The FBI actually has a file destruction schedule that allows them to destroy important material about King's assassination. That's one reason the King Records Act is needed so badly, to prevent the further destruction of important files, especially those that were withheld from Congress or that have never been released.
Other important King assassination files withheld from Rep. Stokes's committee related to Louisiana godfather Carlos Marcello. In 2000, the Justice Department released a report in which they were supposed to investigate claims arising out of the 1998 civil suit victory of the King family, concerning a conspiracy that prominently involved Carlos Marcello. However, the Justice Department report barely mentioned Marcello, and ignored material in their own files linking Marcello to King's murder.
According to one 1968 Justice Department memo -- withheld from Rep. Stokes's committee, but since released and quoted in Legacy of Secrecy for the first time -- information from a reporter's sources that included a "well placed protà ©gà © of Carlos Marcello" said that the Mafia had "agreed to 'broker' or arrange the assassination [of Dr. King] for an amount somewhat in excess of three hundred thousand dollars after they were contacted by" a group "of wealthy segregationists." The group was linked to "the KKK and White Citizen's Councils. Quitman...was said" to be a possible base of their operation.
Congressional investigators did turn up information indicating that in the months before Dr. King's murder, James Earl Ray had been a low-level heroin courier for Marcello's drug network. But files not yet released include those identifying Ray's two main criminal contacts in New Orleans, and several people connected to Marcello's organization who were interviewed by the FBI about Dr. King's assassination.
In addition, the 2000 Justice Department report on King's assassination -- which was supposed to look at Marcello's possible role -- failed to mention the fact that the FBI had in its files since 1986 Marcello's clear confession to JFK's assassination. (One would think that a godfather's confession to one assassination might at least rate a mention in a report about his role in another.) We found the uncensored files in the National Archives in 2006, and they also reveal that the FBI secretly recorded "hundreds of hours" of secret audio tape of Marcello in 1985 and 1986, when Marcello was in federal prison. The FBI's undercover operation against Marcello was code-named CAMTEX. Marcello often spoke to a trusted associate from New Orleans while he was secretly being recorded, so those CAMTEX tapes could have information about Ray's New Orleans contacts. But those tapes and transcripts have never been released.
At least some of those "hundreds of hours" of secret Marcello tapes should be released under the 1992 JFK Assassination Records Act, since on the tapes, Marcello rails against the John and Robert Kennedy, and talks about meeting Lee Oswald and Jack Ruby.
News reports say that Senator Kerry is modeling the new King Records Act on the 1992 JFK Act. The JFK Act did result in the release of over four million pages of files, including the (very incomplete) Marcello CAMTEX files mentioned above. But the King Act needs to avoid several problems that plagued the JFK Act.
First is that fact that according to NBC News, "millions" of pages of JFK assassination files remain unreleased, despite the law requiring their release. A report by OMB Watch quoted an official who helped to implement the JFK Act as saying that "well over one million CIA records" pertaining to JFK's assassination were not released.
Even worse, the Final Report of the Review Board created by the 1992 JFK Act said that the Secret Service admitted destroying important JFK assassination files in 1995, at a time when the law said they were supposed to be preserved and released. Some of the files destroyed by the Secret Service covered the time in November 1963 when Milteer's taped remarks first became known to the Secret Service and FBI.
In addition, despite the Obama administration's attempts at more open government, the CIA continues to fight a lawsuit seeking records that should have been released under the 1992 JFK Act, as detailed in an October 17, 2009 New York Times article. Those files -- and perhaps a million more -- are to remain secret until 2017 or even beyond.
A Congressional hearing in the House of Representatives could help to ensure that those problems are not repeated with the new King Act. We believe that in the long run, releasing all the files about the assassinations of Dr. King and JFK will not only be good for America, but also for the FBI, CIA, Justice Department, Secret Service, and other agencies. Until all the files are released, many Americans will continue to view those agencies with suspicion.
The new King Act can insure the privacy of innocent individuals, while going after the files about those who killed Dr. King. The tapes generated by J. Edgar Hoover's vendetta against Dr. King -- part of a huge domestic surveillance network against progressives later exposed by Senator Frank Church -- are of no value in documenting those who killed Dr. King.
The best way to ensure quick passage of the King Act then is for it to have as many co-sponsors as possible. You can help by asking your own Senators and Representative to co-sponsor the legislation. To find out how to contact your members of Congress, you can go do legacyofsecrecy.com, and click the "Tell Congress" link. A short, polite email or phone call--asking them to co-sponsor the Martin Luther King Records Act when Sen. Kerry introduces it in the Senate and Rep. Lewis introduces it in the House--would be most effective.
This is a rare opportunity for Americans to actually to do something about needless government secrecy. The 1992 JFK Act was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress, and while that level of cooperation seems unimaginable today, it' s hard to think of any legitimate reason why a member of Congress wouldn't want to co-sponsor the new King Act.
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