F.B.I. HEAD CLAIMS DR. KING A LIAR

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30603, 20 November 1964, Page 13

F.B.I. HEAD CLAIMS DR. KING A LIAR

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, November 19. The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr J. Edgar Hoover, has called the Rev. Martin Luther King, jun., “the most notorious liar in the country” for claiming that F. 8.1. agents in Albany, Georgia, will not act on civil rights complaints because they are Southerners. Mr Hoover made the statement in an interview with a group of women reporters. Dr. King’s office in Atlanta said the Negro leader was on holiday in the Bahamas and could not be reached for comment.

One source said later: “Mr Hoover has had these things on his chest for a long time and felt this was as good a time as any to say something.” Mr Hoover took sharp issue with Dr. King. He charged that the civil rights leader had distorted the facts about F. 8.1. activities in the South.

Mr Hoover said Dr. King had told his Southern Christian Leadership conference not to report acts of violence to the F. 8.1. office in Albany because the agents were Southerners and would do nothing. “The truth is that 70 per cent of the agents in the South were born in the North and four of the five agents in Albany, Georgia, are Northerners,” Mr Hoover said. The F. 8.1. director said he had attempted to confer with Dr. King to “clear up” the question, but that the Negro leader had not responded. In a three-hour session with the women reporters in

his office, Mr Hoover was unusually outspoken on subjects ranging from civil rights and presidential protection to police corruption and juvenile delinquency. He criticised the Warren Commission's report on the assassination of President Kennedy, saying the report was “not fair as far as the F. 8.1. is concerned.” It was “a classic example of Mon-

day morning quarter-backing (hindsight).’’ Mr Hoover referred specifically to the part of the report noting the F.8.1.’s failure to notify the Secret Service (charged with guarding the President) that Lee Harvey Oswald was in Dallas. Mr Hoover said that as a result of the Warren Commission’s criticisms, the F. 8.1. is now sending the names of “every kook and beatnik” it has on file to the Secret Service. The names number in the thousands, he said. Mr Hoover said the report had “taken out of context testimony of certain witnesses and has almost charged the F. 8.1. with the obligation to be psychiatrists.” He said there was no such thing as absolute security for a president. “If you are going to place under arrest every questionable individai who is in the area where the President is, you will have

a police state.” In New York city alone such a precaution would mean 7000 arrests. Mr Hoover said he attributed most of the racial violence in the South to the Ku Klux Klan.