Category: Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 2012, Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock published their first book about the murder of Martin Luther King, titled The Awful Grace of God. A few months after it appeared I wrote a review of that book for this web site that went into considerable detail about its numerous, significant deficiencies. As I pointed out in my review, The Awful Grace of God presented a solution to the assassination that was simply not supported by any credible evidence. The idea, as proposed by the authors, that alleged assassin James Earl Ray took up a bounty being offered on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King by right-wing extremists is based almost entirely on speculation and wishful thinking.

I noted that Wexler and Hancock relied much too heavily on unreliable witnesses and irresponsible, untrustworthy authors like George McMillan, Gerald Posner and William Bradford Huie. I concluded that this fact caused them to accept and promote a dubious portrait of Ray, as well as to repeat long-discredited or disputed stories about his behaviour and activities before the assassination. I also showed how the authors had chosen to do little more than skim the surface of the crime scene evidence, omitting that which tends to exculpate Ray. By doing that they ignored the very real indications that King had been intentionally placed in a vulnerable position and stripped of any meaningful security.

Whilst Hancock showed little interest in my review one way or the other, Wexler was seemingly incensed by what I wrote. In an email shortly after it appeared he told me that he viewed my review as “a hit piece that fundamentally misrepresented key aspects of our book, and the facts of the case.”1 It is not surprising, then, that the authors have elected to address my review in the endnotes of their second book on the subject, Killing King: Racial Terrorists, James Earl Ray, and the Plot to Assassinate Martin Luther King Jr. What is surprising, however, is the sloppy and less than candid manner in which they have done so.

In source note 22, on page 265 of Killing King, the authors write:

Hay’s critical review of our earlier work is riddled with egregious errors that will be discussed in various endnotes and in the epilogue. The pull quote, at the beginning of the review for instance, claims that we “put Ray” at the Grapevine when we, in fact, never say that. Instead, we argue that Ray could have maintained some form of contact with the plotters by way of his brothers, who ran the bar. In the earlier book we say that Ray did not immediately pursue the plot after escaping prison; in this update we do. Hay goes on to claim that we have no credible evidence that Ray ever heard of a bounty. But to make this claim Hay dismisses the accounts of prisoners like Britton. He makes a blanket statement that all the prisoners who directly heard of Ray discussing a plot were looking for more lenient prison sentences and/or bounty rewards. But he has no actual evidence of this for any prisoner―Hay is the one speculating, not us. As a point of fact, Thomas Britton, who heard Ray discuss a $100,000 offer from a businessman’s association, was not even in prison at the time he made his claim and expressly said he did not want a reward. Brown confirmed hearing Ray discuss a bounty years after the fact.

There is so much wrong with the above passage that I almost don’t know where to begin. I should perhaps note the careless use of quotation marks around the words “put Ray” since I did not use those words in my review. I actually used the verb “placed,” not “put.” This is a rather trivial point to be sure, but there is nothing trivial about the manner in which the authors attempt to rebut points raised in my review.

On the subject of Ray and the Grapevine Tavern, I noted that Wexler and Hancock had made a “sizeable blunder” in The Awful Grace of God by suggesting that Ray “very likely” heard gossip about a bounty on King’s life in his brother’s St. Louis bar. Why did I say this was a sizeable blunder? For the simple reason that the Grapevine did not open until around six months after Ray left the St. Louis area! To counter this, the authors have apparently chosen to imply that I misrepresented what they wrote. In fact, they flat-out state that they “never say that.” They suggest, instead, that it is their contention that whilst Ray may not have been in the Grapevine himself he “could have maintained some form of contact with the plotters by way of his brothers.” This, however, is nothing like what they said in their first book.

There are two mentions of Ray and the Grapevine Tavern in The Awful Grace of God. The first appears on page 167 in a section titled “Backtracking To Saint Louis” which, as the title would suggest, deals with the time Ray spent in the St. Louis area in June of 1967. “All in all,” the book states, “it seems John Ray’s tavern, patronized by so many local Wallace supporters, would have been an ideal place for James Earl Ray to encounter gossip about a large cash offer for killing Dr. King. Of course, he may well have encountered nothing more than the same gossip he heard in prison and figured that pursuing it wasn’t his best option.” The second instance, appearing on page 249, reads thusly: “Ray heard about the offer in Missouri State Penitentiary after his escape in 1967 [sic], and he very likely heard more gossip about it at his brother’s Grapevine Tavern in Saint Louis.”

What I have presented above represents the sum total of what the authors originally had to say about Ray and the Grapevine. I invite the reader to compare these two quotations to what Wexler and Hancock are now suggesting and I challenge him or her to infer the latter from the former. In The Awful Grace of God it is quite clear from the context (i.e. discussing Ray’s time in St. Louis) and the use of the terms “encounter” and “heard” that the authors did indeed mean to place him in the bar. Additionally, there is not even the merest hint of their new suggestion that Ray was using his brothers to maintain “some form of contact” with actual conspirators. Instead, Wexler and Hancock suggested that Ray may have simply heard gossip in the bar that he chose to ignore.

It is clear that the authors made a mistake and are now altering their own words in order to not only avoid having to own up to it but also to take a needless swipe at my review. And what makes it worse as far as I’m concerned is that Wexler conceded the error to me in an email six years ago. “After reading your entire piece,” Wexler wrote, “I think the only change I’d make in our book is the part where we say a St. Louis bounty could have been reinforced in July of 1967 at the Grapevine. Factually, I think you make fair points …”2 Apparently Mr. Wexler feels it is one thing to admit an error in private and another thing to do so publicly.

Equally erroneous is the claim by Wexler and Hancock that I dismissed the accounts of prisoners who “directly heard of Ray discussing a plot” by stating that they were all looking for more lenient sentences or rewards. I did indeed raise these considerations in regard to Ray’s fellow inmates, but I did so in sole relation to those inmates Wexler and Hancock presented as evidence that Ray “wanted no part of blacks.” My argument had nothing to do with the question of whether or not Ray was heard discussing a bounty on the life of Dr. King. The authors have conflated two entirely separate issues in an attempt to buttress their false accusation that my review is “riddled with egregious errors” and, presumably, to provide them an excuse to suggest that I did not pay due attention to the likes of Thomas Britton. Yet if I am to be accused of ignoring Britton then the precise same charge must be levelled at Wexler and Hancock because the name Thomas Britton does not appear anywhere in The Awful Grace of God. Which raises an obvious question: Why would I waste time and space in my review evaluating a witness upon whom the authors did not rely or even acknowledge?

In their first book, Wexler and Hancock named one, and only one, inmate whom they said provided “independent corroboration” for Ray’s knowledge of a bounty: David Mitchell. As I pointed out in my review, Mitchell told the FBI that some “friends in St. Louis” had “fixed it with someone in Philadelphia” for Ray to kill King and he had offered to split the $50,000 he was to be paid with Mitchell if he would act as a decoy. If we disregard Ray’s soft-spoken nature and his record as a non-violent offender, the story appears somewhat plausible. That is, up until the point that Mitchell adds the far-fetched claim that after picking up the $50,000 for killing Dr. King they would be picking up another payment for killing “one of those stinking Kennedys.” I believed when I wrote my review, and I still firmly believe today, that Mitchell’s statement is self-discrediting. And it is for that very reason, I suggest, that the HSCA did not even mention his name in their report despite their own attempt to tie Ray to a bounty on the life of Dr. King.

As for Thomas Britton and [James W.] Brown, I first came across their names when reading the factually, morally and intellectually corrupt book Killing The Dream by disgraced journalist, Gerald Posner. Posner’s penchant for misrepresenting documents, interviews and testimonies, and even creating quotations entirely, had already been well established by critics of his Kennedy assassination book, Case Closed. Therefore, I was very careful to check the accuracy of much of his reporting. What I discovered was that Brown had told FBI agents that, whilst in the Missouri State Penitentiary, he heard Ray say that a “Cooley or Cooley’s organization would pay $10,000 to have King dead.”3 When Britton was interviewed, however, he told a different story, stating that Ray had actually spoken of a $100,000 bounty being offered by an unnamed “businessmen’s association.” When asked if he knew anything about a “Cooley’s organization,” Britton suggested this was a “protector and enforcer organization that operated in the prison.”4

The FBI followed up these claims by attempting to verify the existence of “Cooley’s organization” through interviews with numerous inmates and officials at Missouri State Penitentiary (MSP). They came up completely empty-handed. For example, Warden Harold Swenson, and Assistant Associate Warden of Custody, B.J. Poiry, advised the Bureau that they “have no knowledge of ‘Cooley’s Organization’ and have been unable to identify it with any segment of the population at the MSP or to verify its existence, past or present.”5 One particular inmate, John Kenneth Hurtt, stated that “he never heard of ‘Cooley’s Organization’, and he has been in the MSP for fifteen years.”6 Another, James Duane Wray, who claimed to have “lived in practically every hall in the MSP since he arrived in April of 1963”, told agents that he had “never heard of anyone by the name of Cooley or Cooley’s Organization or similar.”7

It is possible that officials at the prison were trying to save themselves from any embarrassment and that every one of the inmates interviewed kept quiet because they feared reprisals. Yet it is equally if not more likely that the FBI was unable to verify the existence of “Cooley’s Organization” because it did not exist. This fact, coupled with the fact that their stories are mutually exclusive, clearly raises doubts about the credibility of both Brown and Britton. Perhaps more importantly, when Brown was located and reinterviewed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978, he “denied any knowledge of a ‘Cooley’ organization, or of an offer of $10,000 from any group to kill Dr. King.”8 All of which leaves me wondering how Wexler and Hancock can state so confidently that Britton “heard Ray discuss a $100,000 offer” as if there were no ifs, and or buts about it, and why they fail to mention Brown’s latter day repudiation of his FBI interview.

It should also be noted that when the authors say that Britton “expressly said he did not want a reward” they are not telling the whole story. It is true that the report of his FBI interview relays the fact that Britton did not want to take a “posted reward” because he supposedly “feared Cooley Organization if it were claimed.” However, the same report also notes that he appeared “somewhat interested” in a “payment for services rendered.”9 In other words, he liked the idea of being paid for his story, he just didn’t want anyone to know about it.10

Another misrepresentation of my review―and the facts of the case―appears in note 13, page 269, of Killing King:

Martin Hay, a critic of our work, implies that Stein and his sister both lied about the nature of the Wallace visit. Hay places his stock in James Earl Ray, who refused to acknowledge the visit and had it stricken from a fifty-six-page stipulation of facts during his trial. The problem here is that unlike Ray, who had a motive to lie―to hide his associations with racists from investigators―neither Charles Stein nor his sister had an obvious motive to make the story up. What’s more, Ray made documented and repeated calls to the Wallace campaign while in Los Angeles.

The above is so divorced from what really happened that, once again, I almost don’t know how to respond. For those unfamiliar with the details, it is often claimed by state apologists that Ray was a fanatical supporter of segregationist politician, George Wallace. This notion is generally propped up by the statements of Charles Stein and his sisters who said that before he would agree to drive Charles to New Orleans, Ray insisted they stop by Wallace’s California campaign headquarters so that the Steins could register to vote. Here is everything I had to say about this trip in my review:

In their attempt to establish Ray’s racist tendencies and associations, Wexler and Hancock try to create the impression that he was politically active on behalf of Alabama governor George Wallace, a staunch segregationist. Writing that he “recruited associates to register to vote and support the Wallace campaign” in California. (Wexler and Hancock, p. 160) In truth, Ray made only a single known trip to Wallace’s campaign office, so that three associates could register. But Ray himself never did under any of his aliases.

As I’m sure the reader can easily see for themselves, I made no implication whatsoever in the above passage that the Steins were lying about anything at all. I stated matter-of-factly and without argument or qualification that Ray paid a visit to the Wallace campaign office so that his associates could register to vote. I did not imply, nor have I ever suggested, that the Steins lied about anything because I do not believe they did. There is no reasonable way in which Wexler and Hancock can credibly claim to have inferred such a thing from what I wrote.

Furthermore, their unsourced assertion that Ray “made documented and repeated calls to the Wallace campaign while in Los Angeles” is false. As the FBI discovered after the assassination when it acquired the relevant records from Pacific Telephone Company, Ray had used a phone he had had installed in his Los Angeles hotel room to make precisely 21 calls. One, and only one, of these calls was to Wallace’s office.11 Ray told the HSCA that he made this call because he, as an escaped convict, was looking to establish “some type of cover―some type of front for me to stay in Los Angeles … I had all Alabama identification. If I was stopped by the police, well, I would just say I was associated with this Wallace group out here in some manner …”12 It may be said that this explanation doesn’t entirely ring true when considered alongside Ray’s insistence on taking the Steins to Wallace’s office. I would suggest that the likelihood is that Ray, a lifetime crook, had some sort of criminal contact who worked at or around the office whose identity he wished to protect. I must stress, however, that this is nothing more than speculation and I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to suggest this was in any way connected with the assassination of Dr. King.

This brings me to the manner in which Wexler and Hancock characterize me in the main text of their book as a “pro-Ray researcher.”13 Given that the authors maintain that Ray was directly, knowingly and willingly involved in the assassination―“probably” the actual gunman in Wexler’s insupportable opinion―this label is clearly intended to suggest that my work is biased and unreliable. However, regardless of how they wish to view or portray matters, my starting point for understanding the case is not Ray’s own account. It is and always has been the crime scene evidence. And as I pointed out in my review of The Awful Grace of God, for Ray, the crime scene evidence is largely exculpatory.

Despite the state’s claims to the contrary, there is no ballistics or eyewitness evidence inculpating Ray. There is no fingerprint, hair, fiber or forensic evidence of any kind that Ray was ever in the rooming house bathroom from which the state alleged the shot was fired. And furthermore, there is not one solitary scrap of proof that the shot was even fired from the bathroom. There was, however, reason to suspect that the shot was fired from the shrubbery below the bathroom window. But, in a highly questionable move, Memphis authorities had the entire area cut down and cleaned up the following morning, thus compromising the scene. It must also be said it is beyond suspicious that, as little as two minutes after the shot was fired, police discovered a rifle Ray had purchased amongst a bundle of his possessions that had been dumped conveniently on the street outside the rooming house. No credible reason why Ray would have left all of this evidence behind to incriminate himself has ever been advanced or is ever likely to be. Additionally, Ray insisted for thirty years that he left the scene very shortly before the assassination and the statements of two witnesses corroborate this.

It is for these reasons, and many more, that Ray’s status as the designated fall guy is, and always has been, obvious. And what this means for me is that Ray is entitled to have his say; that his version of events, his story of how he ended up holding the bag over Dr. King’s death, has at least as much validity, if not more, than the narrative offered by the state. Does this mean that I unquestioningly accept everything he said? Of course not. Ray’s own account is clearly self-serving and he always made it clear that he had little desire to help investigators solve the crime and find the real killers. Which is understandable given that, had Ray ever managed to have his conviction for murdering Dr. King overturned, he would still have had 13 years to serve on his previous sentence for robbery and he had no intention of doing so as the world’s most famous snitch.

If the reader can believe it, despite the promise by Wexler and Hancock to discuss in “various endnotes and in the epilogue” the “egregious errors” with which my review is “riddled,” what I have provided above represents every reference to myself and my review in Killing King. It is tempting to suggest that the reason for this is that the authors simply could not find further errors in my review. But, in fact, as I have shown, that the two endnotes already discussed do not contain actual errors on my part. They are presented as such, but once examined and placed in context, they are not.

I had originally intended to write an in-depth review of Killing King but after having had to respond to the above, it seemed obvious that I would not be able to do so with any real degree of objectivity. Consequently, I have elected not to write one. That being said, there are a couple of points made in the book that I simply cannot let pass by without comment.

The first has to do with the reason why Ray pleaded guilty and accepted a 99-year sentence for the murder of Dr. King. Repeatedly, and until the day he died, Ray protested that the only reason he did so was because his lawyer, Percy Foreman, pressured him into it. Foreman himself denied it, of course, but any objective review of the surrounding facts and circumstances confirms the validity of Ray’s charge. Unsurprisingly, no such review appears anywhere in Killing King. Instead, the authors imply that the real reason Ray pleaded guilty is that he and Foreman both understood that “the evidence against him was damning, and a death penalty verdict was a distinct possibility.”14 Which, quite frankly, is baloney.

Wexler and Hancock make no attempt to explain precisely how Foreman was supposed to know how “damning” the evidence was against Ray when he had conducted no investigation; when he did not even ask to see the state’s ballistics evidence or the affidavits of their one and only alleged eyewitness; when he refused the investigative files of Ray’s previous lawyers despite their being made freely available to him; and when he spent only 12 hours with Ray during what should have been the investigative phase of the case. It is crystal clear that Foreman had not even the slightest interest in the state’s case against his client because he always intended to have him plead guilty.

Foreman first entered the case when he turned up at Ray’s Memphis jail cell on November 9, 1968, at the urging of Ray’s brother, Jerry. At that time, he exploited a source of friction between Ray and his then lawyer, Arthur Hanes, suggesting that the book contracts he had signed with author William Bradford Huie showed that Hanes was only interested in money. Foreman then boasted of his own accomplishments, stating that he had lost only one client in 1,500 capital cases to the electric chair, and told Ray that his was the easiest case he would ever have had to defend. Suitably impressed, Ray fired the Hanes team―who were ready and prepared to go to trial and confident in their chances of gaining an acquittal―hiring Foreman instead. This turned out to be the biggest mistake of Ray’s life.

There is no doubt Foreman was a lawyer of extraordinary ability. He once defended a woman who had shot her husband five times and left him for dead on the front lawn. After fleeing the scene she returned moments later to fire a sixth shot right in front of witnesses who had gathered around the body. Unbelievably, Foreman won her an acquittal.15 Given Foreman’s track record, and the fact that the crime scene evidence was largely exculpatory, Ray’s case should have been an easy win for the Texan attorney. Unfortunately, according to legendary author and investigator Harold Weisberg, Foreman “had a history of doing the government favors and it repaid him by not having him spend his life in jail when he was caught in one of his crooked deals in which he had arranged to put that client away. Foreman did that for the government and for individuals and both rewarded him in return.”16

As previously stated, and for obvious reasons, Foreman denied pressuring Ray to plead guilty. Yet Foreman told so many blatant lies about Ray’s case that taking his word for almost anything is completely unthinkable. For example, Foreman claimed in numerous interviews, and even in his HSCA testimony, that he had entered the case after Ray had personally sent a letter to his Houston office requesting that he do so. Of course he could never produce the letter when asked to because no such letter ever existed. As noted previously, it was actually Ray’s brother Jerry who asked Foreman to get involved and Foreman himself said so to a reporter for the Memphis Press Scimitar in November 1968. He said the same thing again the following year in a legal deposition.17

Foreman claimed to have spent up to 75 hours discussing the case with Ray during the four months he represented him. But when the committee reviewed Ray’s prison logs it discovered that Foreman had actually spent only 20 hours with him; two of those were during their first meeting when he was convincing Ray to drop Hanes and hire him instead; and six came after he convinced Ray to plead guilty. Which, as previously noted, means that Foreman spent only 12 hours with Ray during the four months he was supposed to be investigating the case.18 Foreman told the HSCA that he had personally interviewed numerous witnesses yet could not name a single one of them or provide even one written or recorded statement when asked. He even had the gall to claim that he had never recommended Ray should plead guilty despite having written a letter to Ray that did just that.19 Foreman told lie after lie in an effort to cover up his own misconduct.

As Ray explained, he had hired Foreman because he promised an acquittal. But once Foreman had pushed the Hanes team out of the way and secured his $165,000 fee through a new set of book contracts and ownership of Ray’s Ford Mustang, he abruptly changed his tune. Without having conducted any meaningful investigation whatsoever, he turned up at Ray’s cell on February 13, 1969, with a letter for him to sign, advising him to plead guilty, and stating that he now saw “a ninety-nine percent chance of your receiving a death penalty verdict if your case goes to trial. Furthermore, there is a hundred percent chance of a guilty verdict.” He told Ray that the media had already convicted him, pointing to specific articles in Life, Reader’s Digest, and the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and suggested that the court clerk would manipulate the juror pool so Ray would be up against a panel of angry blacks intent on revenge.

When Ray still insisted on going to trial, Foreman travelled to St. Louis and attempted to recruit members of Ray’s family in his effort to persuade him otherwise. Jerry recalled that Foreman was “crying and putting on a show … He told us that if Jimmy demanded a trial and took the witness stand, he would surely fry in the hot seat.”20 The family wasn’t moved by Foreman’s performance so he went back to working directly on Ray. “Let me tell you, Jim, you go to trial and they’ll burn your ass! They’ll barbecue you!”21 Still Ray would not agree to plead. It was then that Foreman resorted to what Ray called “terror tactics.” The FBI, he said, had been looking into the criminal history of the family and were going to send Ray’s father back to Iowa prison for a 40-year-old parole violation. They were also going to arrest his brother Jerry as a co-conspirator in the King slaying. Finally, according to Ray, Foreman “got the message over to me that if I forced him to go to trial he would destroy―deliberately―the case in the courtroom.”22

Ray came to believe that, rather than allowing Foreman to throw the case in front of a jury, he would be better off entering a guilty plea and then filing a “new trial” petition. Foreman encouraged this belief, offering to give Jerry Ray $500 to hire a new attorney after the plea went through. He even put this in writing in a March 9, 1969, letter that stipulated the $500 was “contingent upon the plea of guilty and sentence going through on March 10, 1969, without any unseemly conduct on your part in court.” Finally, feeling he had little choice, Ray relented, agreed to plead guilty, and accepted a 99-year sentence.

It needs to be noted at this point that, by the time Ray agreed to plead guilty in March, 1969, he had spent approximately eight months in a specially constructed cell that appears to have been designed to break him down, emotionally, physically and mentally. This maximum-security cell had steel plates over the windows and Ray was never allowed outside for a breath of fresh air. Two guards were present with him at all times, even when he used the toilet, and blinding lights were on him 24-hours-a-day, making it extremely difficult to sleep. Ray also had cameras and microphones picking up his every move so that, in order to speak privately with his lawyers, they all had to lie on the floor of the cell with the shower running. The result of these conditions, according to Jerry Ray, was that “James was sort of out of his mind at the time.”23 When Michael Eugene―the British barrister who had represented Ray in London during his June, 1968, extradition hearing―visited Ray in early 1969, he was taken aback by the deterioration in Ray’s condition, saying that he looked sick, weak, and nervous.24

Should the reader doubt that the relentless pressure from Foreman and the unsettling conditions of his incarceration are the factors which led Ray to plead guilty, they need understand only one thing: Shortly after his extradition, the state offered Ray, through the Haneses, a life-sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. A life sentence in Tennessee in 1968 was only 13 years. And, as Hanes Jr. testified in a 1999 civil case, the plea bargain they were offered at that point “allowed for parole in ten years.”25 Ray, who at that point in time was not yet feeling the full effects of his jail conditions or being subjected to “terror tactics” and threats of frying in the electric chair, turned the offer down.

This brings us to Foreman’s claim that Ray faced a 99% chance of receiving the death penalty and the suggestion by Wexler and Hancock that this was “a distinct possibility.” In truth, this notion is more than questionable. At the time of Ray’s plea in March, 1969, there had not been an electrocution in Tennessee for more than eight years and no one in Shelby County―of which Memphis is the county seat―had been electrocuted since 1948. As Judge Preston Battle noted at Ray’s plea hearing, he had personally sentenced “at least seven men to the electric chair, maybe a few more” since taking the bench in 1959, yet none of them had been executed. He noted, “All of the trends in this country are in the direction of doing away with capital punishment altogether.” Further, there is, as far as I’m aware, no evidence that the State intended to seek the death penalty for Ray. In fact, Shelby County District Attorney General Phil Canale told reporters after Ray’s hearing that “he did not see how the state could have fared better than the guilty plea and sentence …”26 So it certainly appears as if a death sentence for Ray was, in reality and contrary to the claims of Wexler and Hancock, distinctly unlikely. (For a complete expose of Foreman’s lies about his entry into the case and his lack of any trial preparation, see John Avery Emison’s, The Martin Luther King Congressional Cover Up, pp. 131-64)

But the idea that somehow Foreman was intimidated by the evidence in the case is also belied by two other sets of facts presented by John Emison. Number one, the first lawyers who were going to represent Ray, the father/son team of Arthur Hanes and Arthur Jr., were so confident in their defense, they refused a plea bargain and insisted on pleading Ray innocent and going to trial. Furthering this point, William Pepper later won a civil case in Memphis brought by the King family. There the jury agreed with his outline of a broad conspiracy, including governmental agencies. (Pepper also won an elaborate and expensive HBO-produced mock trial in which the rules of evidence did not strictly apply.) The second set of facts presented by Emison concerns Foreman’s talks with reporter Sidney Zion. Prior to the court proceedings in Memphis, Foreman told Zion that the King case was “the biggest story of our lives.” He then added that if Zion was patient he could give him a scoop that “would take the top off the country.” He then said that Ray was innocent and indeed there was a conspiracy to kill King. A few months later, while seeing Foreman in a bar in New York, Zion tried to talk to him to understand what had happened: Why did he plead his client guilty if he knew he was innocent? Foreman denied any such previous conversation. He then quickly laid down a twenty-dollar bill to pay for his drinks and left.

The final issue with Killing King that I wish to address has to do with the authors’ feeble attempt to bolster their claim that the evidence against Ray was “damning” enough to warrant a guilty plea. They write:

Ray’s movements closely track King’s from Los Angeles to Selma, to Atlanta to Memphis; he purchased a rifle in Birmingham found near the scene of the crime; only his fingerprints were found on that rifle; he purchased binoculars on the day of the crime; he registered at Bessie Brewer’s rooming house across from the Lorraine from whence witnesses heard the shot; he fled Memphis immediately after the shooting and eventually escaped in search of a country with no extradition orders.”27

In all honesty, most of this is barely worth taking the time to respond to. The suggestion that Ray’s movements show he was stalking Dr. King was dealt with in my review of The Awful Grace of God and it is not worth doing again here; the fact that the rifle and binoculars Ray purchased were found conveniently dumped at the scene was, as previously stated, clearly consistent with his being set up; the claim that witnesses “heard the shot” come from the rooming house is made without reference to any such witnesses and ignores the simple truth that there is precisely zero evidence that the shot was fired from anywhere in that building; and the fact that Ray fled the city after the police began to gather near the rooming house is hardly a surprise given his status as an escaped convict.

Finally we come to the matter of Ray’s fingerprints and their being the “only” ones on the rifle. This is not the cut-and-dried issue Wexler and Hancock make it out to be. The FBI laboratory reported finding two latent prints “of value” on the rifle that were said to match the prints of James Earl Ray. These consisted of one fingerprint “on side of rifle” and one fingerprint on the telescopic sight.28 The phrase “of value” means that these were the only prints on the rifle that were judged as complete enough for identification purposes. It does not necessarily mean that there were no other unidentifiable partial or fragmentary prints present on the weapon that may well have been left behind by someone else. Yes, the fingerprint evidence demonstrates that Ray handled the weapon—which is no revelation given that he admitted to doing so—but it does not in any way establish that no one else did. And the fact remains that the two prints in question were not where we might have expected them to be had Ray actually fired the rifle.

But beyond that, the point is this: Did the bullet that killed King come from that rifle? That key issue has never been decided. In fact, when Judge Joe Brown was intent on resolving it during a criminal trial in Memphis in 1997, he was forcibly removed from the case. (Which is why Pepper and the King family had to resort to a civil case.) Afterwards, Jerry Ray, brother of James Earl Ray, tried to get possession of the rifle. As Mike Vinson noted in his article on this site, he was denied this request. Jerry was convinced he was denied because he was determined to do the tests that Brown was not allowed to do.

I have no desire to comment further on Killing King. Having had to address the disingenuous manner in which the authors chose to respond to my review of The Awful Grace of God has left a very bad taste in my mouth. To recap: they claim that I dismissed the comments of prisoners who supposedly heard Ray discussing a bounty with a blanket statement about their motives when, in fact, I had offered that suggestion on an entirely different subject and had specifically addressed the one and only inmate Wexler and Hancock had offered as evidence that Ray had heard of a bounty in prison. They claim that I ignored two witnesses whom the authors themselves did not even refer to in their first book and then failed to note that one of those alleged witnesses, Thomas Britton, was indeed interested in receiving money for his story and that the other, James W. Brown, completely disavowed the story when confronted by the HSCA. They imply that I somehow misrepresented their argument about Ray hearing gossip of a bounty in the Grapevine Tavern when it is actually the authors themselves who failed to accurately represent their own words. And they say that I implied in my review that Charles Stein and his sisters were lying about being taken to the Wallace campaign office to register to vote when no such implication appears anywhere in my review.

Stu Wexler was in part responsible for getting the FBI’s comparative bullet lead analysis testing thrown out of the court system. Today it is discredited enough that Robert Blakey, the Chief Counsel of the HSCA—who used it to convict Oswald—now calls it “junk science”. Hancock has written two respectable books on the JFK case, Someone Would Have Talked and Nexus. But something seems to have happened to them with their entry into the King case. Since their performance in this particular instance is so different from what they did previously. What can one say about taking a simple description of three people being driven to register to vote and somehow infer from that those three people are being accused of lying?

If the reader still plans on checking out their new book then I would advise doing so with extreme caution. Double check everything.

Notes

1 Private email from Stuart Wexler, 3/10/2012.

2 Private email from Stuart Wexler, 3/10/2012.

3 See FBI Interview of James W. Brown, 5/8/68 and FBI MURK/Users/arossi/Desktop/hay-killing-king.pngIN Central Headquarters File, Section 28, p. 190.

4 FBI MURKIN Central Headquarters File, Section 33, pp. 16-21.

5 FBI MURKIN Central Headquarters File, Section 39, p. 56.

6 FBI MURKIN, Section 39, p. 56.

7 FBI MURKIN Central Headquarters File, Section 56, p. 6.

8 House Select Committee on Assassinations MLK appendix volume 13, p. 247. Wexler and Hancock write that “an FBI investigation not only confirmed the existence of the group in MSP, but raised the possibility that the group existed across the federal prison system.” (p. 68) Their source note for this claim reads, “Memo from Rosen to Deloach (8/23/68) King Assassination FBI Central Headquarters File, section 69, 58.” But a quick check reveals that the cited memo makes absolutely no mention of “Cooley’s organization” whatsoever. There is a June 14, 1968 memo from Branigan to Sullivan found in Central Headquarters File 60, p. 47, that states, “We have confirmed the existence of Cooley’s Organization …. There are indications that this organization exists in other prisons.” Yet there is no additional information of any kind offered in support of this declaration and the same memo states, “Although we have conducted extensive interviews, we have been unable to ascertain information as to its principals or membership or the extent of its network.” How it is possible to verify the existence of an organization without identifying a single one of its leaders, members, places of operation, or any other details, is anyone’s guess. However, from the context of the memo, the fact that it begins by stating that “Ray was reported to have said Cooley or Cooley’s organization would pay $10,000 to have King killed”, it seems apparent that what the memo is saying is that James W. Brown’s talk of Cooley’s was “confirmed” by Thomas Britton. Yet, as we have seen, Brown himself repudiated the whole story years later.

9 FBI MURKIN Central Headquarters File, Section 33, p. 25.

10 Buried amongst all the selective reporting and misrepresentation aimed at discrediting my review, Wexler and Hancock do manage to touch upon one fair point regarding my speculation on the motivations of Ray’s fellow inmates. Whilst I believe the speculation was entirely reasonable, I did not adequately identify it as such and overstated the surety of my argument. Mea culpa. I shall endeavour to be more careful in the future.

11 FBI Report of Special Agent Leroy Sheets; 4/18/68; Los Angeles, pp. 111-113.

12 House Select Committee on Assassinations, MLK appendix volume 3, p. 206.

13 Wexler & Hancock, Killing King, p. 197.

14 Killing King, p. 184.

15 Harold Weisberg, Frame-Up, p. 94.

16 For further details, see Weisberg’s unpublished manuscript, Whoring With History, pp. 145-148, available online at JFK.hood.edu.

17 John Avery Emison, The Martin Luther King Congressional Cover-Up, pp. 133-134.

18 House Select Committee on Assassinations MLK appendix volume 5 p. 301 and HSCA report p. 320.

19 House Select Committee on Assassinations MLK appendix volume 5, pp. 301-302.

20 Jerry Ray & Tamara Carter, A Memoir of Injustice, pp. 78-79.

21 Gerold Frank, An American Death, p. 376.

22 Frank, p. 472.

23 Mark Lane & Dick Gregory, Murder in Memphis, p. 190.

24 Lane & Gregory, p. 190.

25 The 13th Juror: The Official Transcript of the Martin Luther King Conspiracy Trial, p. 208.

26 Weisberg, Frame-Up, p. 119.

27 Wexler & Hancock, Killing King, p. 184.

28FBI Laboratory Reports, p. 1856, available online at https://register.shelby.tn.us/media/mlk/.

John Avery Emison’s The Martin Luther King Congressional Cover-Up is an interesting effort. But it has a somewhat misleading title. From that title, the reader would think that Emison was going to primarily focus on the House Select Committee on Assassinations inquiry into the King assassination. That is not really the case. The author spends more time on the local forces in Memphis who railroaded Ray and also on Ray’s unfortunate choice of Percy Foreman as attorney. He does deal with the HSCA inquiry, but this is later in the book.

James Earl Ray

One of the first elements of the King case that the author deals with is the racist factor. The authors who have done so much to frame Ray, for example George McMillan, have used that aspect to try and supply a motive to Ray’s alleged crime. As Emison notes, Ray was not a southerner. He was born in Illinois. (p. 25) If one goes through his military records and prison records, there are no credible indications that Ray was a racist. As for his life in crime, all the indications are that he was an inept, small-time criminal, one who was rather easy to capture by the police. But, after the murder of King, this was drastically altered. As the author notes, “Yet, for two months following King’s murder, Ray—a man who had never before flown a commercial airline—eluded the biggest manhunt in the history of the United States…” (ibid) Hiding out in such locales as Canada, England, and Portugal. Once captured at Heathrow Airport in London, he was sent back to Memphis, the scene of King’s murder.

And this is where Emison’s book really begins. As he notes, the entire proceeding of Ray and his attorney Foreman pleading before Judge Preston Battle took less than four minutes. (p. 26) During which Battle never asked any of the following questions: Did Ray have confederates, what was the origination of his funds for all the traveling he did prior to and after the assassination, where did he sight in the rifle, why did he flee to Canada and how he did he get a passport—or even, the most fundamental question of all: Why did he shoot King? (p. 27)

Judge Preston Battle

But a week later, Battle began to express some doubts about the efficacy of what he had done. For instance, in an interview with a reporter, he asked rhetorically: how did Ray choose the spot from where he fired? Because there was no public knowledge that King had a room at the Lorraine Motel, across from Bessie’s Boarding House. Which was the place where the police said Ray shot King. (p. 27)

Which leads to the question: Was there an inside man in King’s entourage? It turns out there was. Many years later, it was revealed that the FBI had a paid informant in King’s camp. His name was Ernest Withers. The sheer mass of Withers’ reports is stunning. They come to a total of 93 single spaced pages. And they are absolutely complete. Down to the plans for demonstrations, who was at certain meetings, and the names and room numbers of King’s hotels. (p. 126)

But Battle then also asked the reporter: How was it possible for Ray to escape from Memphis to Atlanta even though there was an APB out for him and his car? Which was an easy to identify white Mustang? (p. 27) As the author notes, Battle died about three weeks after the interview. At his desk when he passed away were letters from Ray requesting a new trial, which Battle was about to grant.

Only one other person in officialdom showed any doubts about the case. That was Harry S. Avery of the Tennessee Commission of Corrections. But when Avery spoke of the possibility of a conspiracy, the governor, Buford Ellington, removed him from office. (p. 29) And this rather untoward behavior continued up until Ray’s death, when Governor Sundquist refused to grant his cooperation in a private effort for a liver transplant to keep Ray alive. He therefore died in 1998, as his lawyer William Pepper was trying to get a new trial for his client. John Avery Emison was related to the late Harry Avery. Which inspired his interest in the case and his subsequent interviews with Ray.

Ray told the author what he has told everyone else. He purchased the alleged murder rifle, a Remington Game Master 760, while he was under the control of a man named Raoul. He had met Raoul in Ontario, Canada in the summer of 1967. He then went to work for him as a well-paid courier. To do so, Raoul bought him his one-year-old Mustang. (p. 41) Raoul paid for the Game Master rifle and Ray gave it to him the night before King was shot.

Ray had checked into the boarding house on the afternoon of April 4, 1968, the day of the assassination. He used an assumed name, that of John Willard. Although the local authorities say that there was a chip in the window sill where the assassin laid his rifle, the FBI said such was not the case. (p. 43) Two witnesses reportedly saw a man move from the vicinity of the entrance to the communal bathroom. But neither one, Willie Anschutz nor Charlie Stephens, could make a positive identification. And Stephens was, by all accounts, stone drunk at the time. (ibid) This is what Stephens said the evening of the murder. He later changed his story.

Continuing with the official story, it has Ray going into his room and putting together a bundle of his items in a green blanket. This included the rifle, ammunition and a prison ID. He then went downstairs, turned onto South Main Street, took a few steps to his left, and dropped the bundle in the alcove outside a store called Canipe’s Amusement Company. (p. 44)

These last two movements create serious problems for the official story. Because although neither Anschutz nor Stephens could make a positive ID, a woman with Stephens, Grace Walden, said the man was not Ray. (p. 45) Both Walden, and another witness that Arthur Hanes (Ray’s first lawyer) secured, said the man they saw was short and wearing an army jacket. Neither of which fit the description of James Earl Ray. But further, when Hanes got the inventory of what the FBI found in Ray’s abandoned Mustang in Atlanta, it contained a small army jacket. (ibid) Hanes called this an “electrifying” piece of evidence. He thought it indicated that Raoul took the shot, because Ray could not fit into the jacket.

The other problem was that the owner of the amusement company, Guy Canipe, was ready to testify that the bundle with Ray’s things was dropped a few minutes before the shot rang out. Hanes told the author that with these two pieces of evidence, he was confident that the defense could stymie the prosecution’s case. Hanes was ready for a full trial, and expected an acquittal. (p. 46) He even advised Ray to refuse a plea bargain that would have sent him to prison for a maximum of 13 years. Which was a much better deal than the one Foreman got for Ray.

Confounding the prosecution even more was the ballistics evidence. This came as a result of tests performed by the FBI. The death slug could have come from the Game Master, but its deformation and absence of clear-cut markings precluded a positive identification. The death slug could not be metallurgically matched to the other Remington Peters rounds. (p. 47) Further, in the bundle, there were rifle rounds that Ray did not purchase at Aeromarine Supply Company in Birmingham, where he purchased the rifle. The HSCA concluded that the cartridge found in the weapon was the only cartridge in the magazine. Which indicates that whoever loaded the rifle was supremely confident in his marksmanship abilities. And no one has ever stated that Ray was a fine marksman.

Making this even worse for the official story is that the HSCA could find no evidence that the other cartridges had been loaded into the rifle. Therefore, the idea held out by more than one author, that Ray practiced with the Game Master, is very hard to support. (p. 53)

And beyond that, there is no evidence that the rifle was ever mechanically sighted in, since Aeromarine Supply did not have that kind of equipment., called a collimator. Neither did Ronald Wood, the rifle salesman, take the weapon out to a firing range to test the sighting. It is also hard to think that Ray manually sighted in the rifle, because he simply did not know very much about firearms. Wood made that comment about Ray. (p. 53) All Wood did was a simple bore sighting; hence the FBI found the rifle was off three inches to the right. (p. 54)

But there is still something else about the ballistics that raises more serious questions. Among the nine rounds found in the bundle were 4 military type bullets. The HSCA found that the markings on these differed from the sporting rounds. These appeared to have been loaded into an M1 rifle or machine gun belt. Where did those weapons come from? Where did the rounds come from, since they were not sold to Ray at Aeromarine? (p. 55)

Ray’s fingerprints were not found in the bathroom. And his room did not have a proper line of sight to King’s room at the Lorraine. (p. 66) Considering all the acrobatics that Ray would have had to perform to shoot at King from the rim of a bathtub, it’s hard to buy this as part of a genuine case.

None of the authors who have written books to convict James Earl Ray—William Bradford Huie, George McMillan, Gerald Posner, and Hampton Sides—ever met James Earl Ray. (p. 69) Which allows them to make some rather bizarre and unfounded assumptions. For instance, McMillan wrote that after Ray escaped from prison in 1967, he tried to recruit his two brothers—John and Jerry—into a plot to kill King. (p. 71) They refused and therefore Ray proceeded on his own. This makes the timeline about ten months before the assassination. McMillan makes no allowances for how Ray got the money to do his rather extensive traveling from Canada to Mexico to Los Angeles at this time.

Hampton Sides promotes the HSCA theory that Ray heard about an offer from a racist group in St. Louis, which put a fifty thousand dollar bounty on King’s head. But again, Sides makes for no allowances about how Ray lived prior to this, how he could prove that he had killed King to the promoters, or how he could have either found out about the bounty, or collected from the proper people. (p. 72) But further, the FBI did interviews with several wardens and inmates and there were no indications that Ray was a racist, or knew about this offer. Or that Ray ever caused any disturbances in prison. (pp. 73, 84, 88) But McMillan tried to fabricate stories that showed he was. The author does a nice job showing these are false.

Gerald Posner writes that Ray knew where King was staying in Memphis at the time of the assassination. Yet, as the author shows, this was not broadcast on either TV or radio until after the shooting. Only one newspaper said he was at the Lorraine, and that was published on the fourth at about 3 PM. This story mentioned only that King had lunch there on the 3rd. And there was no mention of a room number. By the time the story appeared, Ray had already checked into his boarding house room. (p. 73)

Sides also used a story that somehow Ray was helping the George Wallace presidential campaign while he was in Los Angeles. There has never been any credible evidence to support this. The most anyone has come up with is that Ray once gave a ride to three people who wanted to vote. Ray himself had never been registered to vote. (p. 79)

Foreshadowing his main focus in the rest of the book, Avery now writes that one of the main problems the HSCA had was that they tried to characterize Ray’s plea bargain as voluntary and not made under duress. (p. 89)

In what Emison labels as Part 2 of his book, he tries to forge his own theory as to how the King assassination came off. There is a large problem with trying to do this. There has yet to be the equivalent of the JFK Act passed concerning the King case. Consequently, there has been no Assassination Records Review Board constructed to declassify all the documents that are still classified pertaining to that case. Just considering what the HSCA did, there must be tens of thousands of pages still locked up. So the picture we have of what happened is, by necessity, not yet complete. (Although Ray’s last attorney, William Pepper, has made an interesting stab at explicating the case. And paid a high price for that attempt.)

Emison tries to locate a CIA-based conspiracy amid limited files released on CIA officer Richard Ober. Ober was the man James Angleton placed in charge of Operation Chaos. This was a rough equivalent to the FBI’s COINTELPRO domestic operations, except Ober worked more with media. It turns out that the CIA opened a file on the King case when Ray was attempting to move for a new trial. Ober opened the file. (pp. 96-98)

Another connection concerns William Bradford Huie. Huie went to Arthur Hanes because he wanted the rights to Ray’s story. These were granted since Huie’s name guaranteed a sale of essays and a book, which would help finance Ray’s defense. And at first, Huie wrote a couple of fairly sympathetic essays in Look. But this changed later with both the third installment and his 1970 book, He Slew the Dreamer. In these Ray went from Ray as part of a plot, to Ray as lone gunman.

The author tries to account for this in the following way. He says that Huie hired William F. Buckley once he got out of the CIA to his magazine, American Mercury. Emison says there were other CIA linked authors that came in at this time, like Sidney Hook. He then writes that a TV show Huie appeared on, NBC’s Longines Chronoscope, was a part of the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird program. (See pp. 102-103)

This may or may not be true. But another way to explain Huie’s behavior is the fact that Ray changed attorneys. He went from Arthur Hanes, a man who was going to defend him as an innocent victim, to Percy Foreman, a man who did not defend him, and essentially sold him out. So as the defense attorneys changed, so did Huie’s agreement with them.

The case with George McMillan seems qualitatively different to me. McMillan worked for the Office of War Information during World War II. Which means he was a propaganda officer. He then became a favorite of the FBI, specifically J. Edgar Hoover and Cartha DeLoach. (p. 103) In 1965, McMillan wed fellow journalist Priscilla Johnson. As many, many writers have noted, Johnson was clearly a CIA asset by this time. (See James DiEugenio, Reclaiming Parkland, pp. 286-88)

McMillan denounced in public the formation of the HSCA. This was in an article published by The New York Times. (Emison, p. 105) He then wrote his book. He told a friend that it really was not an investigation of the crime, but actually a biography about James Earl Ray. In this, it resembled his spouse’s book Marina and Lee. Is it just a further coincidence that his book was published in 1976, and hers in 1977?—just as the HSCA was being formed and then in session? The book was immediately praised by longtime CIA asset Jeremiah O’Leary, who stated that McMillan had done the committee’s work for them already. (ibid)

There is little or no doubt that these two books and authors did much to poison the public’s attitude toward Ray. But it’s another matter to base your theory of the crime on Huie and McMillan.

The author seems to understand this. So he now shifts gears. He now begins to enumerate all the information that appeared back in the nineties about military intelligence spying on domestic disturbances in the USA. According to Emison, this began under General Creighton Abrams in May of 1963. It was never officially approved. And it stayed in effect until it was exposed by Captain Chris Pyle in 1970. (p. 115) The program tried to make the case that many of these disturbances were communist inspired. This included urban riots and civil rights demonstrations. One of the higher ups in the surveillance program thought that King and other black activists were being financed by the USSR and China. (p. 117) All told, the military had in excess of 1500 men in plainclothes garb spying on leftist groups, including King. Abrams employed a large conference room to run the program at Fort Holabird. That room divided up the country into seven sectors and had 300 officers running the program. (p. 117)

The 113th Military Intelligence Group out of Evanston Illinois was so extreme it had a file on Adlai Stevenson III. Why? Simply because he had talked to Jessie Jackson. (p. 118) They spied on groups like the League of Women Voters and the ACLU. And they formed their own record keeping system called CRIS, which stood for Counterintelligence Records Intelligence System. When Pyle exposed this system, a full-blown cover up followed. (p. 119) But it was discovered that military intelligence did have files on King, reports on his activities, and had his office at Ebenezer Baptist Church wired. (p. 122)

Poor People’s March on Washington, May-June 1968

This surveillance activity ratcheted upwards when King announced his concept to hold a Poor People’s March on Washington. This was formally planned in November of 1967, and was to take place in May of 1968. As Gerald McKnight notes in his book, The Last Crusade, the Pentagon had readied 20,000 troops to be rotated into Washington in May. (McKnight, p. 93) McKnight also wrote that the FBI prepared a special COINTELPRO program to disrupt the march and its preparations called Operation POCAM (ibid, pp. 9-10) As others have done before him, Emison notes how the FBI maneuvered King out of the Rivermont Hotel in Memphis and into the Lorraine. They did this by using their media assets to harangue him for not staying at a black-owned motel. (Emison, pp. 126-27) On April 3rd, informant Withers told the FBI that King would be staying at the Lorraine and gave them his room number. Emison makes the case that this information was closely held. It is unlikely that James Earl Ray could have known about it. (pp. 128-29)

Of course, very little of this information was available at the time Ray was apprehended in London and returned to Memphis. Even at that, for reasons noted above, Arthur Hanes Sr. was ready to go to trial. He was so confident he would win that he turned down a plea bargain deal. Which leaves the question: How then was Ray convicted? The answer to that question can be expressed in two words: Percy Foreman.

The issue of how Foreman entered the King case has always been clouded . The main reason being that Foreman told many lies about it. Even when he was under oath before the HSCA. And either the HSCA did not do its homework on the issue, or they were not going to call him on it for the record.

Percy Foreman

First of all, the idea that James Earl Ray ever wanted Foreman as his lawyer or ever mentioned his name to his brothers is false. Arthur Hanes came into the case through the efforts of the English barrister Michael Eugene, who was representing Ray in London. Eugene called Hanes since he knew that Ray was going to be shipped back to Memphis to stand trial. Ray’s brothers had no contact with James in England in June. So unlike what Foreman maintained: 1.)There is no letter that James Earl Ray sent to Foreman, either on his own, or through his brothers, and 2.) James Earl Ray did not want Foreman to represent him from the start. (pp. 131-34)

The facts indicate that Foreman did not enter the case in any way until November of 1968, about five months after he said he did. Emison states that the reason that the Ray brothers—John and Jerry—even thought of switching lawyers was simple. James wanted to take the stand in his own defense. Arthur Hanes strongly disagreed. Because of this dispute, the brothers now believed that William Bradford Huie was calling the shots, since he did not want James to testify either. (p. 148) This turned out to be a terrible miscalculation.

The brothers first went to a local lawyer. But this attorney told them that he needed a big name partner in the case. So Huie then floated Foreman’s name. Jerry Ray then got in contact with Foreman on or about November 9, 1968. (p. 134) When Foreman flew into Memphis, there was still no letter from James Earl Ray to allow him into the jail. But he proceeded there anyway. When he got there, James did not want to see him. The warden had to call Judge Preston Battle. And after about 90 minutes, Foreman was allowed to see the prisoner. (p. 139) In short order, Hanes exited the case. The contract Huie had with Hanes over a royalty split was replaced with one with Foreman. Which is another point Foreman lied about. Since he proclaimed in public that he was foregoing any fees in this case. (p. 131)

Just how far was Foreman willing to go in order to conceal the true circumstances of his entry into the case—which was, at the least, unethical, if not illegal? He actually insisted on his “James Earl Ray sent me a letter” story to the HSCA. When asked to produce the letter, he said that it had been transferred to the offices of a lawyer friend in Nashville, from which Foreman said they were lost. Through a partner in that Nashville firm, Emison makes a good circumstantial case that this is another lie by Foreman. (p. 137)

The point is simple. Because Hanes was still the lawyer of record and the defendant had not solicited a change, then Foreman’s entry could be challenged as unethical, or even illegal. If that would have been established, then everything that Foreman did after could have been challenged in an effort to reopen the case.

After Foreman took over, he briefly talked about how he would win an acquittal for his client. (p. 146) But that did not last long. Foreman had his client declared indigent so he could get help from the public defender’s office. But there really was not much point in this aid since Foreman changed his mind and decided not to put on a defense. Foreman’s deal with the DA was essentially a plea of guilty in return for the promise not to request the death penalty. And there is no doubt that Foreman used every unethical trick in the book to get James Earl Ray to go along with the plea bargain. He told his client the FBI would pick up his father on a probation violation unless he copped a plea. He told Jerry and John that unless there was a plea, the state would implicate them in a conspiracy with James to kill King. (p. 151) Foreman told his client that the state had bribed witnesses who would place him at the scene; he therefore faced electrocution.

But that was not the worst of it. The day before the court proceeding, Foreman had sent out two letters. One was to James and one to Jerry. The latter contained a check for five hundred dollars. (The equivalent of about three grand today.) The letter to James was an adjustment in the Huie/Foreman royalty rate, which would allow James a share of the profits. These rewards were both contingent upon there being no unexpected stunts pulled during the court proceeding. (p. 153) Is there any way not to construe this as bribery?

This relates to an important discovery by Emison. Namely that there are two transcripts of the Ray/Foreman pleading in front of Judge Battle. And they differ in a most important way. In what the author proves is the genuine transcript, the following exchange occurs:

Battle: Has any pressure of any kind by anyone in any way been used on you to get you to plead guilty?

Ray: Now, what did you say?

In other words, Ray was answering a question with a question. There was no answer. Amazingly, Battle did not repeat the question, as Ray requested. He went to another question. (p. 156) Now, someone in the DA’s office obviously saw that this was a problem for an appeals court to deal with, and would therefore open up all kinds of avenues for an attorney to bring in evidence that Foreman did pressure Ray into pleading guilty. So therefore, someone altered the original transcript. In this version, Ray’s reply to the question about pressure is as follows:

Ray: No. No one in any way.

Emison proves in a number of ways, including tape recordings of the hearing and the actual stenographer’s signed copy, that this second transcription is a forgery. In fact, he dedicates a large part of a chapter to proving this piece of fabrication. (See Chapter 7) And he blames Battle for accepting the plea without a full answer to his question about pressure. In fact, this may be the reason Battle had second thoughts about the case and was willing to give Ray a new trial.

What makes it even worse is that the author states that, in the subsequent appeals by Ray’s lawyers, it is this false transcript that was used. (p. 176) Which is hard to believe since, once the page is blown up a bit, it strongly suggests the altered line was typed with a different typewriter. The HSCA also used this altered transcript.

But it may be even worse than that. The author found the surviving audiotape of the hearing, He admits it is not a good recording. But he believes that what Ray actually says in reply to the question about pressure is, “I don’t know what to say.” (p. 181)

Emison closes the book with two interesting topics. The first concerns the mechanics behind Ray’s pleading. Harry Smith Avery, as a top official in the Corrections Department, interviewed Ray three times while in prison. He ordered his mail recorded and a log made of all incoming and outgoing letters. When Governor Buford Ellington was told about this effort to investigate the King case, he was not pleased. In fact, he ordered Avery to halt the attempt. When he did not, he was eventually terminated in May of 1969. Later, when the HSCA began its inquiry, they paid Avery a visit. When he went to retrieve his files on the case, they had disappeared.

Avery also told the author an anecdote about visiting the governor’s office prior to the Ray hearing in 1968. As he was waiting outside the doors, he managed to overhear one side of a phone conversation. It was one of the governor’s assistants talking to a higher up of the Justice Department in Washington. Avery could only hear the Nashville side of the call. He heard the following words: “Don’t worry. Ray is going to plead guilty; there won’t be any evidence put on by the prosecution, there won’t be any evidence that is tested in court—there won’t be a trial.” (p. 200)

The author also touches on the issue of the Tennessee law in place at the time of Battle’s death. As others have noted, according to the statute, Battle passed away in receipt of Ray’s letters requesting a new trial, and was acting on them at the time of his death; when he died he had dropped his pen on the floor. Ray should have been granted a full trial automatically by the new judge. Not only did this not happen, this part of the law code—Tennessee Code Annotated 17-1-305— was simply ignored upon appeal. (p. 203)

The last major topic the author deals with is the amazing coincidence of the aliases Ray used in the last year of his life. These were Eric S. Galt, Ramon George Sneyd, Paul Bridgeman, and John Willard. None of the names was fabricated. They were all real people who Ray did not know. All four of them lived within a five-mile radius of each other in Toronto. And they all shared ages and physical attributes that were similar to Ray’s. Ray had been to Montreal once. But there is no recorded information he had been to Toronto prior to the assassination. The two names he used the most were Galt and Sneyd. The former alias was used in America the year before the assassination. The latter was used after the shooting, when Ray fled to Canada and then Europe.

Complicating this is the fact that when Ray fled to Canada, he had people in direct communication with him at both places he resided at in Toronto. In the first instance, beginning on April 8, 1968, he used the name Paul Bridgeman. About ten days later, he changed locales and used the name Ramon Sneyd. (p. 274) At the first location, Ray got a phone call asking for “Mr. Bridgeman”. At the second location, Ray got a phone call and a visitor. The visitor came calling for “Mr. Sneyd”. He then gave Ray an envelope. Within hours, Ray now paid for his passport, which had been waiting for him under the name of Sneyd, and ordered a commercial flight to Europe (p. 224)

As the author notes, the excuses that writers like Gerald Posner and Huie use to explain away the above are ludicrous. How did these other people know 1.) Where Ray was staying, and 2.) The specific pseudonyms he was using. And to any objective person, it certainly appears that the second visitor was giving Ray money to get out of Canada and into Europe. Incredibly, neither the FBI nor the HSCA interviewed the landlords, or tracked down the person who brought the envelope. That was done by the deceased researcher and author Philip Melanson.

Emison has written a credible and important volume on the King case. The author did a lot of valuable interviews and digging into the records of the case. It is a book worth having in one’s personal library.

In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) released its report stating that there was a “likelihood of conspiracy” in the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Predictably, and in spite of the evidence, the HSCA found that James Earl Ray was the assassin and suggested that he was responding to an alleged “bounty” offered by a few right-wing southern extremists. For all intents and purposes, Stuart Wexler’s and Larry Hancock’s “The Awful Grace of God” is an updated and even more speculative version of this scenario. That there does not appear to be a shred of credible evidence to support any of it will hopefully be made apparent in the course of this review. The authors distinguish their work from that of the HSCA by not committing themselves 100% to Ray as the shooter. But this feels like little more than a token gesture intended to appease those of us who have actually studied the crime scene evidence. If the authors ever seriously considered anyone else in that role, or what other role Ray might have played, then I missed it.

From the moment Hancock and Wexler introduce the reader to Ray, it is crystal where they are headed. When asked by “The Daily Beast” whether or not Ray fired the fatal shot, Wexler replied, “He probably did, but the physical evidence is a morass we didn’t really want to get into.” To most serious observers, this is a rather unusual viewpoint in the investigation of a murder case. The crime scene evidence is the most important evidence there is and should be the first port of call for anyone writing a book on this subject. This is especially so given that it all but proves Ray’s innocence.

As I see it, one of the biggest flaws of “The Awful Grace of God” is its reliance on dubious, discredited, and biased sources. So before we get into the review proper, I believe it would be instructive to begin by briefly exploring a few of those sources the authors most frequently cite and most heavily rely upon.

William Bradford Huie

In 1960, author William Bradford Huie attempted to sue NBC over its program, “The American”. He claimed it was based on his story, “The Hero of Iwo-Jima”. Since Huie had claimed in his book that the story was true, the motion was denied, since historical facts not being subject to copyright laws. But Huie demonstrated for the court that elements he had claimed in his book as true were, in fact, “the product of my imagination.” (Mark Lane & Dick Gregory, “Murder In Memphis”, pgs. 282-283) Despite his self-proven status as a self-admitted fabricator, Huie is one of the most frequently cited sources in “The Awful Grace of God”. The authors write that Huie was “the first reporter to deal directly with Ray” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 151). But this is misleading. Simply because the two men never even met. The pair communicated through Ray’s first attorney, Arthur Hanes. Sometimes Hanes would pass Huie notes written by Ray; other times he would simply forward verbal messages (in court this is known as hearsay). But Ray quickly became upset with Huie. Because he thought that he revealed too much of Ray’s defense in an article for “Look” magazine, and suspected that he was passing information on to the FBI. From then on Ray began passing on obvious lies to Huie and their “relationship” deteriorated. Huie, who had begun writing about a conspiracy to kill King, now turned 180 degrees and proclaimed that Ray did it all by himself. And, as he had done with “The Hero of Iwo-Jima”, Huie began adding details from his own imagination.

For example in his book about the King case, “He Slew the Dreamer”, Huie claimed that a Canadian woman Ray had spent time with in the summer of 1967 had told him of an occasion when Ray had expressed his true feelings for blacks. According to Huie, Ray had remarked over dinner that “You got to live near niggers to know ’em” and that all people who “know niggers” hate them. But, as the HSCA found out, when the woman was interviewed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police she swore that Ray had never indicated any hatred of blacks at all. (HSCA Report, p. 328) Huie had simply invented the damaging quotations.

Perhaps the most telling incident concerning Huie’s credibility occurred at the time the ill-fated congressional investigation was getting under way. As one of Ray’s former lawyers, Jack Kershaw, swore at the 1999 King V. Jowers civil trial (in which the jury found “governmental agencies” partly responsible for the assassination), Huie phoned him and offered Ray a large sum of money to confess and explain “how he killed by himself – he and he alone killed—shot and killed Martin Luther King…And I immediately asked him, what good is the money going to do this man? He’s in the penitentiary. And Mr. Huie said, well, we’ll get him a pardon immediately…he was very confident. I suggested he arrange the pardon before the story, but he didn’t agree to that.” (“The 13th Juror: The Official Transcript of the Martin Luther King Conspiracy Trial”, pgs. 393-394) Kershaw passed the offer on to Ray and Ray turned it down flat. As Ray noted in his book, when he mentioned the “offer” to his brother Jerry and attorney Mark Lane, Lane suggested Jerry should phone Huie “and ask him to be more specific—taping the conversation for safety’s sake.” In two recorded conversations, “Huie said if I would, in effect, confess to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., he’d come up with $220,000 for me, plus parole, which Huie claimed he could ‘arrange’ with Tennessee Governor Ray Blanton…As for the source of the $220,000, Huie wouldn’t say. He knew better than to name his paymasters.” (James Earl Ray, “Who Killed Martin Luther King?”, p. 201)

George McMillan

The name George McMillan will no doubt be familiar to students of the Kennedy assassination as the husband of CIA “witting collaborator” Priscilla Johnson McMillan. Priscilla, who had applied to work for the Agency but apparently became one of its media assets instead, authored Marina Oswald’s “autobiography” “Marina & Lee”—a book Marina herself would characterize as “full of lies.” But it’s not George’s obvious ties to the intelligence community that discredit his book, “The Making of an Assassin”, so much as it is his self-admitted willingness to knowingly publish falsehoods.

Jerry Ray, James’ brother, was a major source for McMillan and, as McMillan knew full well, he made up just about everything he told him for money. As Harold Weisberg wrote, “All the Rays to whom McMillan spoke and whom he quoted denounced the book as full of lies (no small quantity of which were made up by Jerry Ray to fleece McMillan).” (Weisberg, “Whoring with History”, unpublished manuscript, chapter 14) When he had gotten all the money he thought he was going to get from him, Jerry wrote to McMillan’s publisher Little, Brown, and warned them “There isn’t a word of truth in his whole book.”(ibid) On one occasion, when McMillan was desperately seeking a picture of the Ray family, Jerry procured some faded old photographs from an antique shop for a dollar and sold them to McMillan for $2,500. (Mark Lane & Dick Gregory, “Murder in Memphis”, p. 240) “Of course he lied to me,” McMillan admitted, ( p. 234). But he went ahead and included the false information in his book anyway. And, according to Jerry Ray, he made up a few quotations of his own.

To typify McMillan, when Mark Lane phoned him and asked him if he had any recordings of his interviews with Jerry, or if he denied making up quotations, McMillan refused to answer (Lane and Gregory, pgs. 236-237)

Gerold Frank

On March 11, 1969, FBI deputy director Cartha DeLoach wrote the following in a memo to associate director Clyde Tolson: “Now that Ray has been convicted and is serving a 99-year sentence, I would like to suggest that the Director allow us to choose a friendly, capable author, or the “Reader’s Digest”, and proceed with a book based on this case.” The following day, as an addendum to this memo, DeLoach recommended “…author Gerold Frank…Frank is already working on a book on the Ray case and has asked the Bureau’s cooperation on a number of occasions. We have nothing derogatory on him in our files, and our relationship with him is excellent.” Needless to say, the book that resulted from this “excellent” relationship, “An American Death”, is cut from precisely the same cloth as Huie’s and McMillan’s, and Frank proves more than capable of spinning a tale or two.

Frank writes of an alleged incident from James Earl Ray’s time in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, when Ray was drinking at a brothel with a prostitute calling herself “Irma La Deuce.” A group of sailors were drinking at a nearby table and one of the four black members of the party was laughing so noisily that Ray became incensed, telling La Deuce—also known as Irma Morales—that he hated blacks. Ray went over to the table, insulted the man, and went outside to his car. When he came back in, he stopped to insult the black sailor some more before going back to his table. He called Morales’ attention to the fact that he now had a pistol in his pocket and that he wanted to kill the blacks. When the party left, Ray wanted to go after them but abandoned the idea after Morales mentioned it was almost time for the local police’s 10 pm visit. (Frank, pgs. 304-305) When the HSCA tracked down Morales they found that Frank’s version of events was a little out-of-line with the truth. What had actually occurred was that one of the black sailors had drunkenly stumbled as he walked past them and touched Morales in an effort to break his fall. The drunken Ray overreacted and become angry out of jealousy and had “never mentioned his feelings about blacks” to Morales. (HSCA report, p. 329) It might have been a pack of lies but I’m sure the FBI much preferred Frank’s distorted version of events.

Wexler and Hancock must be aware of Frank’s credibility problems. I was disappointed to find that they do, in fact, admit that documents show he was the author chosen to write the book the FBI wanted written, but they frequently used him as a source anyway. But yet a genuine authority on the subject like Harold Weisberg is completely ignored by the authors. This preference for sources that support the official story, which also includes Gerald Posner and Jim Bishop, has a reflective effect on the credibility of their own book.

I

The main thesis of “The Awful Grace of God” is that the forces behind the murder of Dr. King were members of a wide-ranging, white supremacist/terrorist network, hell-bent on sparking off a race war. This network included members or affiliates of groups like the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the National State’s Rights Party. The first seven chapters of the book are dedicated to identifying the most violent, outspoken, and influential members of this alleged network and detailing the numerous attempts they allegedly made, or planned to make, on Dr. King’s life. Including attempted bombings and a planned sniper attack in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. The authors contend that these militant racists began reaching outside of their own groups and offering bounties of up to $100,000 to anyone who could get the job done. Much of the information provided is genuinely fascinating and many readers will likely agree that Wexler and Hancock have identified a number of possible suspects. But suspicion is not enough. For this to have relevance to the actual assassination, Wexler and Hancock need to prove that James Earl Ray had ties to one or more of these far-right organizations. Or that he heard about one of the alleged bounties and planned to collect it. Unfortunately, they cannot even come close to doing so.

The HSCA rejected racism as Ray’s motivation for supposedly killing King and so too do Wexler and Hancock. But the authors understand full well that if he had held racist views and had racist contacts he would have been more likely to have been in the company of those discussing the alleged bounties on King. So they write that although Ray “was not fundamentally driven by racism” he nevertheless “wanted no part of blacks” and “opposed integration and the entire civil rights movement.” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 160) In support of this claim, the authors, like George McMillan and Gerald Posner before them, cite the word of Ray’s “fellow inmates” at Missouri State Penitentiary. As I see it, this represents an obvious double-standard on the part of the authors since they use Ray’s background as a petty crook to undermine his credibility and yet are happy to accept the self-serving word of his fellow convicts, many of whom were paid informants or were seeking relief from lengthy sentences. Can there be any less trustworthy sources? In truth, there is no credible evidence that Ray was a racist or “wanted no part of blacks”. And as far as this reviewer is aware no one has ever come forward claiming they were racially abused by Ray. As William Pepper reported, “He evinced no hostility towards blacks whatsoever and his employers at the Indian Trails restaurant in Illinois had said he got along very well with his fellow workers, most of whom were minorities. They were sorry to see him go.” (Pepper, “Orders to Kill”, p. 186)

In their attempt to establish Ray’s racist tendencies and associations, Wexler and Hancock try to create the impression that he was politically active on behalf of Alabama governor George Wallace, a staunch segregationist. Writing that he “recruited associates to register to vote and support the Wallace campaign” in California. (Wexler and Hancock, p. 160) In truth, Ray made only a single known trip to Wallace’s campaign office, so that three associates could register. But Ray himself never did under any of his aliases. And as Harold Weisberg discovered, no one associated with Wallace’s California campaign knew or associated with Ray and “a thorough check of their files showed no sign of any of the names associated with” him. (Weisberg, “Frame Up”, p. 360) Ray himself commented on the absurdity of claims that he was a political activist for Wallace: “I was a fugitive, hiding out. I wasn’t crazy enough to become active in a political campaign.” (Lane & Gregory, p. 249) The fact is, despite an abundance of speculation, multiple “may haves”, “could haves” and “most likelys”, the authors never come any closer than this to placing Ray in the company of the type of extreme-right individuals they contend masterminded the assassination.

Wexler and Hancock believe that the Missouri State Penitentiary is one place in which Ray could have learned of a bounty being offered on Dr. King. They write matter-of-factly that the HSCA “seriously investigated one lead regarding a bounty offer that did reach Ray while in prison” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 163). But in using the word “did” the authors are apparently much more certain than the committee ever was. In fact, the HSCA only claimed to have found a “likelihood that word of a standing offer on Dr. King’s life reached James Earl Ray prior to the assassination”. They then admitted that due to a “failure in the evidence” it “could not make a more definite statement.” (HSCA Report, p. 373) And even the HSCA’s words were more certain than they had any right to be. Not only did the committee uncover no evidence that the alleged bounty reached Ray, it heard compelling testimony that called its very existence into question.

The HSCA’s story of a bounty offer began with a March 19, 1974, report from an FBI informant concerning a conversation he had with a St. Louis criminal named Russell Byers:

For whatever reason, despite the reference to a fictitious “payoff” to Ray, the committee took this report seriously and contacted Byers only to find that Byers denied the offer ever took place. After talking to his lawyer, Byers decided he would “cooperate”, but only under subpoena and with a grant of immunity which the committee gladly delivered. Now, probably hoping he was safe from prosecution for perjury, Byers named the two men at the alleged meeting as former stockbroker John Kauffmann and lawyer John Sutherland—both conveniently deceased by the time he was questioned by the HSCA. Presumably realizing that $10,000 or $20,000 was a fairly paltry sum, Byers also upped the amount he said he had been offered to $50,000. (HSCA Report, p. 360)

In order to establish whether or not the alleged Sutherland-Kauffman offer ever reached Ray, the HSCA examined “four possible connectives” none of which panned out. (pgs. 366-369) Thus the committee was forced to admit that “Direct evidence that would connect the conspiracy in St. Louis to assassination was not obtained.” (p. 370) Unperturbed, Wexler and Hancock claim there is “independent corroboration from another inmate named Donald Mitchell for Ray’s knowledge of the offer.” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 164) Indeed, on September 30, 1968, Mitchell did tell the FBI that some “friends in St. Louis” had “fixed it with someone in Philadelphia” for Ray to kill King and he offered to split the $50,000 he was to be paid with Mitchell if he would act as a decoy. But Mitchell was not done. He also claimed that after picking up the $50,000 for killing Dr. King, they would be picking up another payment for killing “one of those stinking Kennedy’s.” (13 HSCA 248) Not surprisingly, the HSCA took Mitchell’s claims with a grain of salt and his name does not appear in its report.


The HSCA was obviously unable to question Kauffman or Sutherland to confirm Byers’ story and was unable to identify the “secret southern organization” supposedly financing the job. In fact, it found no substantiation for the existence of the supposed bounty beyond Byers’ dubious word. On July 26, 1978, “The New York Times” reported of an interview with Kauffman’s widow in which she told them “it was ‘absolutely impossible’ that her husband could have been involved in such a matter…and she believed that Mr. Byers had fabricated the information about her husband to ‘help himself out of the art case.’” (Byers had been implicated as the buyer of stolen goods following the theft of a well-known bronze sculpture, but prosecutors later dropped the charges.) But the most damning information concerning Byers’ motivation for concocting the story came from a former lawyer, Judge Murray L. Randall, who had previously represented him in a civil case.


Byers told the HSCA that he had spoken of the alleged bounty with two lawyers, Randall and Lawrence Weenick. When contacted, Randall confirmed that Byers had indeed given him the story sometime “near the end of my law practice. I terminated my law practice November 4, 1974.” (7 HSCA 208) This, of course, would have been just after Randall gave the story to an FBI informant. As Randall explained, before the bounty conversation, sometime in 1973, Byers had spoken to Randall about a man named Richard O’Hara who was charged as an accessory to a jewel theft. Because the charge was “nolle prossed”, and because Byers was questioned by the FBI about something only O’Hara knew, Byers asked Randall “is Richard O’Hara the informant in this case”? Randall said he didn’t know. After Byers gave his executive session testimony to the committee, Randall was contacted by Carter Stith, author of the aforementioned “New York Times” piece. Stith asked him if he had been the informant who gave the bounty story to the Bureau. Disturbed by this, Randall met with Byers and asked him “if he could tell from the report who the informant was and he said yes…He told me it was Richard O’Hara, said he could tell from the context.” (Ibid, p. 217) And yet, when Byers was asked by the committee if anyone else knew about the alleged bounty, he did not name O’Hara. As Randall concluded, and is most likely the case, Byers had concocted the entire story to smoke O’Hara out. Although the HSCA downplayed the significance of Randall’s testimony, it uncovered nothing that invalidated his conclusion and, all things considered, it makes perfect sense. This would explain why the FBI did not act on the report in 1974 and why it made no move to question Byers: the Bureau knew what his game was and was therefore protecting its informant. It made no move to investigate the story because there was no need; Byers’ bounty was a fabrication. It should be obvious then that Wexler and Hancock’s assertion that the offer “did reach Ray while in prison” is simply not supportable.


The authors make a sizeable blunder when they write that after Ray’s escape from Missouri State Penitentiary, and before he left for Canada in July of 1967, Ray “very likely heard more gossip about” the King bounty “at his brother’s Grapevine Tavern in Saint Louis.” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 249) Despite their claim, this is not “very likely” at all. In fact, it is downright impossible for Ray to have heard any gossip of any kind in his brother’s tavern at that time. It is true that after he quit his job at the Indian Trails restaurant in Chicago on June 25, Ray did spend a few short weeks in the St. Louis area but he could not have spent any of that time at the Grapevine Tavern. Had Wexler and Hancock been a little more careful in their research, instead of clutching at straws to substantiate their theory, they might have discovered that Carol Pepper, Ray’s sister, did not even take out a lease on the property until October 1, 1967. And that the bar did not officially open until January 1, 1968! (See FBI MURKIN Central Headquarters File, Section 34, pgs. 290-293 and 8 HSCA 537)


Not only does the book fail to establish that Ray was ever in a position to hear about a genuine bounty being offered for the murder of Dr. King, it also struggles to convincingly explain why he would be interested in taking up such an offer if he had. After all, Ray had no history of violent crime—the only person ever hurt during Ray’s petty robberies was Ray himself—and he was certainly no gun-for-hire. What then would possess an escaped convict, whose only desire was to get out of the country and settle somewhere safe from extradition, to become involved in a crime of such magnitude? According to Wexler and Hancock, it was all about the cash. They write that if nothing else, “the individuals who knew him best were in agreement on what had driven James Earl Ray throughout his life: money.” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 147) But if this were the case, then why did Ray turn down the aforementioned offer from William Bradford Huie of $220,000 and a pardon, when he all he had to do was admit to committing a crime for which he had already been convicted? The authors don’t reveal that Huie’s offer took place. Therefore, they don’t have to answer that question.

II


In his foreword to the volume, historian Gerald McKnight writes that Wexler and Hancock “do not pretend to fully resolve Ray’s actual role, while considering arguments both for and against his possible act as Dr. King’s killer.” (p. 7) Whilst this is technically true, there is nothing in the book that leads me to believe the authors ever considered his possible innocence or gave any serious thought to what role he might of played other than that of the gunman. They make passing reference to the idea that one particular alleged bounty offer (not the one they say Ray heard of in prison) “included two different options…one of which was money to simply track King and case his movements” (p. 216). But I’m sure the authors do not seriously expect readers to believe that Ray thought he was going to pick up $50,000 or $100,000 just for keeping tabs on Dr. King. (Recall, the large amount of money in the offer was supposed to be his motivation). Also, such a role would be at odds with his purchase of the 30.06 Remington Gamemaster rifle that the authors maintain he had in his possession on April 4, 1968.


Wexler and Hancock present “three possibilities”. Two of these involve Ray as the shooter. None of them consider the possibility that Ray played no knowing role in the assassination conspiracy and was merely an unwitting patsy as he always maintained. Under the heading “Narrowing the Possibilities”, the authors present their preferred scenario in which “something unplanned happened in Memphis” and Ray, who “may have only agreed to participate in surveillance and support”, probably shot King on the spur of the moment. (pgs. 243-248) But this is far-fetched and does not align with the record. For if Ray had taken up a “surveillance” role, with no plans to do the shooting, then why did he purchase the rifle? And further, as Wexler and Hancock contend, carry it into the bathroom of the boarding house? A high-powered rifle is not an essential tool for surveillance. The authors do not address this inconsistency. In any case, regardless of what Wexler and Hancock consider to be a “possibility”, there is not any credible evidence that the shot that killed Dr. King was fired from the bathroom window; let alone that Ray fired it.

To be fair to the authors, they do note some of the problems with the evidence against Ray. But it has to be said that they omit—knowingly or unknowingly—that which tends to prove his innocence. For example, nowhere in book will the reader find mention of the fact that there were two white Mustangs outside the boarding house that day; that one of them was seen leaving the scene shortly before 6:00 pm, right around the time Ray said he left Brewer’s flophouse to get his spare tire fixed; and the other left within a minute or so of the assassination. If indeed the one departing before 6:00 pm was Ray’s Mustang, as the evidence suggests it was, then it is without question that he was not the assassin and was framed by an orchestrated conspiracy. Understanding its significance, establishment authors like Gerald Posner generally deny the existence of the second Mustang, dismissing it as myth-making by conspiracy theorists. But as author Harold Weisberg pointed out, the Associated Press reported its presence in April 1968. In fact, the “Memphis Commercial Appeal” published a diagram of the crime scene showing the two white Mustangs parked on Main Street. (Weisberg, p. 183) This would not have been an uncommon sight in Memphis in 1968. Frank Holloman, director of Memphis police and fire departments, stated that there were “a large number of white Mustangs” in the area and police estimated they had stopped 50 to 60 in the aftermath of the shooting. (Philip Melanson, “The Martin Luther King Assassination”, p. 114) According to the April 14, 1968, “Minneapolis Tribune”, “White 1966 Mustangs are plentiful in Memphis. In fact, a Ford dealer estimated 600 of them were sold and 400 are still on the street.” (Weisberg, p. 181) At the television trial of James Earl Ray, former FBI Special Agent Joe Hester conceded the presence of two white Mustangs at the crime scene and unsurprisingly dismissed it as a “coincidence.” (Pepper, p. 286)


Ray always maintained that he parked his car directly in front of Jim’s Grill. And a number of witnesses including David Wood, Loyd Jowers, and William Reed confirmed that a white Mustang was indeed parked in that location. At the same time, the other white Mustang was parked several car lengths south, near the doorway to Canipe’s Amusement Company. There it was seen by employees of the Seabrook Wallpaper Company located across the street. (Melanson, pgs. 114-116) Charles Hurley parked behind this Mustang at approximately 5:00 pm when he arrived to pick up his wife Peggy, who was working at Seabrooks. He noted that it had Arkansas plates. Ray’s were from Alabama. (Pepper, p. 156)


Perhaps the two most important witnesses were Ray Hendrix and William Reed. They exited Jim’s Grill somewhere around 5:30 pm. When Hendrix realized he had forgotten his jacket, he went back inside the grill to collect it while Reed stood outside checking out the white Mustang parked out front. When Hendrix reappeared, the two men walked north along Main Street until they came to the corner of Main and Vance. Just as they were about to step off the curb, a white Mustang rounded the corner in front of them. Reed could not say for certain this was the same car he saw in front of Jim’s Grill but said “it seemed to be the same” one. (13th Juror, p. 352) Because witness statements establish that the Mustang outside of Canipe’s left a minute or two after the assassination, it appears most likely that the one Hendrix and Reed saw pulling onto Vance was indeed the one previously parked outside Jim’s Grill—right where Ray said he had parked his white Mustang. And because Hendrix and Reed’s recollections dovetail with the 5:30 to 6:00 time frame in which Ray said he went to get his tire fixed, it appears that they corroborate Ray’s alibi and thus provide strong evidence of his innocence. And yet, as I mentioned above, none of this appears in “The Awful Grace of God” and instead the authors assert matter-of-factly that “Ray sped off in his white Mustang” after the assassination. (Wexler and Hancock, p. 223)


One of the biggest problems with the State’s case has always been the inability to match the bullet removed from Dr. King’s body to the rifle Ray purchased. Predictably, Wexler and Hancock appear to accept the FBI’s claim that the problem lay in the “distortion and mutilation” of the bullet. But the authors do not mention the fact that some of that mutilation happened while the slug was in Bureau hands. As pathologist Dr. Jerry Francisco testified at the 1999 civil trial, when he removed the bullet from the body at autopsy it was in one piece. (13th Juror, p. 245) But by the time the FBI was through with it, however, it is was in three separate fragments. (13 HSCA 77) But even then, according to world-renowned forensics expert and professor of criminalistics Herbert MacDonnell, identification should have been possible. In 1974, MacDonnell was contacted by Ray’s defense team and asked to examine the physical evidence in the case and testify at Ray’s evidentiary hearing. After viewing the bullet he remarked to Harold Weisberg—who was then the team’s sole investigator—“I wish I had that good a specimen in most of my cases.” (Weisberg, “Whoring with History”, Chapter 24) When he took the stand the following day, MacDonnell testified that he had found “sufficient detail” that “identification ought to be possible” (ibid) and McDonnell was not alone in his belief; ballistics experts Lowell Bradford and Chuck Morton agreed. (ibid , see also, Pepper, p. 267) Wexler and Hancock omit any mention of these expert opinions and instead write that the HSCA firearms panel “could not find conclusive matches” between test bullets and that therefore, “any further testing between the actual assassination bullet and a test slug was fruitless, as the very basis for any such test was eliminated.” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 289) But this ignores the fact that further tests were conducted years later and, although the results were again inconclusive, a possible explanation for the outcome was offered.


In 1994, Judge Joe B. Brown granted a request by William Pepper, Ray’s final attorney, for further testing of the rifle and bullets in evidence. Brown, himself a ballistics expert, testified as to the results at the 1999 civil trial. Judge Brown explained that 18 test bullets were fired and that 12 of those bullets showed a similar “unusual characteristic”—a bump on the surface—that appeared to be the result of “shattering in the tool” used to make the barrel. Upon inspection of the barrel, Brown discovered that it was “absolutely filthy” with jacket powder and concluded that it was this build up that was causing the inconclusive results. As he put it: “Now, because this weapon was not cleaned, what happened was that the filing material was being blown out of this flaw. So one of these bullets would have a gross reflection of this flaw. The next shot through it would be somewhat less impressed because of the filing that had filled up this defect. The third one would have even less of an impression. Then the filing would get blown out. The next bullets through would not show it to a gross extent. So you’ve got twelve bullets with the same common characteristic, that is, this raised area on the surface of the bullet…that was not found on the corresponding portion of the bullet removed from Dr. King.” (13th Juror, pgs. 235-236) In an attempt to solve the problem, Judge Brown ordered the rifle cleaned with an electrolysis process using a chemical solution. This would remove the filings without harming the barrel itself. At that precise point, a plot was hatched in Memphis to get Brown removed from the hearing. (For the details of how this plot was implemented, see “The Assassinations”, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, pgs. 449-60) Ultimately, the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals had him removed from the case, claiming that he had lost his objectivity. Whilst this decision left the results far from definitive, it is clear that the outcome of this round of tests was consistent with the proposition that a different 30.06 rifle was used to fire the death slug.

III


Not only do Wexler and Hancock fail to mention Ray’s possible alibi or relate that further ballistic tests were performed—and halted by a state determined to preserve the cover-up—but they also take for granted that the shot was fired from the bathroom. Ignoring the fact that there is at least as much evidence indicating that it actually came from the bushes below. The authors do note that the path of the bullet was not fully traced at autopsy, and that the HSCA trajectory analysis found that “the geometric data was consistent with either the second-floor rooming house windows or the ground-level shrubbery below” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 239). But this is their only reference to the area that has long been suspected as the actual source of the shot. Suspicions about the bushes began with the April 4, 1968, account of Dr. King’s chauffeur, Solomon Jones. He was standing below the balcony talking to King when the shot rang out. He told Memphis police that evening that after King fell, he “ran to the street to see if I could see somebody and…I could see a person leaving the thicket on the west side of Mulberry with his back to me. Looked to me like he had a hood over his head…something that was fitting close around his shoulders and was white in color…he appeared to be a small person and was moving real rapidly.” That this person running from the bushes may have been the actual assassin is indicated by the account of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) member, Reverend James Orange. Moments after the shot, Orange noticed “smoke came up out of the brush area on the opposite side of the street from the Lorraine Motel. I saw it rise up from the bushes over there. From that day to this time I have never had any doubt that the fatal shot…was fired by a sniper concealed in the brush area…” (13th Juror, p. 288) The names of Solomon Jones and James Orange do not appear in The Awful Grace of God.


Of course, this is not definitive evidence that a shot came from the brush below. Not at all. But the reader should bear in mind that there is no credible evidence to support the contention that the shot came from the bathroom of the rooming house. There was not a single witness who claimed to have seen a gunman in the bathroom window, nor was there a witness to a rifle or smoke coming out of that window. And no one ever claimed to have seen a man with a rifle going into or coming out of the bathroom. Memphis police officers discovered a dent on the bathroom windowsill and it was claimed that this dent was made when the sniper rested his rifle there and took his shot. Wexler and Hancock label this contention as “more than questionable” (p. 240). But this is actually a vast understatement because this claim is unquestionably false. When the windowsill was cut out, the dent, which was on the inside half of the sill, was examined by the FBI. They found no “gunpowder or gunpowder residues” of any kind. Additionally, “No wood, paint, aluminum or other foreign materials” were found on the rifle; “nor were any significant marks found on the rifle barrel.” (Weisberg, Whoring With History, Chapter 23) In actual fact, not only was there no evidence that the rifle caused that mark, it would have been impossible for the rifle to have been rested in that dent and fired. According to Harold Weisberg, when Herbert MacDonnell examined the sill and then saw pictures “of how close that window was to the north wall of that bathroom he erupted with laughter because it was immediately apparent that it was impossible for the muzzle of that rifle to be in that dent and pointed at where King was, and for the entire rifle to be inside that bathroom! Part of the rifle stock and butt and of the rifleman would have had to have been inside the wall!” On top of this, as MacDonnell testified, with that dent being on the inside half, a shot from the rifle “would have torn up the windowsill.” (ibid, chapter 24)


When Paris-Match magazine attempted to simulate the assassin’s alleged position, it ended up demonstrating how unlikely, if not impossible the official story is. Because the old fashioned bathtub in which the sniper is said to have stood was positioned against the east wall and had a steeply slanting back, the only way he would be able to fire on the required downward trajectory would be to stand on the rim of the tub. Not only did this put the shooter so high that he would have to turn his head on its right side and thus struggle to aim the rifle but it also meant that the barrel of the rifle would be sticking out of the window. (Click here for the picture, http://i1205.photobucket.com/albums/bb421/mnhay27/Scan10002.jpg)

The unlikelihood of this scenario is obvious. And it can be rightly said that the Paris-Match photo—in conjunction with the fact that Ray had an abysmal shooting record in the army, plus the fact that the Remingtom Gamemaster rifle was not properly sighted in—these all but destroy the State’s case.


Steering well clear of this crime scene “morass” enables Wexler and Hancock to claim that, although it was never tested in court, “a substantial amount of evidence was assembled to place Ray at the crime scene, to connect Ray to the rifle, and to create a plausible description of the fatal shot having been fired from the rooming house bathroom.” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 239) Which, in light of the above, is simply an untenable statement. Not only, as we have seen, is there no credible evidence that a shot was fired from the bathroom (and plenty of reason to doubt it was even possible); there is no credible evidence to place Ray at the scene of the crime, or put the rifle in his hands at the time of the assassination. Ray was adamant that he gave the rifle to the man he says set him up. This is a man he knew as “Raoul”. This was on the evening before the assassination and never saw the weapon again. Since no one saw Ray take a rifle into or out of the rooming house, there is no evidence to prove otherwise. There is also no evidence that he was ever in the bathroom; none of Ray’s fingerprints were found anywhere in the rooming house and no witnesses saw him going into or emerging from the bathroom at any time. The State was so bereft in this regard that it was forced to rely on the account of an alcoholic named Charles Stephens who occupied the room between the bathroom and the one Ray had rented that afternoon. Stephens told police that after he heard the shot, he opened his door and saw a man running down the hall, holding something wrapped in newspaper, and heading towards the front stairway. Although he told police on the evening of April 4, 1968, that he would not recognize the man if he saw him again because he “didn’t get that good a look at him”, Stephens would subsequently identify that man as James Earl Ray. Stephens would be instrumental in Ray’s extradition following his arrest in London. Because numerous witness statements establish the fact, Wexler and Hancock admit that Stephens “was almost certainly too drunk to be credible” (p. 240). But they withhold that which is most damaging: On April 18, 1968, Stephens was shown a picture of Ray by CBS news correspondent Bill Stout and was asked if it showed the man he saw in the rooming house. On camera, Stephens proclaimed, “…that definitely, I would say, is not the–the guy.” Definitely not the guy! And, whether Wexler and Hancock want to admit it or not, Stephens and Stephens alone represents the “substantial amount of evidence” they claim places Ray at the crime scene.


 IV


Until the day he died, James Earl Ray claimed that he had been set up in the assassination by a mysterious figure he knew only as “Raoul.” The pair had met at a place called the Neptune Bar in Montreal, Canada, in July of 1967. Having escaped from prison, Ray was seeking identification papers and funds that would allow him to flee to a country with whom the United states had no extradition treaty. According to Ray, Raoul promised he would get him the necessary documents if Ray would help him with a few low-risk smuggling operations. For the next nine months Ray followed Raoul’s orders. He delivered items into the United States and Mexico, and in return received substantial sums of money. Under Raoul’s directions, he acquired a new car—the white Mustang—purchased a rifle, and exchanged it the following day for the 30.06 Gamemaster. He then ultimately rented a room in Bessie Brewer’s rooming house opposite the Lorraine Motel where King was staying in Memphis. As Mark Lane noted, “Ray’s explanation…of his movements through the United States from Canada to Mexico, his purchase of a rifle in Birmingham, and ultimately his presence in Memphis on April 4th in the vicinity of the murder scene is either basically true, or the intricate and comprehensive work product of a brilliant mind. For the narrative explains in a cohesive fashion all of Ray’s otherwise inexplicable actions.” (Lane and Gregory, p. 173) Few people would claim that Ray was the owner of a “brilliant mind”. After all, this is the same bungling crook who once took his shoes off whilst attempting to rob a store, and had to take off in his stocking feet when he was panicked by the sight of policemen outside. Ray ran for miles before heading back to town wearing a pair of women’s shoes he had picked up along the way because he did not want to look conspicuous! (Pepper, p. 187) Nevertheless, the official position is that Raoul never existed and I’m sure by now the reader will not be surprised to learn that Wexler and Hancock subscribe to this view.


The authors suggest that Ray concocted the Raoul character for protection, writing that “Ray simply would not have directed attention to individuals or groups that might prove personally dangerous to him in prison.” (Wexler and Hancock, p. 161) Whilst this argument may make a little sense when considering Ray’s predicament in 1968 (although I seriously doubt he would have been refused special protection for telling all he knew and fingering the actual culprits), it is less convincing when we remember that he was still telling the same story three decades later when the power and influence of groups like the KKK and NSRP had long since diminished or evaporated entirely. In actual fact, the NSRP had ceased to exist entirely by the late 1980s. There can be little doubt that by sticking by his Raoul story Ray kept himself locked up for life by a disbelieving State. But stick to his story he did.


In support of their argument that Raoul did not exist, or was a “composite” of individuals Ray dealt with in the lead up to the assassination, Wexler and Hancock cite Ray’s “constant changes in Raoul’s physical description, which varied to include an auburn haired man, a thirty-five-year-old blonde Latino, and a reddish-haired French-Canadian, with complexions that ranged from ruddy to dark to lighter than Ray’s own pale skin.” (p. 170) It is difficult to respond fully to this because the authors do not provide a single citation for any of these descriptions. What is known is that at least one of them—that of a “blonde Latino”—came not from Ray, but from William Bradford Huie who’s credibility, as we’ve already established, is less than zero. (That description certainly does not appear in the “20,000” words written by Ray that Huie’s own writing was supposedly based on). Another one, the lighter than Ray’s own complexion description, comes from a misreading of one of Ray’s testimonies that was cleared up when he appeared before the HSCA. Committee chairman Louis Stokes asked Ray “Have you also at some time or other described Raoul as having a complexion lighter than my own?” to which Ray replied, “No, I never gave that description.” At that point, Stokes referred Ray to an extract from his lawsuit against Percy Foreman in which he described Raoul as “5 foot 10, a little bit lighter than me and dark haired.” As Ray explained, as the HSCA accepted, and as is perfectly obvious from his testimony, he was referring not to Raoul’s complexion but to his weight. (1 HSCA 359-366) As I wrote above, with no citations provided, it is simply not possible to respond in full to Wexler and Hancock’s claims. But what I can say is that although plenty of unreliable writers have made claims to the contrary, in every recorded interview with Ray, every sworn testimony, and in every writing from his own hand that this reviewer has come across, Ray has always been consistent in his descriptions of Raoul.


One problem facing those who maintain that there was no Raoul is explaining the large sums of money Ray clearly handled whilst having no official source of income. Ray said that he had only $300 dollars to his name when he escaped prison but Wexler and Hancock do not want to believe this, so they repeat the indefatigable George McMillan’s fable that Ray probably made as much as $7,000 in prison “selling magazines, black market items, and possibly small amounts of amphetamines.” (Wexler and Hancock, pgs. 156-157) As with most things McMillan, this claim has no basis in fact. It was just another story Jerry Ray fed him for cash. After McMillan’s book was published, Missouri Corrections Department chief George M. Camp challenged the author to provide proof of his “totally unsubstantiated” allegations and publicly demanded that he “either put up or shut up.” (Pepper, p. 62) Wexler and Hancock are apparently aware of this so they do some CYA by writing that the amount of money Ray had upon escaping prison is “in dispute”. (See p. 166) But they take another stab at explaining Ray’s finances by raising the “possibility” that Ray and his brothers were involved in the July 1967 robbery of the Bank of Alton in Illinois. Ibid, p. 168) This story was embraced by the HSCA. They tried to persuade the Justice Department to charge John Ray with perjury for supposedly giving false testimony concerning the robbery. Justice wrote back to the committee stating that “there is no evidence to link John Ray or James Earl Ray to that robbery” and declined to consider any prosecution. (Pepper, pgs. 108-109)


The Justice Department was correct: there was no evidence that the Ray brothers were involved. In July of 1968 the FBI had compared James Earl Ray’s fingerprints to those from all unsolved bank robberies, including the Alton one. They found no matches. In August 1978, when the HSCA was selling its bank robbery story to the press, Jerry Ray surrendered himself to the Alton police department. He offered to waive the statute of limitations and be charged with the crime. As he recalled in his testimony at the 1999 civil trial, the police asked him “are you here to confess to the crime? I said I can’t confess to a crime that I didn’t commit, but Congress accused me of committing a crime so I’m here to stand trial. He said you never was a suspect.” (13th Juror, p. 343) In a follow-up phone call three months later, attorney William Pepper was told by East Alton police lieutenant Walter Conrad that neither Jerry “nor his brothers were suspects, nor had they ever been suspects in that crime.” (Pepper, p. 108) Needless to say, none of this is mentioned in The Awful Grace of God.


Wexler and Hancock also omit any mention of the former British merchant seaman Sid Carthew. Carthew came forward after Ray’s televised mock trial in 1993. His testimony supported the existence of Raoul. For months after it aired, Carthew was watching a video tape of the TV trial “…and it came up on the court scene where the prosecutor was ridiculing James Earl Ray and saying that this Raul was a figment of his imagination, and I called my daughter in the room and said, look, no, this isn’t a figment or lie. I said, this poor man is telling the truth…” Carthew went to some lengths to contact Ray’s defense to tell what he knew. He eventually gave his story to William Pepper in a sworn deposition. According to Carthew, he too had met a man identifying himself simply as Raoul in the Neptune Bar, Montreal, in 1967. Over the course of two evenings, Raoul had offered to sell him some Browning 9mm handguns. “He said to me, how many would you want, and I said four…and he said, four, what do you–four, what do you mean by four. I said four guns. He wanted to sell me four boxes of guns…once he knew that I would have only take–took four, he was very annoyed…it wouldn’t be worth his while to deal in such a small number, and that was the end of the conversation, and he went back to the bar.” (13th Juror, pgs. 270-277) Carthew’s account received partial corroboration from a shipmate of his named Joe Sheehan. He said that, although he wasn’t present at the Neptune bar, Carthew had mentioned the incident to him in May 1968 at the annual general meeting of the National Union of Seamen. (Pepper, p. 344) If Wexler and Hancock are privy to any information which disproves Carthew’s sworn account, they do not share it with their readers.


 V


Dismissing Raoul as a “red herring” leaves Wexler and Hancock free to repeat the age-old myth that Ray was stalking Dr. King in the weeks before his assassination. They write that there is “no sign he was tied into a King conspiracy” until mid-February 1968. Then, they perceive a “change in behavior” showing that Ray “was responding to what he felt was finally a truly concrete bounty offer on Dr. King’s life.” Then, on March 17, “he completed a change-of-address form forwarding all his mail to general delivery, Atlanta, Georgia”, Dr. King’s home town. He then presumably set off from his current residence in Los Angeles to begin stalking his prey. (Wexler and Hancock, pgs. 200-203)

What the authors are careful not to reveal is the uncontested fact that, if Ray wanted to surveil Dr. King, he was heading in completely the wrong direction because King was in Los Angeles! On March 16th, King had given a speech to the California Democratic Council at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim. On March 17th he delivered a sermon at a church in Los Angeles. This information would, I’m sure, have given most readers cause to seriously question the notion that Ray had King in his sights on March 17th. But you will not find it in this book.


The authors claim (incorrectly) that “Ray’s path first crossed Dr. King’s on the night of March 22, 1968, in Selma Alabama.” (Ibid, p. 217) I say this is incorrect because, as Wexler and Hancock themselves write, King and Ray were never in Selma at the same time. And, as noted above, their paths had actually crossed five days earlier in Los Angeles, where King followed Ray there, and Ray took off soon after he arrived. They also claim (incorrectly) that Ray initially “lied about his Selma stop, saying he had gotten lost between New Orleans and Birmingham”. But that “in his interview” with William Bradford Huie, “Ray finally admitted that he had gone there because of King.” (ibid) Firstly, as made clear before, Ray was never “interviewed” by Huie. Huie actually received his information either via Ray’s attorneys, or through written notes which contain no such admission. Secondly, Ray never changed his story. He stuck to the “lost” explanation in his HSCA testimony and in his own written works. Self-admitted fabricator Huie just followed his usual practice and wrote what he wanted to regardless of what the truth was.


Wexler and Hancock also attempt to resurrect another time-worn fable dreamed up by Huie. Namely, that a map of Atlanta found amongst Ray’s possessions after the assassination had marks on it “indicating King’s residence, King’s church, and the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference”. The authors claim that the marks are “beyond coincidence”, quote Ray as admitting that he could never “explain that away to the jury”, and say that “the best he could come up with was that the marks represented restaurants he visited.” (Ibid, p. 222) As portrayed by Wexler and Hancock, this sounds like a damning admission and a lame excuse by Ray. But they achieve this by taking his remarks out of context. So that the reader can judge for himself, here are the relevant passages from Ray’s HSCA interview:

It should be pretty clear to the reader that Ray said the marks on the map represented more than just “restaurants he visited” and, despite the impression Wexler and Hancock attempt to convey, he never agreed that those marks showed what Huie claimed they did. In fact he explicitly stated that he “knew that was all false.” And false it was. As William Pepper explained to the jury at the 1999 civil trial, “Mr. Ray had a habit of marking maps. I have in my possession maps that he marked when he was in Texas, Montreal and Atlanta, and what he did was it helped him to locate what he did and where he was going. The Atlanta map is nowhere related to Dr. King’s residence. It is three oblong circles that covered general areas, one where he was living on Peachtree.” (13th Juror, p. 741) Had the markings on the map revealed what Huie claimed, there can be little doubt that the HSCA would have made a big song and dance about it. As it was, the committee dismissed the relevance of the Atlanta map and made no reference to it in its report.

Wexler and Hancock claim to know for sure that Ray lied about his movements after he purchased the Remington Gamemaster rifle in Birmingham, Alabama, on March 30, 1968. Ray’s story was that he made his way slowly to Memphis, staying at a motel near Decatur, Alabama on March 30; near the twin cities of Florence and Tuscumbria on March 31; at a motel near Corinth, Mississippi on April 1; and at the DeSoto Motel on Highway 51 near the Tennessee border on April 2. (Ray, p. 92) Huie claimed that he could find no evidence that Ray stayed at any of these establishments under any of his aliases. But Harold Weisberg had no trouble establishing that Ray had stayed at the DeSoto on April 2. When Weisberg visited the motel, he was shown the registration card bearing the “Eric Galt” alias Ray was using and spoke to one of the two maids who had worked that night and she confirmed his stay. “She told me”, Weisberg wrote, “that when they saw Ray’s picture they recognized him as the man who had stayed there the night that had to have been of April 2.” (Whoring with History, Chapter 19) In any case, Wexler and Hancock follow the HSCA’s lead and claim that a receipt and a counterbook from the Piedmont Laundry in Atlanta prove that he lied and was, in fact, back in Atlanta on April 1 dropping off laundry that he would pick up on April 5. When confronted with this evidence during his HSCA testimony, Ray stuck to his story and, on the face of it, it does appear as if he was caught in a lie. But, unfortunately, it is not that black and white. Firstly, the receipt is stamped “April 2” which would appear to indicate that the laundry was picked up the day after it was dropped off. And secondly, Piedmont worker Annie Estelle Peters was unable to positively identify Ray as the man who dropped off the laundry. In fact, when shown a series of pictures of Ray by the FBI in May 1968 she remarked that “none appeared very similar.” (FBI MURKIN Central Headquarters File, section 43, p. 27) So whilst it appears possible that Ray may have lied to cover-up what many would say was too big a coincidence, the evidence does not allow us to say he “definitely” did as Wexler and Hancock contend. (Awful Grace of God, p. 217) What is interesting to ponder is the fact that if Ray had concocted Raoul to lay the blame for the assassination elsewhere, and if he really had gone back to Atlanta, the easiest thing for him to have done would have been to have admitted he had done so and claim that he was only following Raoul’s instructions. But he never did this.


 VI


The final aspect of The Awful Grace of God that requires comment has to do with the authors’ attempt to dismiss any notion of government complicity in the assassination. This they do in an appendix titled “Being Contrary”, which is likely to be one of the most controversial parts of the whole book. Hancock and Wexler find the idea of federal involvement “unconvincing” and claim that “many of the theories of government involvement are based on elements that appeared mysterious immediately following the assassination, but that have been explained through follow-up research in the ensuing years.” (pgs. 306-307) They list a number of points for which they present “counterarguments”, many of which are likely to spark debate—especially those involving the theories of William Pepper and the case put before the Memphis jury at the King V. Jowers civil trial. But the only part I wish to comment on has to do with Dr. King’s location and security at the time of his death.


When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, in 1963, many critics wondered how he could have ended up in the position he was in. They argued that usual security protocols had been systematically violated and JFK had been driven slowly into a perfect ambush site without customary procedures such as having Secret Service agents on the running board of the limousine. And when these issues were raised, the victim was blamed. The Secret Service quickly spread the word that Kennedy himself had ordered agents and police motorcycles to stay away from the Presidential limo so that the public would have an unobstructed view. But the meticulous research of Vince Palamara has since proven this to be a tissue of lies constructed by JFK’s security detail simply to cover their own asses. This curious set of circumstances very closely parallels events surrounding Dr. King’s assassination: He was placed in room 306 of the Lorraine motel with access via an open and potentially dangerous balcony without his usual security. And his organization, the SCLC, was blamed for its removal.

Wexler and Hancock imply that Dr. King always stayed at the Lorraine when he visited Memphis and state that King and his closest companion, Dr. Ralph Abernathy, “had stayed in room 306 so often that it was jokingly referred to as the ‘King-Abernathy Suite.’” (p. 17) Although they do not provide a citation, it appears they gathered this from Abernathy’s HSCA testimony. Which, on the face of it, would seem to be a reliable source. But yet there is much controversy on this issue and Abernathy’s recollection is contradicted by a number of people. For example, Reverend Jim Lawson, another close friend of Dr. King and a co-founder of the SCLC, testified that King “had stayed more often in the Admiral Benbow and in the Rivermont”. (13th Juror, p. 139) And Memphis reporter Kaye Pittman Black, who had “covered his every visit to this city”, believed that Dr. King “had never stayed at the Lorraine.” She recalled him staying “at the Claridge, the big hotel downtown, right across from City Hall.” (Lane & Gregory, p. 107) It is highly unlikely that Abernathy would have lied in his testimony so it would seem apparent that King must have stayed at the Lorraine on at least some of his visits to Memphis. But if at some point King had been in the habit of staying at the motel, it is clear that it was a habit he had broken. For on his March 18 visit to Memphis, King had stayed at the Rivermont Hotel (13th Juror, p. 292), and on his March 28 visit he and Abernathy had reservations at the Peabody Hotel. But they were taken to the Rivermont after the march they were leading had turned violent. (Pepper, Act of State, p. 188) Jim Lawson explained to attorney William Pepper that since the white-owned hotels were starting to be desegregated, “black leaders believed that they had an obligation to become guests and establish a presence in what had formerly been white lodging bastions.” (ibid) So, whether he had done so many times before or not, any conspirators planning to assassinate Dr. King on his return to Memphis had no guarantee that he would be staying at the Lorraine on April 4, 1968. But one very powerful and very hateful man seemingly had a plan to ensure that he would.

On March 29, 1968, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI headquarters issued a memorandum to be disseminated to “friendly” media sources:


Although they do not mention this memo, I’m sure Wexler and Hancock would argue that its purpose was simply to embarrass Dr. King. And maybe it was. But given that Hoover’s well documented hatred of King is known to have led him as far as trying to pressure him into committing suicide, many researchers believe his intent was much more sinister. And this possibility becomes more compelling in light of the fact that an unidentified individual, claiming to be with the SCLC, contacted the Lorraine to insist that Dr. King be moved from the more secluded room 202, in which he was originally meant to stay, to the balcony room 306.

Former New York City police officer Leon Cohen testified in 1999 that Lorraine owner Walter Bailey had told him about the room change the day after the assassination. According to Cohen, Bailey explained that before Dr. King arrived on April 3, “he got a call from a member of Dr. King’s group in Atlanta who wanted him to change the location of the room where Dr. King would be staying. And he was adamant against that because he had provided security by the inner court for Dr. King”. (13th Juror, p. 85) Sometime later, Bailey told reporter Wayne Chastain that it was actually his wife who had dealt with the SCLC man. (Act of State, p. 190) In any case, in 1992 William Pepper spoke to an employee of the Lorraine named Oliva Hayes who “confirmed that Dr. King was to be in room 202 but was somehow moved up to room 306.” (ibid) Now perhaps there is an innocent explanation for this room change but it is curious in the extreme that none of King’s entourage owned up to ordering it and the “SCLC man” remains unidentified. Needless to say, this move allowed King to be exposed to a sniper from across the street.

Hoover’s memo and the unexplained room change seem to take on added significance when we consider the unusual change in Dr. King’s security arrangements. Another name not mentioned in “The Awful Grace of God” is that of Memphis Police Captain Jerry Williams who headed up a special security detail of black officers who were assigned to protect Dr. King on his visits to Memphis. Williams’ unit had a good relationship with King’s group and Reverend Lawson recalled being impressed when the officers introduced themselves and told him that “if Dr. King will cooperate with us…we can assure you that nothing will ever happen to Dr. King when Dr. King is in this city.” From then on, Lawson explained, “whenever he came to Memphis, that group of homicide detectives and other detectives were relieved of all their duty. They gave him 24-hour surveillance. They talked to his office and him about where you will be safest, where are the places he could be most secure.” (13th Juror, p. 133) But on King’s final visit to Memphis, as Captain Williams testified, he was instructed that his unit would not be formed, that “somebody else would handle the assignment”, and he was not given an explanation for the change. (p. 105) When King’s party arrived at the airport, instead of the usual group of black officers, they were confronted by a group of white detectives who it had to be obvious, given the tense atmosphere of the time, were simply not suitable. Within hours the detail was removed on the grounds that King’s party was not cooperating and it is impossible to resist the urge to speculate that this is exactly what police had intended all along. Why else would they not send the usual unit of trusted black officers? A clue to an additional reason comes from Williams’ testimony that his unit “would never advise him to stay at the Lorraine because we couldn’t furnish adequate security.” (ibid)

As well as Dr. King’s personal security detail, six Memphis Police Tactical Units were removed from the vicinity of the Lorraine on the morning of the assassination. According to Professor Philip H. Melanson, these were essentially “riot control units” that had been formed to patrol the area “within a five-block radius of the Lorraine Motel”. But on the morning of April 4, Inspector Sam Evans gave the order “for the tactical units to be withdrawn outside of a five-block area, therefore, dispersing them at a much greater distance and removing their presence from the immediate what would become the assassination scene.” When Melanson asked Evans why he had given this order, “He told me that he had been requested by a member of Dr. King’s party to remove the units from proximity to the Lorraine Motel.” When Melanson asked for a name, Evans claimed that the request came from the Reverend Samuel Kyles. (p. 113) But Kyles was a local pastor who had no position in the SCLC, no authority to make such a request, and denied making it anyway. (Act of State, p. 234) As William Pepper concluded, “Kyles was a convenient name for Evans to use since he was known and apparently in regular contact with the” Memphis police. (p. 260)

So what do Wexler and Hancock have to say about all of this? Essentially nothing. They do not mention Hoover’s infamous memo nor the unidentified individual who requested Dr. King’s room change or even the fact that such a change took place. They make no reference to the testimony of Captain Jerry Williams nor do they note that there was ever a special detail of black officers who were traded for unsuitable white detectives on King’s final, fatal visit. They do admit that a “tactical detail of three or four police cars was indeed removed from the motel” but put this down to the request of “an unidentified member of King’s party”. (Awful Grace of God, p. 231) When it comes time to answer their own question, “was security in Memphis intentionally compromised?”—aside from a discussion of the removal of black police officer Ed Redditt from the fire station across the street from the Lorraine—the authors have little else to say. However, they do offer the opinion that whatever happened to King’s security matters little because “Absolutely none of the standard police security procedures would have stopped a sniper attack from across the street”. (p. 309) Which is just silly. It does not take an expert sniper to understand that the fewer people around the target there are, the more likely the assassin is to have a clear shot. Additionally, having police removed from the immediate vicinity affords the shooter a better chance of escape. But Wexler and Hancock have a response ready for that too: “even Ray eluded capture by avoiding a police officer no more than a minute or two after the shooting”! (p. 309) Not only does this argument commit the blunder of begging the question (which the authors can get away with since they omit reference to the two Mustangs and the statements of Ray Hendrix and William Reed) but it also attempts to use the alleged killer’s unhindered escape as proof that the security stripping had no effect on the escape of an assassin! In other words, it was made possible since no security was around. And with that, the reader will agree this silliness requires no further comment.


 VII


This review has been very critical but it should not in any way be viewed as a personal attack on the authors. I would not seek to question the integrity of either Stuart Wexler or Larry Hancock. I do, however, seriously question their conclusions and the validity of their approach. It seems quite apparent that the authors were all too trusting of dishonest writers like William Bradford Huie and George McMillan. They therefore accepted a false portrait of Ray—a portrait that was apparently created in no small part by Ray’s brother Jerry in his quest for cash—and this in turn led them to begin with a presumption of Ray’s guilt. But Harold Weisberg has almost conclusively shown, and I have attempted to convey in this review, that there is no basis for such a presumption. As we have seen, there is no credible evidence to place Ray at the scene of the crime and good reason to believe he left the area a short time before the shooting. On top of this, the forensic evidence does not support a shot from the bathroom and, in fact, a review of the facts demonstrates that such a shot was highly improbable if not impossible.

Hancock and Wexler’s belief that Ray took up a bounty being offered on Dr. King’s life is simply not supported by any credible evidence. They provide no proof that he at any point heard about such an offer and, in their endless speculation aimed at doing so, try to place him in a bar that did not open until six months after they claimed he was there. Even their most circumstantial peripheral evidence such as Ray’s alleged racism or his contact with George Wallace’s campaign office is either blown out of proportion or simply without solid foundation. This failure to accurately address James Earl Ray and to convincingly explain his role in the conspiracy is the fatal flaw of “The Awful Grace of God”. It is quite clear that, whether the likes of White Knights Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers or National States Rights Party founder J.B. Stoner were involved in the assassination or not, it simply could not have happened the way Wexler and Hancock believe it did.

• The Awful Grace of God Website
• Title of the book, “My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: ‘Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.‘ ” From Robert Kennedy remarks as he broke the news of King’s death to a large gathering of African Americans that evening in Indianapolis, Indiana.