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Overview
“We recommend this important book to everyone who seeks the truth about Dr. King’s assassination.” —Coretta Scott King
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was in Memphis to support a workers’ strike. As night fell, army snipers took up position; military officers surveilled the scene from a nearby roof; and their accomplice, restaurant-owner Loyd Jowers, was ready to remove the murder weapon. When the dust had settled, King had been shot and a cleanup operation was in motion—James Earl Ray was framed, the crime scene was destroyed, and witnesses were killed.
It would take William F. Pepper, attorney and friend of King, thirty years to get to the bottom of a conspiracy that changed the course of American history. In 1999, the King family, represented by the author, brought a civil action lawsuit against Loyd Jowers and other co-conspirators. Seventy witnesses set out the details of a plot that involved J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Richard Helms and the CIA, the US military, the Memphis police, and organized crime. The jury took an hour to find for the King family.
Now fifty years after MLK’s execution, An Act of State demonstrates the bloody depths to which the US government will descend to repress a movement for change.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781786635976 |
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Publisher: | Verso Books |
Publication date: | 03/27/2018 |
Pages: | 368 |
Sales rank: | 631,845 |
Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Preface
Part 1
1 The beginning 4
The House Select Committee on Assassinations report 10
Relocation and more investigations 14
2 The television trial of James Earl Ray 17
3 The continuing investigation: Loyd Jowers's involvement 20
Breakthroughs, January-April 15 1994 29
4 New strands and connections 42
H. L. Hunt 42
James's last parole hearing 44
The Whitlock/Liberto story 45
The hedge 47
Art Baldwin's account 48
Another Marcello scenario 50
Louie Ward's account 51
5 Raul and the Grabows 53
6 The conspiracy deepens 62
Military organization 65
The Memphis mission 67
Eric S. Galt 77
7 New allies, revelations, and untimely deaths 82
James Earl Ray's terminal illness 82
Enter the King family 84
The last judicial proceedings 88
Loyd Jowers - continued 92
James dies 97
Post-mortem events 98
Don Wilson's materials 99
Part 2
8 The trial 107
The background 109
The local conspiracy 110
The crime scene 117
The murder weapon 119
Raul 121
The broader conspiracy 127
The cover-up 131
The defendant's prior admissions 137
Damages 139
The case for the defense 140
The closing arguments 146
The jury instructions 146
The verdict 147
The judgment 147
9 The aftermath and a post-trial summary 148
The media 148
The spins 149
New evidence 150
What we now know 155
10 A vision unto death and a truth beyond the grave 163
Non nobis solum nati sumas 167
Disciple and master 173
11 The state's case: the how and the why of the assassination 181
Why? 185
How? - according to the state and its publicists 186
The key issues 186
12 The United States Attorney General's report 218
Methodology 218
Loyd Jowers 220
The location of the shooter - the rooming house 226
The location of the murder weapon 228
The Liberto involvement 229
The involvement of the Memphis Police Department (MPD) 232
The allegations of Donald Wilson 237
The forensic examination of the documents 244
Raul 246
Conspiracy allegations emanating from the King v. Jowers and other unknown co-conspirators trial 250
Epilogue 262
Afterword 273
Appendices 289
Notes 311
Index 341