At Canaan's Edge

by Taylor Branch

  Historian Lawrence Reddick: Wiretap transcript of telephone call between MLK and Stanley Levison, 9:05 P.M., Jan. 20, 1968, FLNY-9-1555a.

  “a mighty fine thing”: San Francisco Examiner, Sept. 22, 1967, p. 6, FK-3106.

  Secretary of State need not resign: Rusk, As I Saw It, pp. 579–82; McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 282; SC, Sept. 30–Oct. 1, 1967, p. 2.

  several pioneer weddings: NYT, July 22, 1967, p. 11; NYT, Aug. 13, 1967, p. 31.

  covered George Washington’s portrait: Moore to Sullivan, Oct. 4, 1967, FK-3107.

  George Bush pronounced himself satisfied: Sargent Shriver to LBJ, Sept. 15, 1967, WHCF, WE9, Box 98, LBJ; Bush floor speech of Aug. 14, 1967, Congressional Record, p. H22447.

  precede every football game: SC, Aug. 26–27, 1967, p. 1.

  convince the mild-mannered Bernard Lafayette: Int. Bernard Lafayette, May 28, 1990, March 18, 2005; MLK to Lafayette, undated, ca. Sept. 1967, A/SC4f26.

  King and Harry Belafonte launched: Garrow, Bearing, pp. 578–79; San Francisco LHM dated Oct. 16, 1967, FK-3121.

  performers even quarreled on stage: Int. Joan Baez, Jan. 7, 1984; Rolling Stone Rock Almanac, p. 135; Maraniss, They Marched, p. 313.

  a showcase federal trial: “All-White Jury Picked as Trial of 18 in Slaying of 3 Rights Workers Begins in Mississippi,” NYT, Oct. 10, 1967, p. 21.

  “young male Negroes to sign”: Ibid.; Cagin and Dray, Not Afraid, p. 445ff; Mars, Witness, p. 228ff; Whitehead, Attack, p. 260ff; McIlhany, Klandestine, p. 81ff.

  “It was the first time that Christians”: Cagin and Dray, Not Afraid, p. 447.

  historic Arlington Street Unitarian: Zaroulis and Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?, pp. 133–34; Coffin, Once, pp. 238–44; Mendelsohn, Martyrs, pp. 173–74; Friedland, Lift Up, pp. 193–94.

  “Are we to raise conscientious men”: Goldstein, Coffin, p. 197.

  Across the country in Oakland: Powers, War, pp. 236–37; DeBenedetti, Ordeal, p. 196; Viorst, Fire, p. 413.

  a demonstration in Wisconsin: DeBenedetti, Ordeal, p. 196; Maraniss, They Marched, passim.

  author David Maraniss: Maraniss, They Marched, pp. 322–28, 348–56, 363ff.

  traced a sharp transformation: Ibid., p. 381.

  “I’m a radical!”: Ibid., p. 397.

  “It was a brutal business”: Wiretap transcript of telephone call between Stanley Levison and an unidentified party, 2:04 P.M., Oct. 21, 1967, FLNY-9-1464a.

  King complained of a “vicious” editorial: Moore to Sullivan, Oct. 16, 1967, FK-3119; Hoover to SAC, Houston, Oct. 17, 1967, FK-3113.

  Hoover approved: Handwritten note on Moore to Sullivan, Oct. 18, 1967, FK-3129.

  “Midnight murder in the rural area”: Whitehead, Attack, pp. 278–79.

  raised finger at Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price: NYT, Oct. 19, 1967, p. 37.

  “What I say”: Cagin and Dray, Not Afraid, p. 449.

  government officials braced: “Thousands Reach Capital to Protest Vietnam War,” NYT, Oct. 21, 1967, pp. 1, 8; Califano, Triumph, pp. 198–99; Dallek, Flawed, pp. 487–89.

  “are not going to run me out of town”: Tom Johnson notes, LBJ meeting with Rusk, McNamara, Rostow, CIA Director Richard Helms, and Press Secretary George Christian, Oct. 3, 1967, in FRUS, Vol. 5, p. 840.

  “You must not go down”: Ibid., p. 845.

  “If history indicts us for Vietnam”: LBJ interview with Robert Manning of The Atlantic Monthly, cited in Dallek, Flawed, p. 486.

  “Dr. Coffin, am I being tendered something?”: NYT, Oct. 21, 1967, p. 8; Coffin, Once, pp. 244–51; Powers, War, pp. 193–94; Goldstein, Coffin, pp. 199–200.

  “the Friday after Friday”: Cagin and Dray, Not Afraid, p. 451.

  “John Doar gave thanks and soon retired: Int. John Doar, May 12, 1986; NYT, Nov. 30, 1967, p. 35.

  “a first step in a thousand-mile journey”: NYT, Oct. 21, 1967, p. 18.

  White Knights had intensified terror attacks: Whitehead, Attack, pp. 285–88; Nelson, Terror, pp. 64–82; Evans, Provincials, p. 221ff; Perkins, Brother, pp. 78–81; Tarrants, Conversion, pp. 48–61.

  “preacher of Jesus the Galilean”: Marsh, Summer, pp. 71–72.

  It would be another twenty-two years: Jerry Mitchell, “Justice Delayed, Not Denied,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Jan. 8, 2005, p. 1; NYT, April 2, 1995, p. 18; NYT, May 29, 1998, p. 1; WP, July 22, 1998, p. D-1.

  seventy-nine-year-old Edgar Ray Killen: Jerry Mitchell, “Preacher Helped Conceal Klan Killings, Friend Says,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, July 19, 2001, p. 1; Jerry Mitchell, “Grand Jury Indicts Killen in ’64 Slayings,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Jan. 7, 2005, p. 1; NYT, Jan. 8, 2005, p. 1.

  “sprinkling of Negroes”: NYT, Oct. 22, 1967, pp. 1, 58.

  “We don’t want to play Indian”: Zaroulis and Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?, p. 137.

  vigils, skirmishes, and bonfires: Ibid., pp. 136–42; John C. Diamante, “Federal Troops Stop March at Pentagon,” SC, Nov. 4–5, 1967, p. 4; DeBenedetti, Ordeal, p. 198; Dellinger, From Yale, pp. 302–7; Langguth, Our Vietnam, pp. 459–60.

  none of the two hundred Wisconsin students: Maraniss, They Marched, pp. 428–29, 443, 460–66, 475–76.

  “almost enough to retrieve”: James Reston, “Everyone Is a Loser,” Oct. 23, 1967, p. 1.

  His testimony before the Kerner Commission: NYT, Oct. 24, 1967, p. 33; NYT, Jan. 14, 1968, p. 71.

  “I think that the time has come”: MLK statement, ABC Radio News, Oct. 23, 1967, A/KS.

  “appeal to anarchy”: “King’s Camp-In,” WP, Oct. 26, 1967, p. 20; Garrow, Bearing, p. 579.

  Dora McDonald asked Levison: Wiretap transcript of telephone call between Stanley Levison and Dora McDonald, 2:55 P.M., Oct. 23, 1967, FLNY-9-1466a.

  “will be lucky to break even”: Wiretap transcript of telephone call between Stanley Levison and Chauncey Eskridge, Oct. 30, 1967, FLNY-9-1473a. An accounting in the files showed that the series lost $9,000 above overall revenues of $86,000: “Balance Sheet, Belafonte-Franklin Show,” Nov. 15, 1967, ACS10f4.

  “I thought you were coming”: Int. Bernard Lafayette, March 22, 2005.

  convocation at tiny Grinnell College: Mays, Born, pp. 269–70.

  final court orders to surrender: NYT, Oct. 10, 1967, p. 40; NYT, Oct. 19, 1967, p. 41; Garrow, Bearing, pp. 579–80.

  “a small price to pay”: MLK statement of Oct. 30, 1967, attached to Atlanta office LHM dated Oct. 31, 1967, FK-3136.

  “As we leave”: SC, Nov. 4–5, 1967, pp. 1, 2.

  hauled off by police cars: Ibid.; Westin, Trial, pp. 1–2.

  “coherent voice to a catastrophe”: NYT, Oct. 3, 1967, p. 45.

  “I absorbed by osmosis”: NYT, Aug. 5, 1967, p. 13.

  diverted King to a facility: NYT, Oct. 31, 1967, pp. 1, 30; NYT, Nov. 1, 1967, p. 33; NYT, Nov. 2, 1967, p. 34.

  four prisoners were transferred: SAC Birmingham to Director, Nov. 1, 1967, FK-3130.

  Harry Wachtel to reconvene at Union Seminary: Harry Wachtel to Al Lowenstein, Nov. 8, 1967, Box 11f377, #4340, UNC.

  passed over President Franklin Roosevelt’s veto: Dickson and Allen, Bonus Army, pp. 252–53.

  tuition grants for 11 million: Ibid., pp. 273–77.

  King began an opinion piece: MLK, “A Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged,” NYT, Nov. 12, 1967, p. IV-11.

  gossip about Birmingham authorities: Int. Edward Gardner, Jan. 21, 1986.

  cut short the sentence: NYT, Nov. 4, 1967, p. 21; Birmingham LHM dated Nov. 6, 1967, FK-NR.

  “This looks like ’63!”: SC, Nov. 11–12, 1967, p. 1.

  Cleveland for the off-year elections: NYT, Aug. 27, 1967, p. 64; NYT, Oct. 4, 1967, p. 1; Garrow, Bearing, pp. 578–81; Young, Burden, pp. 436–37; Abernathy, Walls, pp. 485–88.

  “Stokes, the great-grandson of a slave”: Newsweek, Nov. 20, 1967, p. 66.

  consultation in Chicago: MLK speech, University of Chicago, Nov. 11, 1967, Series 4, Box 1, CALCAV, SCPC; wiretap transcript of telephone call between Jesse Jackson and Bea Levison, Nov. 9, 1967, FLNY-9-1483a; wire
tap transcript of telephone call between Stanley and Bea Levison, 11:40 A.M., Aug. 16, 1967, FLNY-9-1398; wiretap transcript of telephone call between MLK and Stanley Levison, 12:41 A.M., Oct. 9, 1967, FLNY-9-1452.

  “I feel presumptuous even in asking questions”: WP, Nov. 13, 1967, p. 1; NYT, Nov. 13, 1967, p. 1.

  “turned to stone on the outside”: Johnson, Diary, pp. 587–89.

  postlude into a tempest: NYT, Nov. 14, 1967, p. 6; WP, Nov. 14, 1967, p. 10; NYT, Nov. 16, 1967, p. 8; NYT, Nov. 19, 1967, p. 2; NYT, Nov. 19, 1967, p. IV-12.

  King departed for northern England: Garrow, Bearing, p. 581.

  “psychologic elaboration”: NYT, Nov. 12, 1967, p. 70.

  openly proclaiming an advocacy stance: “Newsweek Drops Its Policy of Avoiding ‘Advocacy’”: NYT, Nov. 11, 1967, p. 31; full-page advertisement signed by Newsweek editor Osborn Elliott, NYT, Nov. 13, 1967, p. 96; “Newsweek Urges Wide Aid to Negro,” NYT, Nov. 13, 1967, p. 55.

  special issue on the crisis of race: “The Negro in America: What Must Be Done,” Newsweek, Nov. 20, 1967, p. 32ff.

  King let Stanley Levison draft arguments: Wiretap transcript of telephone call between MLK and Stanley Levison, 10:45 A.M., Nov. 16, 1967, FLNY-9-1490; wiretap transcript of telephone call between Stanley Levison and Andrew Young, 1:26 A.M., Nov. 19, 1967, FLNY-9-1493.

  “I’m on fire about the thing”: MLK, “Why a Movement,” Nov. 28, 1967, A/SC28f42.

  At the week-long retreat: NYT, Nov. 27, 1967, p. 53.

  “Violence has been the inseparable twin”: MLK, “The State of the Movement,” Nov. 28, 1967, A/SC28f42.

  had just met with Olympic athletes: Ibid.; NYT, Nov. 24, 1967, p. 30.

  “So I say to you tonight”: MLK, “The State of the Movement,” Nov. 28, 1967, A/SC28f42, p. 12.

  Bevel disputed King’s constitutional basis: Int. Bernard Lafayette, May 28, 1990 and March 22, 2005.

  FBI intelligence reports of leadership friction: FBI HQ LHM dated Dec. 7, 1967, Box 32, OFMS, LBJ.

  “his ability to confront without repelling”: The Rev. G. H. Jack Woodard, Jr., to MLK, Nov. 28, 1967, A/SC2f19.

  “I can’t support you”: Int. Hosea Williams, Oct. 28, 1991.

  “That nigger don’t know nothin’ about niggers!”: Int. William Rutherford, Dec. 7, 2004.

  “The great burden of this”: Notes, SCLC Frogmore Retreat, Nov. 1967, with a cover note from Stanley Levison to Dora McDonald, A/SC14f42.

  “I figure our riots”: Ibid.

  check for culture shock in Rutherford: Int. William Rutherford, Dec. 7, 2004; int. Bernard Lafayette, March 22, 2005.

  sell or license his businesses: Rutherford to Andrew Young, Sept. 1, 1967, A/SC39f10; Rutherford to MLK, Sept. 21, 1967, A/SC5f15; Rutherford to Andrew Young, Oct. 24 and Oct. 25, 1967, A/SC39f13.

  greeted Rutherford with two secret assignments: Garrow, Bearing, pp. 584–85.

  “Even Lillian?”: Int. William Rutherford, Dec. 7, 2004.

  “Public preoccupation with Vietnam”: Rutherford to Andrew Young, Oct. 24, 1967, A/SC39f13.

  “The day of the demonstration”: MLK, “Why a Movement,” Nov. 28, 1967, A/SC28f42.

  this might be the last campaign: Int. Bernard Lafayette, March 22, 2005.

  “I got really upset”: Int. Hosea Williams, Oct. 29, 1991.

  “There is something in the book of Revelation”: MLK, “Why a Movement,” Nov. 28, 1967, A/SC28f42. King’s verse is apparently a paraphrase of Revelation 3:2: “Awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God.”

  twelfth anniversary of his debut speech: Branch, Parting, pp. 138–42.

  “The Southern Christian Leadership Conference”: MLK press conference, Dec. 4, 1967, A/KS.

  “The Negro leader’s mood”: NYT, Dec. 5, 1967, pp. 1, 32.

  37: NEW YEAR TRIALS

  PAGE

  “We’re killing innocent people”: NYT, Nov. 27, 1967, pp. 1, 15.

  “I don’t know what I can do”: Thomas, Robert Kennedy, p. 351.

  He welcomed a potential quest: NYT, Nov. 19, 1967, p. 1.

  “Dump Johnson” activist: Steven V. Roberts, “The Dump-Johnson Movement,” Commonweal, Oct. 27, 1967, p. 106; Arnold S. Kaufman and Allard Lowenstein, “The Time Is Ripe to Dump Johnson,” Michigan Daily, Nov. 2, 1967; “The Move to ‘Dump’ Johnson,” Newsweek, Nov. 20, 1967; int. Curtis Gans, Oct. 23, 1991.

  “Aren’t you still waiting for Bobby?”: Transcript, Meet the Press, Dec. 3, 1967, Box 54f109, AL, UNC.

  Conference of Concerned Democrats: Press agenda, Box 54f109, AL, UNC; keynote address by Rep. Don Edwards, Dec. 2, 1967, Box 54f109, AL, UNC; Harris, Dreams, pp. 218–19; Chafe, Never, pp. 278–81.

  candidate-in-waiting seethed offstage: NYT, Nov. 3, 1967, p. 1; NYT, Dec. 1, 1967, p. 1; “McCarthy Denies a Kennedy Plot,” NYT, Dec. 3, 1967, p. 42; NYT, Dec. 4, 1967, p. 41.

  McCarthy’s poetic detachment: Powers, War, pp. 284–92; cf. Wilfred Stone to McCarthy, Jan. 15, 1968: “I heard you today at Stanford…I want you to win the nomination…but I think your speech was, in a political sense, ineffective…a kind of plaintive note, almost a note of self-pity.” Box 54f91, AL, UNC.

  Lady Bird Johnson bemoaned: Johnson, Diary, pp. 591–92.

  he came alone to Johnson with appeals: McNamara cover note to LBJ, Nov. 1, 1967, Meeting Notes File, Box 2, LBJ; McNamara to LBJ, Nov. 1, 1967, in FRUS, Vol. 5, p. 943ff; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 305–11. McNamara began the cover note of November 1 as follows: “Yesterday at lunch I stated my belief that continuation of our present course of action in Southeast Asia would be dangerous, costly in lives, and unsatisfactory to the American people. The attached memorandum outlines an alternative program.”

  “we could even have another Forrestal”: Califano, Triumph, p. 249.

  Wise Men rejected it: McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 309; Kalman, Abe Fortas, p. 304; Clifford, Counsel, pp. 457–58; Taylor, Swords, pp. 377–78; Rostow to LBJ, Nov. 2, 1967, in FRUS, Vol. 5, p. 971; Rostow to LBJ, Nov. 4, 1967, in ibid., p. 986; Clifford to LBJ, Nov. 7, 1967, in ibid., p. 992; Rusk to LBJ, Nov. 20, 1967, in ibid., p. 1037.

  “I can think of nothing worse”: Fortas to LBJ, Nov. 5, 1967, in FRUS, Vol. 5, p. 991.

  off to head the World Bank: Califano to LBJ, Nov. 27, 1967, Name File—Wiggins, LBJ; NYT, Nov. 28, 1967, p. 1; Dallek, Flawed, pp. 494–96.

  “I do not know to this day”: McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 311.

  “I am beginning to agree”: Tom Johnson notes of LBJ meeting with Vietnam advisers, Nov. 21, 1967, in FRUS, Vol. 5, p. 1055.

  Johnson simply demanded: Dallek, Flawed, pp. 497–98.

  “show some progress”: Notes, meeting with foreign policy advisers, Nov. 2, 1967, in FRUS, Vol. 5, p. 959.

  “deaths and dangers to the sons”: Ibid., p. 958.

  General Westmoreland publicly predicted: NYT, Nov. 16, 1967, p. 1; NYT, Nov. 20, 1967, p. 1.

  “Oh, hell no”: Sheehan, Bright, pp. 646–47.

  President Johnson restrained an impulse: Cf. “Johnson Retorts to Critics of War; Scores Rowdyism/ Backs ‘Responsible’ Dissent at News Conference, but Not ‘Storm Trooper Acts,’” NYT, Nov. 18, 1967, p. 1.

  “Nonviolence can be adapted”: MLK letter to “Dear Friend,” sent “BY LIAISON” from Hoover to Mildred Stegall, Nov. 8, 1967, Box 32, OFMS, LBJ.

  scrawled specific instructions: On ibid., next to MLK’s signature, LBJ wrote: “M[arvin Watson]—Show this to Abe F[ortas] and to Carol + then to Sheldon [Cohen] + report to me.”

  “for the last three or four years”: Unsigned note dated Nov. 20, 1967, attached to Marvin Watson to LBJ, 5:33 P.M., Nov. 20, 1967, identifying IRS director Sheldon Cohen as author of the unsigned note, Box 32, OFMS, LBJ.

  would announce a grant of $230,000: “Ford Aid Is Given to Negro Clergy,” NYT, Jan. 6, 1968, p. 18; UPI dispatch, Jan. 3, 1968, FSC-2069.

  When the President asked Hoover: LBJ note, “Let’s see if this can be checked,�
�� on Hoover to Stegall, Nov. 30, 1967, with attached DC LHM marked “Secret,” Nov. 30, 1967, and Stegall reply to LBJ, Dec. 1, 1967, Box 32, OFMS, LBJ.

  “to expose, disrupt, misdirect”: Hoover, “PERSONAL ATTENTION TO ALL OF FICES,” Aug. 25, 1967, FBNH-1.

  third full-scale COINTELPRO: Powers, Secrecy, pp. 339–41, 413–15, 422–25; De-Loach, Hoover’s FBI, pp. 270–71; O’Reilly, “Racial,” pp. 104–5, 195–205, 261–92. Hoover had initiated the earlier COINTELPRO actions secretly against the Communist Party in 1956 and the Ku Klux Klan in 1964.

  “FBI’s Report on King Ready”: Northern Virginia Sun, Aug. 24, 1967, p. 4; Chicago’s American, Aug. 22, 1967, with handwritten note by Hoover, “This is the article!!!,” FK-NR; Hoover to Tolson, 9:14 A.M., Aug. 24, 1967, FCT-NR.

  lengthy congressional speech: Remarks by Rep. John Ashbrook, Congressional Record, Oct. 4, 1967, p. H27814ff.

  Hoover explored ways to revive the King wiretaps: Moore to Sullivan, Dec. 13, 1967, FSC-2042. DeLoach wrote a note on the wiretap proposal: “I doubt that the Attorney General will approve such an installation, but believe we should try, for the record.”

  litany of faith, hope, and love: I Corinthians 13.

  “You may desire a new beautiful house”: MLK sermon in Montgomery, Alabama, Dec. 10, 1967, Tape 45, A/KS.

  “The kingdom of God is in you”: Ibid.; Luke 17:21.

  Ku Klux Klan rally: SC, Dec. 16–17, 1967, pp. 1, 4; NYT, Dec. 11, 1967, p. 32; Mobile LHM dated Dec. 12, 1967, FK-NR.

  King rushed to Chicago: Garrow, Bearing, p. 589.

  At a Wednesday press conference: NYT, Dec. 14, 1967, p. 39.

  “He’s done in a week”: Wiretap transcript of telephone call between MLK and Stanley Levison, 5:14 P.M., Dec. 13, 1967, FLNY-9-1517a.

  Rutherford dismissed the daughter: Int. William Rutherford, Dec. 7, 2004; Chauncey Eskridge to MLK, “Re: Hotel Bills,” Dec. 21, 1967, A/KP10f5; wiretap transcript of telephone call between Chauncey Eskridge and Stanley Levison, 1:40 P.M., Dec. 26, 1967, FLNY-9-1530a.

  flurry of memos: Hosea Williams to Rutherford, re: Subsistence Workers, Dec. 15, 1967, A/SC57f3; Hosea Williams to Rutherford re: Mr. King Tyler, Dec. 15, 1967, A/SC57f3; Hosea Williams to Rutherford re: Automobile Rental, Dec. 15, 1967, A/SC57f2; Rutherford to Hosea Williams, Dec. 19, 1967, A/SC48f4; Rutherford to Hosea Williams, Dec. 19, 1967, A/SC57f3.