The tapes were made as part of an FBI surveillance project that began in 1955 and continued until King was assassinated in 1968, according to Stanford's Martin Luther King Jr. Research and. Did Six FBI Agents die before they could testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations? [3] The letter does not specify precisely what action it is urging King to undertake; King understood the letter as advocating that he commit suicide,[1] although some have suggested that it was merely urging him to decline the Nobel Peace Prize (which he won in 1964)[4] or step out of leadership. The comments below have been moderated in advance. There is but one way out for you. Along with many US civil rights figures, King was subject to an FBI campaign of surveillance ordered by Director J Edgar Hoover in an effort to undermine his power amid fears he could have links to the Communist Party. He wasn't making a lot of money taking pictures, and so this was to make some extra money. Hoover was personally obsessed with bringing down King. Garrow said a painful historical reckoning was inevitable given what hed learned about Kings behavior. Obviously, they didn't feel it was so dangerous so that he was giving them information. The FBI had a 13-minute tape in their possession of someone close to Cruz warning the teenager was going to "start shooting places up." The New York Times has the details. There is even a suggestion in the files that King fathered a daughter with a secret girlfriend in Los Angeles. One of the claims would constitute a crime if true. The pastor died in 1991. Is ISIS committing genocide against the Yazidis? This is the letter the memo says King received, reproduced in full from a photograph Garrow included in his Standpoint article. From being born a man to Queen of the Mountains: Trans cyclist romps to victory in elite women's race - Strike-hit NHS hospital has to SHUT intensive care beds after nurses ignored union's last-minute plea to Career coach reveals the best way to explain why you left a job after a short period of time - and you only She's got a right Lotte cheek with tantrums, feisty remarks and bossing her brothers about. If not, do we really want to know the specific details? At the time the reports were made, the FBI was engaged in a years-long disinformation campaign to undermine Kings standing and at one point encouraged him to kill himself. Also, the FBI sent tapes of King having. During the Church Committee hearings and investigations in 1975, a copy of the "suicide letter" was discovered in the work files of William C. Sullivan, deputy FBI director.
