◆ SpookStack

tented aan om ts aoe es et maa te i King Jr. bluntly informed Wallace in a telegram, .. Even a dedicated rabble-rouser like Wallace w S quick : * just wanted sometbing done fast. © ;\- 7 -wauld be she wmost intense sinc, pl. c * \ wey ¢ bunt 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 scbool integration, and now he was reaping . what he had sown. "Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of | . the NAACP; called the atrocity a “deliberate mass mur- der” encovraged by the Governor. “Wallace is as guilty, as if he himself planied the bomb,” said Joho P. Roche of the Americans for Democratic Action. “The blood of | four Jittle children is on your, hands,” Dr. Marti _ to, realize ‘that. this sort of publicity ‘was not likely to enhance his image as he prepared his first campaign. for the Presidency. Something had to be done—and fast. If _ there. was blood on his hands, b, God, he. -wanted it. washed off before the New Hampshire primary. ~~. Wallace quickly decided that his state police were not“. ~_ the Colonel, saying the arrests could only damage th * FBI's” chances of solving the case, Lingo was not iz fo cooperate with othér, law~ enforcement groups working on the case. He didn’t want the FBI to solve it, thereby allowing J, Edgar Hoover, “and. the Kennedys to get -all the crecit for, cleaning Up ; a 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 that time headed the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.,* “I don’t know if the Governor reacted :that way; he may. Thave looked at it as‘a political problem. * There was absolutely f0 communication’ between Gov- _ ernor Wallace and the federal goveroment.”:... =. - * Wallace entrusted “the state’s investigation. to the head Re Of the Department of Public Safety, the late Col. Albert J. Lingo, a“ ‘rough-and-tumble south” Alabaman Who * ” became something of a state hero’a couple . of years later ” for ‘ordering the clubbing and teat-gessing of civil rights marchers in Selma. Jt mattered not to Wallace that Lingo was an outspoken supporter of the Ku Klux Klan and that the prime suspects were Klansmen, It mattered’ pot “10 Wallace that Lingo, president of ‘a goor manufacturing firm before his appointment as the state's top policeman, -knew next to nothing about investigative techniques or Taw enforcement. None of this mattered to Wallace. He So while the FBI was conducting a nethodical, pains- taking investigation, Alabama’s stale troopers (“They acted more like storm troopers,” says Burke Marshall) were slinking around town pursuing the strangest “clues.” “Typical of Lingo’s tactics was the photographing of virs 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. * When the troopers weren't trying to pin the rap on the . something done, whether it was right or not,” - 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 Lin 0 wanted 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 we Luther | : _ ‘ - 7 thice Ku Klu. jansmen on “open charges.” Two of t! men were considered prime suspects by the FBI and we under constant survcillance 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 sitiation for alt publicity possible. He cut short a trip to Florida ar dramatically returned to Montgomery i in the middle of night-to announce the news and to claim the case hi been solved, While Wallace bammed it up for reporte: FBI agents complained bitterly that the state had all b Tuined their investigation. By arresting the suspects pr maturely, Wallace and Lingo had alerted :the bombe that federal investigators were closing in but still Jacke “enough hard evidence to make any charges ‘stick. ‘Ti arrests made it easier for the killers to’ cover their track . The whole episode was so transparéntly stupid that Linge _ ‘second in command, Maj. Bill Jones, bad tried to dissnar his boss from arresting the meb. Jones had pleaded wi pressed, “I don’t know who their suspects are,” he sa Jater’ of the FBI, “and I don’t care.” Wallace seemc _ hone too disturbed either that the case might have bee jinly” botched for good. His reaction was, “Wi he Kennedy crowd to the punch!” Why the state made the arrests is still a’matter of.co: jecture, but ‘a former FBI operative who infiltrated t) Klan in Birmingham ia 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 FBY 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 Klansmén 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 wei “thrown out of court and-the third ended with an aequitt: in a jury trial. ” For the’ past few years the bombing has been litde mor than a touchy problem for the Birmingham Chamber . ‘Commerce, No one, it seems, bas had much to say abor the incident—it’s bad for business. The federal statute ¢ _ limitations on almost all of the crimes connected with 1b case has expired, leaving the only hope.for arrests wit the state and the Birmingham Police Department. Stat officials have exhibited little interest in the matter, and one expects action from the Birmingham police, wh have yet to solve even one of the city’s thirty or so racial! motivated bombings since World War 33.’ Therefore, a great many people were taken ‘by surpris . last February when it was Jearned that state Attorme _ General Baxley was’ conducting a new investigation. Th surprise was accompanied by optimism, since Baxley i not at all the kind of Attomey General Alzbamans cu: