918
IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF SHELBY COUNTY,
TENNESSEE FOR THE THIRTIETH JUDICIAL
DISTRICT AT MEMPHIS
_______________________________________________
CORETTA SCOTT KING, MARTIN
LUTHER KING, III, BERNICE KING,
DEXTER SCOTT KING and YOLANDA KING,
Plaintiffs,
Vs. Case No. 97242-4 T.D
LOYD JOWERS, and OTHER UNKNOWN
CO-CONSPIRATORS,
Defendants.
_______________________________________________
BE IT REMEMBERED that the
above-captioned cause came on for Hearing on
this, the 24th day of November, 1999, in the
above Court, before the Honorable James E.
Swearengen, Judge presiding, when and where
the following excerpt of proceedings were
had, to wit:
Volume VII
DANIEL, DILLINGER, DOMINSKI,
RICHBERGER, WEATHERFORD
COURT REPORTERS
Suite 2200, One Commerce Square
Memphis, Tennessee 38103
(901) 529-1999
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(901) 529-1999
919
- APPEARANCES -
For the Plaintiff:
DR. WILLIAM PEPPER
ATTORNEY AT LAW
575 MADISON AVENUE
NEW YORK, NY 10022
(212) 605-0515
For the Defendant:
MR. LEWIS GARRISON
ATTORNEY AT LAW
LAW OFFICES OF LEWIS K.
GARRISON, SR.
100 NORTH MAIN
SUITE 1025
MEMPHIS, TN 38103
(901) 527-6445
Reported by: MS. KRISTIN M. PETERSON
Court Reporter
Daniel, Dillinger,
Dominski, Richberger,
Weatherford
One Commerce Square
Suite 2200
Memphis, TN 38103
DANIEL, DILLINGER, DOMINSKI, RICHBERGER, WEATHERFORD
(901) 529-1999
920
- INDEX -
WITNESS: PAGE NUMBER
JACK SALTMAN
Direct Examination
By DR. PEPPER. . . . . . . . 921
CLAY CARSON
Direct Examination
By DR. PEPPER. . . . . . . . 969
EXHIBITS
Exhibit 14. . . . . . . . . . . . 941
Exhibit 15. . . . . . . . . . . . 943
Exhibit 16. . . . . . . . . . . . 964
Exhibit 17. . . . . . . . . . . . 966
Exhibit 18. . . . . . . . . . . . 969
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* PROCEEDINGS *
THE COURT: Bring the jury out.
(Whereupon, the jury enters the
courtroom.)
THE COURT: Good morning, ladies
and gentlemen.
Mr. Pepper, are you ready to go?
DR. PEPPER: Thank you, Your
Honor. Your Honor, the plaintiffs call
Mr. Jack Saltman.
JACK SALTMAN,
having been first duly sworn, was examined
and testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. PEPPER:
Q. Good morning, Mr. Saltman.
A. Morning.
Q. Thank you very much for coming here
this morning on this long flight from England
in light of your back surgery. We are very
grateful that you have made this trip.
Would you state for the record,
please, your full name and address.
A. My name is Jack Saltman,
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S-A-L-T-M-A-N, and my address is Morwenna.
That's M-O-R-W-E-N-N-A, the Causeway Claygate
in the county of Surrey in England.
Q. Mr. Saltman, can you tell us what has
been your -- your profession over the years?
A. I started off as a print journalist
in newspapers. I went into television in
1961 and became a television producer,
director, and, finally, editor of major
programs in Great Britain for thirty-five
years.
Q. And which television companies have
you worked with in that capacity?
A. My two main employers were the BBC I
worked for for sixteen years and a company
called Thames, that's T-H-A-M-E-S, as the
River Thames, for -- also for sixteen years,
but I also did coproductions with a number of
American companies like Home Box Office and
ABC television.
Q. In actual fact, when did you have the
first contact with the case of the
assassination of Martin Luther King?
A. 1978 to celebrate -- celebrate is the
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wrong word -- to note the tenth anniversary
of the assassination, I was asked to produce
and direct a one-hour documentary for BBC
television.
Q. And was that shown in England?
A. That was shown in Great Britain and
sold to a number of other countries.
Although, I'm not sure whether or not it
played in America.
Q. Right. And at that point in time,
did you come to Memphis to work on that
production?
A. Yes, I did. I spent four or five
days in Memphis. That's when James Earl Ray
was in the Brushy Mountain Penitentiary. We
saw him there, and I came to Memphis and then
various other places. We went to New York
and saw the former Attorney General and so
on.
Q. All right. So at that time now, many
years ago, over twenty years ago, you began
to familiarize yourself with this case and
the facts surrounding it?
A. Yes, as I do -- or as I did, I'm
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retired now -- as I did with all major
productions. I did a lot of reading so I
read all the literature that was then
available, and prior to doing mild research,
we had two researchers working on the ground,
and a lot of effort was put into the story to
try to get the facts as right as we possibly
could.
Q. Right. Was there a time then some
years later that you once again became
involved in this case?
A. Yes. In 1990, I think it was. An
idea had been put forward to my company,
Thames Television, that following a program I
produced -- coproduced for Home Box Office in
America and in Britain on the Trial of Kurt
Waldheim, the former secretary general of the
United Nations. We held a trial for our
trial on television, and following that, as a
sort of example of what we could do, and I
was approached with the view to making the
trial of James Earl Ray.
Q. And would you describe how that type
of trial -- documentary trial format works,
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both in the case of the Waldheim trial and
the case of the James Earl Ray trial.
A. With enormous difficulty and colossal
headaches, and as you well imagine, having to
work with an awful lot of lawyers who don't
necessarily agree. And the first problem,
obviously, is to try and get a format that is
legitimate because this is not what I regard
as cheap and nasty television.
The trial of James Earl Ray took a
year and a quarter in the making and cost
around about three million dollars. And we
went to endless trouble to try and get
everybody who was factually available,
retired FBI agents, witnesses.
This was not a television drama.
This was reality insofar as we recorded
everything over ten days, and we finished up
with eighty, ninety hours of material. It
was then with the agreement of both
attorneys, we then tried to balance as a fair
representation of all the evidence.
The judge was a real judge. He had
retired. He had been a federal judge in New
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York, and we had agreed that we would use
Tennessee law. The only concessions we made
to television as such was plainly in a
program that was scheduled to run for four
hours.
We couldn't have openings speeches,
for example, running two hours and forty
minutes each. So we had to have some rules
of engagement, as it were. For the rest, we
stuck religiously. In both cases, the
quality of the attorneys and the judges in
both programs, both Waldheim and James Earl
Ray, reflected the serious nature of what we
did.
In the Waldheim program, we had the
former British Attorney General, Lord
Ralenson(phonetic). We had Alan Ryan, who
was the chief prosecutor for the Office of
Special Investigation in Washington as a
prosecutor.
This was as serious as you could get
on television. It must be set at four
hours. It took a lot of effort on the part
of the audience to watch it and follow it
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because no concessions were made to
shortcuts.
Q. All right. And these trials and this
trial of James Earl Ray was tried over many
days; is that correct?
A. Yes. They were both recorded. My
principle was to let the judge run the day in
exactly the same way as His Honor will run
today. My idea was that the cameras would
always be on the outside looking in. We
would never stop and say "take two" or
anything silly like that.
The idea was we would run
continuously as long as the judge wanted the
court to be in session. So we ran both cases
for something like ten or twelve days in the
Waldheim case; twelve -- seven, eight hours
days. We had fifty-odd witnesses two times.
Q. And in both cases, there was no
script at all, was there?
A. There was no script, only a running
order of the witnesses that their respective
attorneys chose to call that day. The entire
script for the day was about half a page of
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A-4, which really just said these are the
potential witnesses to be called. That's
all.
Q. And the juries were chosen according
to usual jury selection procedures?
A. To get a jury, I think my total bill
was sixty-four thousand dollars. That's a
good question. I had employed a company to
send them -- first of all, I got three cities
agreed between both attorneys that they
thought they were fair cities to attract
jurors from.
For example, New York was regarded
as too liberal a state so that was refused by
the prosecution, and we sent these private
detectives to select or to choose.
We finished up interviewing -- I
think there was twelve hundred and something
jurors. Out of which, we came down to a
hundred and something, which, together with
the two attorneys, we then played videotapes
of them answering the voir dire questions.
At the end of which, we tried to
then balance male, female and to get an
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ethnic mix as well so that it looked fair as
well as being fair, but insofar as we could,
that was as fair a jury as I think it was
possible to get.
Q. All right. And in the case of the
trial of James Earl Ray, that was aired both
in the United States and in United Kingdom?
A. Yes, it was. And in thirty-four
other countries as well, I think.
Q. And when was it shown?
A. It was shown on the anniversary of
the assassination, the twenty-fifth
anniversary, April the 4th, 1993.
Q. All right. And do you recall the
verdict of the jury in that case?
A. The jury were unanimous. The jury
sat for -- I think it was seventeen hours,
and we had two requests for further
information, which the judge and I saw
sitting outside the jury room, and in the
end, they unanimously found James Earl Ray
not guilty of the murder.
Q. Now, Mr. Saltman, moving on, as a
result of this experience and your previous
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work in the case, did you develop an ongoing
interest as to the facts and the details of
this assassination?
A. Yes, sir. As I said, the program
took fifteen months from the start, my first
trip over here to transmission, by which
time, I had got fairly deeply involved with a
number of the people peripheral to the case.
And, yes, I was on the point of
retirement anyway so I had some time on my
hands, and in a way, the story also chased me
because people knew that I produced this mega
program, and people then came to me with
different angles or new angles, and it
certainly -- the program itself, somebody
said it shook a few trees, and one or two
coconuts fell out.
Q. All right. So then did you --
because of all of this, did you begin your
own independent investigation of this case?
A. Together with an associate, who
without stating, lived over here in Memphis.
We did follow a number of leads, yes, and it
cost me quite a lot of money pursuing leads
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for no other reason than I was desperate to
get to what I believed was the truth.
Q. Right. This section of the
plaintiffs' case, Mr. Saltman, deals with the
issue of the existence of a person called
Raul. Did that individual become a focus of
some of your work?
A. That was the sort of second step,
second major step. We -- we -- Raul, of
course, was a name that had first been
broadcast, as it were, in the days when James
Earl Ray had been arrested in London, and the
name Raul has continued to be part of the --
of the dialogue of this case.
When, as a result of the program, I
was approached through an intermediary to
meet someone who claimed to have known "the"
Raul. I was very interested, and I flew over
to meet them.
Q. And did you have a -- a conversation
and a discussion with a source who claimed
acquaintanceship with Raul?
A. Yes. I had a number of conversations
with someone who claimed that she had known
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Raul in the 1960's, yes.
Q. All right. And where did that lead
you?
A. It led in various directions. It
lead, first of all, as a result of the work
of my associate, to getting a photograph of a
man, or at least a photocopy of a photograph,
of a man we believed was the said Raul, and
it also led me to New York state.
Q. Before you went on that path, was
this source of yours -- her name has come up
in Court -- Ms. Glenda Grabo. Was this
source of yours not steering you towards
Houston, Texas?
A. Yes. She claimed that her friendship
with Raul had all taken place in Houston, and
her story was so extraordinary that when I
first heard it, I'd have to say that I was
profoundly skeptical, but, yes, we did go to
Houston, and there was only parts of the
story that I could get corroboration on, but
what I found interesting were that the parts
of the story that I could corroborate were
all corroborated, and, plainly, if you find
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as any journalist that if someone -- the bits
of the story you can check turn out to be
accurate, it leads you to lend more
credibility to the rest of the story. So she
gained in credence.
Can I also just say one other
thing? This lady -- this lady is a very
uneducated lady. She left school when she
was very young. She had a horrendous life of
abuse when she was young by her father and
uncle. She would forget things. She's under
medication.
And I asked her if she would make
notes of things that struck her because I was
perhaps coming over every three or four
months. And I said if -- perhaps you'd be
kind enough to make notes of things that
strike you.
She took this to mean that I wanted
her to write her life story, and in what I
can only describe as a sort of literary
equivalent of Grandma Moses, she wrote her
life story, and this life story was quite
extraordinary because it is -- it's
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semi-literate. It's badly spelled, but it
tells of her life story.
The relevant bits are a tiny, tiny
part of this, and, again, for me, that led to
an enormous amount of credibility because
here's a woman who really was not used to
doing anything remotely like this who had
gone to this much trouble to tell her whole
story, for which these key bits were only a
tiny part.
Q. That's interesting. And she sent
this to you?
A. She sent me -- she gave me the --
yes. It was written in four thick exercise
books that were two sided. It was -- it was
some work just to read it.
Q. When you went to Houston, did you at
one point or another speak with a former
federal judge who had some knowledge of some
of the events in which this lady spoke?
A. I think he was a state judge rather
than a federal judge, but I stand to be
corrected on that.
I had been given his name through a
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contact of a contact and only managed to get
hold of him when we were at the airport
waiting to fly back to Little Rock, and then
drive to Memphis, and I rang him up on the
off chance and said -- asked him if he knew
anything about a man called Raul, and he came
back with a whole raft of material which
astounded me because I gave him no prompting
at all other than to ask him if he knew
anything about a man called Raul who had
been, as he were, moving around in Houston in
the 1960's.
He said that he, as a young
attorney, had defected a number of drug --
gun runners, I'm sorry, gun runners, and
that it was known -- the name Raul came up
quite frequently as the, quote, Mr. Big, of
the gun runners.
He said, I never met him, but he was
quite well known. It was also alleged, he
said, that he had been involved with a
federal agency in the illicit shipping of
arms to the Somoza Regime in Nicaragua.
Q. And did that tend to corroborate
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anything that the witness, Ms. Grabo, had
told you?
A. Well, Ms. Grabo had told me that she
had acted as a driver for Raul and for his
cousin or uncle, Amorro(phonetic), and that
he had -- she had driven down to the dock
side in Houston. She had been given
photographs of the guards on the gates, and
only if certain guards were on duty did she
then drive in.
And at the bottom of the gang plank
of a certain designated ship, there were
wooden boxes which she subsequently
discovered contained disassembled guns. Not
small guns like pistols, as she put it, but
larger caliber weaponry.
And it's plainly fitted in with what
we had also discovered, that this same Raul
that we had met, having seen his
naturalization papers -- not his papers, but
his application -- we knew that he had been
working in an armor factory in Portugal -- in
Lisben, capital of Portugal -- prior to
seeking American naturalization, and I
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believe there was an FBI note on the papers
that suggested it was known that he had been
sending disassembled guns out of Portugal at
this time.
He was supposedly a mechanic, but I
think his papers said he was actually a clerk
in charge of the paperwork which enabled him
to do this.
Q. Did you eventually meet with this
judge in Houston?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And did he face-to-face confirm to
you these details?
A. He confirmed the details to me. I'll
tell you the whole story. I was somewhat
disappointed because this is not a case that
you meet upper middle-class people all the
time.
Somebody once said to me in
litigation you tend not to meet too many
upper-class people. This is a case of an
awful lot of people whose words are extremely
dubious.
I thought with this judge we had got
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a wonderful, absolutely bona fide figure.
Now, undoubtedly, he wasn't happy. He was
very, very well respected. He was very well
educated, and I think for twelve or thirteen
years, he'd been a judge of considerable
repute.
I believe personal circumstances
have changed, and I think his career had
taken a very, very steep downward turn. He
was no longer judging. He was earning a
living as an attorney, and was -- he
corroborated everything he said to me on the
phone.
He was not able to give me any solid
leads that I could follow up. He gave me a
lot of names, but they were all people who
either moved off or gone away. Despite many,
many hours of trying to find people on the
phone, I never did.
I was never able to corroborate
anything that he said other than what he said
that corroborated what Glenda Grabo said.
Q. Did you then at some point meet with
a former associate of James Earl Ray's last
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attorney, Percy Foreman?
A. Yes, I did. I went to the company,
which is still called Foreman DeGarren. The
ghost of Percy Foreman hangs large over the
company, big portraits and photographs of him
all around the offices, and I met DeGarren
there, yes.
Q. And was a part of the information
that you had received earlier an indication
of a connection between Percy Foreman and
Ms. Grabo at some point in time?
A. Ms. Grabo had said -- she had told me
as part of her statement that her husband,
Roy, his brother was on a murder charge and
that she had been told that Percy Foreman was
the top man in the business and had gone
along to see him.
She said that he had said he would
charge her five thousand dollars, but that he
would give her three thousand dollars back if
she were to work for him. She said, I paint
houses; what is that going to be -- what use
is that going to be to an attorney. He said,
well, I want you to do some filing.
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I gathered the filing was of a more
sexual nature, and this was acknowledged by
Mr. DeGarren and that that's really what she
was asked to do. She never got the money.
However, when she told Raul --
according to her story, when she told Raul
that she was working for Percy Foreman, he
apparently lost his temper, and there were
furious words between him and Percy Foreman.
Foreman then allegedly rang up
Glenda Grabo and said, your life is in
danger. Now, she claimed by that
statement -- she was driving her car on one
occasion, and her brakes had total failure,
and she was very lucky to escape with her
life, and when she got this warning that her
life was in danger, she sold up her house in
Houston and moved to where she lives now.
Q. Did you at one point obtain a drawing
of Percy Foreman that he had autographed for
Ms. Grabo?
A. Yes. Ms. Grabo gave me -- it was a
cartoon of Percy Foreman, and he had
inscribed it to her in his own handwriting,
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and Michael DeGarren, now the senior partner
at the company, confirmed that that was Percy
Foreman's handwriting, and that it was
exactly the sort of thing that he did with
these little bimbos. I don't know what you
call them. That is the -- that is the
drawing.
Q. That is the -- that is a copy of the
drawing?
A. Yeah.
Q. And is that the signature that was
confirmed by Attorney DeGarren?
A. Yes, it is.
DR. PEPPER: Okay. Plaintiffs
move admission of this drawing.
(Whereupon, a document was marked as
Exhibit 14.)
Q. Did you undertake any other
investigative acts in Houston that made you
more -- more comfortable with Ms. Grabo's
story?
A. We found where the alleged -- the
guns were brought to a house on the dock side
there, and we had it pointed out to us where
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these guns were allegedly assembled.
I also went -- I tried to find out
about his -- his cousin, Amorro, and I went
to the Seamen's Union and discovered that --
that he was a retired seaman and that he had
about three years pension that had
accumulated because it hadn't been claimed,
and they had no forwarding address.
I found a man -- his cousin or
uncle, I'm not sure which, had been in a
hospital, and I found him and collected him
from the hospital, and he had lived with this
man for a few weeks and then had gone to his
sister or niece in Brazil, and I got the
address in Brazil from him.
I wrote and phoned the lady in
Brazil and was told that Amorro had died, so
I was then able to let the Seamen's Union
know that the pension that had accumulated
should go to his estate, or there was no
point in paying it anymore.
But I did discover to my
satisfaction there was an Amorro who did
exist, again, consistent with everything
DANIEL, DILLINGER, DOMINSKI, RICHBERGER, WEATHERFORD
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Glenda Grabo had said. So this together with
the elements and various little pieces began
to build in my mind a conviction that a lot
of what Glenda Grabo said was true, even
though she is a most unlikely source, it must
be said.
Q. Though we're not using the last name
of the family involved here, let me show
you -- it is true, is it, that this Amorro
had the same last name as Raul?
A. Yes, he did.
Q. Let me show you a photograph and ask
if you obtained -- at some point if you
obtained this photograph of the relative of
Raul?
A. I obtained four or five photographs,
and I think that was one of them. I have to
say it's so long since I looked at them, but
I -- but that certainly is him.
DR. PEPPER: That's fine.
Plaintiffs move admission of this
photograph.
THE COURT: All right, sir.
(Whereupon, a document was marked as
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Exhibit 15.)
Q. Now, in the continuation of your
work, did you at some time, from a source,
obtain a photograph of Raul himself?
A. Yes, we did. A contemporaneous
photograph or an old photograph?
Q. A photograph of any nature or any
type.
A. Well, we obtained a photograph that I
believe was the one on his naturalization
papers, so that would have been sixty --
sixty-four was it?
Q. Sixty-seven, I think.
A. Sixty-seven is what it was. I'm
sorry. With age, my memory is beginning --
we got that, and then we -- having got his
address, we then got some contemporaneous
photographs of him.
Q. Right. And when you obtained this
photograph, this naturalization photograph,
immigration naturalization photograph, did
you also obtain information about him? A
kind of report about who he is and where he
came from and that --
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A. Yes. It had on his original home in
Lisbon. It had on the date of his passport,
the number of his passport. It had on his
new social security number and the date he
was naturalized, his then address, and then
it had -- attached to it also was this FBI
comment that it was known that he was
shipping arms out of Portugal when he was
there.
Q. All right. Did you subsequently
learn of a place of employment that was
attributed to him?
A. Yes. I was subsequently told where
he was alleged to have worked, yes.
Q. Do you recall where that was?
A. It was a motor company, but I have to
say I cannot remember.
Q. I'm going to show you -- at what
point did you and or your associates put
together this immigration naturalization
photograph into a spread of photographs that
would be available to show to various
witnesses?
A. You're asking me for a date?
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Q. Not asking for dates. I'm saying did
you --
A. Oh, yes. Sorry. At that state, yes,
we did. What -- with having obtained the
immigration photograph, what we then did was
we got five other similar type photographs,
and we made a spread of six photographs which
I'm told was the sort of thing the police
would do in this sort of a situation, and
then we used that spread to offer it to
witnesses to get them to identify the one
they thought was the said Raul.
Q. Right. Would you take a look at this
spread and tell us if this is the spread that
you put together.
A. Yes.
Q. And, secondly, would you identify the
immigration naturalization photograph that
you received, do you recall?
A. Yes. It's the -- I identify the
spread as being the one I showed. Featured
there is Carlos Marcello and a lawyer who
went to jail for a couple years for helping
Mr. Hoffa, but the actual photograph of Raul
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is the middle one on the right-hand side.
That one there, yes.
Q. You're indicating it's this
photograph?
A. That's right.
Q. All right. And did you show that
spread to various people who had information
about this case?
A. Yes. I think I showed it to four or
five people who were relevant.
Q. At one point did a former lawyer
of -- attorney representing James Earl Ray,
representing him around the time of the
select committee hearings -- did this
attorney happen to see the photograph you've
identified?
A. It was complete happen chance. I had
been to the prison in Nashville to get James
Earl Ray to pick out -- to pick out the face
he said was Raul, and I come back to my
associate's house, and there were a number of
photographs on the table. Not just that
photograph, but a number of different
photographs, some were the contemporaneous
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ones, various odd photographs we had. I had
taken a lot of photographs where the
gentleman lived.
And this attorney picked that
particular photograph up, totally
unsolicited, and we were actually going out
with her partner for a social evening, and
she picked the photograph up and said, I saw
this photograph in 1978.
And it was particularly resonate
because she didn't say, I saw that person;
she said, I saw that photograph in 1978, and
I was absolutely astonished because here was
a direct link of that particular photograph
and that person, so it wasn't just any Raul.
This was very specifically "the" Raul.
And I said, what happened, and she
said, well, there was a name written on the
back of it, and they checked that out, and it
turned out to be policeman and had no
relevance to the photograph. And I said,
well, did you pursue who the photograph was
of.
She had been shown the photograph
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by, I think, house investigators who were
looking into the house assassination's
committee investigation that was going on at
that time, and she said she was shown the
photograph by one of the investigators, and
they had a copy of it in the office.
And I said, did you pursue it, and
she said, at that time we had no money
backing us at all. James Earl Ray obviously
was in no position to pay, and we just did
not have the money to hire private
investigators to go checking so, no.
Why it particularly resonated with
me was because when I went into the prison
with a -- what you call it -- a notary to try
and get James to make a statement about, you
know, who he thought was Raul. As well as
picking that person up, he said that
photograph was around in 1978. I was shown
it then by the house investigators.
Now, these are two people completely
disparate, completely separate, no possible
contact at all, one in Memphis, one in a
prison in Nashville who both identified not
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just the person, but the specific photograph,
mug shot, and I have to say that I found that
very convincing.
Q. Yes, indeed. You showed this
photograph to James Earl Ray in a prison
cell. Did you show him the individual
photograph, or did you show it to him in the
form of a spread?
A. No. Very specifically, I showed it
to him as a spread with the notary as a
witness. James Earl Ray had been under
instructions from his attorney not to sign
anything, which made my life a little bit
difficult. But what I did, I -- the prison
authorities allowed me to take a tape
recorder in with me, and I got James -- and I
still have that tape -- to identify clearly
on tape that that photograph, the one I
identified, was the Raul that he met in the
Neptune Bar in Canada and subsequently drove
a car for and gave the rifle, the .30-06
rifle, to in Birmingham, Alabama.
And I have that tape recording
still, but I also then got the notary who
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witnessed this to go to another public notary
and swear an affidavit to the effect of what
he had seen and heard -- that James Earl Ray,
in his presence, had identified that
particular photograph.
Q. I see. Moving on then, did you at
some point having accumulated this
information, endeavor to contact Raul?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And did you speak with him on the
telephone?
A. Initially, I did. I rang him from my
home in England, and as luck would have it, I
picked a bad day. It was his daughter's
wedding day. And I said that I had met his
cousin in England because his cousin was a
merchant seaman and obviously traveled the
world as a merchant seaman, and I said that I
met his cousin, which was not totally true,
I'm afraid.
But I said that I had met his cousin
and I was trying to contact Amorro, and he
said, yeah -- well, I can't remember the
words, and I wouldn't want to mislead
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anybody. I can't remember the words. This
was a long time ago.
And he -- but he left me no doubt at
all that what he was acknowledging -- that he
had a relation with Amorro, who was in
Houston, and he further acknowledged that he
had been in Houston himself.
He then said, I'm sorry, I can't --
there was pandemonium in the background.
There was an awful lot of very excited
voices, which is not surprising being the
bride's house just before the wedding, and he
said, you know, can you possibly contact me
again, and I rang off.
Q. Right. Did you attempt to contact
him again?
A. Some months later. I can't remember
how long. Some months later, I went around
to his house in New York state and knocked on
the door, and the door -- if I can explain --
was -- there was a wrought iron grille type
door, and then there was a sort of mesh glass
door, a glass door with a mesh on it. They
could obviously see out, but all I could see
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was a sort of dark interior of the house with
shapes. That's all I could see.
First of all, a lady came to behind
the door and started hailing what I can only
imagine was abuse. It was in Portuguese. It
sounded like abuse. It was in Portuguese,
and my Portuguese is nil.
Then she was sort of pushed aside by
someone I assume to be the daughter who got
married. She was dressed in white, and I
could see her white outline, and she spoke
perfect English, and she told me to go away,
what did I want, and I was being a nuisance.
I explained that I was an English
journalist, that I had had various
allegations made to me about her father, and
all I wanted to do was to sit down with her
father. If he wanted, by all means, to bring
an attorney along and sit down with him and
his attorney so I could put the points to him
that I had had made to me and get his
answers.
And I said that if I was convinced
at the end of that conversation that it was
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the wrong Raul and he had nothing at all to
do with this that I would leave them alone
and never get anywhere near them again.
She told me that her father was
indisposed. Now, I knew that was untrue
because I could see vaguely a figure of a
male, and I could hear loud state whispers,
and I was fairly sure that was Raul.
In the meantime, the mother had come
around to a side window and was taking
photographs of me through the side window.
For what reason, I have no idea. And the
daughter kept saying that I wasn't doing my
job properly, and I said, well, I'm trying to
do my job properly by checking the facts
because that's what I do.
I don't go dashing in, you know. We
don't sort of get a story today and print it
tomorrow. My protos take a year in
gestation. So about the same time, it's not
anything really.
And then, you know, I said I was
trying to check my facts, and all I wanted to
do was to speak to her father. She didn't
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want to know about this, said her father was
indisposed.
Then I said, would you have a look
at this photograph and confirm -- or with
words to this effect -- that this photograph
is your father, and she said something to the
effect that -- that anybody could get
naturalization photographs, and if I could
get that, then I could get all the other
answers to what I was chasing anyway and not
to bother them, something to that effect.
She left me no doubt at all that she
had positively identified -- I didn't show
her the spread. I showed her an enlargement
of that photograph.
Q. You just showed her a single
photograph?
A. Yes. Yes. There was no point in
asking her to pick out father because I now
believe that was her father. That seemed to
be an academic exercise, so I showed her a
blow up of that -- well, in fact, the
original size we got it, and I was convinced,
as a result of this conversation -- I felt a
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bit silly talking through this door. It was
like talking to a wooden door.
And I did -- I had taken a
precaution, journalist precaution, because I
did want to get more photographs of Raul to
try and get people to ID him, and I had hired
a photographer with a long telephoto lens,
and in the end I said, look, I will give you
a mobile telephone number; please, ask your
father.
I'd thrown in various names of
people that I had associated with Raul in the
hope that I would stimulate sufficient
interest or concern that he would at least
want to talk to me, and I gave them the
mobile telephone number. I have to say I did
not give him the hotel we were staying at
because I think I was a little bit scared
really.
Q. Okay.
A. And then -- and then I left my
visiting card in the post box outside, and
after we had driven away, we got photographs
of the daughter in white getting the card out
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of the post box and going in the house.
The following day, I rang Raul from
the mobile, and I spoke to him for about ten
seconds, and, basically, he just hailed abuse
at me and slammed the phone down.
I rang back about ten minutes later
hoping he'd cool down and said, look, all I
really want to do is just have a
conversation, a sensible conversation.
If you're totally innocent, what
have you got to fear? If you're not involved
in any of this, the sensible thing -- now,
I've had forty years in journalism, and I
have spoken to an awful lot of people, many
of whom were villains, but many of whom were
innocently involved and caught up in
something, and the people generally are more
than happy to sit down and tell you their
side of the story.
And quite often, you say, well, I'm
sorry I troubled you, I really am, you know.
The last thing I want to do -- the reason we
never went public with the name, nor ever
have done, was because I never felt I got the
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final piece of the jigsaw, and because I
hadn't got that, I thought it would be
wickedly irresponsible to go public with this
person and possibly give them a lot of
grief. That's the job of the law, not of a
journalist like myself.
Q. Could you just --
A. Sorry.
Q. Could you just -- that's all right.
Could you just describe -- it's very
helpful. Could you just describe again for
the jury, so it will help them with the
visualization, of the door and where the
daughter was standing and what was between
you and her, and the second part of the
question is, are you convinced that she could
clearly see the photograph that you showed
her?
A. Yes. The -- it was a modern house in
a row, quite expenses houses. Although, this
was one of the more modest houses in the
row. It was by itself. There was quite a
gap on both sides. There was, I think, three
or four steps up to the front door. The
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front door had an iron grille, an ornate
grille, not a sort of embellished grille,
just a real sort of ornate thing you see in
Spain quite a lot, decorative grilles, and
then there was a sort of a glass door with a
sort of mesh substance.
Now, I could see the shape quite
clearly inside, but it was dark inside.
Outside -- of course, I was in daylight, and
there was no doubt at all that she could see
whatever I was showing her outside. She
didn't say, I can't see the photograph or
anything like that. She acknowledged seeing
the photograph by her answers.
Q. And you are convinced that when she
saw that photograph, she acknowledged that
that was a photograph of her father?
A. I came away absolutely convinced that
she had acknowledge that. Yes, sir, I did.
Q. Mr. Saltman, did you memorialize that
conversation at the front door with her?
A. By memorialize, you mean did I write
it down?
Q. Did you record it?
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A. Record it, sorry. Yes, we did. Yes,
I'm sorry. Yes, sorry. It wasn't really
high-tech I'm afraid. It was just a little
old tape recorder that I had with me which I
had in my pocket.
Yes, I did record it. This is my
own safety because, you know, people
sometimes say I was harassing them or
whatever, and I just wanted to make sure that
there was no -- on tape -- anything remotely
like that.
Q. This is routine practice for you in
pursuing your profession?
A. Well, I should think most
journalists, radio, television and print
these days, carry tape recorders. One, to
get an accurate version of what people say.
The days when journalists like me had to
learn shorthand are long since gone. Yes, in
the modern technology, it is standard.
Q. Mr. Saltman, I'd like you to listen
to a tape recording which you have provided
to us and see if you can authenticate it for
the Court and the jury.
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(Whereupon, a portion of an
audiotape recording was played.)
Q. Would you identify the other voice on
the tape, please.
A. That's the voice of my associate,
Kenneth Herman, who -- with whom I've been
working on this story for an awful long
time. He was a private detective. He's now
retired to Florida, and that's his voice. He
came with me to the door.
Q. Was anyone else with you at the door?
A. No, no one at the door. Just Kevin
and myself.
DR. PEPPER: Okay.
(Whereupon, a portion of an
audiotape recording was played.)
DR. PEPPER: Your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes.
DR. PEPPER: While the
technician sorts out some of the -- of the
interference here, could we take a brief
recess?
THE COURT: Yes, sir.
(Whereupon, a recess was taken.)
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THE COURT: Bring in the jury.
(Whereupon, the jury returns to the
courtroom.)
DR. PEPPER: Thank you, Your
Honor. In order to save the Court's time on
this last day before the holiday, what we've
done is to move this tape, authenticated by
the witness, up to a very critical point
where he shows the photographs and asks the
daughter to look at it.
We will leave -- enter the tape into
evidence, Your Honor, and move to have it
entered into evidence afterward and leave it
available to the Court and the jury to listen
to through headphones at any time if they
want to, but, for now, let us just move us up
to that point in time.
(Whereupon, a portion of an
audiotape recording was played.)
DR. PEPPER: Will you repeat
that?
(Whereupon, a portion of an
audiotape recording was played.)
DR. PEPPER: Once more.
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THE COURT: Just a moment.
Before you play it again, can you all agree
on what she's saying?
DR. PEPPER: Counsel, do you
want to --
MR. GARRISON: Your Honor, I
understand what she said.
DR. PEPPER: We believe she's
saying: You got a photograph from a
naturalization file or thing, and anybody
could get that photograph. Then she goes on
to say: If you got that photograph, you can
get other information that you want.
THE COURT: I can't understand a
word she's saying.
DR. PEPPER: Let's try --
(Whereupon, a portion of an
audiotape recording was played.)
DR. PEPPER: Okay.
THE COURT: All right.
Q. Okay. Mr. Saltman, this is the
conversation that you recall?
A. Yes, it is. Yes, sir.
Q. And you recall this response from
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her: You got this photograph from a
naturalization -- sounded like -- thing?
A. That's right. It's a photocopy of
the photo that was used for his
naturalization papers.
DR. PEPPER: All right. Okay.
Nothing further. Nothing further, Your
Honor.
THE COURT: All right.
Mr. Garrison?
MR. GARRISON: Your Honor, I
have no questions. Thank you.
THE COURT: All right. Thank
you very much. You can stand down now, and
you are free to leave if you'd like, or you
can remain in the courtroom.
THE WITNESS: Thank you, Judge.
(Witness excused.)
DR. PEPPER: Your Honor,
plaintiffs move admission of this tape into
evidence.
THE COURT: All right.
(Whereupon, an audiotape was marked
as Exhibit 16.)
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THE COURT: Call your next
witness.
DR. PEPPER: Yes, Your Honor.
This section of plaintiffs' case deals with
the broader conspiracy in the development of
the case of unknown co-conspirator
defendants.
Plaintiff would like to move into
evidence an article that was published by the
Commercial Appeal on Sunday morning,
March 21, 1993. I'd like to read into the
record just one short portion of that
article, and then turn the entire article
over to the pile of evidence.
That is this section: On March 31,
the president of the United States became a
casualty of Vietnam. Johnson announced he
would not seek reelection. On April 3rd,
King returned to Memphis, Army agents from
the 111th military intelligence group
shadowed his movements and monitored radio
traffic from a sedan crammed with electronic
equipment. Eight -- eight Green Beret
soldiers from an operation detachment Alpha
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180-14 were also in Memphis carrying out an
unknown mission. Such A-teams usually
contained twelve members.
Plaintiff moves this entire article
into admission.
(Whereupon, a document was marked as
Exhibit 17.)
DR. PEPPER: As a result of this
publication, which itself followed an
eighteen-month investigation of the reporter,
Your Honor, plaintiffs' counsel became
involved in this aspect of the case and
settled a procedure whereby evidence could be
developed, and I would like to just move the
admission of an affidavit into evidence with
respect to the procedures that were followed
by counsel in obtaining this evidence. I
will only read a portion of the affidavit
that deals with those procedures.
THE COURT: Affidavit by whom?
DR. PEPPER: Excuse me?
THE COURT: Whose affidavit is
it?
DR. PEPPER: May we approach?
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(Whereupon, a conference at the
bench was held outside the hearing of the
jury.)
DR. PEPPER: With the Court's
permission, I'll continue.
THE COURT: All right, sir.
DR. PEPPER: Paragraph 10:
Initially, in response to precise question --
well, let me start with nine.
From late summer of 1993 through
August of this year, 1995, the time this
affidavit was developed, I have helped Doctor
Pepper in his work.
Initially, in response to precise
questions, I've provided him with detailed
background information. Also at his request,
I carried specific questions to a number of
the covert Army team, which was in Memphis on
that day of the assassination.
This soldier, who now lives outside
of the United States, knew of Doctor Pepper
and agreed to -- he agreed to answer his
questions. Because Doctor Pepper is a lawyer
and, in particular, James Earl Ray's lawyer,
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he would not agree to meet face-to-face with
him. I have known this former Green Beret
now for a number of years and have always
found him to be truthful and reliable.
On behalf of Doctor Pepper, I
traveled to see him on several occasions,
taking with me detailed questions about the
mission in Memphis and other assignments of
his during 1967 to '68. After each trip, I
was debriefed by Doctor Pepper, usually
face-to-face, and subsequently in numerous
telephone conversations.
Both the questions and the
debriefings were detailed and comprehensive.
The soldier would never volunteer
information, neither would he speculate. If
he didn't know the answer, he would say so,
and, occasionally, he refused to comment. I
believe that he was true to form, truthful
and candid in the responses he gave.
Since I was unfamiliar with much of
the subject matter, I was not in a position
to lead the soldier or influence his
answers. That was the procedure that was
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followed over quite a period of time, and
this affidavit was executed on 11 September,
1995.
With the Court's permission, I'd
move its admission into evidence as well as
other documents that we will cover in the
course of this examination. We will,
however, also with the Court's permission and
agreement with counsel be redacting names of
individuals in these documents for their own
safety and security, but to enable the Court
and the jury to have access to the documents.
THE COURT: Okay. You have the
Court's permission.
(Whereupon, a document was marked as
Exhibit 18.)
DR. PEPPER: Plaintiffs call
their next witness, Professor Clay Carson.
CLAY CARSON,
having been first duly sworn, was examined
and testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY DR. PEPPER:
Q. Dr. Carson, good afternoon -- barely
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afternoon. Thank you for joining us here.
You've come some three thousand miles, and I
know that time is precious in terms of your
schedule, so I'd like to just move ahead.
Would you please state your full
name and address for the record.
A. Clayborne Carson, Palo Alto,
California.
Q. And what is your profession?
A. I'm a professor of history at
Stanford.
Q. And what do you -- what is your
relationship to the works and life of Martin
Luther King, Junior?
A. I'm the editor of Martin Luther
King's papers, and I'm director of the Martin
Luther King papers project at Stanford.
Q. And how long have you been in that
position?
A. Fifteen years.
Q. And have you published various works
on Doctor King's work and life?
A. Yes, I have. I've published, I
think, edited or authored five -- I think
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five books on Martin Luther King.
Q. All right. And is the King papers
project at Stanford University an ongoing
project?
A. Yes, it is. It's a long-term project
to publish all of the historically
significant papers of Martin Luther King.
It's been going on for fifteen years. It
will probably go on as long as I go on.
Q. And in your capacity and as part of
that project at Stanford, do you have the
process of collecting documents and materials
of all sorts of natures related to Doctor
King's life, work and death even?
A. Yes, sir. The purpose of the paper
is -- papers project is to assemble all of
the historically significant papers from
archives around the world. We've contacted
probably some two hundred or more archives to
make sure that we have all of the
historically significant papers. Obviously,
the largest collections are those at the King
Center in Atlanta and at Boston University.
Q. Right. And as a part of that
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responsibility, did you receive from me
certain documents, certain reports, with
respect to the assassination of Martin Luther
King?
A. Yes, I did.
Q. And it should be clear to the Court
and Jury that you are not in any way involved
in attesting to the accuracy or the validity
of this information, but you are simply
reporting on what it is that you have
received; is that correct?
A. That's right.
Q. So we're asking you to do that in a
professional capacity and in line with your
role as editor and director of the King
papers project.
With that background, Professor
Carson, I'd like you to move, please, to the
first set of responses in the documentation
that I've provided to you and of the project
that I addressed to a resource who was
traveling and providing me with information.
The Court and Jury have become aware
with how that process worked so we just need
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to go into a question and answer mode here.
On Page 2 of -- well, on Page 2 of
the questions and whatever page of the
response, I'd ask you to turn to Paragraph
2.1.4, and the question that was asked to be
answered was: Was the operation, in re, our
target, a one op, or were there other similar
operations? If others, any details
possible. Please, at least learn if they
were domestic, foreign or both.
What is the answer that you have?
A. Answer: Lots of other ops
nationwide. These are the ones I was at,
summer of 1967 -- parentheses, June 12th
through 15th, 1967 -- Tampa, Florida. Two
Alpha teams deployed during riots. Detroit,
summer, July 23rd, riot. Washington,
October 1967, riot. Chicago, just before
Christmas, 1967, recon. February 1968, Los
Angeles.
Q. Thank you. Question 2.1.5: When was
the instant operation? The instant operation
is the Memphis operation against Martin
Luther King. When was the instant operation
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first raised with him, that is, the source.
A, where and by whom? Answer.
A. Answer: Date unknown. Place, Camp
Shelby, Mississippi. Briefed by Captain
Name. First, a recon-op -- not sure when
killing King first mentioned.
Q. What -- 2.1.6: What were the first
details of the operation scenario put to
him? A: Was target named?
A. Yes, King. Another answer.
Q. Yes. Please continue.
A. Young added later.
Q. First answer, King. Young added
later.
B: What was site?
A. Site not set. Depended on our intel
and recon. We positioned at rooftop ascent
across Lorraine motel about 1300 hours, 4
April. Don't know why or how intel came in.
At brief, 0430, reminded Doctor King
was the leader of a movement to destroy
American government and stop the war. We
were shown CR, close range photos, of King
and Young. Don't know -- don't remember
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anyone worrying about killing those sacks of
shit.
One bud -- buddy on Team 1, remember
bragged about him, had him in center mass,
parentheses, this is a sniper term meaning
cross hairs and center of chest. During that
big March in Alabama, should have done it
then.
Parentheses, Bill, I did some
checking from my files. There is a John Hill
listed among the 20th special forces teams
that was deployed in Selma, Alabama in 1965
for the beginning of the march to
Montgomery.
I interviewed two of the team
members who were there, and they said a
sniper team had King in their scope until he
turned left and crossed the bridge. This may
be the same Hill on main team. None of the
other names match.
Another Name -- parentheses, that's
me -- asked about clothes. We were dressed
as working stiffs working on the docks.
Parentheses, I believe this means their cover
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was day laborers on President's Island where
the riverboat barge and the warehouses are
located, end parentheses.
Equipment was stored in suitcases,
moved along, came up in cars from Camp
Shelby. Only place I remember eating in
Memphis was a Howard Johnson's.
My spotter and I were met by a Name
down near the train tracks where we were let
out. I remembered this guy because he looked
a lot like a buddy -- parentheses, buddy of
mine. This guy got us to the building where
we set up. I always figured he was a spook.
From him, we got a detailed AO --
parentheses, area of operations map -- not
the kind you'd buy in a gas station, pictures
of cars the King group were driving, and the
guy got us to the building where we set up.
I always figured he was a spook.
From him, we got a detailed AO --
parentheses, area of operations map -- not
the kind you'd buy in a gas station, pictures
of the cars the King group was driving and
the Memphis police tact -- parentheses,
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tactical radio frequencies. Maybe some other
stuff, I just don't remember.
Q. C: Any explanation of reason?
A. Name gave none.
Q. D: Any indication of sanction by or
involvement of others, one at federal, state
or local levels?
A. Everybody but my brother was there.
Spooks, the company -- parentheses, CIA --
Feebs -- parentheses, FBI -- police, you name
it.
The only person I remember talking
to besides CO, Name, was some guy who was the
head of the city -- parentheses, Memphis tact
parentheses -- tactical squad. I think his
first name was Sam.
Name put him on radio to describe to
us what was in that hotel -- parentheses,
Lorraine. I do remember he saying friendlies
would not be wearing ties. Took that to mean
that somebody inside the King group as
informant.
Did meet in person one other guy.
Met him on sidewalk down couple blocks from
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our perch. Directed by Name. This guy
identified himself with the police
intelligence. Said city was about to
explode, and blacks would be murdering whites
in the streets.
After a few minutes, I figured was
asking me to sit tight and kill any rioters
if things went to hell. He seemed to know
something about us and said had met with Name
before this day.
Q. E: Was operation pure military, any
involvement of FBI, state police, local
sheriff's, poster police, civilians, anyone
in targets organization?
A. Our part military. Far as I know, we
were coordinating with units at NAS. This
would be Millington Naval Air Station.
Q. Okay. Move over to the response to
Question 3, please. Was he aware of any
support from inside Doctor King's
organization, SCLC, or inside the local
Memphis groups working with Doctor King?
Details and names if possible.
A. Scuttlebutt was 111th -- parentheses,
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military intelligence group out of Fort
McPherson -- had guy inside King's group.
Q. Moving to Number 7. Did he actually
see anything at the time of the shooting?
Where was he precisely?
A. I thought Team 1 had fired early. I
guess I still think they may have. After
that day, I only saw Captain Name twice more,
and both times, he refused to talk to me
about what happened.
After the shot, I keyed --
parentheses, radioed -- CO to ask for
instructions, and after a wait --
parentheses, I think this means Name told him
to wait -- was told to exit building and make
our way to pick-up point.
If this helps, I heard a lot of
gunfire, and I think remembering -- I
remember thinking it was an Army sniper
shot. It surprised me later when I heard
some wacko civilian had done it.
Name described the shooting to me,
and let me tell you this. Whoever fired that
shot was a professional. Even from three
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hundred meters, there's no way just anyone
could make that shot.
Q. Eight: If the military unit did it,
how does he explain the head shot, and their
not waiting for the coordinated hits from the
second target, A-Y, after Young?
A. When you have everybody's hands in
someone's pants, it's a cluster fuck. That's
what happened in Nam -- what happened here.
Q. What kind of weapons were they
carrying?
A. Standard forty-five caliber sidearms,
M-16 sniper rifles and some K-bars --
parentheses, this is a military knife. We
also had some frags -- parentheses,
fragmentation grenades -- and two or three
laws, light anti-air -- anti tank weapon
rockets.
Q. Ten: How did the two teams
communicate with each other? When was the
last contact prior to the killing?
A. By radio. The shot was fired just
after the TTR -- parentheses, top of the hour
I guess this means, 1800, end parentheses --
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sit rep -- parentheses, situation report.
Q. Eleven: Set out details of their
exiting Memphis, how -- where they went.
A. Exit by foot to waiting boat.
Q. Finishes the first section. Now the
second -- second series of questions and
answers. We'll just move through these.
Number 1: Where was Young?
A. Best I remember, a bunch of them had
been upstairs. My spotter got Young when
they all left. He went downstairs. He had
come out of his room below and looked like to
me was heading for the -- a car when the shot
was fired. We were just getting ready to do
the sit rep. He was definitely out of his
room.
Q. Second page, 2.15 and 2.16: What was
the nature of the training -- real purpose
training?
A. This was a recon, slash, surveillance
mission to support major Army element at
Millington and possible deployment of other
heavy units, dash, one of the dozens in
cities with large black populations.
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We were walking the ground
literally. We would walk city streets to
identify possible sniper and ambush sites,
anything that would help the guys coming into
a riot to survive.
Target reduction -- parentheses,
Bill, he means killing Young and King, end
parentheses -- was discussed as an option
should the situation go in the toilet, and we
had a riot on our hands in the AO --
parentheses, area of operations. Then and
only then was that option briefed.
You need to talk to him --
parentheses, he's referring here to you, end
parentheses -- about how a military mission
is done. Logistics, intelligence,
communications which make up seven-eighths of
a mission. What I'm saying is that target
reduction was brief, but we had to get to a
riot before it was authorized on the net.
Do you want me to go on?
Q. Yes.
A. Here Name digressed into an argument
over radios. Said team had PRC 77's,
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although wanted more sophisticated AN, slash,
PRC 117. Caused big argument because they
couldn't get them. Said PRC 77's
unreliable. Out of -- on that roof that
evening, we were watching. I had Young
targeted, but only to watch.
Q. Then moving down -- Bill, I asked
here about the psychological warfare photo
recon stuff at this point. Continue.
A. Big psy-ops (phonetic) plan to
discredit King and his party using any means
at hand. We weren't told much about this,
but, again, SOP with fifth special forces was
psy-ops included and everything.
M-A-C-V-S-O-G had long time begged into
this.
We call this, quote, gray operations
and spreading propaganda to newspapers and
radio stations. This was done a lot against
black pot-heads. I wasn't involved in this,
but I kept my ears open, and this was a big
push.
Any intel we picked up to help this
effort out was passed back up the chain. Not
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sure about reserved element of psy-ops. Most
guys in Nam I knew worked for the fourth
psy-ops group at Teng Sau Nu. I know there
they ran their own newspaper, radio and TV
operations.
Q. Yes. 2.1.7: When was Memphis first
mentioned?
A. Not sure. Original brief of
twentieth recon operations including --
included Memphis among cities where possible
rioting was possible at Camp -- Camp
Landing. Parentheses, Bill, this is in
Florida, end parentheses.
Memphis was scouted 22 February by
Alpha team for sniper communications and
supply sites. We had a lot of stuff going
in, but previous recon produced a lot more.
What we were doing is similar to
Nam. Maps, terrain studies, readouts of
infrared imagery from aerial recon
blackbirds -- parentheses, Bill, he's
referring to SR 71 blackbird over flights of
Memphis and other potential riot cities, this
mentioned in my series, end parentheses --
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and anything else we could find, which we
shipped to S2 and Nam Trang.
Here we shipped to Camp Shelby S2.
Where intel went from there, I'm not sure.
Q. 2.1.8: Who was in charge of
training?
A. Name Captain.
Q. How long was the training period?
A. Can't remember. Too long ago. Too
many missions before and after.
Q. During training -- 2.1.13: During
training, who were you told were targets?
A. We were told these were recon
missions whose purpose was to reverse the
cluster fuck in Detroit where our guys didn't
even have maps of city streets. Our mission
was to walk the ground before the heavies --
parentheses, Bill, means tanks and APCs
here -- got there.
Training was entirely based on
identifying communications links, supply
sites, places where troops could be quickly
and safely inserted where the black community
was, where black churches were, where black
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leaders congregated -- parentheses,
restaurants, churches.
Q. 2.1.14: Other members of team
involved other sites.
A. Worked with Captain Name in Tampa.
Q. 2.1.15. Were all those 9-0 second
operations?
A. Don't know and don't care. What I
know is this. You start asking a lot of
questions about the 9-0 second -- he
pronounced ninety-deuce -- you'd better be
digging a deep hole.
Parentheses, Bill, he was very
reluctant to discuss 9-0 second. I tried
several times in this interview to broach
subject. He refused to.
Q. 2.1.16: Who controlled training and
actual operations?
A. Team leader and his exact control.
Q. 3.2: Who was on the February 22nd
Memphis recon mission?
A. I was on it. Will give other names
if agreed they not be made public.
Q. 3.3: Did entire unit go together to
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Memphis on 4 April or separate? Explain.
A. No. We went in separate cars in
two's.
Q. 3.4: What time leave Camp Shelby
from Memphis?
A. Don't remember.
Q. 3.8: You're referring to this Name
fellow -- I'm sorry. 3.8: Who did spook on
ground work for?
A. You're referring to this Name fellow
who met us down by railroad yards. Guy
smelled like a company guy. We had maps, but
this guy gave us a detailed map of the AO --
parentheses, area of operations -- not a
regular service station map. This was like a
grid map you got in the field with street and
building names.
Anyway, this Name, I think it was
James reminded me of a friend. I got no
proof though, but he was definitely a spook.
Q. 3.9: Details of conversation.
A. You got to be kidding. We just
talked about the current situation, our
location and radio net.
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Q. And then questions 3.9 to 3.14.1: No
answers?
A. Parentheses, Bill, these questions,
he simply could not remember.
Q. That finishes the second section.
Lastly, Professor Carson, you have a
one-page report of a meeting that took place
in Chicago, also at plaintiffs' counsel's
request, having to do with the location of
some photographers on the roof of the fire
station in Memphis.
Would you read that report, please.
A. Trip to meet Name, 1 December, 1994,
Chicago. Location, Hyatt Regency, downtown
off Michigan Avenue. Breakfast, slash,
lunchroom off of lobby.
Description, about five-feet-ten
inches, one-sixty to one-seventy pounds.
Gray, short chopped hair, nice suit --
parentheses, Brook Brothers style -- wing
tipped shoes, erect, obviously ex military.
Said in Vietnam assigned first
SOG -- parentheses, special operation
group -- base, Kan Tu, worked 525th
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psychological operations battalion.
Refused to discuss place of birth,
date of birth or other personal info.
April 3, 4 weekend, 9-0 second operation.
New Colonel Name, worked with him number of
assignments. Two agents in Memphis day of
killing. Therefore, routine photos and
surveillance copied to Name and Name --
Q. Yes.
A. -- believed distributed to other
agencies. Idea to pick up anyone in photos,
might be identified as communist or national
security threat -- such H-U-M-I-N-T-S-O-P in
King's surveillance.
When King came out on balcony,
camera was filming. No photo moment King
shot, but several of him falling.
Second guy with Name watched
approaching cars, heard shot and saw white
man with rifle. Quickly snapped his picture
several times as this guy left scene.
Shooter was on the ground clearly visible.
Name witnessed only his back as left scene.
Said never got a visual face ID.
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Name and second guy rooftop of fire
station, both armed with forty-five caliber
automatics. Second guy carried small
revolver in holster, small of back.
Pictures hand delivered to Colonel
Name, but second guy with Name kept
negatives. Name has no copies. Said will
approach second guy for two thousand dollars,
give us name and address.
DR. PEPPER: Thank you very
much, Professor Carson.
There is a final document, which is
a chronology of important dates, that has
been provided to us from January 17, 1967 to
the 4th of April listing dates, times and
places and subjects of meetings that took
place in government agencies throughout that
entire year.
We're not going to go through that
here, but I am going to close that and move
that that be admitted as a part of the total
package of evidence.
Thank you for coming, and no further
questions.
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MR. GARRISON: I have no
questions, Your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. You may
stand down.
(Witness excused.)
THE COURT: Let me ask you, have
you got anything really short?
DR. PEPPER: I'm afraid not,
Your Honor. I'm sorry.
THE COURT: I know how sorry the
jurors are to hear that.
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, we're
going to stop here today. I know there are
several of you who want to get started for
the holiday. I hope that you all survive it
and that we'll see you early Monday morning.
(Whereupon, court was adjourned,
and proceedings were to be resumed Monday,
November 29, 1999.)
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