At Canaan's Edge

by Taylor Branch

  “The Battle of Fort Deposit”: Int. Mike Miller, June 24, 1994; int. Bob Mants, Sept. 8, 2000; int. Jimmy Rogers, March 8, 2000; int. Scott B. Smith, April 11, 2003; int. Jennifer Lawson, Nov. 13, 2004; postings on the SNCC e-mail exchange, sncc@honors.olemiss.edu, by Scott B. Smith and by Michael (Wright) Oshoosi, March 15, 2002, and Eric Morton, March 16, 2002.

  “propensity toward violence”: Director to New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Mobile, Newark, Philadelphia, and Washington field offices, Sept. 9, 1966, FBPA-8. “Information available to the Bureau concerning formation of a Black Panther Party by Max Stanford, a New York Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) leader, would indicate a completely separate organization is contemplated by Stanford,” wrote Hoover. “Due to the propensity toward violence by Stanford and other RAM members as well as indications that Stokely Carmichael has offered to help Stanford to organize a New York based Black Panther Party, this matter should receive intensive investigative efforts…. There does not appear to be any actual connection between the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, a legitimate political party, and the formation of a Black Panther Party in New York by Stanford.” RAM had been founded in 1963 by the expatriate NAACP leader Robert Williams, on a platform that Stanford described as “revolutionary nationalism, black nationalism or just plain blackism.” Stanford and Carmichael had known each other in New York, but quarreled in 1966 over what Carmichael thought was a surreptitious effort by Stanford to infiltrate SNCC with rigid RAM ideology. Cf. Tyson, Radio Free, pp. 290, 297; Bracey et al. Black Nationalism, pp. 508–17; Carson, Struggle, p. 261; Carmichael, Ready, pp. 567–69.

  Beginning that fall: Marable, Race, p. 121.

  “I don’t think I lost”: Handwritten notes of LBJ remarks by Bill Moyers, undated, [Nov. 1966], Office of the President, Box 8, LBJ.

  net loss to Republicans: NYT, Nov. 10, 1966, p. 1; Mary White Ovington, “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Journal of Negro History, Vol. 9, 1924, p. 339; Edwards, Reagan, p. 176.

  “I just don’t have the answer to it”: NYT, Nov. 11, 1966, p. 18.

  “It’ll move beyond George Wallace”: Lemann, Promised, p. 196.

  “He used to be a liberal”: “Wallace Doubts Reagan’s Beliefs,” NYT, Nov. 10, 1966, p. 30.

  Reagan deflected instant clamor: “Reagan Emerging in 1968 Spotlight,” NYT, Nov. 10, 1966, p. 1.

  “very flattering that anyone”: NYT, Dec. 1, 1966, p. 1.

  won by 993,739 votes: Edwards, Reagan, pp. 171–72.

  “It seems to be all over”: Ibid.

  He discounted white backlash: NYT, Nov. 10, 1966, p. 29; AC, Nov. 10, 1966, p. 7.

  “For me,” said Reagan: Edwards, Reagan, p. 176.

  only 5 percent of the black vote: Ibid.; NYT, Nov. 19, 1966, p. 30.

  “Whether we like it or not”: Matusow, Unraveling, p. 214.

  “unequivocal stand in favor”: NYT, Nov. 9, 1966, p. 29; NYT, Nov. 6, 1966, p. 60.

  18,000 patronage jobs: Cohen and Taylor, Pharaoh, pp. 426–27, 484.

  troublemaker bent on creating backlash: Chicago Tribune, Nov. 2, 1966, p. 1; NYT, Nov. 2, 1966, p. 25.

  “There were only certain suggestions”: Cohen and Taylor, Pharaoh, p. 427.

  “idea of affirmative action”: Ibid., p. 146.

  400,000 to 470,000 troops: McNamara to Joint Chiefs of Staff, Nov. 11, 1966, and McNamara to LBJ, Nov. 17, 1966, in Gravel, ed., Pentagon Papers, Vol. 4, pp. 364–78.

  “leveling off”: Ibid.; McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 263.

  5,000 of the 6,644: NYT, Jan. 6, 1967, p. 2; Zaroulis and Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?, p. 98; DeBenedetti, Ordeal, p. 160.

  filched from other Pentagon accounts: Cf. McNamara’s explanation of war financing to LBJ: “But what I’m doing is taking money that I had planned to use, let’s say, next April and May, for one purpose and drawing it forward now for another purpose. This is all legal, but it means that I’ve got a clear deficit condition developing next year.” LBJ phone call with Robert McNamara, 9:48 A.M., June 16, 1966, Cit. 10241, Audiotape WH6606.04, LBJ.

  supplemental appropriation of $12.4 billion: Powers, War, p. 157; FRUS, Vol. 4, p. 850ff.

  prices had jumped 125 percent: National Intelligence Estimate, Dec. 15, 1966, in FRUS, Vol. 4, p. 942.

  “Runaway inflation can undo”: McNamara to General Earle Wheeler, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Nov. 11, 1966, in ibid., pp. 826–27.

  asked for an income tax surcharge: NYT, Jan. 11, 1967, p. 1; Johnson, Vantage, p. 446.

  “stand firm”: Karnow, Vietnam, p. 516.

  “melancholy law of human societies”: Dallek, Flawed, p. 449.

  reintroduced the failed omnibus: Graham, Civil Rights Era, p. 267.

  “intensify our efforts”: Johnson, Vantage, p. 82.

  every word the late President Kennedy said: LBJ to Bob Kintner, Nov. 24, 1966, and Fred Panzer response to Jake Jacobsen, Nov. 26, 1966, WE9, Box 28, LBJ.

  economists compiled impressive statistics: HEW Secretary John Gardner to LBJ, Dec. 28, 1966, and “The War on Poverty: An Overall View,” Dec. 27, 1966, WE9, Box 28, LBJ.

  stalled at roughly $1.5 billion: Dallek, Flawed, p. 404.

  “The poor will feel”: Powers, War, p. 156.

  Rustin’s freedom budget: “10-Year Plan Aims at Poverty’s End/ Rights, Religious and Labor Leaders Ask $185-Billion U.S. ‘Freedom Budget,’” NYT, Oct. 27, 1966, p. 1.

  fell dormant with its plan: D’Emilio, Lost Prophet, pp. 431–35.

  Martin Luther King discreetly complained: Clifford Alexander to LBJ, Jan. 11, 1967, MLK Name File, Box 144, LBJ.

  “Our work was just beginning”: Johnson, Vantage, p. 82.

  “the best minds are now”: Henry H. Wilson, Jr., to LBJ, Dec. 10, 1966, WE9, Box 28, LBJ.

  “You have a tired cabinet”: Harry McPherson to LBJ, Dec. 19, 1966, McPherson Papers, Box 7, LBJ.

  “I think it is unfair to take your leader”: Tom Johnson to LBJ, Dec. 22, 1966, with attached meeting notes of Dec. 21, 1966, Tom Johnson Notes, Box 1, LBJ; Dallek, Flawed, p. 390.

  “A miasma of trouble”: Johnson, Diary, p. 469.

  retreat on the coastal island: Garrow, Bearing, pp. 536–37; Power, I Will, pp. 3–5.

  James Lawson and Ira Sandperl conducted: SC, Nov. 26–27, 1966, p. 3.

  “The only time I have ever been hit”: Power, I Will, p. 17.

  Rival factions loyal to Bevel and Hosea Williams: Int. Hosea Williams, Oct. 29, 1991; int. Willie Bolden, May 14, 1992; int. James Bevel, May 13, 1985; int. Frank Soracco, Sept. 13, 1990; int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991; int. Bernard Lafayette, May 28, 1990.

  “Dr. King, we love you”: Int. Hosea Williams, Oct. 29, 1991.

  “Remember, we are a nonviolent organization”: Power, I Will, p. 14.

  “All right, forget it”: Garrow, Bearing, n. 14, p. 382.

  King rebuked Andrew Young: Young, Burden, pp. 416–17.

  On Monday evening, November 14: Garrow, Bearing, pp. 536–37; Fairclough, Redeem, pp. 324–27.

  “Whether I have anything to say or not”: Transcript, “Dr. King’s Speech,” Nov. 14, 1966, A/SC28f26.

  David Garrow later identified: David J. Garrow, “Where Martin Luther King, Jr. Was Going: Where Do We Go from Here and the Traumas of the Post-Selma Movement,” Georgia Historical Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 4, Winter 1991, p. 726.

  “While this period represented”: Transcript, “Dr. King’s Speech,” Nov. 14, 1966, A/SC28f26.

  “All that I have said boils down”: Branch, Pillar, pp. 542–43.

  “Now Hosea, I want you to hear this”: Transcript, “Dr. King’s Speech,” Nov. 14, 1966, A/SC28f26.

  a radical leap in the language of steadfast commitment: Fairclough, Redeem, pp. 324–25; Lewis, King, p. 364. Authors Fairclough and Lewis interpret the change as a shift within King, away from optimism. My view is that King had been realistic about race in the North at least since graduate school in Boston, and that the agenda for his last years
reflected adverse trends in national politics more than a change in his core beliefs.

  “about the 50-yard line”: Ibid.

  Andrew Young returned: Young, Burden, pp. 417–18; Jet, Dec. 15, 1966, p. 5.

  “scared to death”: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation among Stanley Levison, Andrew Young, and Dora McDonald, 12:11 P.M., Dec. 1, 1966, FLNY-9-1140a; New York LHM dated Dec. 6, 1966, FSC-1694.

  Operation Shredder: Oren, Six Days, pp. 33–35.

  cancel his visit to the region in 1967: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Rev. Moore, 9:18 P.M., Nov. 23, 1966, FLNY-9-1132a; wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and MLK, 7:48 P.M., Nov. 30, 1966, FLNY-9-1139a.

  relief of Jews persecuted in the Soviet Union: Cf. Rabbi Israel Miller to MLK, Nov. 11, 1966, with attached telethon script in MLK’s handwriting dated Dec. 11, 1966, A/KS.

  Stanley Levison thought it would take genius: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation among Stanley Levison, Andrew Young, and Dora McDonald, 12:11 P.M., Dec. 1, 1966, FLNY-9-1140a; New York LHM dated Dec. 6, 1966, FSC-1694.

  “hammering at black power”: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Adele [LNU], Dec. 21, 1966, FLNY-9-1160a.

  “calls him ‘brother Marx’”: Ibid.

  “too subtle to dramatize”: Remarks to the Chicago staff of the American Friends Service Committee, Dec. 4, 1966, in Ralph, Northern, p. 233.

  “was certainly far stronger”: Ralph, Northern, p. 170; Lewis, King, pp. 352–53.

  The Metropolitan Chicago Leadership Council for Open Housing: Cohen and Taylor, Pharaoh, p. 422; cf. “Realty Men Weigh Appeal in Chicago,” NYT, Aug. 6, 1967, p. 42.

  “We should have known better”: Abernathy, Walls, pp. 362–63.

  “I knew he had to fall”: D’Emilio, Lost Prophet, p. 455.

  “Great White Switch”: Black and Black, Rise, p. 205.

  “The beginning of the modern rise”: Lemann, Promised, p. 200.

  “He was a liberal”: Dallek, Right Moment, pp. 238–39.

  33: SPY VISIONS

  PAGE

  Bond v. Floyd: Fred P. Graham, “Supreme Court Voids Refusal of Georgia House to Seat Bond,” NYT, Dec. 6, 1966, p. 1; Bond v. Floyd (385 U.S. 116); Neary, Julian Bond, pp. 140–41; Morgan, One Man, pp. 160–61.

  “We are not persuaded”: “Supreme Court Upholds Bond,” AC, Dec. 6, 1966, pp. 1, 9.

  “Fight in Congress to Bar Powell”: NYT, Dec. 1, 1966, p. 1.

  “Powell’s Just Too Blatant”: WP, Jan. 8, 1967.

  third such case recently discovered: Cf. Black v. United States (385 U.S. 26), at 26; “Baker Aide Sues U.S. for Bugging by FBI,” NYT, Feb. 25, 1967, p. 12; “FBI Ordered to Release Bugged Data on Tax Case,” NYT, Feb. 24, 1968, p. 15.

  “U.S. Reviews Cases”: NYT, Dec. 1, 1966, p. 1.

  “an issue of great emotion”: Nicholas Katzenbach oral history by Paige E. Mulhollan, Nov. 12, 1968, p. 36, LBJ.

  “As you know, this is a damn important matter for me”: RFK to Katzenbach, handwritten, July 13, 1966, RFK Senate Papers, Box 5, Corr: Personal File 64-68, JFK; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, pp. 817–18.

  managed to trace and shut down: Garrow, FBI and King, pp. 178–79; Dallek, Flawed, pp. 408–9; Nicholas Katzenbach oral history by Paige E. Mulhollan, Nov. 12, 1968, p. 45, LBJ.

  “You got that little situation prohibited?”: LBJ phone call with Nicholas Katzenbach, 9:15 P.M., July 15, 1966, Cit. 10410-11, Audiotape WH6607.02, LBJ.

  frayed beyond civil respect: Int. Nicholas Katzenbach, June 14, 1991; Kalman, Abe Fortas, p. 316.

  “We do not obtain authorization”: Sullivan to DeLoach, July 19, 1966, Section 36, FHOC. Hoover’s handwritten instruction appears at the end of the memo: “No more such techniques must be used.”

  “I note that requests”: Hoover to Tolson and DeLoach, Jan. 6, 1967, Section 36, FHOC.

  to ask Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa: Garrow, FBI and King, p. 179; “Informative Note,” Nov. 3, 1966, FSC-1628; SAC, New York, to Director, Nov. 3, 1966, FSC-1626; NYT, Nov. 8, 1966, p. 23.

  Hoover authorized Deke DeLoach: Baumgardner to Sullivan, Oct. 28, 1966, FK-2779.

  Katzenbach had left in place: LBJ phone call with Nicholas Katzenbach, 9:15 P.M., July 15, 1966, Cit. 10410-11, Audiotape WH6607.02, LBJ.

  “Yike, does it really say that?”: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, Nov. 8, 1966, FLNY-9-1117a.

  an embarrassed Hoffa: LHM dated Nov. 14, 1966, FK-2775; DSS to Tolson, Nov. 14, 1966, FK-2780.

  “our counterintelligence aim to thwart”: Wick to DeLoach, Nov. 9, 1966, FK-2771.

  harness satellite communications technology: Friendly, Circumstances, pp. 302, 308–25; Kabaservice, Guardians, pp. 276–77; Dallek, Flawed, p. 296; McGeorge Bundy, “The President’s Review,” Ford Foundation Annual Report 1966, pp. i–xi.

  “full equality for all American Negroes”: NYT, Aug. 3, 1966, p. 19; Kabaservice, Guardians, pp. 167–68, 277.

  Bundy quietly hired two of their contacts: Int. Clarence Jones, Oct. 25, 2004. The Ford Foundation contacts were Douglas Pugh and Michael Miller.

  grant negotiations progressed: Cf. wiretap transcripts of telephone conversations among Stanley Levison, Clarence Jones, Andrew Young, and Martin Luther King dated July 21, 1966 (FLNY-9-1007), Oct. 1, 1966 (FLNY-9-1079), Oct. 11, 1966 (FLNY-9-1089), Oct. 18, 1966 (FLNY-9-1096).

  virtually to join the SCLC staff: Cf. wiretap transcript of Stanley Levison’s telephone conversations with Mike Miller of the Ford Foundation, Nov. 23, 1966 (FLNY-9-1132a), MLK, Dec. 6, 1966 (FLNY-9-1145), Joan Daves, Dec. 6, 1966 (FLNY-9-1145), Clarence Jones, Dec. 11, 1966 (FLNY-9-1149a), MLK, Dec. 12, 1966 (FLNY-9-1151).

  rescue the movement’s financial base: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Martin Luther King, July 12, 1966, FLNY-9-998a; Robert L. Green to MLK, July 16, 1966, A/SC47f10; Jet, Jan. 19, 1967, p. 46.

  “I don’t want five million dollars”: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Andrew Young, Oct. 15, 1966, FLNY-9-1093a.

  DeLoach recruited an intermediary: Sullivan to Baumgardner, Oct. 24, 1966, reprinted in Hearings, House Select Committee on Assassinations, Vol. 6, pp. 279–80.

  “I personally feel that Bundy”: DeLoach to Tolson, Oct. 26, 1966, FSC-NR.

  “We would get nowhere”: Handwritten notation on ibid.

  confidential mission with DeLoach: Int. Cartha A. DeLoach, June 1, 1984.

  H. R. Gross to sign: Gross to Hoover, Dec. 5, 1966, Pearson file, Box G273, LBJ. DeLoach said his office drafted Gross’s letter to Hoover as well as Hoover’s reply, both for Hoover’s advance approval.

  Hoover’s ad hominem reply: Hoover to H. R. Gross, Dec. 7, 1966, Pearson file, Box G273, LBJ.

  “Hoover Asserts Robert Kennedy”: NYT, Dec. 11, 1966, p. 1.

  Kennedy offered a statement of rebuttal: Ibid., p. 84.

  counterattack at precisely 2:25 P.M.: Wick to DeLoach, Dec. 12, 1966, FRFK-1893.

  “absolutely inconceivable”: FBI news release, Dec. 11, 1966, FRFK-1801; NYT, Dec. 12, 1966, p. 1.

  “for the use and assistance”: Director SAC letter marked “Personal Attention,” Dec. 15, 1966, FRFK-1896.

  gave way to sensational headlines: Hoover to the Acting Attorney General (Ramsey Clark), Dec. 23, 1966, FRFK-1894; WSJ, Dec. 22, 1966; “Who Knew About ‘Bugging’…RFK’s Story—and the FBI’s,” U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 26, 1966, pp. 32–35.

  “a town which relishes”: Robert Cahn, “Wiretap Dispute Flares,” Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 13, 1966.

  “President Aloof in Bugging Feud”: Max Frankel, NYT, Dec. 13, 1966; Miller, Lyndon, pp. 568–69.

  bombarded with FBI allegations: Hoover to White House aide Marvin Watson, Dec. 29, 1966, FRFK-1897; Hoover to the Acting Attorney General (Ramsey Clark), Dec. 19, 1966, FRFK-1892.

  DeLo
ach brief Justice Fortas: Kalman, Abe Fortas, pp. 315–16.

  “forty or fifty of them”: LBJ phone call with Ramsey Clark, 11:39 P.M., July 13, 1966, Cit. 10407-08, Audiotape WH6607.01, LBJ.

  “nobody in Washington could be sure”: James Reston, “Washington: The Kennedy-Hoover Controversy,” NYT, Dec. 14, 1966, p. 14.

  Senate hearings on poverty, in which King cited: Garrow, Bearing, pp. 539–40.

  “The error alone”: MLK testimony in “Federal Role in Urban Affairs,” hearings before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization, Committee on Government Operations, Dec. 15, 1966, pp. 2967–99.

  dialogue about why nonviolence: Ibid., pp. 2990–95.

  “Dr. King ‘Assumes’ Phone Is Tapped”: NYT, Dec. 15, 1966, p. 64.

  Stanley Levison said: SAC, New York, to Director, Dec. 16, FK-2804; wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Chauncey Eskridge, Dec. 16, 1966, FLNY-9-1155; Branch, Parting, pp. 833–41.

  “When you have a guy”: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Harry Wachtel, Dec. 22, 1966, FLNY-9-1161a.

  “the biggest publishing story”: Thomas, Robert Kennedy, pp. 330–32; “Widow Dismayed by Kennedy Book,” NYT, Dec. 11, 1966, p. 1; “Mrs. Kennedy Will Seek an Injunction,” NYT, Dec. 15, 1966, p. 1.

  forthcoming book on the Kennedy assassination: Manchester, Death; Dallek, Flawed, pp. 520–22; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, pp. 817–22.

  remove his opening chapter: Manchester moved an abbreviated hunting story to page 118.

  “to suppress my bias”: Shesol, Contempt, p. 355.

  Gossip oozed into the press: Cf. “Growing Rift of LBJ and Kennedys,” U.S. News & World Report, Jan. 2, 1967, pp. 22–27; “Manchester Recounts Battle,” WP, Jan. 23, 1967.

  President Johnson fulminated to Fortas: Shesol, Contempt, pp. 355–59.

  “I don’t think I called Mrs. Kennedy”: LBJ phone call with Bill Moyers, 10:17 A.M., Dec. 26, 1966, Audiotape K66.02, LBJ.

  Moyers had just resigned: NYT, Dec. 15, 1966, p. 1.

  push Moyers closer to Robert Kennedy: Miller, Lyndon, p. 556; Johnson, Diary, p. 469; “T.R.B. from Washington,” New Republic, Dec. 24, 1966.