◆ SpookStack

emt eee PRN ae At alge elt Nee vate tf oe ee Se at se mee i ’ | 2 { i { i wey ( 57C an » owe i we L —— + — = . Ge Loge SIEM RE ROYVEO we) ry. yt 22 LY) ~ bong Itfad Presh 6/23/69] eae By MiKpAoyKo ‘ CHICAGO—The FBI has a lot more explaining to do about its motives for spving on the late Dr. Martin Luther King. It has publicly de- f. bed ” 1 scribed as “malicious” ao y column written by Carl t { a arr oe Pr Se ne { Rowan that criticized the wiretapping of Dr. King's . phones. : Clyde Tolson, associate an na OO FBI director, says the 2 2. wiretapping was done. . an oo: for “national security” i ch reasons, with the appro- Mike Royke va' of the late Robert Kennedy, then attorney general. That doesn’t come even close to tell- ing it. One thing it doesn’t explain is the following incident: > aan * SE ABOUT THREE YEARS ago an cx- FBI agent I knew asked me to join him for a round of golf, After the round, we sat in the club- house chatting. He worked the conversa- tion around to Dr. King. He told me that the FEI had been us- ing a variety of electronic eayesdropping devices on Dr. King. Besides tapping his phone, they had planted listening devices in hotel yooms. he used while traveling. The result, he said, was a very thick file on Dr. King, He gave me some exarnples. ' They were very personal things, Nat- urally, if you bug almost arybody’s bed- room long enough, you will hear personal things. . But none of the things this ex-FBI agent told me reflected in any way on Dr. King's “loyalty,” his “Americanism,” or seemed to be remotely related to “national se- curity.” : Nor did they reflect on his role as a leader in the civil rights crusade, a win- ner of the Nobel Peace Prize, or a figure of historic importance. I asked the ex-FBI agent if his informa- tion was merely gossip or if he was sure about it. He said that he had visited J. Edgar Hoover in Washington and had been brief- S/R. ee ébl anc_ine King lap: bE °e oO PAST IDE 5a ° ed on the contents of the Dr. King file. It was not uncommon, he said, for trust- ed ex-agents to be Iet in on such things. - * * OBVIOUSLY, I was supposed to be! shocked by the things he told me. And] T was. But not for the reasons he as-! rumed. A famous man's imperfectiaus: con't shock me, ! The shocking disclosure was that he' was actually sitting there telling me such! things. They were none of my business, and they were none of his business. They’ were nobody’s business but Dr. King’s. It was plain old mud slinging, on a: level with the lowest scandal magazines! and transom-peeking public actions. There was no doubt in my mind then,; and none now, that it was being leaked: to me for the purpose of discrediting Dr.. King. ; ; The same type of thing, T have ‘since! learned, occurred in other cities, with’ other newsmen. \ And it doesn’t take much imagination, to figure out why. Dr. King and Hoover! had engaged in a furious public quarrel, Hoover, quite clearly, did not like Dr, King. That’s why I suggest that the FBI has not given an adequate explanation. if the wiretapping was being done for “national security,” ] presume that it; should have been kept a big secret. Secret? How much of a secret was it if: a newspaper columnist in Chicago knew; of-the eavesdropping? Or if a former agent, a private citizen—could talk about it? (For the record, the ex-agent was not a two-bit gumshoe given to flights of fancy. He was then a well-known and highly-re-! - spected investigator. He is taday a famous and powerful man.) 1 And is the purpose of such official! eavesdropping. to gather Spite-material, transom-pceking tidbits that will be whis- ipered in the cars of opinion makers? That, of course, is the greatest danger’ of Big Brother and his big ear. If that’s what Dr. King’s file was used! for, then I'll gladly second Rowan's sug- gestion that Hoover he replaced. | The scandal sheet business should be! left to private industry. Chicago Daily News) | cuyaa KOK Mr Hoover —f;/ /, wre ae = " the = work.