Word: hoover
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...After TIME selected King as its Man of the Year (Jan. 3, 1964), Assistant FBI Director William Sullivan sent a plan to Hoover for dealing with King by "taking him off his pedestal and reducing his influence." With King discredited, Sullivan wrote, the FBI could promote another black man as the leader of the civil rights movement. That man, a relatively unknown New York attorney and a Republican, only recently learned of the plan; he was stunned and asked the committee not to reveal his name...
...anonymously sent to King's wife Coretta a tape of some bedroom conversations that had been secretly recorded while King was traveling. Such a tape was a prized possession of Hoover's, and he once had it played for Lyndon Johnson, who in turn entertained reporters with his version of King's extramarital conquests...
...subsequently mentioned the fact. King then switched to the black-owned Lorraine Motel. It was there he was shot on April 4, though the committee in no way suggests that the FBI was setting him up. That memo about the Holiday Inn contained the notation "O.K. ... H.", which was Hoover's usual note of approval...
...Hoover's obsession with King? James Adams, the agency's assistant deputy director, testified that the initial reason was "to determine if there was Communist influence on him." Adams conceded that there were "probably 25 incidents" directed at King, and said, "I see no statutory basis and no justification for the activities." Chairman Frank Church asked if the FBI ever found that King was a Communist. Replied Adams...
Justice Department sources have told TIME that the King case was opened on "solid evidence" linking Communists with King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. According to these sources, two high-level Communist Party officials told the FBI in 1963 that the party had penetrated the SCLC. Hoover sent a memo about this to the White House and the departments of Defense, Justice and State. On the basis of the memo, Attorney General Robert Kennedy authorized wiretaps on King...