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Birmingham, Alabama Sixteenth — Part 29

249 pages · May 08, 2026 · Document date: Sep 15, 1963 · Broad topic: General · Topic: Birmingham, Alabama Sixteenth · 244 pages OCR'd
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; four years despite repeated re- _ quests for the date. - i The state's Attorney General, ; William Baxley, confirmed that, _ the puréau had withheid its ex-' tensive inforomation —= which. other sources said included the incriminating results of a poly-' e@raph test given to a man sus- pected of making the bomhs— _from the time of his fnitial re-| quest in 1971 until last 'De-| " cember. Mr, Baxley’s office’ , been conducting its own in- , Mestgiation into the bombing, i whick killed four black chil- : on, since he took office in ‘The F.B.1. information was! ‘ given to Mr, Baxley only after 1@.newsman learned of the : bureau's refusal to cooperate with the Baxley investigation - ahd inquired about it in Wash- ington, @An FBI spokesman in Washington said that when the! ‘request for the information| Twas received in 1971, it wasi i sent to the Civil Rights Division . ‘of the Justice Department, ‘which had control of the in- : formation, the spokesman said.: ‘ Four years later, he said, the , Justice Department got around _ to responding. ~ ™ No Reason Offered t The spokesman had no ex- “plantion of why the informa- ‘tion was held up. Local law enforcement officials, particu- “larly in racially troubied South- ‘ern areas, often have com- {plained of difficulty in obtain- pe such F.BJ. data, t A Justice Department official, ‘gaid, in response to the state- ent from the F.B.I. spokes- ‘man, that no one in the Civil ts Division could be found 'Federial levels, when Hey took office in 1971 t, Baxley, asked aljout the Prticuity in getting FB. information, said that he under- Stood the bureau's reluctance to" release such information during the early 1960’s, when ‘there was somte fear on the part of the bureau that it’s informe- tion might be leaked by un- sympathetic law enforcement officers in the South. But he sajd he considered such fears gujundiess today. a Investigation Hindered e refusal of the bureau to provide the information meant that state investigators were Unable to develop leads turned up by the bureau at the time, and it also entirely forestalled ithe questioning of certain in- dividuals since it was felt that jthere should not be any con- tact with them until it was ‘known what they might have i@ld the FBT. Among the withheld informa- ition, the Times has fearned, {was he report of He detector . test administered to a suspect . believed to have made the bomb used in the explosion, and be-: ieved placed by another party, fa prime target of the Baxley inquiry. The test showed that the suspect lied when he denied having made the bomb in his home workshop. Polygraph test results are not admissible in court as evidence in such cases, but they do provide important etree to investigators. . Bax- The man {fs now dead, ' As a result of the renewed [etate inquiry into the church ‘bombing, Mr. Baxley, offige has ready brought unrelated) mur- j Indictments against Ithree : e¢ Ku Klux Kiansm@n ac- sed of forcing a blaci{ man could make a case on riltht now,” Mr. Baxley said, “Dut the statute [of limitations] has Tun out.” Mr, Baxiey said those bomb- ings were related to the church bombing in Birmingham, : “We're about a smidgen of an inch away from solving one that occurred nea an occupied | dwelling —-and there fs no Tmitation on that,” Mr, Baxley sa) : _ Motivated by Hatred Asked about the relationship between the Birmingham bomb- ings and those in Montgomery and elsewhere in the South, Mr. Baxley said, “The relationship is haphazard. Some were re- lated, some were not.” “All were motivated by in- tense hatred. Another relation. sinp ts that they were all done the scum of the earth. Mr, Baxley said that sojhe of , the individuals implicated? in , the fatal Birmingham eljurch ' bombing referred to themselves ‘as “the missionaries” or “the }fni sionary group.” ~ ' a a 3s _ Dep. AD tt Ad oe 03 BOMBING DATA “Soa . - ! Admin. t Comp. Syst. "WITBHELD BYERL at ; : cue aie Files & CPx Pgy WAYNE EING Algbama Official Confirms ident: von js Special to The New York . ‘That Duraan lnnavad Ute Inspection _ t "MONTGOMERY, Als., (March ities ourcau ignored nig Intell. —__ 18 -@The Federal Burgau of ~~ Requests for 4 Years Laboratory Investigation withheld re- a ao |, Legal C ‘sults of its inquiry into the’ * a ego! ~oun. —— ‘1963 bombing of a Birmingham Althea “There were & whole series _ Plan, & Eval. — jtorney General for more than inactive, both at the state and previously Unsolved — that lve Training Talephone Rm. —. Director Sec'y —_ Th, Washington Post W Date ington Star-News tly News (New York) he New York Timea The Wall Street Journal The National Observer The Los Angeles Times MAR 2 0 to76 "FN cLOSURE remembered the bureau ; jump to his death from a NS em ncaa ‘patsing on Mr. Baxley'sirequest r bridge outside Montgomery 18 Vi _ J fi at cor am tn a | byes ago o/ B’ RoR = won 1) a i Mr. Baxley said, thal! his in- S APR S 1976 | fF JD REC-36 - 4 ae 4 name b& Uy MD EE AM B\Z0\TG "vestigation of the bomithg was ‘continuing, adding, “We're con- ident that we're making baton Sr eg Et seen 7
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