The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; James Earl Ray

JAMES EARL RAY: In essence I would have told the trial court and jury that I did not shoot Martin Luther King, Jr., just as I am now telling this committee. And if I would have had a lawyer to represent me I could have offered conclusive proof in support of this denial.

ROBERT MacNEIL: Surrounded by the full panoply of a congressional hearing, James Earl Ray comes from prison to deny being the killer of Martin Luther King.

Good evening. James Earl Ray, sentenced nearly a decade ago for the murder of Martin Luther King, appeared before the House Assassination Committee today and said firmly he was not the killer. It was a story Ray has told often in recent years in his effort to recant his original confession and win a new trial. But the drama of today`s setting gave new emphasis to his plea: live television, a heavy guard of federal marshals, and a committee eager to restore its own prestige. After testifying for over two hours this morning, Ray pleaded exhaustion and was excused until tomorrow morning. Civil rights leaders, claiming there was a conspiracy to murder King, have urged the Justice Department to support a new trial. They were told the department would look at any new evidence the committee turned up. Tonight, the credibility of James Earl Ray. Jim Lehrer is off; Charlayne Hunter- Gault is in Washington. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, James Earl Ray, fifty years old, has spent most of his adult life as a criminal. He`s been variously portrayed as inept, bumbling, aimless and a loner; and because of his frequent es cape attempts he earned the cellblock nickname "the mole." A native of Alton, Illinois, Ray was the eldest of nine children, the son of an alcoholic father. He dropped out of school in the tenth grade, drifted a while and then joined the Army. Later he was sentenced to hard labor for drunkenness and eventually discharged for ineptness. Beginning with a typewriter theft in Los Angeles, he engaged in petty burglary and other crimes over the next ten years. An account of one getaway from a holdup said he forgot to close the car door and fell out as the vehicle swerved around a corner.

After serving about eight years of a twenty-year sentence, he escaped from the Missouri State Prison on his third attempt, in 1967. He then traveled to numerous cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico, using a variety of aliases.

Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968. On April 17, 1968 a federal warrant was issued in Birmingham for Eric Starvo Galt, one of those aliases. On May 7, 1968, Ray was indicted for the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; on June 8, 1968, he was arrested in London. On March 10, 1969, he pleaded guilty to that murder. And on August 16, 1978, this morning, he said he didn`t do it. He pointed the finger at others instead, including the FBI.

RAY: I know several large publishing houses working with the FBI have offered up varied motivational allegations, which are referred to below, in support of the government case against me. But it was not I who posted Martin Luther King the note suggesting he kill himself; rather it was the FBI. Nor was it the witness who celebrated upon hearing of his death; that too was the FBI. And it was also not I who in the 1930s infected blacks with syphilis germs for experimental purposes, then decline to treat them. That was the action of a governmental body with the acquiescence of a dominant press.

The FBI was also harassing various members of my family in order to maneuver them into a position whereby they would have to perjure themselves against me in some matter related to the King case in order to escape imprisonment themselves.

For instance: the FBI evidently burglarized my sister Carol Pepper`s home in 1968 looking for incriminating evidence. See Jack Anderson column November 8, 1977.

Number two: the FBI had my brother John L. Ray prosecuted and convicted for aiding and abetting a bank robbery, and the trial judge, now FBI director William H. Webster, sentenced him to eighteen years, while the actual robber later had his charge transferred to the eastern district of California where a federal judge, M.D. Croaker, sentenced the robber to eighteen months.

Three: and the wire services reported on August 8, 1978, that the FBI had paid an informer, Oliver Paterson, to steal letters, wiretap conversations, etcetera, from another brother, Jerry W. Ray.

HUNTER-GAULT: Following his escape from prison Ray fled to Canada. He wanted to travel elsewhere but lacked documents and money. Hanging out at a seamen`s bar later, he said he met a man named Raoul, the mysterious gun running figure Ray claims later set him up and framed him for Dr. King`s murder. They met each other`s needs for gun running and money. So far no one has been able to prove Raoul`s existence, but Ray clings firmly to his story about him.

RAY: I first met him in the Neptune Tavern, 121 West Commissioner Street. He was approximately thrity-five to forty years old, five feet nine inches tall, with dark hair and a red tan, and he spoke with a slight Spanish accent. I assumed from his demeanor and conversation that our interests could be compatible, and after a couple of meetings it was established that I was interested in some type of travel documents while his interest was in locating someone who would, for a price, help him move some type of contraband through United States Customs at the Canadian border.

His proposals and my acceptance were in essence that I would meet him in Windsor, Canada, at approximately 3:30 p.m. August 21, 1967, near the railroad station in my automobile; that he would then provide me with certain packages to transport across the border into the United States; four, that I would for transporting the packages into the United States be provided with travel documents and an unspecified amount of money; that thereafter I would sell the Plymouth automobile and travel to Birmingham, Alabama, wherein I would again meet Raoul for some similar type of smuggling operations, apparently in Mexico. Raoul had initially suggested I go to Mobile, Alabama.

HUNTER-GAULT: Ray said he and Raoul smuggled guns from the United States to Mexico, and in April their smuggling activities brought them to Memphis. We pick up his testimony relating to the day of the murder. Raoul, he said, had sent him to purchase infrared binoculars for nighttime viewing.

RAY: After returning to the Main Street rooming house I told Raoul we would have to purchase the infrared attachments at an Army surplus store. I also in formed him that I had not eaten since breakfast. He said go on and have a meal and take in a movie, since he wanted to see some people in private that evening, but to leave the Mustang out in front, as he would mostly likely need it that evening or night. I then went downstairs into Jim`s Grill and ordered a beer, although I did not drink it.

I say this because I recall seeing a white waitress on one occasion while was in the establishment, and on. the next occasion there was a black waitress on duty. The point, if I can digress here, that I`m trying to make here is I was in the grill on two different occasions, at least.

Leaving the grill, I sat in the Mustang ten or fifteen minutes before traveling north on Main Street and entering a bar and restaurant located on the left-hand side of the street and fairly near a movie house across the street.

I ordered a sandwich, and while sitting there recalled that I had changed the back rear tire on the right side when facing the front of the Mustang the day before, after the tire had developed a slow leak. Thinking the damaged tire could be fixed, especially if the Mustang should be used that night, I returned to the Mustang and drove it north on Main Street for maybe three or four blocks before turning right and traveling four or five more blocks to a service station.

There were two or three service stations at the intersection. I inquired at one if they could fix the spare tire while I waited, and I was informed that I would have to wait a while because of the business volume.

Moving to the other station I do not recall asking for the tire to be repaired, although I did have the Mustang serviced. Upon leaving the station I circled around in the manner that would return me to the original parking space in front of Jim`s Grill.

However, when driving onto Main Street I saw a police car parked, blocking off the street that I would have had to drive through in order to return to my original parking space. In addition, I saw what appeared to be two or three people running, or walking rather fast, opposite the police car. I then veered off to the left toward South Memphis, traveling through what appeared to be a predominantly black community. I eventually ended up in Mississippi, traveling toward New Orleans, Louisiana.

It was my intention to phone a New Orleans number in my possession and have the other party on the other end attempt to find out what, if anything, had happened in the area of the aforementioned Main Street rooming house. However, shortly after entering the State of Mississippi I heard over the car radio that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been shot in Memphis.

A short while later, approximately fifteen minutes, another news bulletin on the radio stated police authorities were looking for a white Mustang and a white male subject as suspect in the shooting of Dr. King. Consequently, the first intersection I came to I turned east toward Atlanta, Georgia.

If I may digress here just a second, in respect to this tire I mentioned, three or four years ago my brother was talking about my private property in Memphis, and he said that as soon as I plead guilty the Attorney General`s office called him to the office and gave him this tire plus the floorboards out of the Mustang -- the floor mats out of the Mustang. But I imagine the Memphis prosecutor`s office will substantiate that or disprove it.

Continuing the statement -- by way of Birmingham, Alabama. Shortly after turning east I stopped the Mustang and threw various items out of the trunk, includ ing all of the camera equipment that Raoul had me purchase for him. The equipment was still in the original wrapping cases when I discarded it. It was raining slightly at the time, and I took a cloth and attempted to wipe off any fingerprints I may have left on the outside of the Mustang.

HUNTER-GAULT: Ray closed his statement with a scathing attack on one of his lawyers, Percy Foreman. He hired Foreman shortly after his arrest for the King murder, but soon thereafter Ray fired him. Ray claims that Foreman talked him into a false plea of guilty.

RAY: The attorney Foreman then commenced, on February 13, 1969, maneuvering me into a guilty plea. Foreman`s arguments for the plea were, in essence: one, that the press had already convicted me by inflaming the minds of potential jurors; that the government had bribed an alleged witness, Charles Stevens, into perjuring himself against me by offering Stevens $100,000 reward to say he had saw someone favoring me leaving the rooming house where Dr. King was allegedly shot from, immediately after the shot was fired; three, that it would in some manner be in my financial interest to plead guilty as charged; four, that the trial judge wanted a guilty plea because he was concerned the blacks might burn down the town. In respect to Percy Foreman and the judge`s exparte meetings, arranged the plea, apparently the two had eight meetings.

Then later, in March 1969, Foreman said that if the case was not settled through a guilty plea the government would most likely arrest my brother, Jerry W. Ray, under some type of conspiracy charge in the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., homicide. He also said that the FBI would most likely arrest my father, George Ray, who was then near seventy years old, and have him returned to the Iowa State Prison wherein he had escaped in the 1930s.

If I may digress here just a second, Mr. Chairman, my brother John Ray also mentioned this fact to me around March 7 or 8 of 1969. And I think Mr. Fore man, he made an oblique reference to this thing. He didn`t come right out and say it directly, but he made kind of a slanting reference to it.

Returning to the statement, in conjunction with the aforementioned threats and promises, Percy Foreman convinced me he would throw the case if I managed to force him to trial. In fact, in an article published in Look magazine in May of 1961 sold to the publication Percy Foreman for $1,000, he in effect admitted he would have thrown the case if I would have forced him to trial. Consequently, through written contracts, I agreed on March 9, 1969, to enter the guilty plea.

HUNTER-GAULT: Ray will continue his testimony tomorrow morning. Rob

MacNEIL: Now a little perspective on today`s testimony for the benefit of those of us who have not followed-in intimate detail the often confusing allegations and counter allegations in the race saga. The Reverend Jesse Jackson was a staff member of Martin Luther King`s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Yesterday he asked the Justice Department to support a new trial for Ray. Reverend Jackson, do you believe nay`s statement today that he did not kill Martin Luther King?

Rev. JESSE JACKSON: I am convinced that James Earl Ray did not act alone. It has not yet been established that he killed Dr. King conclusively, and yet it has not been established that he did not, because he certainly was an accomplice to that murder. We do know that he bought that rifle, we do know that he had fingerprints on that rifle; and so unless he is willing to give more information about the existence of Raoul than he has presently, then he is going to have to suffer that burden alone.

MaCNEIL: You`ve talked to him personally, I believe. How do you evaluate Ray`s credibility now?

JACKSON: Well, I believe Ray really is a pathological liar. I mean, he is a subculture criminal. Ray`s object for wanting to talk with us was to get out of jail, and our object for talking with Ray was to try to find out the truth, to find out not only Ray but who all was involved in the assassination of Dr. King. I think we need to establish that Ray is not this stumbling, bumbling, inept guy. If you will listen to him reading his testimony, you will find a guy that`s finely coherent and literate, who reads well and has a command of the language that`s very different from the images we`ve gotten of Ray historically.

MacNEIL: I was going to say that listening to him just now I felt it hard to believe that that was his own language that he was reading.

JACKSON: Well, the fact is that he was reading it so well and so rapidly and using words as he digressed, words like "oblique", which are not words that are very common. Now, my only point is that Ray is not someone that`s kind of stupid and kind of out of it, with a faraway look in his eye. As a matter of fact, we took Dr. Alvin Toussaint with us, a Harvard psychiatrist, just to kind of clinically observe some of Ray`s demeanor; and among other things, Ray never had a psychiatrist to view him during this ten-year period, and usually lawyers, I mean as a very elementary step, are trying to have a psychiatrist to view their client so as to determine their fitness, trying to appeal to a judge for some mercy. My real conclusion was that Ray was involved, even more involved than he has told us so far. I think Ray knows much more about Raoul than he has told us. But what I`m really concerned about is the involvement of the FBI.

From the time Dr. King received the Nobel peace prize until one hour before the assassination, the FBI was on him twenty-four hours a day, with up to twenty-five men, never less than seven; thousands of man hours, millions of dollars. And it is said in some of the documents here in Washington that the same kind of vigorous search with which they go after a Russian or a foreign espionage agent or spy, all of those techniques and more were used on Dr. King. So we do know that the FBI did in fact engage in character assassination. Whether or not they went as far as physical assassination, that ultimately must come out as well at these hearings.

MacNEIL: Can I ask you this, Reverend Jackson: I`m wondering why you and Ralph Abernathy and others are not willing to wait until this committee has come up, after its exhaustive investigation, with its conclusions. Do you believe the committee has more evidence that would support Ray`s plea for a new trial?

JACKSON: Well, really, we do support the committee. I think that inasmuch as there have been some attempts in the last few days to not refund or to extend its funding, we`ve simply tried to be as visible as possible, letting the Congress and the nation know that it is not right to cut off their money. We think that during this week Ray has a chance to substantiate whether or not he deserves a trial. If indeed, in my judgment, Ray does not come with much more clarity than he has come on Raoul, and Jerry Ray and Jerry Ray`s relationship to Percy Foreman, and Percy Foreman`s relationship to whoever hired him, then he does not deserve a trial. He has a splendid opportunity to come clean before the nation.

MacNEIL: But he has not yet, in your view, so far as today`s testimony is concerned, substantiated his claim to a new trial.

JACKSON: My impression of that is that Ray is holding back, either because he`s still trying to protect his family or because he`s intimidated and his life is threatened. But I get the impression that when hit with the critical questions by Congressman Louis Stokes there was a kind of hedging on some of the areas where he must come much clearer in.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: A New York Times investigative unit has been following the work of the Assassination Committee and doing its own investigations into Dr. King`s murder. The chief of that unit is veteran reporter Nicholas Horrock. Nick, in your view, did anything new come out today?

NICHOLAS HORROCK: There were giblets. He told us today for the first time in his own words how he really gets out of the Missouri State Penitentiary, which he lied about the first time, allegedly to protect a fellow prisoner. He tells us a little bit more about his money and his movements about the country. But in fact, with the exception of his mention of some material developed by Mark Lane, his layover, through freedom of information -- that is, the report that a man who bent over Dr. King at his death may have been an undercover policeman from Memphis Police Department -there was very little new. And even that report had had some currency prior to that, but it has never been investigated properly.

HUNTER-GAULT: You brought that up about the appearance of this person. Does that change anything, the appearance of this undercover agent, the document?

HORROCK: I think it points up that the ground investigation, from the beginning, was inadequately carried out. Reverend Jackson, for example, was at the scene and was not interviewed by the FBI. Reverend Abernathy testified yesterday he wasn`t interviewed. So some very basic ground work was not done either by police or the bureau, and this new report would show that that might be very important -- who he was, why he was there, and so forth.

HUNTER-GAULT: And that might be the basis for some of the claims.

HORROCK: Conspiracy claims, yes.

HUNTER-GAULT: Let me just pursue this question: did you find Ray a credible witness today? There were many commentators who said he appeared nervous and rambling and incoherent at times.

HORROCK: He`s been in a jail for ten years, and a lot of it alone; and I think that accounts for all of that kind of emotion. I think it`s a poor day to judge him. He really hasn`t been on this kind of a scene before. But on the other hand, as far as credibility, I think the question of why Raoul remained such a flat character. We never know much about Raoul. Now, he spends time -- six or seven hours of conversation; he has not one anecdote, not one interesting little thing; Raoul is flat, and he`s always been flat in anything Ray has said or written. And so that raises a serious question, in my mind, of credibility.

HUNTER-GAULT: But in terms of your investigations, have you been able to come up with anything more substantial about this shadowy figure?

HORROCK: Not anything about Ray, but I think it is very important to notice the one thing that the Justice Department criticizes its own FBI for: not examining Ray`s relationship with his family. And I know that many of the House investigators speculate that the one person or two people that he might not want to tell more about who might be somehow connected with this would be members of his own family, his loved ones. So there is a question whether Raoul exists, and if he doesn`t exist, is he someone Ray cannot talk about?

HUNTER-GAULT: Right. One final question, and quickly: some people have characterized this hearing as a catharsis, others as a circus. How do you view it?

HORROCK: I hope it`s not a circus. I have a personal feeling about -I hope it is not a circus, but I think this committee has squandered an awful lot of money over the thing and an awful lot of time, and left the American people at this juncture with very little more information.

HUNTER-GAULT: And none of the evidence that has come up today, even the small bits and pieces, in your mind, justify it?

HORROCK: Not yet.

HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Reverend Jackson, do you believe that even if James Earl Ray doesn`t come clean on the mysterious character of Raoul and even if his own personal credibility is not established, there is enough doubt to justify the new trial that you went to see Assistant Attorney General Civiletti about yesterday?

JACKSON: Well you know, whether we go the route of trial or hearing becomes kind of technical and legal language. I think that even if Raoul is a flat character and Ray is perhaps a liar, a subculture criminal, the fact that the FBI had such a tremendous commitment to destroying this man`s character and ultimately his life suggests that Ray is operating within a context of some conspiracy. He may have been a cog in a wheel so small that he can`t get beyond the flat character, but we are fairly convinced that circumstantial evidence suggests that there was other involvement, perhaps the government.

MacNEIL: I see. What`s your view on that, Mr. Horrock? Do you think that apart from Ray`s credibility, are there enough doubts from your investigation to justify a new examination of this -- in a courtroom?

HORROCK: I think that the greatest loss to the country was there wasn`t originally a trial. I think there should be a new examination. On the other hand, as an investigator, the trail is very cold now, there are people dead; the Times developed information about two men who were allegedly offered money to kill Dr. King. Both of them are dead. Had the FBI followed up on that report when they first learned of it, at least one of those men probably would have been alive and at least they could have interviewed him. So I`m not sure that it can be repaired now, but I do think it`s worth trying.

MacNEIL: Despite your doubts about the work of this committee, does its labor so far constitute a sufficient forum of investigation, or would only a trial, the formal proceedings in a trial, answer the demand?

HORROCK: I think a trial would be preferable, because throughout Watergate and our other experience in Washington the one thing that reminds people to be truthful is the fact you can go to jail for perjury. The committee does have, indirectly, that kind of power, contempt power, but it is indirect and it is not as lethal as a grand jury and an immediate indictment.

MacNEIL: Reverend Jackson, do you and Reverend Ralph Abernathy have any have any fear that because you as former colleagues and close friends of Dr. King believe there are doubts about the case that you may be being used by James Earl Ray as part of his, as you said earlier, attempt to get out of jail?

JACKSON: Well, I think it`s very clear that James Earl Ray wants to use us to get back to court, and we want to use the presence and the existence of James Earl Ray to find out who all was involved in this assassination. We are not deceived for one moment as to what Ray`s motives are. I think the real issue here is that there has never been a trial, and there was a tremendous amount of information squashed, perhaps a tremendous number of people killed. Let us not forget that one man in the FBI who had a tremendous body of data, a Mr. Sullivan, the number three man in the FBI, who had somewhat broken with the Hoover line, this line that Dr. King was a Communist threat to the country and therefore had to be destroyed, mysteriously this man was mistaken to be a deer in Vermont and killed. He would represent a real connection with the whole FBI theory.

MacNEIL: We have to leave it there, Reverend Jackson. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Horrock. Good night, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. We`ll be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.