—to have one of our men [Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.] in the car.[note 1] The Presidential Recordings Program revised the following section of text in 2021 for inclusion in The LBJ Telephone Tapes, a project produced by the Miller Center in partnership with the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library to commemorate the library's 50th anniversary. Fortunately, he, of course, had no gun and did no shooting. But he has identified the two men who had guns and who fired guns.[note 2] The FBI informant was Gary Thomas Rowe Jr., a controversial figure who was later sued by the Liuzzo family for his role in the murder. I think there were about 10 or 12 shots fired into the car in which this woman [Viola Liuzzo] was.[note 3] Viola Liuzzo was a civil rights activist from Michigan who was murdered on 25 March 1965 by members of the Ku Klux Klan after the Selma to Montgomery marches in Alabama.

Six-shooter or shotgun?

I think they’re revolvers.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

And they discussed after it was over that if the woman died, that they were going to throw the guns into the blast furnace where they work, in those steel mills down there. And that’s what we’re laying for now, to head off these individuals when they come to work this morning and shake them down. If we are lucky enough to find a gun on them, that’ll be the big break in the case.

Mm-hmm.

But in any event, whether we find the gun or not, we know who they are, and then we’ll bring them in and shake them down in interrogation.

Mm-hmm. Thank you so much, Edgar. As usual, you’re right on top of it. And this is 8:15 now, and you call me and make them get through to me. I checked last night about one [o’clock], and they gave me the full information, and I’ve just heard a little while ago about this fellow [Anthony James “Jim” Liuzzo Sr.] calling me.[note 4] Anthony James “Jim” Liuzzo Sr., Viola’s widower, had tried calling President Johnson. The President would speak to him later today (Conversation WH6503-14-7168). I didn’t know anything about it, and I think I’ll call him. [Hoover acknowledges.] You see no reason why I shouldn’t, do you?

I see no reason why you shouldn’t. As the radio said, he was very angry, because they wouldn’t put him through to you last night. [President Johnson acknowledges.] I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t have been expecting to be put through. He could’ve called the Department of Justice or the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], anyone there. I don’t know whether anybody’s on duty in the Department [of Justice] at night, but we’re on duty 24 hours a day there.

Yes. I talked there several times. Agent Swanson was very helpful to me.[note 5] Agent Swanson’s full name was not identified by the editors. The Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s history, Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Inc. (Paducah, KY: Turner, 1998), list two possible Swansons in service at the time of this call: Roland D. Swanson (1963–1985) and Harold C. “Hal” Swanson (1951–1979).

Yes, yeah. There—We always have one or two men on duty all the time so that if anything does break, they can . . . at once alert me, and I was alerted during the morning to make certain. I’ve talked with [Joseph A.] Sullivan, who was inspector in charge down there, to immediately move in and take hold of this case.[note 6] Joseph Sullivan, a major case inspector for the FBI, had also been the lead investigator of the Mississippi Burning investigation in the summer of 1964, along with special agent in charge Roy K. Moore from the Jackson, Mississippi, bureau. He’s been on the march from Selma to Montgomery. But this thing has now broken, and he is over there by this time and has taken charge of it. We’ve got the informant in the office, and we’re talking to him, because he’s scared to death, naturally, because he fears for his life. But—

What is an infiltrator and a[n] informant? You hire someone, and they join the [Ku Klux] Klan, and keep . . . ?

We generally go to someone who is in the Klan and persuade him to work for the government. [President Johnson acknowledges.] We pay him for it. Sometimes they demand a pretty high price, and other times they don’t. Now, for instance, in those three bodies we found in Mississippi, we had to pay 30,000 dollars for that.[note 7] The FBI claimed to have paid $30,000 to two informants for disclosing the location of the bodies. The identities of these two individuals have not been released by the FBI, but there is strong speculation that one of the informants was a member of the Mississippi Highway Patrol. Cartha “Deke” DeLoach contended that the other person was a local minister. He suggested that they were both men and implied that both were members of the local Ku Klux Klan. Jerry Mitchell, whose reporting for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger helped reopen the prosecution of several cold civil rights cases in Mississippi, wrote that the highway patrolman, known as Mr. X, was Maynard King of Philadelphia. FBI inspector Joseph Sullivan did not believe King was a “klucker.” According to Mitchell, Patrolman King passed along information to the FBI from the other informant, probably a Klansman named Pete Jordan, who knew about the location from discussions with Herman Tucker, a Klansman later convicted for driving the tractor that buried James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman. Mitchell also suggested that the FBI did not pay these informants, and that the agency circulated the story about the payments after getting intelligence on the bodies as a way to help create confusion in the local Klan. Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1995), 185–87; Jerry Mitchell, “Documents Identify Whistle-blower: Who Told Where Bodies of Slain Trio Were Buried?,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, 3 December 2007; Jerry Mitchell, “Mr. X: ‘Unsung Hero’ in Slaying of Three Men,” Jackson Clarion-Ledger, 12 June 2005.

—and who gave us the identity . . . gave us the place where the bodies were found.[note 8] The bodies of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman had been buried beneath the dam of a new pond at the Old Jolly Farm owned by Olen Burrage, a local entrepreneur. Because the earthen dam was over 500 feet long and over 20 feet high, the FBI had to hire the Hyde Construction Company to bring in heavy excavation equipment to assist in the digging. DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI, 188. And then after we found the bodies, we ascertained the identity of one man and from him, we broke him down, and he gave us the identities of the other 19, two of whom confessed.

Mm-hmm.

Now, this man that we have now, this informant—he’s not a regular agent of the Bureau—but he’s one of these people that we put in just like we do into the Communist Party, and so forth, so they’ll keep us informed. And fortunately, he happened to be in on this thing last night, otherwise we’d be looking for a needle in a haystack.

Mm-hmm. That’s wonderful, Edgar. Thank you so much.

All right indeed, Mr. President.

Fine. Bye.

Thank you.[note 9] End of 2021 revisions.