Documents Show FBI Threats to Martin Luther King Jr.

Written by: Tiobe

Attempting to discredit political figures by publicly shaming them about their sex lives, especially their extramarital affairs, is nothing new.

Yale University professor of American History Beverly Gage was recently researching Edgar Hoover for a biography when she discovered an uncensored letter Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sent to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

William Sullivan, one of Hoover’s underlings, drafted and sent the hate-filled document. In it, the author begins by refusing to acknowledge King as a reverend or as Dr. King, and repeatedly refers to him as a fraud and sexual deviant. Sullivan tells King “you are done,” that there is only one way out for King, that his “end is approaching,” suggesting either suicide or resignation.

The letter demands King leave public life within 34 days of receipt of the letter, presumably to prevent King from accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, but King remained unaware of the letter until his return from Oslo.

The words “fraud,” “evil,” and “abnormal” are used about a half-dozen times throughout the letter, and Sullivan alludes to King being a beast and an animal numerous times.

For someone as fond of the word “fraud” as the person who penned this letter, it is interesting Sullivan affected grammatical errors and pretended to be African American, even saying, “you know you are a complete fraud and great liability to us Negroes.”

Included with the letter was a recording that allegedly captured King in the throes of adulterous passion. King’s wife Coretta reportedly received and opened the packet first, then turned it over to her husband, who then assessed how to proceed with a team of his friends and advisors.

Hoover’s agents began leaking information of King’s extramarital activities to the press, information gathered in a spy operation aimed at King’s friendship with Communist Stanley Levison. When the media did little to nothing with the story, a frustrated Hoover held a Nov. 18, 1964 press conference denouncing King, and Sullivan sent his letter days later.

One wonders how this drama would have played out with today’s media, especially in light of National Security Agency (NSA) mass surveillance. If members of the NSA or FBI leaked potentially humiliating or scandalous secrets about one of our leaders to the press, would that leader have any chance of retaining their position?

“To a scandal-hungry media, the bedroom practices of our public officials and moral leaders are usually fair game. And a sex scandal is often — though not always — a cheap one-way ticket out of public life,” notes Gage in her New York Times Magazine piece. “Faced with today’s political environment, perhaps King would have made different decisions in his personal affairs. Perhaps, though, he never would have had the chance to emerge as the public leader he ultimately became.”

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Sources:

http://theantimedia.org/fbi-threats-to-martin-king-jr/

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