{"id":85620,"date":"2019-02-13T10:17:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-13T18:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=85620"},"modified":"2019-02-14T17:48:03","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T01:48:03","slug":"q382-transcript","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=85620","title":{"rendered":"Q382 Transcript"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Note:\u00a0<\/strong>This tape was transcribed by Kathy Barbour. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.)<\/em><\/p>\n

To return to the Tape Index, click here.<\/a>
\nTo read the Tape Summary, click here<\/a>. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1<\/a>,\u00a0Pt. 2<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Mark Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019d like to talk with you a little bit this evening about the\u2013 about the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, because so much changed in America when Dr. King was killed. Over the years, I\u2019ve been involved in investigating other assassinations, including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but however important the president might be, presidents come and go, and politicians come and go, but there never was anyone quite like Martin Luther King, and those people who knew him, who were (unintelligible under tape fade) who went to jail there with him, know that there probably has never been anyone quite like that before and probably will never be anyone quite like that again. And that was one of the great losses and changed the whole face of America and I think changed the relations in the course of history for the whole world. And it\u2019s important<\/em> to remember that Dr. King was shot to death on April 4, 1968, and a year<\/em> to the day before that, on April 4, 1967, he took a very powerful<\/em> and strong public position against the war in Vietnam. One year later, to the day, he was dead, shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to tell you about a woman whose name is not very well known, but who becomes an important figure in contemporary American history. Her name is Grace Walden, and she lived at 418\u00bd S. Main Street in Memphis, Tennessee. On April 4th, earlier that day, a man named Jim McCraw, a taxi driver in Memphis, went into Jim\u2019s Grill, a bar and restaurant on South Main Street, went inside and saw sitting over in the corner, a man named Charlie Stephens, a man who had\u2013 had been drunk regularly for some 25 years that the taxi driver knew him, and was sitting there at about noon, drinking and drunk then, drinking beer. He saw him, and then he left, Mr. McCraw left, went out to drive his taxi. Just before he left, Stephens staggered over to the counter, bought four quarts of beer, had them put them in this paper sack, and went up to the room which he shared with Grace Walden. It wasn\u2019t a very important rooming house at that time, but soon the whole world was looking at it because there was a community bathroom which shared a common wall with their little apartment, the little apartment that Grace Walden and Charlie Stephens were in. And from that community bathroom came the shot, across Mulberry Street onto the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, the shot later fired that day which killed Dr. King.<\/p>\n

A man named Lloyd Jowers owned Jim\u2019s Grill, and he went into his place at four o\u2019clock that afternoon, and he saw Charlie Stephens was back down in the\u2013 in the bar part of the restaurant and was drinking and was drunk, and he sold four more quarts of beer to Charlie Stephens, who went back up to his room and took them up there. The next<\/em> person besides Grace Walden to see Charlie Stephens was Jim McCraw, the taxi driver. He was driving around town, and the dispatcher said, \u201cReport back to 418\u00bd, pick up Stephens, he wants you to take him to a bar.\u201d Well, Stephens was drinking, was drunk, and this was April 4th and his check came on April 3rd, and while Stephens was drunk almost all the time, you can be certain that on the 4th, 5th and 6th of the month, the days just after the check arrived, he was really drunk. McCraw went up to the room, knocked on the door, and there was\u2013 and then he heard a woman\u2019s voice, Grace Walden saying, \u201cCome on in, the door\u2019s open.\u201d He opened the door, and there he saw Grace Walden seated in a chair, reading a book. Sprawled out on the bed was Charlie Stephens. He was drunk. And McCraw said, \u201cYou\u2019re too drunk to take.\u201d And Stephens tried to say something, but couldn\u2019t, because he was drunk. McCraw went downstairs, called in on the radio, told the dispatcher, \u201cI couldn\u2019t pick Stephens up, he was too drunk. Where should I go?\u201d And they said, \u201cGo to\u2013 to Frankie and Johnny\u2019s down at the pier. There\u2019s a fare waiting there.\u201d He started to drive there. About six or seven minutes later, all of the lights\u2013 the traffic lights in Memphis turned red. And the dispatcher called in to all the taxi drivers, and said, \u201cDr. King\u2019s been shot. Proceed very cautiously. Somebody may be running out\u2013 around out there with a gun. It may be police officers.\u201d Which means, that as you work it back, that he saw Stephens about five or six or seven minutes before Dr. King was killed.<\/p>\n

Grace Walden said this is what happened after the taxi driver left. She said, \u201cCharlie said he had to go to the bathroom,\u201d she didn\u2019t put it quite that way, but that was the import of his remarks. And he rolled off of the bed onto the floor, got up and went to the bathroom, which was just five feet from their apartment, this community bathroom of the rooming house. And he banged on the door. The killer had been in there since five o\u2019clock. He\u2019d locked himself in, and other tenants had tried to get in there, but he didn\u2019t answer \u2013 whoever he was, he didn\u2019t answer \u2013 and remained locked in there. Charlie then staggered<\/em> down the back stairs into the lot behind the building. And Grace Stephens was there, reading her book, Charlie had left the door open, and she heard a shot. She said, \u201cI recognized that it at once as a shot. For a hunter in Arkansas, my first husband was a hunter, I knew a lot about hunting, I knew it was a shot,\u201d she said, \u201cso I looked up,\u201d and she saw the killer of Dr. King come out of the bathroom, and walk down the hallway five feet from her. And then Charlie came upstairs a few minutes later. And she said, \u201cI heard a shot, and I saw a man come out of there, and he was carrying something in his right hand.\u201d She said, \u201cHis body intervened between me and his right hand, I couldn\u2019t see what it was, but it was long and heavy and he swung it when he walked.\u201d And Charlie said, \u201cWhere did he go?\u201d She said, \u201cHe went down to the front.\u201d Charlie said, \u201cI\u2019d better take a look.\u201d And she said, \u201cNo, he\u2019s been gone for five or ten minutes. There\u2019s no way to find him now.\u201d So Charlie went back into the room where he had left his glasses anyway\u2013 Remember, when he left he was just expecting to go next door to the bathroom, he left his glasses on the bed. At that time the police arrived, and reporters arrived. And they soon discovered that it was Grace Walden who was the only witness in the whole world, to the killer<\/em> of Dr. King. They took her to the police station, where she was questioned by the local police and then by the FBI, the FBI took over the investigation at once. And she gave a description of the man. She said, \u201cI\u2019m five foot three and he\u2019s either my height or at the most, two inches taller, the man who came out of the bathroom. Five-five. Very thin,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was in his late 50s or early 60s. He was wearing a hunting jacket, sort of a tan or beige hunting jacket, with a bright checkered or plaid shirt underneath it, you could see it at the\u2013 at the neck, \u2018cause his jacket was open down the front a little way.\u201d She gave a very complete description. And they brought in an artist, the FBI brought in an artist, and she described to the artist what the man looked like, and a drawing was made and was sent all over Tennessee, and states near, uh\u2013 nearby. And it was not a composite based upon what various witnesses saw, it was based solely<\/em> upon what Grace Walden saw, because she was the only witness in the whole world who saw the killer come out of the bathroom.<\/p>\n

Then some time thereafter, James Earl Ray was picked up in London by Scotland Yard, based upon information given to them by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And when that happened, the FBI called Grace Walden into the FBI headquarters in Memphis, and said, \u201cHere\u2019s an affidavit. We want you to sign<\/em> the affidavit so we can get Ray back here and prosecute him for the murder of Dr. King.\u201d And she said, \u201cCan I see a picture<\/em> of the man?\u201d And they showed her a picture of James Earl Ray, and she looked at it. She said, \u201cThat doesn\u2019t look anything at all<\/em> like the man. Nothing at all. How old is that man?\u201d And they said that Ray was 39 years old. She said, \u201cNo, I told you, the\u2013 the man who came out of the bathroom was in his late fifties or early sixties. How tall is he?\u201d \u201cWell, five-eleven or six feet.\u201d She said, \u201cNo, I told<\/em> you. He was five-three or five-five. In every single respect,\u201d she said, \u201cthis man looks nothing<\/em> like the man I saw.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then they started to lean on her. (clears throat) They said, \u201cYou\u2019ll be in a lot of trouble.\u201d (coughs again, speaks aside) Oh, thank you. (pause, then back to crowd) The FBI agent said, \u201cYou\u2019re going to be in a lot of trouble, Mrs. Walden, unless you sign that affidavit. We want to bring Ray back here and prosecute him. And the whole country wants the killer prosecuted.\u201d She said, \u201cWell, you catch the killer, and I\u2019ll sign the statement. But you\u2019ve got the wrong man.\u201d And one of the agents said, \u201cI want to tell you this, Mrs. Walden. If you don\u2019t sign this statement, your life will be in danger<\/em>. You will be in a great<\/em> deal of trouble. And we have the power<\/em> to see to it that something can happen to you.\u201d And she said, \u201cWell, I can\u2019t sign the statement, because that\u2019s not the man.\u201d And then another agent came over, put his arm around her, said, \u201cOh, Mrs. Walden, he\u2019s just a little upset about this, but we\u2019re not bad guys. Listen, there is a reward of one hundred thousand dollars which has been put up by the Chamber of Commerce of Memphis. You sign this statement, just sign the statement, and the result will be, Ray will be brought back here, he\u2019ll be prosecuted, and you will get a hundred<\/em> thousand dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s a very poor lady, living on welfare. And she said, \u201cI\u2019m surprised at you. If I wouldn\u2019t lie for no money, you think I would lie for a hundred thousand dollars? I couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d And she left. And they said, \u201cIf you leave without signing the statement, you\u2019re going to be in very serious danger.\u201d She said, \u201cI can\u2019t sign a false statement.\u201d And so she left.<\/p>\n

Then they brought in Charlie Stephens, because James Earl Ray was over there in England, and they had no evidence. The extradition treaty between the United States and England states that the person can be extradited to the United States if evidence is offered to the British court, and then the person can only be prosecuted for the crime for which he has been extradited. Now Ray had escaped from Missouri penitentiary a year before, he could\u2019ve been charged with being a fugitive, he could\u2019ve been charged with escaping, which is a separate felony, but if he was brought back, and they had evidence for that, if he was brought back under those charges, he could not be prosecuted for the murder of Dr. King, and that\u2019s what they wanted. And they had no<\/em> evidence against him, for the murder of Dr. King.<\/p>\n

So they brought in Charlie Stephens. Poor Charlie who was drunk<\/em>, and even outside of the building at the time, who never saw<\/em> the man, and they said, \u201cWe\u2019ll give you<\/em> a hundred thousand dollars if you\u2019ll sign the affidavit.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, you oughta talk to Grace.\u201d He said, \u201cForget about Grace, we want you<\/em> to sign it.\u201d And he signed the affidavit. And that was the only<\/em> evidence which was available to the British court, and that\u2019s why James Earl Ray was brought back to the United States to be tried. Based upon that statement.<\/p>\n

Now, what about Grace Walden? She was a danger. She was a dangerous person to them because, if there was to be a trial and she was the only witness in the world, she would\u2019ve destroyed the case. The next day, two homicide officers came to her room, picked her up and took her to the John Gaston Hospital, the hospital for the City of Memphis, and they threw her in the mental ward. They gave her a shot of prolixin, which is disabling, sometimes up for three weeks. Her face began to twitch. And they took her, a few days later, together with a number of elderly\u2013 other elderly people. And they chained them together. This is 1968, I don\u2019t mean handcuffs, chains. Chains around their wits\u2013 wrists, for the mental institution. Chains around their feet. Chains around their waist and chained to each other in a line. The chain gang. And they put them on a bus, and they took them to the courthouse. They took them outside, it was raining. They had them standing in the rain for about 15 minutes. And then the doctor was ready to see them.<\/p>\n

They brought Grace Walden in, and the doctor said to her, \u201cWhy are you here?\u201d And she said, \u201cI think it\u2019s because I wouldn\u2019t lie about the murder of Dr. King.\u201d \u201cWell, do you have any fears?\u201d She said, \u201cI am afraid of the trial because they said that my life would be in danger if I testify at the trial.\u201d And the doctor then went with Grace Walden before the judge. And he said, \u201cJudge, this woman has hallucinations. She thinks she was a witness to the murder of Dr. King. And she also has suicidal tendencies anticipating the trial.\u201d And the judge signed an order putting her in a mental institution. And they transported her by sheriff\u2019s car to the Bolivar Hospital in Bolivar, Tennessee, a mental institution.<\/p>\n

Ten years<\/em> later, she was still in that mental institution. Ten years later. And her only crime was that she would not lie about the murder of Dr. King. I heard about it and I went to see her several months ago. And I didn\u2019t go into the administration ward, I went directly to where she was. And I asked one of the patients there if Grace Walden was there. And there she was, walking down the hallway, and she came and she sat down with me in the hallway, on a couple chairs there. And I didn\u2019t tell her that I was the lawyer for James Earl Ray, because I didn\u2019t want to influence her. I just said, \u201cI\u2019m a lawyer looking into the case of the murder of Dr. King, I wondered if you could tell me about it.\u201d She said, \u201cI can tell you about it, but I can\u2019t change my story.\u201d She says, \u201cI can\u2019t lie about what I saw. And if you came here to offer me money or tell me I could be let out of here, I\u2019m not gonna lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

And I said, \u201cNo, I\u2013 I don\u2019t want you to lie. I just want you to tell me.\u201d I said, \u201cCan I tape-record this?\u201d And they said, \u201cSure.\u201d She said, \u201cSure, if it\u2019ll make it easier for you.\u201d So I put on a tape recording, and she described the whole thing that I told you. About what she saw that day. At that time, three guards burst into this, reh\u2013 uh, waiting room area, three male guards and two female guards. The two women guards grabbed Grace and dragged her off and threw her back into a locked-in area, and the three male guards said to me, (clears throat) \u201cGive us that tape recording at once.\u201d This was the first time since Dr.\u00a0King had been killed, and almost ten years had passed, the first time anybody ever had made a recording of this important witness. And I thought it was important in terms of getting the facts, and also I thought it was important in terms of protecting her to have that record out of the hospital, because then no matter what they did to her, the record would remain, which means there\u2019d be no sense in doing anything more to her. And one of the guards said, \u201cGive me that tape.\u201d And I said, \u201cAll right, I\u2019m going to tell you this. My name is Mark Lane, I\u2019m the attorney for James Earl Ray. I\u2019m investigating the murder of Dr. King, and this is part of my work and you can\u2019t have it.\u201d And the guard said, \u201cI\u2019m gonna take that tape.\u201d And I said, \u201cI want you to understand this. There is no way in the world you will ever get that tape. No way. So you might as well think about more constructive and rewar\u2013 rewarding tasks, there\u2019s no way you\u2019ll get this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter, cheers, applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>And I had gone there with a\u2013 an investigator named Renfro Hayes, a local investigator from Memphis, and with the woman who was a friend of his, who drove us there in her old, old car, but the car got us there, about 70 miles from Memphis, and I said to her\u2013 her name was Sammy Cook\u2013 I said to her, \u201cLet\u2019s go, I wanna\u2013 I want to meet with the head of this institution and make a\u2013 file a complaint against these three guards interfering with my interview with Grace Walden.\u201d And they said, \u201cYou\u2019re not going anywhere.\u201d And then another couple of people joined, and one of them was the switchboard operator. And she said, \u201cYou know, you\u2019re not allowed to talk to Grace Walden.\u201d I said, \u201cWhy not?\u201d She said, \u201cWell, why, we have it on my desk in there, where I have a switchboard, pasted up on the wall. It\u2019s an order from the director of the institution, saying that no one can talk to Grace Walden. She can\u2019t receive any phone calls. And no one can visit her.\u201d I said, \u201cDoes that apply to everybody in institution?\u201d They said, \u201cNo, just her.\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m gonna go file a complaint with them right now.\u201d And a guard said, \u201cYou\u2019re not leaving.\u201d Well, I don\u2019t generally use force or violence. I only do that when it seems that\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>And so I pushed<\/em> one of the guards out of the way, ran out to the car. Sammy Cook, the woman whose car it was, jumped in the front seat, and behind the driver\u2019s seat, behind the wheel, and I jumped in alongside of her. The investigator Renfro Hayes is a big heavy guy, he sort of moved slowly, and he never quite made it to the car in time\u2013<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013and so uh, we\u2013 we drove off and left him there. I uh, I hated to do it, but uh, I thought the tape was important. We got out of there, and we\u2019re driving down the highway back toward Memphis, and we\u2019d gone about two miles, and there was a flashing red light on a vehicle behind us, it was a police car. And police officers pulled us over to the side of the road, Sammy Cook in this old car, said uh, \u201cThis car\u2019s in pretty good shape, although it\u2019s old.\u201d She said, \u201cShould I try to outrun them?\u201d I said\u2013 I said, \u201cNo, don\u2019t try to outrun them.\u201d And so it, uh, \u201cJust pull over.\u201d So we pulled over. And I had taken the tape out and hid it under the floorboard. I put a blank tape in there, and I said, \u201cinterview with Grace Walden\u201d I wrote on that. She says\u2013 she said, \u201cAre you going to give them that?\u201d I said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not even going to give them that. That\u2019s just in case worse comes to worst.\u201d Anyway, they pulled us over, there\u2019re two police officers, wearing guns with walkie-talkies, and one of them said, uh, \u201cYou have to go right back to the in\u2013 institution and see\u2013 meet with the director at once. He wants to talk to you. And bring the tape with you.\u201d And I said, \u201cDo you work for the state?\u201d He said, \u201cYes.\u201d I said, \u201cAre you a state highway patrolman?\u201d He said, \u201cNo, I\u2019m in charge of security for the mental institution. Total charge of security there.\u201d I said, \u201cWould it be safe to say that your area of jurisdiction is confined to the institution?\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter, calls, applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>And, he said, \u201cYes, that\u2019s right.\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, goodbye.\u201d And we drove off.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter, cheers, applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>We\u2013 we got the tape back to Memphis, we made many copies and we sent them around, so we had that\u2013 the tape secured. And then I was concerned about poor Renfro Hayes, who we\u2019d left, it was getting pretty chilly, and he had worn a jacket, but he\u2019d left the jacket in the car. So he was just there in his shirtsleeves, and uh, we tried to find him, we had difficulty finding him. And uh, he found me two days later, though. He was a little bit angry. He said, uh, he decided he said, he was going to go for a uh, walk down the highway and hitch a ride. So that\u2019s what he did, it was quite cold, he was just wearing a shirt, and it was chilly, and he went down and he hitched a ride and a car stopped and he got in, and the lady driving a car said, uh, \u201cYou know, don\u2019t you think the best thing would be not to run away from the institution?\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>And, uh, she drove him right back and turned him in, thinking he was a patient trying to escape.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(reacts)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>(clears throat) Anyway, he had a lot of complaints. The, uh\u2013 I went back and saw Grace after that. And I got to know her and I got to love her. And I was deeply cons\u2013 well, I\u2013 I loved her all along, because of what she did. But then I\u2013 I got to love her as a person. And it was clear that, although her mind was clear\u2013 she read, that was the way she survived\u2013 she read a book every single day. In the ten-year period she read how many, hundreds and hundreds of books, I don\u2019t know. There\u2013 there were other people there. They had cats at the institution. And she took care of the cats. And one day, the order came from the director and they picked up and drowned all the cats, the guards. And that was the only thing that\u2013 the only other contact she had with people there. Many of the people were really crazy. And it was very hard to have uh\u2013 and there was no effort to help them, at all. And it was very hard for her to survive, and she was very often in a room by herself, and\u2013 but she read, and she tried to keep her mind going in the face of \u2013 we s\u2013 have now, the medical records, she was given thorazine every day, and she was given prolixin, and just one drug after another, all for the purpose of destroying her mind. And it did, of course, have a permanent effect.<\/p>\n

And if you look<\/em> into a mental institution, you\u2019ll see people there who look<\/em> crazy. I mean, they are\u2013 they look<\/em> the way we perceive a crazy person to be and they are\u2013 look<\/em> \u2013 they actually not\u2013 don\u2019t look crazy, that\u2019s just our perception. They look like people who\u2019ve been given drugs<\/em>. Their mouth hangs open, start to walk with a limp. All of these physical<\/em> reactions which come from the massive drug doses, but most of us look at them and say, well, these people are crazy. And some of it is\u2013 after a long period of time, it\u2019s irreversible. And with Grace, some of the physical damage I think may be irreversible. In any event, she said, uh, when I saw her two or three more times, she said, \u201cYou know\u2013 Could you get me out of here?\u201d And I said, \u201cI\u2019m going to do everything I can.\u201d And I knew that it was a political<\/em> decision which had been made to put her in there, and while we could bring an action in the court<\/em> system, it wasn\u2019t really a legal<\/em> statement that we needed as much as a political statement. And so I met in Los Angeles with Reverend James Lawson, a marvelous<\/em> minister who was in fact one of Dr. King\u2019s closest workers, he taught the schools of nonviolence for Dr. King, he in fact was the Chairman of the Strategy Committee for the sanitation strike in Memphis in 1968, he had invited Dr. King to Memphis. And I met with him, he\u2019s now the minister of the largest church\u2013 largest Methodist Church in Los Angeles, I met with him and told him that I had met with Grace. And he flew into Memphis, and he organized a meeting of all of the leading religious people in Memphis, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Church, and the leading rabbi, and the black and the white protestant ministers, and they all met together, and I presented the evidence against the state regarding Grace Walden. And on April 4th this last year, on the tenth anniversary of the murder of Dr. King, these religious leaders issued a statement demanding that Grace Walden be released from that institution.<\/p>\n

And this shook<\/em> the state of Tennessee, because this was the first time there was a group within the establishment of that structure which was making demands on the\u2013 related to the King case. And so what they did very quickly is they took Grace Walden out of the mental institution and they locked her up in a boarding house. And they had guards in the boarding house. They had a\u2013 the judge signed an order saying it was all right. And they wouldn\u2019t tell me where she was. (Clears throat) So in a sense, the state could say she\u2019s no longer in the state institution, she\u2019s not in our custody, but she\u2019s being cared for in a halfway house. On her own. Made an application for Social Security to pay the guards in the house. Her money, to pay the guards who were keeping her there. (Pause) At that time, when I\u2013 all of this was taking place, I thought that someone ought to tell President [Jimmy] Carter, who talks about human rights, is deeply concerned about the denial of human rights in every country in the world, except the United States.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>We thought that someone ought to tell him that Memphis, Tennessee is a lot closer than Moscow.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(Calls)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>And uh\u2013 So that message was sent to him, and he said, \u201cI can\u2019t get involved in these local matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(response)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>I reminded him if he can get involved in matters regarding justice in Moscow, he ought to be able to do that someplace a little closer. And when you think for a moment of how this lady was treated, locked up there for ten years in this institution, and now even when it was open and out, but the president of the United States would play no part<\/em>, and his Department of Justice would play no part, and the Attorney General of Tennessee would play no part. And even ten years later, trying to have an innocent person who was totally sane<\/em> removed from that institution gives you sort of a clue into the operations of the minds of the ruling circles within the United States. I\u2019m just\u2013 It tells you\u2013<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:<\/strong>It tells you about their\u2013 their deep concern for struggling humanity. And that\u2019s just one way to\u2013 to examine it, I mean the fact is, when you see the struggle that was\u2013 is taking place throughout the world (emphatically) there is not a fascist regime in the world<\/em> which would not topple tomorrow morning if the United States withdrew its support. There is not one.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>And there\u2019s not a single struggle for national liberation, anywhere in the world, where the United States has not supported the oppressors. There is not one. But despite that, despite that we see today in Nicaragua, uh, these last weeks in Nicaragua, where we, the United States Marine Corps, installed [Anastasio] Somoza four decades ago, to the struggles taking place now, and we see in Iran, where the United States with its Central Intelligence Agency installed the Shah, in order to develop our relationship with the oil interests there. So even there the struggles are taking place. So the same morality which we see oppressing the people within the United States is oppressing people throughout the world, but the struggle takes place not only in the United States, but the struggle against that same enemy takes placeall<\/em> throughout the world, wherever there are people struggling for liberation, as there were now in this case, with the religious people finally coming together in Memphis. And so they put\u2013 placed her in this\u2013 in this uh, rooming house. And I found out where she was, and I went over to see her. And there were the guards there, and I walked in, and I said, \u201cGrace, uh, when was the last time you had dinner out in a restaurant?\u201d And she said, \u201cOh, maybe uh, 11 years ago.\u201d And I said, \u201cI\u2019d like to take you out to dinner now, all right?\u201d And she said, \u201cOK.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the guards said, \u201cNo, you\u2013 you\u2013 she can\u2019t leave.\u201d And I said, \u201cI\u2019ve already talked to the judge. Judge [Joseph W.] Evans, in charge of the probate court, he said I could have dinner with Grace. So we\u2019re leaving now.\u201d And we walked out to go to dinner, in Memphis, and there was a car waiting for us out there, and we drove away, and the people looked out of the window and wrote down the license plate number, and we went two blocks and changed into another car which was waiting for us\u2013<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter, applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>(Clears throat) \u2013and\u2013 and we drove to the airport in Memphis, Tennessee. And I didn\u2019t\u2013 I didn\u2019t make any reservations in advance because I didn\u2019t want a record of that, and I started running around to the airlines and said, \u201cWho\u2019s flying to Los Angeles?\u201d because I was living there then, working with Don Freed on a film about the assassination of Dr. King, and I was living out in LA, and I went to various airlines, said, \u201cWho\u2019s flying,\u201d and they said, \u201cWell, there\u2019s a plane leaving in 15 minutes for Dallas, and can switch there for a plane to\u2013 plane to Los Angeles.\u201d And that was the\u2013 that was the\u2013 the way to leave.<\/p>\n

It struck me at that point: Memphis, Dallas, Los Angeles. The three major assassination capitals of the United States. And we were going to touch down in all of them. So we went there, and uh, I bought two tickets, and they said, \u201cWell, this plane which is leaving is fully booked.\u201d And uh, in fact it\u2019s coming in filled, and fourteen people are leaving but there are four ahead of you, and there\u2019s another plane which is connecting with it with ten people going on so there aren\u2019t going to be any seats. The next plane was not gonna leave for three hours, and I knew if we were gone for three hours, they would know it wasn\u2019t dinner, and they would be out there by then, we were just sitting there waiting, hoping that two people wouldn\u2019t show up, or something would go wrong, or actually, something would go right<\/em>, in this case. And we waited, and at that point, CBS television crew somehow had heard about this, and they came out there and they said they were going to film Grace. And I said, \u201cWell, OK, if we get on the plane, film her.\u201d And he said, \u201cNo, we, uh, we\u2013 we have to film her now, we\u2019re gonna rush it back, and it\u2019ll be on the ten o\u2019clock news. And so you\u2019ll be gone by then.\u201d I said, \u201cThat\u2019s great. Because if we\u2019re on this plane, we\u2019ll be gone, I don\u2019t care what\u2019s on the news here. But if we can\u2019t get on the plane, we\u2019ll still be here at 11:30, which is when the next plane leaves. And if it\u2019s on the ten o\u2019clock news, the police and the FBI will come and take her back.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, I\u2019m sorry, but you know uh, we just have to present the news.\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, you can\u2019t, I\u2019m not going to let you film her now, until we know we\u2019re going to get on the plane.\u201d And he said, \u201cWell, I mean, you can\u2019t stop me, can you?\u201d I said, \u201cYes, I\u2019m gonna break your camera.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter, applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cWell, that\u2019s a uh\u2013\u201d He said, \u201cThis is a $12,000 camera and it\u2019s checked out to me.\u201d I said, \u201cThis woman\u2019s been in an institution for ten years. Who cares about a twelve thousand dollar camera?\u201d I said, \u201cIf you try to film her, I\u2019m gonna break it.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, let\u2019s work out a compromise.\u201d And I said, \u201cThat\u2019s fine, I\u2019m always w\u2013 uh, willing to do that. What\u2019s your suggestion?\u201d He said, \u201cWell, if she gets on the plane, let me come on the plane and film her there.\u201d I said, \u201cThat\u2019s great. That\u2019s fine.\u201d At that point, uh, the plane was almost ready to go, and the woman behind the cap had called us over and said that other plane with the ten passengers connecting to this one has been delayed, and therefore there are seats, so you two can get on now.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>So uh, (clears throat) we got on the plane, and sat down, and the TV crew came on, and all the times I\u2019ve flown on planes, I\u2019ve never seen a television crew on a plane. And here was Grace looking really terrible, I mean, ten years of misuse by the State of Tennessee. She\u2013 Her hair was a mess, and she had no teeth at all, and they never gave her any false teeth. She had absolutely no teeth at all. And she\u2019d been eating terrible<\/em> food, and been given these drugs and wearing an old dress, she really<\/em> looked terrible. And here was this television crew filming her. And uh, the pilot came out, and the co-pilot came out, all the stewardesses came over, and said, \u201cWho is she? What\u2019s that all about?\u201d Well, I didn\u2019t want to tell them what the facts were, because I was afraid that some patriotic Tennesee citizen might run out and grab ahold of the wheel and call for the FBI and not let the plane leave, so I said, \u201cWell, her name is uh, Grace Daniels. She\u2019s the heir to the Jack Daniels fortune.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>At that point\u2013 At that point Grace turned around and said, \u201cYes, and when we\u2019re airborne, all the drinks are on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter, applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>And everybody cheered, and uh, we\u2013 we took off, and we landed in Dallas and then, uh, from Dallas I called Don Freed and said, \u201cIt\u2019s safe to tell you now we\u2019re on the way back, you\u2019d better have a couple people at the airport, because uh, probably by now the FBI knows, and if anything happens, we\u2019d like to have some friends out there.\u201d And so from the time we left Dallas till the time we got to LA, which was a couple of hours, Don had made some phone calls and there were about uh\u2013 Reverend Lawson was there, there were about 200 people at the airport, and a crowd of people from all over, the whole Los Angeles and uh\u2013 area, Beverly Hills and Orange County, just about 200 people, about a dozen ministers were there, and a\u2013 a lot of other people. And some uh, people who were in past had provided some kind of physical support, some really good people uh, were standing around also. And a couple people we thought were FBI agents, but they were sort of, way in the background and just observing from a distance, and there were two TV crews there. This was Grace Walden\u2019s first television interview. As she got off the plane\u2013 and we weren\u2019t expecting, I\u2019d thought that Don would have a few people there, but I didn\u2019t expect this, and everybody applauded and sang when she got off the plane and uh, the cameras moved quickly in on her, and uh, I didn\u2019t know how she could handle this after ten years, but she was marvelous, and a\u2013 a reporter said to her, \u201cWhat do you think of Memphis, Tennessee now?\u201d And she said, \u201cOh, it\u2019s just a smug little river town, you can\u2019t blame them.\u201d And uh, \u201cWhat about the murder of Dr. King?\u201d She said, \u201cWell, I saw who did it. And they have the wrong man. And they\u2019ve known<\/em> they\u2019ve had the wrong man for ten years,\u201d and she said, \u201cnow that I\u2019m out, I\u2019m going to do everything I can to try to get that man freed, because he didn\u2019t do it, and they know he didn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, it was\u2013 it was a good\u2013 a very good, strong statement, that was on television in Los Angeles. And so she was out, and she\u2019s out now. And there are still problems with her, I mean, you know, ten years of that massive drug abuse program, and uh\u2013 but she\u2019s\u2013 she\u2019s visited a couple of leading psychiatrists in Los Angeles who say that there is mentally<\/em> nothing wrong with her, and there never was, said her uh\u2013 her mind is clear, but during that ten\u2013 she has almost no memories at all during that ten-year period. She remembers things fairly clearly prior to the ten years, and everything since the time that she\u2019s been out, she\u2019s been staying with me, with my family now. She remembers things since that time, but she has almost no memory during that entire ten-year period. She remembers the cats all being killed, and one or two other horrible things like that, but basically cannot remember what took place. So they just\u2013 they robbed ten years from her, and from her mind. But she really is uh\u2013 she really is one of the true heroes of this terrible period, because she wouldn\u2019t<\/em> lie. And I think that when they chose this place\u2013 this place from which the shot was fired to kill Dr. King, it was chosen for a lot of reasons. And I think one of them was because poor<\/em> people lived there. Really poor people. And people who were\u2013 who could be pushed around. People who were\u2013 had tuberculosis, people who drank too much, alcoholics living there. And I think the feeling was, if anybody sees anything, no one will pay any attention to these people. They\u2019re not bank presidents, or important impressive people in society, the people we\u2019ve grown to respect, uh, attorney general like, lawyers like Richard Nixon and uh, John Mitchell and [John] Ehrlichman, and [H.R.] Haldeman\u2013 and all those people who we know would never lie, people like that.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>Those important people weren\u2019t living there. Just working-class people and people who had\u2013 who had failed in a very acquisitive society. And I\u2019m sure that part of the thinking of choosing that place as a place in which the shot would be fired to kill Dr. King, is we can manipulate those people, they\u2019ve no money, they have no power, they\u2019re weak, and we\u2019ll tell them what to do, and they\u2019ll do it, and if they don\u2019t, we\u2019ll offer them some money, and if they don\u2019t take that, we\u2019ll threaten them and they\u2019ll have to do it. That was the analysis. But it didn\u2019t work because there\u2019s always one person. And in this case it was Grace Walden. And so it didn\u2019t work. Their whole strategy went down the drain at that point.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to talk with you about what else was taking place to lead up to the murder of Dr. King. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, had issued an order not too long before then, to a sp\u2013 the special agent in charge of the Destroy King Squad\u2013 a special group which they had established in the Atlanta office of the FBI called the Destroy King Squad. Now we have all the documents, and all the papers now, finally. all these years later for the first time. And the order was, send a letter to King telling him to commit suicide. And that letter was sent. And it was to be sent from a place in the deep South \u2013 that was Hoover\u2019s special order \u2013 that an agent was to have the letter typed, they destroyed the typewriter after he prepared the letter, and the agent went down to Tampa, Florida, carrying this letter inside with\u2013 inside of another envelope, took a taxi from the Tampa, Florida airport into town, put on his gloves, took the inner envelope out of the outer envelope so they would not leave fingerprints, and mailed the letter, and flew back to Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

And what was the strategy? When Dr. King saw this letter, he would not know that it came from the FBI. He would think it came from some racist d\u2013 deep in the South. In fact it was coming from a racist deep in Washington, D.C. and deep in the administration. But this was part of the contrived government program to tear black and white Americans apart, to make Dr. King believe<\/em> it was a white racist in the South, when in fact, it was a government<\/em> order. It had no geographic identity, it came from Washington, D.C. And Dr. King got that letter, and he opened it, and he read it, and it said, you\u2013 it was 34 days before he was\u2013 was to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. And it said you have, in essence, \u201cYou have 34 days to kill yourself. Otherwise you\u2019ll be exposed internationally as a sexual pervert. We have tapes and photographs and film,\u201d which had been in fact, developed, manufactured in the FBI laboratories. It\u2019s proof. And Dr. King saw it, and he called in a few people who he knew, Andy Young and a few others, and showed them the letter, and said it had to come from J. Edgar Hoover. Who else would have sent such a crazy letter?<\/p>\n

And he said, \u201cNow we have to understand this. In the past, we knew that the Bureau was going to give us no protection in the struggles in the South or the North. But now we have to know something else.\u201d Dr. King said, \u201cHoover wants me dead. He wants me dead. And so the\u2013 the ball game has changed. We have to be very careful, very careful from now on.\u201d So when Dr. King spoke that last night, and made the speech which the press has said was not only prophetic, but was somehow mystically inspired, divinely inspired, where he said, \u201cWe as a people will get to the Promised Land, but I may not get there with you, but I\u2019ve been to the mountaintop,\u201d when he made that speech, and he walked off the stage saying, \u201cBut I tell you this, I am not fearing any man,\u201d and he walked off the stage. The press made it seem as if somehow divinely he had been inspired. He was reacting to what he knew was Hoover\u2019s program to kill him. And that was the man that he said he was not fearing. Because he had done work that had to be done while he was on the earth. But Hoover did more. Dr. King was under FBI surveillance 24 hours a day, year after year after year after year. Even when he went to Oslo, Norway, FBI agents were on the plane with him. And when he landed to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, the FBI had already bugged all<\/em> of the hotel rooms in uh, Oslo where he and his family and his friends and associates stayed, and they also tapped all of the phones that they would use in the hotels.<\/p>\n

And when he came back to the United States, every hotel, every motel, his church, his home, his office, everyone was bugged by the FBI. Sometimes they would have as many as 25 different FBI agents provide surveillance of Dr. King on a 24-hour-a-day basis, while 15<\/em> others monitored him electronically. (Clears throat) There\u2019s as many\u2013 an army of 40 FBI agents just looking at Dr. King. One hour before he was killed in Memphis, Tennessee, Hoover gave the order, \u201cWithdraw all surveillance.\u201d One hour. Twenty-five agents disappeared. And the electronic surveillance was pulled off. One hour before. That left just the local police in Memphis to provide protection. And there was a police officer named Ed Reddit, and what had happened is, uh, that a week\u2013 ab\u2013 about a week before that, on March 28th, Dr. King had been asked to go to Memphis and lead a nonviolent march on behalf of the sanitation workers. Now King was moving in a massive campaign, a Poor Peoples march on Washington, D.C., for April. And the whole idea was to get hundreds of people, thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands eventually, of a rainbow of Americans, coming to Wa\u2013 all poor people\u2013 the whites from Appalachia, blacks and brown and yellow and red from all over America, all poor people. And to set up tents right there in Washington, D.C. Right in front of the three House of Representative office buildings, and right in front of the two United States Senate office buildings, and remain there until something was done to bring about a change in the economic structure which required so<\/em> many people to be poor, so<\/em> many people to go without dinner at night, go to bed hungry at night. And required what we see in the press today, that the illiteracy rate is rising in the United States, while illiteracy has been abolished<\/em> in what we refer to as under-developing countries. It\u2019s not the world, it\u2019s growing within the United States.<\/p>\n

And Dr. King had moved on from the struggle of just civil rights and was talking about economic justice and bringing about some sound structural changes in the economic structure of the United States. That\u2019s what he was doing when he was killed. And in the middle of all this, he was invited to go to Memphis and lead a nonviolent march on behalf of the sanitation workers, and some of his aides said, \u201cOh, don\u2019t go. Keep your eye on the national program. Don\u2019t be distracted for a few days in Memphis.\u201d And he reminded them of the necessity of standing with the least of these, the most oppressed of these. And he flew off. You remember that campaign in Memphis, it was not for higher wages, it was for the dignity<\/em> of labor. Those black sanitation workers marched with signs which didn\u2019t ask for higher wages, but asked for better conditions. The signs said, \u201cI am a man.\u201d That was the campaign, and that was\u2013 it was impossible for Dr.\u00a0King to refuse that request. He went there, and they marched. And Reverend Lawson organized and led that march. And this is what he told me. As they marched down, a group of young black people\u2013 there was a group there called the Invaders, a black militant youth group, wore black jackets, something like the Black Panther Party\u2013 group of young black people started smashing windows and hurling insults at Dr. King. And Reverend Lawson looked up and said, \u201cThose guys are dressed like the Invaders, but they are not the Invaders.\u201d Turns out they were working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And they<\/em> turned a nonviolent march into a violent demonstration. And when the windows were being broken, things were being stolen from the stores in the black community, Reverend Lawson said to Dr. King, \u201cLet\u2019s turn the march around.\u201d Dr.\u00a0King said, \u201cI\u2019m not afraid.\u201d And Lawson looked up ahead, and he saw in the next block the police were there with their weapons, and people were looking out of windows. And that was the next block, and he had the feeling that\u2013 he said the police weren\u2019t coming and stopping the looting. They were taking no action at all. And he had the feeling that they wanted Dr. King to walk one more block, and who knows what would\u2019ve happened there? And if Dr. King was killed in a struggle one more block later, it always could\u2019ve been said that this young, black militant group had started the riot, and Dr. King was killed as a result of the riot with the young, black activists that started it. Reverend Lawson said, \u201cNo, it\u2019s not our march anymore. Let\u2019s turn it around.\u201d And Dr. King was reluctant, but the group of people pushed him in a car, and they drove him to a Holiday Inn Rivermont, which is a large building outside of the downtown area, which provides excellent security. No buildings anywhere near it, and you go into a central entrance and when you\u2019re in there, you go to your room, and there\u2019s no way anybody can shoot you from the outside. And he went there, take him there.<\/p>\n

That same day, Hoover \u2013 we now have the memo \u2013 Hoover ordered the special agent in charge of the Memphis office of the FBI to make sure that King came back to Memphis and that he stayed in the Lorraine Motel, because he had reservations for the Holiday Inn Rivermont. What is it about the Lorraine Motel? It\u2019s built like a shooting gallery! There\u2019s no way to provide any security. Because there\u2019s no central entrance, you go up to the balcony, and you walk right down in that long balcony until you get to your room, and across the street there are bushes and trees, and a series of buildings, including that rooming house where Grace Walden stayed with windows looking out over the area. And half a block away, there\u2019s wa\u2013 a fire station, Fire Station 2, which overlooks the area. Hoover\u2019s memo to Robert Jensen, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Memphis said, \u201cSend out a statement to our friends in the news media,\u201d that\u2019s the two newspapers in Memphis, and the radio and television stations. \u201cEmbarrass King into checking into the Lorraine Motel. Make sure he does not stay at the Holiday Inn Rivermont.\u201d And the FBI prepared a statement, which, it said at the bottom, \u201cnot to be attributed to the Bureau,\u201d and they gave it to their friends in the news media in Memphis. The free press. In Memphis. That\u2019s how it functioned then, that\u2019s how it functions now. And this\u2013 they even wrote the headline, headline says \u201cDo As I Say, Says King, Not As I Do\u201d and then the statement went on to say, \u201cKing is coming back here to Memphis, and he\u2019s telling all of the Negroes, \u2018boycott white-owned establishments.\u2019 But what is he doing himself? He\u2019s staying in the posh white-owned Holiday Inn Rivermont. Why doesn\u2019t he stay in the Lorraine Motel, owned by Negroes, a perfectly respectable place.\u201d And that was published all over Memphis, and some of Dr. King\u2019s aides, Andy Young particularly, and others said, it\u2019ll be embarrassing if you stay at the Holiday Inn, and they moved his reservations to the Lorraine Motel. And he was on that balcony when he was shot to death.<\/p>\n

So, people around Dr. King asked that there be police protection. And so they had assigned in the past fourteen police officers. Now there were death threats, and they reduced the squad to two. Two police officers. Ed Reddit, a black officer, who was in charge of the operation, and another man named Patrolman Richman. Those were the only two. And this was the plan they worked out. Reddit said, \u201cWe\u2019ll stay over here in the Fire Station, right across the street. If anything happens,\u201d he said to Richman, \u201cyou\u2019ll run in with your walkie talkie. There are six vehicles on the perimeter, each with two officers in them. Seal off the area, I\u2019ll run down to South Main Street and see if I see anything happening there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, if that plan had been in effect, we wouldn\u2019t be talking ten years later about wondering who killed Dr. King. What happened was, whoever killed Dr. King ran out in the street, and put his rifle down there at South Main Street, and Ed Reddit would\u2019ve been there with his pistol drawn, and would\u2019ve been able to stop the killer at that point.<\/p>\n

Hours before, a man named Frank Holloman, the only man ever to be the director of fire and<\/em> police in Memphis at the same time, had ordered the only two black firemen at Fire Station 2 to be dispersed to other fire stations many miles away. The only two black firemen there, both of whom were militant supporters of Dr. King. They were sent to locations where they were surplus employees, had nothing to do, and yet they couldn\u2019t even get the engines<\/em> out without them, that fire station, so if there had been a fire there, they could not\u2019ve taken them out because one company required five, the other company required four, there were on two separate companies, and they could not even get the engines out that day. There was just a panic to get them out of there. And now, two hours before Dr. King was killed, Holloman sent word to Ed Reddit, to the chief of domestic intelligence for the Memphis police department, \u201cI want Reddit in my office at once.\u201d So Reddit was taken to his office. Reddit said, \u201cI\u2019m supposed to be in charge of security.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, I know that. But this man here is from the United States Secret Service. He says there\u2019s a death threat out against you<\/em>. So I\u2019m sending you home under police control. And you\u2019re to remain home.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, look, I mean, he\u2019s going to be leaving there soon. Coming out on that balcony. Look, he\u2019s going to Billie Kyle\u2019s house, a black minister in Memphis. Let me make sure he just gets there, then I\u2019ll feel safe, he\u2019ll be in the community, and be OK.\u201d And the answer is, \u201cNo. I\u2019m sending you home.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he said, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t\u2013 I don\u2019t want to be home. I mean, if there really is a death threat against me, and I don\u2019t know how that could be, but if there\u2019s a death threat against me, I don\u2019t want to be with my family, for someone to throw a bomb and kill us all. I\u2019d rather be out on the street, and take my chances.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, it\u2019s not what you want. I\u2019m ordering you home.\u201d<\/p>\n

They sent him home with two police officers. They\u2019re sitting there in the car in front of his house. And he said, \u201cYou know, would you\u2019d just let me go back there to make sure that King gets out of there OK?\u201d And the answer was \u201cNo.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, all right, where are you guys going to be staked out?\u201d And the officer in charge said, \u201cNo, we\u2019re going into the house with you.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, if you\u2019re providing protection for me, you have to be out on the street, staking out the house.\u201d And the answer was, \u201cNo, we\u2019re going to be watching you.\u201d So then he knew that was the idea was to keep<\/em> him in the house, not to protect him, but to keep him there. They had the radio on, playing music in the background, and they interrupted the program to announce at that moment that Dr. King had just been shot.<\/p>\n

That left only one police officer, Richman, stationary police officer and six patrol cars. Now we get to the official<\/em> statement of the Memphis District Attorney General [District Attorney], Phil Canale. This is his explanation, I\u2019m quoting him now. (Clears throat) \u201cAt five minutes to six\u201d \u2013 I add parenthetically, which was six minutes before Dr. King was killed \u2013 \u201cAt five minutes to six,\u201d he said, \u201call of the police cars, all of the men in the police cars drove to the Fire Station to use the bathroom facility. All twelve men in all six police cars. So that\u2019s why there was no perimeter\u2013 perimeter at the time Dr. King was killed.\u201d He said, \u201cBut there\u2019s nothing surprising about that, they\u2019d been out in those cars since a quarter to eight in the morning, and at five minutes to six, they all had to go to the bathroom at the same time.\u201d Now that\u2019s a well-trained police force. And they were there in the urinal<\/em> when the shot was fired, and there was patrolman Richman with his walkie-talkie, prepared to seal off the area, but there was no one to talk to. They were all in the bathroom.<\/p>\n

When you put this all together, what do you discover? You find out that Mr. Hoover wanted Dr. King dead. He said it. Find out that the\u2013 the FBI surveillance of Dr. King ended just before he was killed. And then the local police and fire department was raided so that the witnesses were removed, the black witnesses, and so security was removed.<\/p>\n

Now, the last thing is to find out who Frank Holloman is, who did this. He\u2019d just arrived on the scene, just a couple of weeks before and became the director of fire and police. He was responsible for stripping away the witnesses, and responsible for stripping away the security. Who was he? He had just retired after 25 years as a chief executive in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His last job for \u2013 thank you \u2013 his last job for eight years had been as chief inspector in charge of J. Edgar Hoover\u2019s office, personal office, person in charge of that office. And you put it all together, it certainly looks to me as if the FBI has to be considered to be the prime suspects in the murder\u2013<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(murmurs)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>Yeah. Now, you add to that the statement\u2013<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>(Clears throat) You add to that the statement from Arthur Murtaugh, who had been with the FBI for 20 years and nine months, the senior member of the group of the intelligence squad in Memphis called the Destroy King Squad. In an interview which I had with him not too long ago, this is what he told me.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cI\u2013 Our job\u201d he said, \u201cwas to destroy Martin Luther King and everyone around him.\u201d He said, \u201cEven after King was killed, we sent a memo up to Hoover and said, \u2018Should we disband now that he\u2019s dead?\u2019 And Hoover\u2019s answer was, \u2018No. Now destroy his memory. Because the Congress may make his birthday a national holiday. Destroy his memory. Brief every member of Congress, let them know what a scoundrel he was.\u2019\u201d And so the squad went on. Then Andy Young decided to run for Congress. And Murtaugh was ordered to break in\u2013 through his informants work in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, have them break into the office of the SCLC, and steal letterheads of the SCLC stationery and steal samples of Andy Young\u2019s handwriting. The FBI laboratory was going to write love letters, signed by Andy Young, to the wife of every minister in Atlanta for the purpose of disrupting the campaign. Now why Hoover would imagine that Andy Young would\u2019ve done that on the official stationery of the SCLC is a little difficult to understand, but it would\u2019ve caused some mischief, and then Murtaugh refused to do it, but another agent did it. And those letters were sent out.<\/p>\n

This is what Murtaugh told me. I said, (Clears throat) \u201cDo you remember April 4th?\u201d He said, \u201cOh, yes. I was on the ninth floor of the Federal Building in Atlanta. We were checking out that day, it\u2019s a block-long building, with our salmon-colored cards. And we were checking out, and with me,\u201d he said, \u201cwas the second in charge of the Destroy King Squad, the assistant supervisor of the Destroy King Squad. And as we were checking out, the radio announced that Dr. King had been shot.\u201d And he said\u2013 this man, my supervisor, said, \u2018I hope the son-of-a-bitch dies<\/em>.\u2019\u201d The FBI. A few minutes later they announced that Dr. King had died. Murtaugh, an FBI agent loyal to the Bureau for 20 years and nine months, said, \u201cWhen it was announced on the radio that Dr. King had died, this<\/em> man, this high official in the FBI of the Destroy King\u2019s life, literally left his feet<\/em> in a leap for joy.\u201d The code name which the FBI had assigned to Dr. King was Zorro \u2013 Zorro\u2019s coming here, Zorro\u2019s going there \u2013 and Dr.\u2013 and Mr. Murtaugh said, this official of the FBI left his feet in a leap for joy, slapped his hands together, and said, \u201cWe got Zorro! Zorro\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, as 50 American cities went up in flames, as blacks throughout the country were saying to the white power structure, we\u2019d like some information about the murder of Dr. King, and then it was a hundred cities. The attorney general of the United States looked out of those\u2013 window, of the Department of Justice building in Washington, and couldn\u2019t even see the Capitol because of the smoke inundating the city. And he realized something had to be done. \u201cThere was,\u201d he said, \u201cto be a full investigation of the murder.\u201d And so he called J. Edgar Hoover, and asked him to look into it. Hoover called the Special Agent in Charge of the Atlanta office of the FBI and gave him full authority to conduct the investigation. And he<\/em> turned it over to the Destroy King Squad. And those who celebrated Dr. King\u2019s murder conducted the only federal investigation into that assassination.<\/p>\n

And despite this, the American news media supports the official version, just as they support the official version of the murder of President Kennedy. New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The L.A. Times<\/em>, CBS, NBC, ABC, there\u2019s not a single portion of the American news media which has not editorially endorsed the Warren Commission Report, and what does the Gallup Poll taken last January show? Eighty-two percent of the American people say they think the Warren Report\u2019s a lie, and are convinced there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, and about the same number are convinced it was a conspiracy to kill Dr. Martin Luther King. And yet the news media goes on as if the American people don\u2019t exist, as if those opinions don\u2019t exist, and continues to offer additional support for their theory on the government\u2019s theory of the \u201clone assassin\u201d involved.<\/p>\n

When James Earl Ray testified recently before the Congress, he began by revealing something which was just not known anywhere in America. And that is that when Dr. King was \u2013 we now have all of the FBI documents proving this \u2013 when Dr. King was shot, the first man on the scene who ran up to the balcony and started giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the worst thing you can do when a man is bleeding to death, started moving him around, was a man named Merrell McCullough, dressed like a Black Panther, like a Invader or a Black Panther. He was the man who led the riot on March 28th, which required Dr. King to come back to the city. You\u2019ve all seen that picture of everybody pointing from the balcony, up there, Andy Young, and Jesse Jackson and the others? You look at that picture\u2013 and Ralph Abernathy\u2013 you look at that picture closely, there\u2019s someone kneeling over Dr. King. He\u2019s<\/em> not pointing, he\u2019s kneeling over Dr. King. That\u2019s Merrell McCullough. That\u2019s the man in that world-famous picture published in The New York Times<\/em> and newspapers all around the world, never identifying that man. Merrell McCullough his name is. The first person to reach Dr. King. He\u2019s not pointing. I\u2019ll tell you why. \u2018Cause he pointed originally. He said, \u201cIt\u2019s from that window.\u201d And then the rest of them took up the point, and then he was no longer pointing.<\/p>\n

Who is he? Everybody\u2013 Ralph Abernathy, when I saw him in Washington, I showed him the picture, I said, \u201cWho is that?\u201d He said, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t know who that is.\u201d Jesse Jackson didn\u2019t know. Andy Young didn\u2019t know who that man was on the balcony with them. He\u2019s a full-time Memphis Police employee assigned to infiltrate the Invaders, and according to documents we now have for the first time, at the same<\/em> time, a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And he was the first<\/em> person to reach Dr. King, and he established the point of origin of the bullet. And ten years later, that was not known until we got the documents, and James Earl Ray said that, and not one newspaper in America printed it. Not one newspaper in the entire country printed it. And so the struggle, of course, for truth and morality still goes on and it\u2019s a\u2013 a struggle which we are, I can\u2019t report that we have won, or that there are signs that we are on the verge of winning, but the struggle goes on.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to tell you about the last day\u2013 I know when Don Freed came here, he was very happy to come here and very excited about coming here, but heartbroken that he was leaving on the last day of James Earl Ray\u2019s testimony, and so, [I\u2019ll] bring you up to date on what he didn\u2019t see, but what happened just after he left Washington. James has been attacked regularly by the members of the Select Committee when they asked him, \u201cWhere were you on March 27th? Where were you? What hotel did you stay at? Where did you drive from here to?\u201d And I\u2013 I tried to point out to the members of the committee that if I had asked any of them where they were one week ago for dinner, they probably would have a great difficulty trying to remember where it was. They\u2019re asking Ray where he was ten years ago. What cities, what motel, what time of the morning did you leave? And they kept on attacking him in this uh, system of cross-examination. It was the old McCarthy\u2013 old McCarthyism come back to Washington, D.C., in terms of their attack on Ray. And he was worn down. He was tired. After all, this is a man who had been kept in solitary confinement for five years, and in prison in Tennessee for ten years. Now all of a sudden, every day, a series of very difficult questions, he\u2019d been kept in solitary confinement, even outside of Washington, D.C., and beaten up the first day before he testified, and lights focused on him 24 hours, that first day. He tried, and it\u2019s\u2013 but he\u2013 and he did the best he could. And I thought he was credible, but in terms of the terrible cross-examination, picking at each detail, he was getting weary, and Friday morning when I went in to see him, just before he was to testify, he said, \u201cI don\u2019t think I can take any more of this. I\u2019m just too exhausted.\u201d And I said, \u201cWhat do you want to do?\u201d He said, \u201cWhat I want to do? I don\u2019t\u2013 I don\u2019t want to testify anymore.\u201d He said, \u201cI know\u2013 I don\u2019t even\u2013 I\u2013 I know you probably don\u2019t like that, but I\u2019ve written out a statement, I want to read the statement, and just go back to my prison in Tennessee and give up the fight.\u201d He said, \u201cYou don\u2019t like that, do you?\u201d I said, \u201cWell, James, I mean, you\u2019re the client, and whatever you say goes. If you want my opinion, I\u2019ll give it to you.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, yeah.\u201d I said, \u201cWell, let me hear the statement.\u201d It was a very good statement that he had written. And I said, uh, \u201cYou know\u2013 we\u2019ve been asking all along for\u2013 after Ray was arrested, he wrote down, oh, about a 20,000-word statement of every detail, maps, remembering where he was, and the Committee had that. But he didn\u2019t\u2013 he\u2013 Ray didn\u2019t have it. And he\u2013 we kept on asking for that document, I kept on saying, if he has that, maybe he can give you specific information. But it doesn\u2019t make any sense to uh, to demand that he tell you from his memory. I said, \u201cIf you like I can go in there and demand that. And if they don\u2019t give you it, well, say, we\u2019re gonna walk out, \u2018cause it\u2019s unfair.\u201d He said, \u201cOK.\u201d So we went in and we made a big demand, and they\u2013 it was all broadcast on public television, and public radio throughout the country\u2013 and they were a little embarrassed, and they said OK, they said they would give him the document. Then they started asking him a series of questions after he got the document. At twelve-thirty, just before we broke for lunch, they announced that they had a statement, the Select Committee of Congress had just<\/em> interviewed on August 4th, a very important, distinguished<\/em> British police officer, a retired<\/em> chief inspector of the metropolitan police in London, and he had said that Ray confessed<\/em> the killing to him. And they were going to present that statement and question James about that. And they said the man\u2019s name is Anthony Alexander [Alexander Anthony] Eist, and I demanded the statement they gave, it\u2019s a 21-page statement, and we broke for lunch, and then we had an opportunity to read the statement.<\/p>\n

Well, I can say that I actually like James Earl Ray a lot. And uh, I know he\u2019s not what the media\u2013 the media have\u2013 has portrayed him as a southern racist, right? A redneck. First of all, he\u2019s from Illinois, he\u2019s not from the deep South, although there are racists in Illinois, I think he\u2019s not one of them. And the way they\u2019ve done this is by the use of key people in the intelligence organizations. And the\u2013 the method which has been used in order to destroy Dr. King, and the methods which had been used to utilize the news media, is very similar to the methods that have been used, probably by the same people, in an effort to destroy Peoples Temple. And it\u2019s just the same people, and it\u2019s just the same approach\u2013<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(response)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013and it\u2019s their use of the news media. There\u2019s a man named George McMillan, he\u2019s key to this case. George McMillan has published material on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI over the years. In fact, when Lee Harvey Oswald was in Moscow, his wife [Priscilla Johnson McMillan]\u2013 George McMillan\u2019s wife interviewed her on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department. We have the documents which show that. And George McMillan was there when his wife went back to Moscow, interviewed Stalin\u2019s daughter, Svetlana Stalin. That was one of the great coups by the CIA. They brought her to the United States. And where did she stay? At the home of George McMillan and his wife, a CIA safehouse. Their home was used as a CIA safehouse. He\u2019s totally intelligence. But he wrote a book, the bio\u2013 the biography of James Earl Ray, called The Making of an Assassin<\/em>. And because I loved Dr. King, and I marched with Dr. King, and I went to jail on more than one occasion with Dr. King, in Mississippi and Alabama, in Maryland, I was disturbed by one statement in that book.<\/p>\n

This is what it said, page 106 of McMillan\u2019s book: He said, \u201cEvery day when James Earl Ray was in the penitentiary in\u2013 in Jefferson City, Missouri in 1963 and 1964, every day James Earl Ray looked in his cell block up at the television set and he saw Dr. King on that set. And every day he said, when he heard Dr. King talk about the needs for blacks to suffer, but one day there would be freedom for everyone in America, as he did that,\u201d according to this book, \u201cRay grabbed the jail bar cell, and his knuckles turned white, the blood drained from his face. He began to mutter and mumble, \u2018Somebody\u2019s gotta get him. Somebody\u2019s gotta kill him.\u2019 And he did that every single day in 1963 and 1964.\u201d Well, I knew McMillan was an intelligence writer, yet that was a matter of concern to me. And the first day I met James Earl Ray just about two years ago, I brought that book in, and I read that passage to him. And very quietly, he laughed. And I said, \u201cIs that funny?\u201d And he said, \u201cUnder the circumstances, it\u2019s very funny.\u201d I said, \u201cWhat are the circumstances?\u201d He said, \u201cThere were no television sets in the entire institution the whole time I was there.\u201d And I said, \u201cWell, that\u2019s something I can check out.\u201d He said, \u201cYeah, check it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I met with the associate warden of the Missouri Penitentiary. Question is were there television sets there in 1963 and 1964? In fact Ray escaped in April 1967 and never got back to that prison after that. And this is what the warden said. \u201cThe first time we ever had television sets in the Missouri Penitentiary was in January 1970.\u201d There never was a set there when Ray was there. The whole story\u2019s made up. A total<\/em> fabrication. Well, who do you suppose Public Broadcasting Television had narrating the entire hearing? Explaining to the American people what was taking place? George McMillan. The intelligence author.<\/p>\n

Well, when I first met Ray and discussed this with him, I found that he was a\u2013 he\u2019s very bright, he\u2019s articulate. I asked if he was a racist, because the charge had been made, and he said, \u201cWell, it\u2019s hard to know what a racist is.\u201d This is James Earl Ray\u2019s answer. He said, \u201cIt\u2019s hard to know what a racist is.\u201d He said, \u201cI live in a racist society.\u201d He said, \u201cI think everybody\u2019s a racist here.\u201d He said, \u201cBut if you mean a sp\u2013 anything special about that,\u201d he said, \u201cI think a racist is someone who exploits for financial gain, someone else because of his race.\u201d He says, \u201cI\u2019ve never exploited anybody in my life, although many of the people in the news media who say I\u2019m a racist in fact are themselves part of the exploiting system.\u201d As I thought that was an interesting answer for a man who has been pictured by the news media as someone very different from what he really is.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s a\u2013 he\u2019s a reserved person. And all the time that I talked to him, and the various things that I did over the years, he never once said \u201cThank you.\u201d He says \u201cThank you\u201d very, very cautiously. It took me six months, I think, of talking before he felt he could trust me. And then he did, and started giving me information, which I think has been helpful, and I\u2019m trying to get a trial for him, for the murder.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s\u2013 that was one thing that struck me. And I said to him on one occasion, \u201cLook, you have no money at all here, not a penny. Would you like me to put some money in your account?\u201d He said, \u201cNo.\u201d I said, \u201cWhy?\u201d He said, \u201cWell, you know, I don\u2019t smoke. And you don\u2019t need money in prison, unless\u2013 except for cigarettes.\u201d I said, \u201cHow about candy?\u201d He said, \u201cCandy rots your teeth, I don\u2019t eat candy, either.\u201d I said, \u201cHow about magazines and newspapers?\u201d and he said, \u201cMagazines and newspapers rot your mind, and anyway,\u201d uh, he said, \u201cpeople send me clippings about the case from all over. And I get\u2013 I can get newspapers. I don\u2019t need any money at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was only two years later when I arranged for Jim Lawson and others to come in and meet with him, then I told him that I had done that, he said, \u201cWell, thank you.\u201d First time he ever said, \u201cThank you.\u201d And then Reverend Lawson, Jesse Jackson, other people came in to see him, and when the meeting was over, James stood up, and shook hands with each of them and said, \u201cThank you.\u201d He didn\u2019t say thank you to me. After all he had said it two weeks before on the phone, so that was my quota. And (unintelligible word) I know, in the two years I\u2019ve known, that\u2019s the only three times I\u2019ve ever heard him say, \u201cThank you.\u201d That total of three times.<\/p>\n

Now we read the statement of Mr. Eist, who says that James Earl Ray was there in prison, in England, when he was picked up and he made a complete confession. Ray was aware that something like that might be said. The first day he was arrested in England, he sent a letter to J. Edgar Hoover, and said, \u201cI know you\u2019re going to be sending police officers in here, and I know you\u2019re going to be sending crooks in here, to talk with me. I\u2019m not going to tell anybody anything. I\u2019m not even telling anybody my name. So if anybody comes forward now and says I made a confession or admission in prison, which I know is a system you always use, it\u2019s a lie, I\u2019m not\u2013 and I\u2019m putting you on notice in advance, I\u2019m not talking to anybody about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now we see Mr. Eist\u2019s statement, this retired, distinguished chief inspector of the British Police force. It begins by saying, \u201cThe first day I met Ray, they passed the food to him through the bars. And I noticed they didn\u2019t give him proper utensils to eat with. So he said, \u201cI asked them, \u2018Give him the utensils.\u2019 And they said, \u2018No. We\u2019re not going to give him any knife or anything like that.\u2019\u201d He said, \u201cJames Earl Ray turned to me and said, \u2018Chief Inspector, I wanted to thank you profusely for the efforts on my behalf, and although they were unsuccessful, I want to really thank you for what you\u2019ve done in trying to get me utensils.\u2019\u201d Now, to a lot of people that doesn\u2019t mean anything. To me, it\u2019s a total\u2013 it means that the whole story\u2019s a lie. Right? I know James well enough to know that\u2019s impossible. The next thing that he says is that, \u201cWe began to talk, and Ray asked me if I could get him some magazines about yachting.\u201d (Pause) Small-time crook from the central plains of Illinois has decided he needs magazines about yachting. Charged with the murder of Dr. King, may be about to be executed, and all he\u2019s interested in is a magazine about yachting. Well, I knew there was nothing in the statement which made any sense, but then he went on to say that Ray confessed to killing Dr. King and told why he did it, he wanted publicity, he wanted the money, and on and on and on. That kind of story. And it ended up by saying, he was asked in the statement why he decided to wait, and he waited ten years. Chief Inspector: \u201cWhy was he coming forward now?\u201d And he said, \u201cAn American couple came,\u201d he now is a retired police officer, he owns a bar in Cambridge, England. And he said a\u2013 that an American couple came in the other day, and asked for a\u2013 a drink, and then told me that I had very important information, and I should tell the FBI, and so I decided to do it. But he had not told the American couple what information he had. So how they knew that we don\u2019t know, about this confession. In any event, he said he called the FBI, they asked him what the name of the couple was and he said he didn\u2019t want to disclose the name of the couple. OK. So this story seemed to me to be a total fraud, but I knew that it was going to go over very big with George McMillan narrating on it, he was\u2013 like, now, here\u2019s the absolute proof. And the person who started questioning James Earl Ray about it was a man named Sam Devine. Sam Devine is a member of Congress, on the committee, had for many years been a special agent of the FBI. And after that, before he was elected to Congress, he was in the State of Ohio legislature, he was the chairman of the Unamerican Activities Committee for the State Legislature of Ohio. And that was the man who\u2019s gonna ask the questions. Well, we were about to go out there and get the\u2013 and deal with this (hushed tone) bombshell of evidence against James, and a black marshal walked up to me, and gave me a note that said, \u201cPlease call Jonathan Goldberg, and he\u2013 an English barrister, now in Los Angeles. He has information about Eist.\u201d And this was two minutes to two. And I picked, uh, I said, \u201cMarshal, can I use your phone?\u201d They said, \u201cYes,\u201d and I called him, and he s\u2013 as I said, he\u2019s a British barrister, and he said, \u201cEist is the single most corrupt police official in the modern history of England. He\u2019s not an honorably retired official, as the Congress says. When he was indicted for jewel robbery, perversion of justice, and corruption, he was forced to resign in disgrace.\u201d He said, \u201cI can give you a great deal of information.\u201d At that time, the marshals came and took James Earl Ray out before the committee, and I couldn\u2019t leave him there alone with the, the savage beasts, and so I said to Mr. Goldberg, \u201cCan I call you back in five minutes?\u201d He said, \u201cOK, I\u2019ll wait five minutes.\u201d And I hung up, and I went out there into the room, and they said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to now read the entire statement.\u201d And we had a discussion about that. And after about ten minutes, this thing settled down, we went to some procedural things, and they started to read the entire statement into the record, telling the American people this was a retired, distinguished British officer, why would a man like that lie? And as\u2013 as they started to read it, I said, \u201cI wonder if I can be excused while you\u2019re reading the statement, and I\u2019ll be back in a few minutes. I have some pressing business to take care of.\u201d And they said, \u201cThat\u2019s all right.\u201d So I left the room.<\/p>\n

Meantime, in Los Angeles, where Jonathan Goldberg is, he flew to America to a\u2013 attend the American Bar Association convention, and then stayed on and was traveling a little bit on vacation. He was traveling with his cousin, who\u2019s a British television actress, Aviva her name is, and she kept on saying, \u201cWell, let\u2019s go out to lunch. He\u2019s not going to call.\u201d And they\u2019d waited about ten minutes, and I hadn\u2019t called. And so, thinking I wouldn\u2019t call, they left the room, and went into the car, and was starting to drive off, and he put the radio on, and he heard me ask to be excused for pressing business. He said, \u201cHe\u2019s gonna call me!!\u201d they drove right back to the house, ran in toward the house, and the\u2013 I, at that point, was dialing in a phone booth down the hall from the Congressional Committee, and it started to ring, and there was no answer. What had happened is, they discovered they had not taken the house keys with them, this house they were staying at, and it was locked. They couldn\u2019t get in. And I was ringing for more information, at which point Aviva tried to get in through the doggie door. The bottom of the door. She got her head in there, and her arm in there, and she got stuck, and she couldn\u2019t get in, and she couldn\u2019t get out. She could reach up and move the handle on the door, but there was a chain above it to the wall, and she couldn\u2019t reach that. And I rang 12 times and hung up. And they were trying desperately to get in, but I thought maybe I\u2019d got a wrong number, that happens about half the time anyway. So I\u2013 So I decided I\u2019d try again. By now they had pulled Aviva out of the doggie door, and I was calling back, and they started to go back to the car, they heard it, and Jonathan Goldberg came running full speed, and smashed<\/em> the door with his shoulder.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>The door was very solid, did not collapse. However, it was chained to the wall and the wall collapsed.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>He picked his way through the rubble, and I just\u2013 and the phone had rung about ten times, and he picked up the phone and with great British understatement, he says \u201cMr. Lane, I\u2019m sorry about the delay, we had a little bit of difficulty here.\u201d It was not till a week later that I got the whole story, but then he told me everything that I had to know about Eist. Incredible amount of information. And I went back into the hearing room, and they finished reading the statement, and were about to ask James Earl Ray if it were true. And he said, \u201cWell, this of course is the single most damaging thing that\u2019s ever been said, but it is all untrue.\u201d And then I said, \u201cI want to make a report to the Committee about Mr.\u00a0Eist, your uh, police official who you say has been retired.\u201d And they rapped the gavel and said, \u201cYou\u2019re not allowed to make any statements here. You\u2019re just allowed\u2013 you\u2019re not allowed to confront your accuser. Not allowed to make any statements. You cannot call your own witnesses. You can only answer their questions.\u201d And my job is only to whisper to James Earl Ray\u2019s ear, and give him advice, period. That\u2019s what they ruled.<\/p>\n

And I said, \u201cWell, whether I\u2019m allowed to make any statements here, is really not the question. This is what I\u2019m going to tell you, and the American people who are listening.\u201d And he kept on rapping the gavel, and I kept on, in a very loud and aggressive fashion, I just\u2013 I told them everything that I knew about Eist. And that\u2019s the most incredible series of things\u2013<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll tell you what I learned. I learned that Eist, there is\u2013 There are very serious allegations that Eist was involved with organized crime\u2013 this is the chief inspector\u2013 of the Hatten Gardens district of London, that\u2019s the jewel, the diamond jewel section of London. He was involved, and he kept on going up the ladder, this the way he went up the ladder, it\u2019s alleged by uh, people who\u2019ve uh\u2013 lawyers and others who (unintelligible word) out this information. Eist entered into partnership with a man who was involved in organized crime. And Eist would know where the jewels were being moved, because he was the chief inspector for the area. And when the jewels would be moved, he would tell his partner, his partner would hire two thugs, they\u2019d hit the sales\u2013 the man who was moving the jewels, over the head, steal the jewels, sell them, and then Eist and his partner would share the money. And then Eist would go arrest the two thugs! He solved every case! It wasn\u2019t hard. He had set up every case. So he was able to solve all these cases, and when the man\u2013 sometimes they made a confession, and said, OK, and gave the name of his partner in organized crime, as the man who hired \u2018em, and he\u2019d al\u2013 would always leave that out of the confession. It\u2019s alleged that many of the jewel robberies through the 1960s and 1970s were all done by this police officer, and when the first case broke, he was indicted and tried. At the trial, the question came up. Remember the\u2013 the magazine on yachting James wanted? In 1967, the year before Eist met James Earl Ray, he had bought a yacht. He<\/em> was interested in yachting, not James. He\u2019d bought a yacht and a mansion. And at the trial, the prosecuting attorney, the Crown, said that, \u201cYou know, where could you have gotten the money to buy a yacht and a mansion? We put it to you, you could not have been, based upon your salary.\u201d And he said, \u201cNo, it wasn\u2019t based upon my salary. My mother was a millionaire, and she left me a hundred thousand dollars.\u201d At which point his brother<\/em> came forward, and said, \u201cMother was a millionaire? Mother was on welfare her whole life!\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(laughter)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>And he said, \u201cWell, that\u2019s what she wanted you to think, because she always liked me best. And she wanted to leave all the money to me. And so she had a hundred thousand dollars under her mattress, and she said, when I\u2013 she was to die, I was just to roll her over, take the hundred thousand dollars and buy a yacht and a mansion, and so in meeting Mom\u2019s last wish, that\u2019s what I did.\u201d (unintelligible) That\u2019s where the yachting magazine came from. That was on his<\/em> mind, he\u2019d just bought a yacht, a little while before. Anyway, a lot of this was finally presented to the American people, and at that point the committee of Congress\u2013 for the first time in years, a committee of Congress was frightened by what the American people saw that they had done, and although they said that they had days<\/em> more of questioning to ask James Earl Ray, days more of cross-examination, they collapsed. They quit. They said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to put this off until November, and Mr. Ray\u2019s finished now.\u201d Nobody wanted to ask him any more questions.<\/p>\n

And I think what\u2019s really important to remember about this\u2013 \u2018cause this happens an awful lot. That you think you\u2019re getting tired. And you think the enemy\u2019s all that powerful, and they\u2019re not weak. And you think that, I don\u2019t know if I can hold on much longer in the struggle. (pointedly) Sometimes they\u2019re weaker than they seem. Sometimes they<\/em> can barely hold on. And that\u2013 that morning, James didn\u2019t want to go out there. He was too beaten. But before the day was over, the committee had retired, had run, from James Earl Ray and from the truth, which was then being told to the American people. And that reminded me of the time when I used to be a member of the New York State Legislature. And as a member of the State Legislature, I was a Freedom Rider. Remember that way back in 1961? The Freedom Rides, throughout the South of the United States, and a lot of us went from various\u2013 one city to another, and I was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi as a Freedom Rider, I was the only public official in the country ever to have been arrested at that time. And Congress of Racial Equality, CORE, was coordinating a lot of the activity. I was arrested with Percy Sutton, who was then the president of the NAACP from Manhattan, and uh, we went back, we were charged with whatever the series of crimes were, sitting in a waiting room, just a few years ago in America, 1961. And their waiting room in Jackson, Mississippi, at the airport, two of us sitting next to each other \u2013 he\u2019s black, I\u2019m not \u2013 sitting next to each other. And that was a crime. That was a crime. That was just a few years ago.<\/p>\n

And uh, then, 350 people were finally arrested in the whole campaign. And the Congress of Racial Equality said, \u201cOK, when we go back down to the South now, we\u2019re gonna have to obey the local ordinances. Those ordinances which said, bathroom, colored men, white men, colored women, white women.\u201d In other words, we were not to violate any of the local laws. And Percy and I said, \u201cWell, that\u2019s what we went down there for in the first place! To violate them.\u201d And they said, \u201cYes, but the bail\u2019s been put up, we\u2019re tired, we\u2019ve run out of money, we\u2019ve run out of lawyers, we\u2019ve run out of bail, and we just\u2013 if we do it again, if everybody gets arrested all over again, instead of 350 cases, we\u2019ll have 700 cases.\u201d And some of us took the position, \u201cYou have to confront them. You cannot take it on this struggle, and then in the middle, say, \u2018No, we don\u2019t have enough money to go on with it.\u2019\u201d And so we went down there, Percy and I were the first two to go down there. And we said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go first. And we\u2019re going to violate all the local ordinances. (excitedly) But we couldn\u2019t! Do you know why?? Because they had painted out \u201ccolored\u201d and \u201cwhite\u201d! Because the State of Mississippi was even more tired than we were, and more tired than CORE was. And they changed all of the regulations before we got there.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>I just want to close by telling you that uh, this has been an absolutely rare experience. I guess you hear that from everybody who comes here, but that let me just join with the chorus of them, of uh, first of all, coming to this portion of the world. And of course Don had\u2013 I was more prepared than most people who come here, I think, for seeing what is here, because Don Freed, with whom I\u2019ve worked for many years, had been here just a little while before. But no matter wha\u2013 and you know, he\u2019s relatively eloquent, wouldn\u2019t you say. And so he described it in glowing detail, but still there\u2019s uh\u2013 there\u2019s no way to describe it, you have to come and see. But, uh, you know, to get on that train in Georgetown, and to\u2013 it\u2019s\u2013 it\u2019s going back to the nineteenth century in terms of the modes of\u2013<\/p>\n

Jones:\u00a0<\/strong>(breathes heavily into mike)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013the mode of transportation went back as a century earlier, (unintelligible word), and the heritage of uh, British Imperialism, of course, is to move back every country which was a colony, at least uh, one century beyond where it should be at present time. But you go there, and you\u2019re in the nineteenth century, till you stop right down there, and then you come on into here, and you don\u2019t just come up to the twentieth century. You\u2019re in the future all of a sudden. And so it\u2019s a\u2013<\/p>\n

Jones:\u00a0<\/strong>(chuckles into mike)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013it\u2019s a big move.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(sustained applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>And either\u2013 either this is the future, or there won\u2019t be any.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(applause)<\/p>\n

Jones<\/strong>: (softly) That\u2019s so true, that\u2019s so true.<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>In a sense, this is\u2013 this is the way it used to be back in the United States before it was the United States.<\/p>\n

Jones<\/strong>: Yeah.<\/p>\n

Lane<\/strong>: Forty thousand years ago. And thirty thousand years ago. And you talk to the Indian people there now, I talked to an old chief at\u2013 at Wounded Knee, who\u2019d come in to support the Indian struggling there in South Dakota, and he said, \u201cYou know, this is the\u2013 the history of\u2013 of this whole country.\u201d He said, \u201cThe first forty thousand years, it was just fine. It\u2019s the last 500 years which have been pretty bad.\u201d Since you\u2013 since you all arrived here, and uh\u2013 but\u2013 but what you saw back there, if we could go back that long ago, ten thousand, fifteen, twenty thousand years ago, is in a sense what we see here now. People living together, in a communal way, with respect for each other, living in a harmony with each other and in harmony with nature. And not<\/em> polluting,not<\/em> destroying, but living together, in harmony with each other and with\u2013 with the earth, and either that is what the rest of the world will learn or there will be no future. You know what, I was in Los Angeles, uh, a young woman had been attacked and murdered just uh, outside of Los Angeles. And [Thomas] Noguchi, the coroner examined her and said, \u201cShe was a stranger to our city. She\u2019d been here less than two weeks. Her lungs were still pink.\u201d That\u2019s how they knew she didn\u2019t come from Los Angeles. Because her lungs were the way they were supposed to be. She was in Los Angeles a little\u2013 just\u2013 you don\u2019t have to smoke cigarettes, you just have to breathe the air, in Los Angeles. And while we were there, there was a young girl at our house, and there were days when they actually cancelled school because of the pollution in the air. And other days when they had school, but they cancelled all gymnastics outside, they didn\u2019t want the children to breathe too deeply. So, that\u2019s what\u2019s happening in a good part of the rest of the world, and if uh\u2013 and all\u2013 all throughout America, the water, I mean, you just\u2013 you can\u2019t drink the water, and you can\u2019t breathe the air, and it\u2019s just reflective of, not just the poisons in the air and in the water, but the poisons in the political system which pit one person against another, instead of\u2013 instead of this (with feeling) incredible\u2013 this is the\u2013 this\u2013 of all\u2013 I\u2019ve been to a lot of places, I mean, I\u2019ve traveled to China four years ago, and in every country in Europe, East and West, but I have never seen anything like this. I\u2019ve never\u2013 and I don\u2019t think anybody has, and if there\u2019s any one thing that I would be critical about you, it would be this. That this, what you have failed to do, is to somehow get the word back \u2013 it\u2019s not easy \u2013 to get the word back to all<\/em> of America about what is happening here. It\u2019s an experiment which is the future, and which has succeeded, because I think that this would, first of all, be an inspiration to people throughout all of America, who are struggling without even knowing exactly for the abstract, they\u2019re struggling. But this is the reality. And they should know that it\u2019s possible. And that\u2013 And nothing<\/em>, it seems to me, could be more embarrassing to the Administration, than to know that there are so<\/em> many Americans who are here, far away from there, because it\u2019s not possible to live this way, back in the country where we were born.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(sustained applause)<\/p>\n

Lane:\u00a0<\/strong>Can I tell you? You are\u2013 You are an absolute inspiration. An absolute inspiration to anyone who comes here who has uh, any kind of sensitivity, and the eyes, or ears, or any senses at all. You\u2019re an absolute inspiration. And I tell you this, that when I leave here, and get back to the United States in a\u2013 in a few days, when I get back there, that uh, I will do everything<\/em> in my power, in every way possible, radio programs, and television programs, and interviews and articles, et cetera, to let the people of the United States, let our sisters and our brothers throughout the United States know that this is a reality, because at the present time, they know that someplace here is an abstract, they know that what is there is wrong. They know that there can be something better, there has to be something better, but they don\u2019t know specifically what it is. And it is here, and we all, I think, have responsibility to let them know that. Thank you. Thank you.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(sustained applause)<\/p>\n

Jones: <\/strong>Thank you. (Pause) We would like to say, we would like to say to this good man, we\u2019ve felt all alone, so desperately alone, that there was no one in journalism that we felt would give us a fair shake. There\u2019s no use for me to try to verbalize what his coming has meant to us. In one little way, for his concern and kindness to us, we want to help for the cause and heal the (unintelligible), is that woman that has suffered so long, Grace Waldron [Walden]. We want to take her into our community (unintelligible word).<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(cheers, sustained applause)<\/p>\n

Jones:\u00a0<\/strong>I knew that was the response you\u2019d have, and that\u2019s what makes me love you so much. And now you can go back to whatever you were doing, making the doll or watching the movie and TV. Thank you for so kindly attentive, uh, being a kindly attentive audience, I said to Sarah [Harriet Tropp], it helps so much to have someone come from outside, with all this bit\u2013\u00ad background, to tell you what\u2019s really happening in (unintelligible word) America, because my voice gets sort of monotonous. You\u2019ve heard it over and over and over again. But here you\u2019ve heard, in this distinguished man, the nightmare that we\u2019re under. It\u2019s a very dangerous (unintelligible word, could be \u201ccrowd\u201d) that we\u2019ve all got to work to try to do something, before it\u2019s too late.<\/p>\n

Crowd:\u00a0<\/strong>(applause)<\/p>\n

End of tape<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Note:\u00a0This tape was transcribed by Kathy Barbour. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.) To return to the Tape Index, click here. To read the Tape Summary, click here. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1,\u00a0Pt. 2). Mark Lane:\u00a0I\u2019d like to talk with you a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":27291,"menu_order":209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-85620","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85620"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85760,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/85620\/revisions\/85760"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}