FBI’s letter, demanding that Martin Luther King commit suicide, released in full

[Triana]

In 1999, the family of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. prevailed in a jury trial that found the government responsible for MLK’s murder. The family sought a mere $100 in damages, to make the point that their only goal was justice. The verdict was read aloud by the judge: “In answer to the question did Loyd Jowers participate in a conspiracy to do harm to Dr. Martin Luther King, your answer is yes. Do you also find that others, including governmental agencies, were parties to this conspiracy as alleged by the defendant? Your answer to that one is also yes. And the total amount of damages you find for the plaintiffs entitled to is one hundred dollars. Is that your verdict?” The jury responded in unison, with a resounding “Yes.”

Decades after Dr. King’s murder, the FBI’s un-redacted letter, demanding that MLK kill himself, was made public on November 11, 2014. It was found by a Yale University historian, who was conducting research in the national archives. The letter is rife with vile descriptions and accusations, referring to Dr. King as “a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that … dirt, filth, evil … evil, abnormal beast.” It concludes with a demand that MLK commit suicide within 34 days, or else compromising information about his alleged sexual indiscretions would be made public.

When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. received this letter, he told his friends that someone wanted him to kill himself. He also voiced his suspicions that the FBI’s infamous director, J. Edgar Hoover, was behind this demand. Hoover made no secret of his desire to see Dr. King discredited. The Senate’s Church Committee on intelligence overreach eventually confirmed Dr. King’s suspicion.

THE REST:

http://www.examiner.com/article/fbi-s-letter-demanding-that-martin-luther-king-commit-suicide-released-full

[snappyturtle]

1. B.S. nt

[Triana]

8. Can you provide info to back up the "BS" claim? n/t

[snappyturtle]

15. Yes. I was seventeen years old consequently old enough to well understand

the circumstances of the day surrounding Dr. King. My father was a Special Agent in Charge of a regional FBI office.
I will agree that Dir. Hoover had personal issues with Dr. King (and others) however wanting to see Dr.King discredited is a long way from the intentions of this letter (author unknown). They were trying to avoid the scenario of a deceased Dr. King.

My dad said that publically powerful men as Dr. King and JFK too, made their job difficult because they insisted on free acess, so to speak, of the citizens. So, no....I don't deny the letter, obviously, but I don't think it was a product of the FBI per se....plus the fact that the letter was so poorly crafted. imho

[Triana]

16. Uh-huh...

From the story at the NY Times:

Despite its half-baked prose, self-conscious amateurism and other attempts at misdirection, King was certain the letter had come from the F.B.I. Its infamous director, J. Edgar Hoover, made no secret of his desire to see King discredited. A little more than a decade later, the Senate’s Church Committee on intelligence overreach confirmed King’s suspicion.

Since then, the so-called “suicide letter” has occupied a unique place in the history of American intelligence — the most notorious and embarrassing example of Hoover’s F.B.I. run amok. For several decades, however, only significantly redacted copies of the letter were available for public scrutiny. This summer, while researching a biography of Hoover, I was surprised to find a full, uncensored version of the letter tucked away in a reprocessed set of his official and confidential files at the National Archives.

LINK:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html?_r=0

This is from a historian at Yale. I doubt she would make such a letter public if the provenance of it was in question.

Beverly Gage is a professor of American history at Yale.

[snappyturtle]

20. OMG! An historian from Yale. Well that cinches it. I just take great offense to the

implication. To be more plain...it would have been stupid on the part of the FBI to do this.....and there is paltry 'proof'.

[octoberlib]

2. God, this is sick.The most dangerous thing you can do in this country is threaten the status quo.

[merrily]

7. That epends on whose status quo is being threatened. Threaten disability benefits and

you probably will not get shot to death. Maybe you'll even succeed and be cheered. Ditto if you make sure the homeless have no warm place to sleep.

[lpbk2713]

3. Other articles ... UFO footage ... signs Obama is a Muslim ...

Does anyone take this website seriously?

Outside of Freepville that is.

[Triana]

10. See response #4 . . .

[octoberlib]

4. Here's a link to the NYT article .

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html?_r=1

[ReRe]

5. J. Edgar Hoover...

... was everything that he accused MLK,JR of being. Hoover was the embodiment of Satan himself. A disgustingly vile excuse for a human being. Is it any wonder that psychopaths run this country?

[McCamy Taylor]

6. Hoover is what happens when you tell a man that his sexual preference makes him bad

and therefore, he has to atone. His every action speaks of self-hatred. He was desperate to be accepted. This is the real reason that the right wing insists that homosexuality is deviant---so they can fill people will self hatred and turn them into their obedient little fascist foot soldiers. If there is a Heaven, MLK Jr has forgiven Hoover for what he did and Hoover has forgiven himself for what he was.

[woo me with science]

9. kick

[Octafish]

11. Dr. King, after visiting J Edgar Hoover, to "apologize'' for criticizing FBI.

[Triana]

12. Was this before or after the "kill yourself" letter?

Was Googling around trying to find out -- and found this article about the letter, too and an interesting tidbit near the end:

. . .

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT — STILL ABUSING ITS POWER

Today, Hoover’s tenure as the director of the FBI is largely marred as a time when officials in a position of authority abused their power over extreme — and often, baseless — national security concerns. According to Gage, a copy of the wiretap request against King sits on the desk of current FBI Director James Comey “as a reminder of the bureau’s capacity to do wrong” (a side note: despite his abuse of authority, the federal government named the FBI’s Washington, D.C. headquarters after J. Edgar Hoover — the building still bears his name)

Recently, the federal government has come under fire over similar domestic surveillance programs — including ones that were notoriously exposed last summer by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, and others that have bubbled up in various newspaper and television reports. Among other things, the federal government has collected the telephone metadata of every American phone customer, asked for a greater ability to hack into the computer systems of individuals suspected of wrongdoing, and guided the authorization and completion of local surveillance “fusion” centers — all in the name of “homeland security,” the same reason offered by Hoover for the creation of COINTELPRO some five decades ago.

While Hoover may have failed in his quest to disrupt the personal and professional life of King with his audacious and salacious accusations of King, today’s media will not be so reserved when presented with a juicy scoop about the private life of an individual in the public eye. The Red Scare of a half-century ago has been replaced with a concern of terrorism, which government officials regularly invoke to justify broader collection and surveillance authorizations (and which are almost always approved). The suicide letter serves as an example of what an unchecked government can, and will, do with a vast amount of knowledge and authority on citizens with whom it disagrees.

The letter and story and the civil suit won in 1999 about a conspiracy to murder MLK is most assuredly real. I've seen it before this but can't remember where. I think it was part of some documentary I watched recently. The person who found it unredacted in the National Archives is a historian at Yale and Beverly Gage, a professor at Yale is the one who wrote about it in the NYT. (she may be the one who found it, I'm not sure).

[Octafish]

13. The picture was taken December 1, 1964.

I believe Dr. King received the letter in November 1964.

Dr. King had visited J Edgar Hoover at the "Seat of Government" FBI HQ to personally apologize for implying in public statements he thought the FBI was slow in investigating the murders of Civil Rights activists.

http://libpress.colorado.edu/?p=1991

Nice guy, that Hoover.

[Triana]

14. Wow. Sort of as I figured.

[Number23]

17. This makes no sense

"a great liability to us Negroes"

Who is supposed to have written this letter?

[PCIntern]

18. Google is your friend

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/therootdc/post/was-j-edgar-hoover-black/2011/11/20/gIQAZcu3kN_blog.html

[Number23]

19. Perhaps a better version of Google is needed because that article doesn't come close to answering

my question.

There is nothing to suggest that Hoover ever identified himself as black to anybody, let alone to a man that he was terrorizing and allegedly demanding that he kill himself.

[foo_bar]

21. wait, is anyone claiming Hoover personally wrote the letter?

"Lend your sexually psychotic ear to the enclosure... filthy, dirty... male and females giving expression... your sexual orgies, you filthy, abnormal animal"

The author of this piece is clearly... invested in the subject.

[Number23]

22. That's what I'm trying to figure out!

It is such a bizarre letter and the reference to "us Negroes" is completely weird.