F.B.I. ‘provoked’ Klan

Press, 22 August 1978, Page 8

F.B.I. ‘provoked’ Klan

NZPA Detroit The American Civil Liberties Union said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation “provoked” the Ku Klux Klan to commit acts of violence on Freedom Riders and other civil-rights activists in the South during the 19605. The allegation is based on 3000 pages of F. 8.1. letters, memos, and teletype messages released to A.C.L.U. attorneys involved in a lawsuit against the F. 8.1. for allegedly failing to prevent Klan terrorism. The executive director of the Michigan A.C.L.U. (Mr Howard Simon) said on Sunday that the documents showed that the F. 8.1. in 1961 provided detailed information on the movements of two busloads of Freedom Riders to a Birmingham, Alabama, police sergeant who was a known Klan agent. “We found," Mr Simon said, “that the F. 8.1. knew that the Birmingham Police Department was infiltrated by the Klan, that many

members of the Police Department were Klan members, that they knew a person in intelligence was passing information directly to leaders of the Klan, and they also knew that their undercover agent had worked out an agreement with the Police Department to stay away fron the terminals (where the buses were arriving). “They knew all that and yet they continued their relationship with the Police Department,” he said.

According to the documents, Thomas Jenkins, chief of the Birmingham F. 8.1. office, provided detailed information on the progress of two busloads of Freedom Riders to Sergeant Thomas Xook of the Birmingham Police Department’s intelligence branch. Mr Simon said the documents showed that the F. 8.1. knew Sergeant Cook was a Klan agent and that Sergeant Cook and the Birmingham Public Safety Director (Mr Eugene “Bull” Connor) conspired with Klan leaders

to permit Klansmen to attack Freedom Riders. Mr Cook, now a private investigator in Birmingham, denied the allegations and said he was never a member of the Klan or acted as a Klan agent. "The F. 8.1. didn’t furnish me the information,” Mr Cook said. “Everybody in the South knew where the buses were.” A former F. 8.1. informant who was a proven "liar” had provided the information contained in the F. 8.1. documents, Mr Cook said.

The F. 8.1. released the documents to A.C.L.U. attorneys representing Walter Bergman, aged 80, a former Wayne State University professor and Detroit school official, who has filed a SUSIM lawsuit against the F. 8.1.

Mr Bergman, who is now confined to a wheelchair, said he was partly paralyzed from the beating he suffered at the hands of Klansmen in an attack on a Freedom Riders bus at Anniston, Alabama.