Pillar of Fire

by Taylor Branch

  two bombs severed rail lines: NYT, Feb. 28, 1964, p. 1.

  pounded the lectern: Ibid.

  ordered J. Edgar Hoover: LBJ phone call with J. Edgar Hoover, 8:53 P.M., Feb. 25, 1964, Cit. 2223, Audiotape WH6402.23, LBJ. (Johnson began the call with a joke Hoover did not seem to appreciate: “What’s the matter, you got this phone tapped?”) Johnson also discussed the railroad bombs with Labor Secretary Willard Wirtz (Cit. 2220) and the kamikaze threat with Senator George Smathers (Cit. 2244).

  team of thirty FBI agents; NYT, Feb. 29, 1964, p. 10.

  massive federal-state investigation: NYT, March 1, 1964, p. 1.

  “Confusion to the enemy.”: Int. Michael Gannon, April 3, 1991.

  Sullivan’s team would arrest: Int. Joseph Sullivan, Feb. 3, 1991; NYT, March 13, 1964, p. 18.

  he led a small caravan: Colburn, Racial Change, p. 61.

  freedom march of ten thousand: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 316; PC, March 14, 1964, p. 1; report by Very Rev. Robert W. Estill in Church and Race, a bulletin of the Episcopal Church Center, New York, March 1964, p. 13.

  Vivian promptly visited: Int. C. T. Vivian, May 26, 1990; int. Henry and Katherine Twine, April 2, 1991.

  offered to help recruit: Ibid.

  “Spring Vacation is a time”: Hayling “for the St. Augustine Chapter of the SCLC” to the Massachusetts chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, March 11, 1964, SAHS.

  small network of clergy and theologians: Int. Harvey Cox, May 3, 1991, and Nov. 15, 1993; int. Paul Chapman, Nov. 4, 1994.

  “I got his eyes”: Int. Virgil Wood, Aug. 2, 1994.

  supremely grateful to Daddy King: Ibid. Also int. Harvey Cox, May 3, 1991, and int. Paul Chapman, Nov. 4, 1994.

  “This is not a vacation”: Florida Spring Project application for “Demonstrations in St. Augustine, Florida,” SAHS.

  capsule history: Int. Harvey Cox, May 3, 1991; “Oldest Bias in America,” MS, April 10, 1964, p. 4.

  Cox approached three prominent Episcopal bishops: Int. Harvey Cox, Nov. 15, 1993. Virgil Wood’s core group of clergy in Boston needed new adult volunteers in St. Augustine for a peculiar, technical reason aside from their competing commitments to Easter demonstrations in North Carolina. Rev. John Harmon, treasurer of the new Massachusetts SCLC, was the son-in-law of Judge Elbert Tuttle, chief of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Tuttle had warned that if Harmon or his close associates got arrested within his jurisdiction, the chief judge might well have to recuse himself from the great host of critical civil rights cases before his court. Harmon, Breeden, Wood, and Paul Chapman—the officers of the Massachusetts SCLC—avoided appearances in the entire 5th District, which included St. Augustine. (Int. Paul Chapman, Nov. 4, 1994).

  coax a courtesy invitation: Int. Esther J. Burgess, Nov. 7, 1994.

  grumbling within their own households: Int. Paul Chapman, Nov. 4, 1994.

  wives of all three bishops: Written reminiscence by Esther J. Burgess, courtesy of Esther J. Burgess.

  “If you never see me again”: Int. Esther J. Burgess, Nov. 7, 1994.

  first elected Negro bishop: The Witness, Vol. 49, No. 14, April 9, 1964.

  founder of Groton School: St. Augustine Record, Feb. 7, 1981.

  hurry-up training: Int. Virgil Wood, Aug. 2, 1994.

  Paul Johnson sponsored bills: NYT, April 12, 1964, p. 76.

  new state troopers: NYT, April 2, 1964, p. 67.

  “Thompson’s Tank”: Newsweek, Feb. 24, 1964.

  met secretly in Brookhaven: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 325; Nelson, Terror in the Night, p. 26.

  “Selfishness is the festive queen”: Dillard, Clear Burning, p. 124.

  “We are men who humbly submit”: Ibid., p. 121.

  “We are being deluged”: Moses to Lowenstein, nd (circa Feb. 1964), b9f302, Lowenstein Papers, UNC.

  sixty counties on a single night: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 26.

  “mushroomed toward ten thousand”: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 325.

  Hamer was distributing: Report by Tom Scarbrough, Investigator, Feb. 21, 1964, MSSC.

  “not to give this group”: Ibid.

  curtail Tougaloo College: Johnson to Gov. Johnson, Lt. Gov. Carroll Gartin, and State Senator E. K. Collins, March 26, 1964, MSSC.

  “a list of the trustees”: Erle Johnston, Jr., to File, subject, “Tougaloo College,” April 13, 1964, MSSC.

  “we are in a position to guarantee”: Johnston to Dr. W A. Hotchkiss, April 17, 1964, MSSC. Wesley Hotchkiss, the Sovereignty Commission’s target, was a senior official in the United Church of Christ. As mentor and employer to Andrew Young, Hotchkiss shepherded Martin Luther King’s citizenship program and as mentor to Robert Spike and the new Commission on Religion and Race, he became a linchpin of national church support for Mississippi Freedom Summer. (Int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991.)

  President Beittel submitted: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 234-36. Dittmer suggests more darkly that the CIA accomplished Beittel’s removal through its connections with another Tougaloo trustee, president Barnaby Keeney of Brown University.

  “We have put into action”: Johnston to Herman Glazier, Office of the Governor, June 9, 1964, MSSC.

  publisher William Loeb: Whalen and Whalen, The Longest Debate, p. 145.

  “Don’t Forget to Vote”: Manchester Union Leader, March 5, 1964, p. 1.

  “the Negro will gain the upper hand”: Ibid.

  “rolling into the Granite State”: Ibid.

  “ROAR APPROVAL OF BARRY”: Manchester Union Leader, March 6, 1964, p. 1.

  presented as “The Gipper”: Manchester Union Leader, March 6, 1964, p. 11.

  “A democracy cannot exist”: Ibid.

  “supported a statewide ballot initiative”: Edwards, Reagan, p. 123.

  harbinger of national backlash: Time, Sept. 25, 1964, p. 23; Totton J. Anderson and Eugene C. Lee, “The 1964 Election in California,” The Western Political Quarterly, June 1965, pp. 451-74; G. V. Kennard, “Fair Housing Showdown in the West,” America, Jan. 28, 1967, pp. 142-46.

  “Every citizen must rise up”: California Eagle, Feb. 20, 1964, p. 1.

  personal inspection on March 6: Lesher, George Wallace, p. 274. A month later, after Wallace stunned the nation by gathering 264,000 votes in Wisconsin, the New York Times published a story about his haphazard campaign there on the spontaneous initiative of “Delores Herbstreith, a 34-year-old mother of three.” NYT, April 12, 1964, p. 76.

  “The Negroes are starting”: Reinhold Niebuhr to Will Scarlett, Feb. 3, 1964, Box 33, RN.

  half a million children stayed home: PC, Feb. 15, 1964, p. 3.

  “alienates the friends”: Norman Thomas to Allard Lowenstein, March 18, 1964, b3f307, Lowenstein Papers, UNC.

  headquarters moved swiftly: Sizoo to Sullivan, Feb. 4, 1964, FR-77; SAC, New York, to Director, Feb. 5, 1964, FR-NR.

  “the Negro people”: New York Daily News, Feb. 6, 1964, p. 4.

  “Rustin is now at the very least”: SAC, New York, to Director, and NY LHM, March 2, 1964, FR-NR.

  “a tremendous opportunity”: SAC, New York, to Director, Feb. 7, 1964, FBI File No. 100-3-104-34, Serial 518. In March, Director Hoover notified his New York office that the Rustin wiretap suggested a parallel opening to develop “certain animosities” between Rustin and Wyatt Walker, who was leaving King’s Atlanta staff to live in New York. He added that the Rustin-Walker rivalry offered “potential for Bureau exploitation in neutralizing the influence of Martin Luther King….” Director to SAC, New York, March 19, 1964, FK-NR.

  twenty-one incoming officers: Baumgardner to Sullivan, March 25, 1964, and May 8, 1964, both from the file on the National Council of Churches, FBI File No. 100-50869.

  “widen the rift”: Bland to Sullivan, Feb. 7, 1964, with attached anonymous press release, “The Rift Widens Between Elijah Muhammad and His Principal Lieutenant Malcolm X Little,” FMX-NR.

  fed directly into the Chicago Defender: CD, Feb. 11, 1964, p. 2. With c
andor rare among recipients of FBI leaks, the Defender acknowledged that its source was an “anonymous, alleged ‘insider.’” The portions of the letter printed in the paper are slightly more sophisticated than the headquarters draft, suggesting that the text was improved by Muslim specialists in the Chicago FBI office.

  “All the papers have it”: Wiretap intercept of Feb. 11, 1964, in SAC, Chicago, to Director, Feb. 14, 1964, FMX-4092, p. 4.

  evening of February 17: Int. Burke Marshall, Sept. 26, 1984, int. Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, June 1, 1984.

  “who desperately wants to become Vice President”: DeLoach to Hoover, Feb. 18, 1964, FK-315.

  “Katzenbach did his dirt”: Hoover’s handwritten note, Ibid.

  fn “excised Lee Harvey Oswald’s name”: Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 556.

  Johnson fired two White House aides: DeLoach to Hoover, March 6 and March 9, 1964, Section 92, FHOC.

  “We’ll let Bobby and them”: LBJ phone call with Ed Weisl, Sr., Feb. 5, 1964, Cit. 1901, Audiotape WH6402.07, LBJ.

  Johnson personally supervised: Cf. LBJ phone call with political adviser Cliff Carter, Feb. 10, 1964, Cit. 2006, Audiotape WH6402.13; LBJ phone call with DNC chairman John Bailey, Feb. 11, 1964, Cit. 2047, Audiotape WH6402.14; LBJ phone call with Cliff Carter, Feb. 12, 1964, Cit. 2056, Audiotape WH6402.15, LBJ.

  “my two bits”: LBJ phone call with Cliff Carter, Richard McGuire, and Kenneth O’Donnell, Feb. 11, 1964, Cit. 2050, Audiotape WH6402.14, LBJ.

  “it’s gonna be a problem”: Ibid.

  “shocking indeed”: Baumgardner to Sullivan, March 4, 1964, FK-312.

  “We have not lost”: CDD, March 11, 1964, p. 18.

  “Drawbacks plagued each option.”: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, pp. 314-16; int. James Bevel, May 17, 1985; int. Diane Nash, April 26, 1990.

  fn received suspended sentences: NYT, March 10, 1964, p. 30; March 14, 1964, p. 19.

  King broke away for: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 316; SAC, New Haven, to Director, March 12, 1964, FK-NR.

  Marquette had dropped: SAC, Milwaukee, to Director, March 9, 1964, FK-323.

  commendation upon the agent: O’Reilly, Racial Matters, pp. 148-49.

  another honorary degree: Baumgardner to Sullivan, April 2, 1964, FK-348.

  “said if it were not”: DeLoach to Mohr, April 8, 1964, FK-349.

  Kennedy’s body had not yet cooled: DeLoach to Hoover, March 6, 1964, Section 92, FHOC.

  “I made no comment”: Ibid.

  Guthman peace feeler: Int. Edwin Guthman, June 25, 1984.

  in the White House pool: PDD, March 9, 1964, LBJ.

  “absolutely clean”: Hoover file memo of 3:07 P.M., March 12, 1964, Section 92, FHOC; LBJ phone call with J. Edgar Hoover, March 12, 1964, Cit. 24912, Audiotape WH6403.09, LBJ.

  batch of weekly reports: Garrow, FBI and Martin, p. 110.

  second thoughts on hiring Bayard: Hoover to Walter Jenkins, March 9, 1964, FK-NR.

  report on Paul Corbin: LBJ phone call with DeLoach, March 12, 1964, Cit. 2489, Audiotape WH6403.09, LBJ.

  the Bureau’s chief suspect: Hoover file memo of 4:34 P.M., March 9, 1964, Section 92, FHOC; LBJ phone call with Hoover, March 9, 1964, Cit. 2422, Audiotape WH6403.06, LBJ.

  “I do not want anything on King”: Hoover’s handwritten note on DeLoach to Mohr, March 16, 1964, FK-320.

  fn “I told Judge Smith”: Ibid. DeLoach recorded that Ed Willis of Louisiana, then chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, also sought permission to attack King with FBI materials.

  his forthcoming poverty program: DeLoach to Mohr, “Re: President Johnson’s ‘Message on Poverty,’” March 10, 1964, Section 92, FHOC.

  “The informality, yet quiet dignity”: DeLoach to LBJ, March 16, 1964, WHCF, PR, Box 367, LBJ

  Court’s announcement: NYT, March 10, 1964, p. 1.

  “a bunch of niggers”: NYT, March 9, 1964, p. 42. Cox’s comments were made to John Doar of the U.S. Justice Department in the presence of Times correspondent Claude Sitton. Aaron Henry, Bob Moses, David Dennis, and Edwin King soon tried to force Cox off civil rights cases because of demonstrated bias. Pleadings in the case were retained in King’s files, A/SC14f23.

  “so concerned about being”: King oral history int. by Berl Bernhard, March 9, 1964, p. 9, JFK.

  “They had me chained”: Ibid., p. 14.

  “They were very, very upset”: Ibid., p. 40.

  “I really think we saw”: Ibid., p. 9, also p. 26.

  “At this point”: Ibid., p. 31.

  “He’s rather a psycho”: RFK oral history int. by John Bartlow Martin, April 13, 1964, p. 195, JFK.

  “a very dangerous organization”: Ibid., p. 197.

  “in every way”: Ibid., pp. 191, 194.

  agents had spotted Stanley Levison: SAC, Atlanta, teletype to Director and New York, March 10, 1964, FSC-NR.

  made King send for Levison: Wiretap transcripts of telephone conversations between Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, March 2, 1964, FLNY9-460a, and March 5, 1964, FLNY9-463a; also wiretap transcript of Stanley and Bea Levison, March 10, 1964, FLNY9-468a, and wiretap transcript of Stanley Levison and Roy Bennett, Feb. 29, 1964, FLNY9-458a.

  starve to death: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and his brother, Roy Bennett, Feb. 27, 1964, FLNY7-710a.

  labored over publishing conflicts: Wiretap transcripts of telephone conversations between Stanley Levison and King’s literary agent, Joan Daves, Feb. 18, 1964, FLNY7-701a, and February 26, 1964, FLNY9-450a; also Daves to MLK on book rights, Feb. 19, 1964, A/KP27f9.

  “It, of course”: Baumgardner to Sullivan, March 20, 1964, FK-NR, regarding King’s article “The Hammer of Civil Rights” in The Nation, March 9, 1964, pp. 230-34.

  second bonanza of microphone surveillance: Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 108-9.

  twenty-one reels of tape: “Summary—Highly Sensitive Coverage—Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Nov. 27, 1964, FK-1024.

  West Coast SCLC office: Int. Thomas Kilgore, Feb. 11, 1988.

  not cried this time: Dora McDonald to MLK, Feb. 18, 1964, A/SC1f15.

  professorship for King: Ibid.

  could not and would not: Hoover sent a summary of the intercepted King material to Walter Jenkins on March 6, but waited until after his March 9 meeting with President Johnson to send the summary, dated March 4, to Kennedy. Brennan to Sullivan, April 18, 1968, FK-3388; Garrow, FBI and Martin, p. 110.

  cipher without duties: RFK oral history int. by John Bartlow Martin, April 13, 1964, p. 195, JFK.

  crueler, gratuitous sting: Garrow, FBI and Martin, p. 110.

  “Look at her”: Author’s interviews with FBI officials.

  “vilification of the late President”: Hoover blind file memo of April 9, 1968, Section 24, FHOC.

  “deep personal appreciation”: RFK to MLK, June 5, 1964, A/KP24f22.

  18. THE CREATION OF MUHAMMAD ALI

  Harlem radio station WWRL: NYT, March 7, 1964, p. 15.

  “That’s political!”: Int. Benjamin Karim, Aug. 31, 1991.

  Malcolm had taken liberties: ADW, March 7, 1964, p. 1.

  “I am honored”: New York Post, March 9, 1964, p. 4; FMXNY-4149.

  intercepted Malcolm on the Triborough Bridge: NY LHM of March 16, 1964, FMX-107.

  Bible on the dashboard: Int. Benjamin Karim, March 19, 1991.

  stood to lose money: Little more than half the fifteen thousand seats of the Miami Beach Civic Auditorium were filled, and promoter MacDonald wound up losing $363,000. Sports Illustrated, March 9, 1994, p. 24.

  “Don’t start hitting me”: Houser, Muhammad Ali, p. 66.

  hints of the truth already seeping: Cf. New York Journal-American, July 6, 1963, and Feb. 27, 1964 (FMXNY-4108); Dick Schaap, “The Challenger and the Muslims,” New York Herald Tribune, Jan. 23, 1964, p. 1; “Cassius Clay Almost Says He’s a Muslim,” NYAN, Jan. 25, 1964 (FMXNY-4072); Dave Brady, “Clay Defends Muslim Policy, Says Integration Is Wrong,” Louisville Courier-Journal, Feb. 3, 1
964, p. II-3; Miami Herald, Feb. 7, 1964; Louisville Courier-Journal, Feb. 7, 1964, p. II-6; Hauser, Muhammad Ali, p. 66.

  MacDonald briefly canceled the fight: Ali, The Greatest, pp. 102-15.

  Clay’s open association: George Plimpton, “Miami Notebook: Cassius Clay and Malcolm X,” Harper’s, June 1964, pp. 54-61.

  three of fifty-eight ringside reporters: ADW, Feb. 26, 1964, p. 1.

  flattened his previous three opponents: Sports Illustrated, Feb. 24, 1964, p. 18.

  sent a feature writer: Hauser, Muhammad Ali, p. 69.

  “heart attack”: Jet, March 12, 1964, p. 40.

  retreat into Malcolm X’s motel room: Sports Illustrated, March 9, 1964, pp. 26-27; Perry, Malcolm, pp. 247-49; Hauser, Muhammad Ali, pp. 105-6.

  Malcolm hosted singer Sam Cooke: SAC, Miami, to Director, March 9, 1964, FMX-89; New York report dated June 18, 1964, FMX-125. See also Wolff, You Send Me, pp. 295-96.

  accompanied by Malcolm X: Louisville Courier-Journal, Feb. 27, 1964, p. 1.

  “Are you a card-carrying”: NYT, Feb. 27, 1964, p. 34.

  “Followers of Allah”: Hauser, Muhammad Ali, p. 82.

  “Muslim Story Irks Cassius”: Louisville Courier-Journal, Feb. 27, 1964, p. III-5.

  stretched along South Wabash Avenue: Undercover police report, Feb. 27, 1964, RS, file No. 589, CHS.

  “whipped the crowd of 4,000”: NYT, Feb. 27, 1964, p. 23 (FMXNY-4229). The undercover officer in ibid. reported that the frenzied crowd leapt to its feet during the speech of Louis X, “and it took a few minutes to restore order so that the speaker could continue.”

  “I have been given”: Goldman, Death and Life, p. 131.

  Clay indeed was his follower: ADW, Feb. 28, 1964, p. 4; Miami Herald, Feb. 28, 1964, p. C1; undercover police report, Feb. 27, 1964, RS, file No. 589, CHS.

  Clay at breakfast with Malcolm: Sports Illustrated, March 9, 1964, p. 54.

  glowingly of his conversation: ADW, March 1, 1964, p. 5.

  “A rooster crows”: NYT, Feb. 28, 1964, p. 22.

  stunned the sportswriters: Hauser, Muhammad Ali, pp. 83-84, 103-5.

  fn “will mean more”: Sports Ilustrated, March 9, 1964, p. 57.

  “I don’t want to be”: NYT, Feb. 28, 1964, p. 22.