed. Tom Wolfe, p. 395.
213 "the King-Abernathy suite": See Abernathy's testimony concerning the Lorraine Motel in House Select Committee on Assassinations, Appendix Reports, vol. 1, p. 32.
214 "seeming so modern": Young, Easy Burden, p. 460.
215 Flamingo Motel: My account of Galt's stay at the Flamingo Motel comes from the following sources: Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, pp. 130-31; Posner, Killing the Dream, p. 219; McMillan, Making of an Assassin, p. 289; Ray, Tennessee Waltz, p. 70; and my own visit to the motel in Selma.
216 Nature ... had gone on strike: Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, p. 323.
217 "We've got a perfect work stoppage": Beifuss, At the River I Stand, p. 205.
218 "Well, the Lord has done it again": Ibid., p. 203.
219 "It had never snowed": Honey, Going Down Jericho Road, p. 309.
220 He located a rooming house: My description of Galt's Atlanta rooming house is based on several accounts in the Atlanta Constitution and on FBI FD-302 reports of interviews with his landlord, Jimmie Garner, conducted on April 14 and 15, 1968, by Special Agents John Ogden and Roger Kaas. See also Huie, He Slew the Dreamer, p. 132.
221 "Every time I look at Atlanta": Reed, quoted in Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic, p. 283.
222 "wouldn't have to answer": Ray, Who Killed Martin Luther King? p. 89.
223 "this place was just infested with hippies": FD-302 report of the Ogden and Kaas interviews with Garner, the FBI Atlanta field office.