Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. And the International Hunt for His Assassin

CHAPTER 33

1812 REDUX

⁵¹⁸ "Please know that I join you": King senior to Johnson, telegram, quoted in Risen, Nation on Fire, p. 89.

⁵¹⁹ "If I were a kid in Harlem": Busby, Thirty-first of March, p. 238.

⁵²⁰ "Help us, Lord": Ibid., p. 239.

⁵²¹ "take as many white people": Stokely Carmichael, quoted in Risen, Nation on Fire, p. 93.

⁵²² "Gentlemen, I think you better see this": Busby, Thirty-first of March, p. 239.

⁵²³ Morris S. Clark: Here I consulted the FBI Crime Lab's initial fiber analysis in "Report of the FBI Laboratory, FBI, April 17, 1968, Evidence Recovered in Front of 424 So. Main St. April 4th, 1968," p. 9, Hughes Collection.

⁵²⁴ quickly dispatched to Rompage: See Frank, American Death, p. 142.

⁵²⁵ tiny tag was made of white tape: Here I primarily consulted the eighteen-page FBI report "Investigation to Trace the Laundry Marks Found on Underwear Abandoned near the Scene of the Shooting of Dr. King," Hughes Collection.

⁵²⁶ "I thought of the brittle smile": Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, p. 450.

⁵²⁷ "Martin was unworried": Ibid.

⁵²⁸ "Daddy is lying down in the back": Coretta Scott King, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., p. 325.

⁵²⁹ "I'd look around": Dexter Scott King, Growing Up King, p. 52.

⁵³⁰ "Mother knew I was avoiding": Ibid.

⁵³¹ "looked so young and smooth": Coretta Scott King, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., p. 325.

⁵³² "Uncle Andy, this man": Young, Easy Burden, p. 470.

⁵³³ buying a one-way ticket: My account of Ray's bus trip north is drawn from his statements and testimony in House Select Committee on Assassinations (hereafter HSCA), Appendix Reports, vol. 3, p. 245, as well as from his two books, Tennessee Waltz, p. 81, and Who Killed Martin Luther King? p. 98. I also consulted Ray's own account for his lawyers, "20,000 Words," Hughes Collection.

⁵³⁴ DR. KING SHOT: Atlanta Constitution, April 5, 1968, p. 1.

⁵³⁵ checked his suitcase in to a locker: HSCA, Appendix Reports, vol. 3, p. 245.

⁵³⁶ boarded a second bus: Ibid.

⁵³⁷ bottle of the finest sherry: Oral history with Ramsey Clark, interview 4, conducted by Harri Baker on April 16, 1969, Johnson Presidential Library.

⁵³⁸ "We had considerably more evidence": Author interview with Clark, Oct. 9, 2008, New York City.

⁵³⁹ "We are virtually unique": Clark, Crime in America, p. 95.

⁵⁴⁰ "to dam the flood": DeLoach, Hoover's FBI, p. 230.

⁵⁴¹ now occupied by federal troops: My depictions of the D.C. riots here are largely drawn from Risen, Nation on Fire, and Gilbert et al., Ten Blocks from the White House.

⁵⁴² "the air of a parliament": The columnist Mary McGrory, quoted in Risen, Nation on Fire, p. 127.

⁵⁴³ "In all my life": Author interview with Clark.