◆ SpookStack

Baa opts + « thn Sd A et a oe Oe ss et ct , st sated -would be she wnost intense sinc. “ad ; — * way ¢ hunt for John Dil- linger.” As the agents picked through the rubble in Bir- mingham, George Wallace fumed and fidgeted in Mont- gomery. For months, the Governor had been whipping the sednecks into a frenzy with increasingly rabid state- ments about school inilegration, and now he was reaping what he had sown, Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of - _ the NAACP; called the atrocity a “deliberate mass mur-- der” encouraged by the Governor. “Wallace is as guilty, as if he himeelf planted the bomb,” said John P. Roche of the Americans for Democratic Action. “The blood of _ four_Jittle children is on your, hands,” Dr. Martin. Luther» . ~ King Jr. bluntly informed Wallace in a telegram) 3,--3-. 7 - ‘ Even a dedicated rabble-rouser like Wallace was quick to realize ‘that. this. sort of publicity ‘was not likely to enhance his image as he prepared his first campaign. for Te the Presidency. Something had to bs done—-and fast. If .. there. was blood on his “hands, b, God, he. -wanted it. washed off before the New Hampshire primary.) + oF Wallace quickly decided that his state police were not ‘to cooperate with other, Jaw- -enforcement gtoups: working _ on the case. He didn’t want the FBI to solve it, thereby allowing J. Edgar Hoover,"and. the Kennedys fo get -all ’ the crecit for. cleaning up @ mess in. Wallace’s own back yard. “The killing of those-children was a horrible ‘act . _ that shocked the nation,” recalls Burke Marshall, who at ihat tine headed the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, “I don’t ‘know if the Governor reacted :that way; he may have looked at it asa political problem. * | There was absolutely fo communication" between Gov- _ _ enor Wallace and the federal government.” Matar - Wallace entrusted ‘the state’s investigation to the head — ot the Department of Public Safety, the late Col. Albert J. Lingo, marchers in Selma, It mattered not to Wallace that Lingo was an outspoken supporter of the Ku Klux Klan and _ that the prime suspects were KJansmen. It mattered’ not to Wallace that Lingo, president of'a door manufacturing firm before his appointment as the state’s top policeman, -knew next to nothing about investigative techniques: or law enforcement. None of this matlered to Wallace. He " just wanted something done fast. . =, - 2° ’ So while the FBI was conducting a inethodical, pains- Alabama’s stale troopers (“They acted more like storm troopers,” says Burke Marshall) were slinking around town pursuing the strangest “clues.” taki ing investigation, ‘Typical of Lingo’s tactics was the photographing of vir- tually every white person who attended the funerals of . the four murdered black girls. According to a high-ranking state official who is familiar with the case,’ Lingo’s men spent “about 80 per cent of their time trying to prove it was blacks-who bombed the church.” Much to the chagrin ~ .of Wallace, nothing was found to substantiate that theory. ALIL Ye an . wen the troopers weren I trying to pin the fap On the blacks, they wallowed in confusion. “Nobody knew what was going on,” a retired state investigator admitted re- cently. “All we knew was that Wallace and Lingo wanted “something done, whéther it was right or not.” Eventually, the state did do something, and, predictably, -it was the wrong thing, Two wecks after the bombing, Lingo, having consulted Wallace, ordered the arrest of 156 three Ku Klu. a rough-and-tumble south: Alabaman who | ” became something of a state hero’a couple | of years later ” for ‘ordering the clubbing and teat-gassing of civil rights e é - f ¢ jansmen on “open charges.” Two of men were considered prime suspects by the FBI and we under constant surveillance by agents when the: sta stepped in. The FBI was holding off on arrests, hoping build a strong case against a number of Klansmen su pected of taking part in the crime. _ As expected, Wallace milked the sitbation for all t publicity possible. He cut short a trip to .Florida ar dramatically returned to Montgomery in the middle of hight-to announce the news and to claim the case hi been solved, While Wallace hammed it up for reporte: FBI agents complained bitterly that the stale had all b ruined their investigation, By arresting the suspects pr maturely, Wallace and Lingo had alerted .the bombe _ dhat federal investigators were closing in but still Jacke “enough hard evidence. to make any charges ‘stick. Tl _ arrests made it easier for the killers to cover their track _ The whole episode was so transparently stupid that Lingc ‘second in command, Maj. Bill Jones, had tried to dissnac "© his boss from arresting the men. Jones had pleaded wi _ the Colonel, saying the arrests could only damage th - FBI's” chances of solving the case, Lingo ‘was not iz pressed, “J don’t know who their suspects are,” he sa later of the FBI, “and I don’t care,” Wallace seeme _nhone too disturbed either that the case might have bee botched for good. His reaction was, “We certainly be: tha WasnwndAw nen, abn one Las Ane Kennedy crowd io the punch: ee ae ae, Pay aie .. Why the state made the arrests is still ‘a matter of, co! jecture, but a former FBI operative who infiltrated tt Klan in Birmingham in the 1960s suggests a sinist: motive, In his recently published book, “My Undercov: Years. With the Ku Klux Klan, Gary Thomas" Rowe J : says he was present when a “secret meeting” was ‘arrange between Klan officials and Alabama state troopers. It w: called, Rowe claims, because “the FB] was about to arre three ‘Klansmen ‘i in connection with a bombing.” To pri vent this embarrassment to the Klan,. Rowe says, sta’ '.° officers “agreed to pick them up first on minor charges.” - The three Klansmen were ultimatély charged with: po: session -of dynamite, which Time noted was “a mi: ’ demeanor about as common in Birmingham as jaywalkix in many a U.S. city.” The state’s evidence was so flim: even for these piddling charges that two of the cases we) “thrown out of court and-the third ended with an acquit: in a jury trial, - — ; For the past few years the bombing has been little mor than a touchy problem for the Birmingham Chamber c “Commerce, No one, it seems, bas had much to say abou the incident—it’s bad for business. The federal statute c , limitations on almost all of the crimes connected with 1b case has expired, Jeaving the only hope.for arrests wit ‘the state and the Birmingham Police Department. Stat officials have exhibited little interest in the matter, and n one expects action from the Birmingham, police, wh have yet to solve even one of the city’s thirty OT so yacial! motivated bombings since World War JL’ . Therefore, a great maby people were taken by, surpris . last February when it was learned that state Attorne General Baxley was conducting a new investigation, Th ' surprise was accompanied by optimism, since Baxley 3 not at all the kind of Attommey General Alebamans cu: ° : . THE NATIONS Sentemher 410