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ae ° 7 4 “J .. - UNITED STATES cOVENNARENT. ~ ) . Lig Memorandum — we Evans ~ TO =: MR, OLSON nK DATE: 9/17/63 peice ullivan cc Mr. Belmont — Trower FROM : A, H, Belmont \_” Mr. Rosen oles Mr. DeLoach Gandy ; Du: Copies made by LTC iL SUBJECT: BIRMINGHAM BOMBINGS for review by Rowe Task Force yf! AM “Date 7 Wie ¢ . Relative to the bombing of the churc Fa) Biraingham which resulted in the killing of four children, it was our feeling imme- diately on Sunday, when we got this news, that the persons who ya perpetrated this atrocity had gone beyond the bounds acceptable to f even hardened segregationists. It is one thing to explode dynamite outside a house or in an empty building, with the aim of scaring ~ Negroes and integrationists and holding them back from their drive to achieve racial equality, but it is another thing to take the lives of innocent children, OO a be hi OOF “P * We issued immediate instructions to Birmingham and surrounding . N offices to interview all members of the Ku Klux Klan and the National * States Rights Party, as well as other hate groups, in the belief that’ } . we might secure information, as this degree of violence is unacceptable to them. These interviews are being conducted on a special basis. va By the same token, we suggested yesterday that a newspaper article appear in a Birmingham paper stressing the responsibility of the Birmingham community for the underlying causes of this tragedy -and calling on all persons to furnish information to the FBI, which has the- “ability to handle such information in confidence and. get resuits from it..,This article is being given to the press today. * a I have noted: ‘in the press a play on this same thene, namely that it is the-responsibility of the whole Birmingham and Alabama community for what has happened and for correcting the situation; for example, the “article by Charles Morgan, Jr. in the Washington Post this morning, “Who's to Blame?" ISP - 457 2 Hh e. I think. it would be very timely for the Director to put out la statamant to the press alone the lines that while in thic country “~~ “ere ewes OU eee OR se vee ree everyone is entitled to his own opinion, and to achieve his goal by lawful means, this tragedy pinpoints what can happen when unthinking individuals strive to reach their goals by violence and breaking the law; that, in effect, such activities lead to chaos and anarchy; ‘that the Director is sure that all right-thinking Wf/ “EG Ahi os HEC. 3g | acemasaaal Vy XI AS D-1020T°! 10 SEP 24 1963 AHB:CSH (4)