—Mr. President. I just got word that Martin Luther King [Jr.] will give a press conference at 11:00 this morning in Atlanta.[note 2] Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader in the civil rights movement; pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, from 1954 to 1960; organizer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957; co-pastor (with his father) of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1960 until his assassination on 4 April 1968; and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Now, the statement King is to make will differ very greatly from what Roy [O.] Wilkins has said and what Whitney [M.] Young [Jr.] has said and will, in a sense, condone the national result from the inhuman conditions that the Negroes are forced to exist in the country.[note 3] Roy O. Wilkins was executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1955 to 1964; executive director of the NAACP from 1965 to 1977; and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1967. Whitney M. Young Jr. was executive director of the National Urban League from 1961 to 1971. King held a press conference on this day, 25 July, and sent a long telegram to the White House emphasizing the problem of unemployment. He was quoted in a UPI report as saying, “Revolts come out of revolting conditions. A riot is the language of the unheard. It is a suicidal act—that last desperate act—when the Negro says, “I’m tired of living like a dog.” “Dr. King Supports Troops in Detroit,” New York Times, 26 July 1967. King has . . . was told by [Stanley D.] Levison, who is his principal adviser—and who’s a secret Communist—that he has more to gain nationally by agreeing with the violence that is coming out against it, as the President is afraid at this time and is willing to make concessions for it.[note 4] Stanley D. Levison was a successful entrepreneur who served as a key adviser to and speechwriter for Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s and early 1960s, and who was identified by FBI spies as an active fundraiser for the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in the early 1950s. In October 1962, the FBI began a COMINFIL (Communist infiltration) investigation on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). That year, Attorney General Robert Kennedy also authorized the FBI to place wiretaps on Levison’s phones. The FBI spies who uncovered Levison’s CPUSA affiliation, Jack Childs and Morris Childs, were the centerpieces of Operation SOLO, and they reported that Levison had drifted away from the Party by 1957. As several historians and a 1977 FBI task force have concluded, Levison’s primary interest to the Bureau in the early 1960s was his relationship with King. To widen the net on King and Levison, the Bureau also tapped the phones of SCLC attorney Clarence Jones, who communicated with both men. According to the 1977 FBI task force report and the 1976 Church Committee Report, in the summer of 1963, Robert Kennedy turned down a request to have direct surveillance of King, but relented to FBI concerns about King in October. On 10 October 1963, Attorney General Kennedy issued a memorandum authorizing the FBI to place telephone wiretaps on King’s home and on the New York City offices of the SCLC. The FBI eventually added the Atlanta SNCC office, a residence of a King associate, and beginning on 5 January 1964, a series of hotel rooms occupied by King. The Church Committee declared that they found no evidence that the FBI had ever told Kennedy about those hotel “microphones” or that Kennedy was aware of them. According to the Church Committee Report, Attorney General Katzenbach had ended all wiretaps on King by 30 April 1965. On 30 June, Johnson issued an order drafted by the Justice Department that no wiretaps could be put in place except in national security cases and then only with the authorization of the attorney general. Katzenbach established a new tap on the Atlanta SCLC office phones from 27 October 1965 to 21 June 1966. Ramsey Clark refused requests in 1968 and 1969. Beyond the wiretaps and hotel microphones, the FBI also engaged in COINTELPRO activities (included in what the FBI task force called “harassment”) against King from 1964 until his assassination in 1968. Historian David Garrow has argued that the FBI’s intensive investigation into Levison had gone cold by 1963, and the Bureau shifted to a “conscious and explicit desire to destroy King as a public figure.” See Lyndon B. Johnson and Cartha “Deke” DeLoach, 20 November 1964, Conversation WH6411-25-6431. The most complete narrative is in the 1976 Church Committee Report on the FBI and King. See “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Case Study,” Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate: Together with Additional, Supplemental, and Separate Views, Book 3, Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans (Washington, DC: GPO, 1976), 79–184 [pp. 115–19 for beginning and ending dates for wiretaps], http://archive.org/details/finalreportofsel03unit. For the FBI’s 1977 report on Martin Luther King Jr., see “Report of the Department of Justice Task Force to Review the FBI Martin Luther King Jr., Security and Assassination Investigations,” FBI Records: The Vault, Part 1 and Part 2. For the section entitled “FBI Surveillance and Harassment of Dr. King,” see pp.113–38 of that report. For the FBI’s massive public file on Stanley Levison, see “Stanley Levison,” FBI Records: The Vault, Parts 1–109, https://vault.fbi.gov/. An effective chapter-length summary of the King surveillance is found in Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2005), 68–86. Other key works on the topic include: David J. Garrow, The FBI and Martin Luther King Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 151–52; Kenneth O’Reilly, Racial Matters: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960–1972 (New York: Free Press, 1989); Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954–1963 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988); Taylor Branch, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998); Jeff Woods, Black Struggle, Red Scare: Segregation and Anti-Communism in the South, 1948–1968 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2004). King said that the worst has not yet happened in this country in such places as Cleveland, Oakland, and Philadelphia. King referred specifically to Chicago and said, “They gave me the plan today in Chicago. They don’t plan to burn down the West side; they are planning to get the Loop in Chicago.” That’s the substance of information. We got that highly confidentially over the technicals.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Well, I hope you’ll communicate that to [Richard J. “Dick”] Daley, so that his people will know.[note 5] Richard J. “Dick” Daley was the Democratic mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from April 1955 to December 1976. I’d let your man—

We will.

—in Chicago tell him that they’re saying this, and the President asked he be told.

Yes. I’ll take care of that right away.

And I gather that things went pretty good after our statement last night.[note 6] Presidential Daily Diary, 24 July 1964; “Remarks to the Nation After Authorizing the Use of Federal Troops in Detroit,” 24 July 1967, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1968), doc. 322. [Cyrus R. “Cy”] Vance and [Warren M.] Christopher and they reported about, oh, 6:30 and then again at 7:30 this morning that no federal troops had shot anybody, that they went in right, and the General had cautioned them carefully and that they had fully briefed them and that your men and the Justice men and the Army men were all working a hundred percent.[note 7] Cyrus R. “Cy” Vance was secretary of the U.S. Army from 1962 to 1963; deputy secretary of defense from 1964 to 1967; special representative of the president to Cyprus in 1967 and to Korea in 1968; and U.S. negotiator at the Paris Peace Talks on Vietnam from 1968 to 1969. Warren M. Christopher was a respected California attorney; vice chair of the McCone Commission (the Governor’s Commission on the Los Angeles Riots) from 1965 to 1966; and U.S. deputy attorney general from March 1967 to January 1969. All agreed at the same time. No divisions among them and that they insisted the troops be told what the situation was and be given good orders. And if they were fired upon, to fire back, but—

But they didn’t have to do it.

—they didn’t kill anybody.

No.

The federal troops didn’t, and they didn’t get any of them shot at.

[Unclear.]

And the incidents dropped after they went in. And after our statement, they dropped from about 30 some-odd to 5 per hour.

My word from out there this morning is that the business offices are open. General Motors is open. All the automobile factories are open. And people are getting back to work.

They asked them—I told Vance that we ought to tell them to do that. That may take their mind off of it a little bit.

Yes, it will.

[Johnson acknowledges quietly throughout.] Now, over at Cambridge [Maryland] this man [H. Rap] Brown, who is one of the worst in the country—Governor [Spiro T. “Ted”] Agnew has ordered his arrest for inciting the riot over there.[note 8] H. Rap Brown was chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from May 1967 to June 1968, and a member of the Black Panther Party. Spiro T. “Ted” Agnew was the Republican governor of Maryland from January 1967 to January 1969, and vice president of the United States from January 1969 to October 1973. On 24 July, a civil disorder had occurred in Cambridge, Maryland. Brown had given a speech that Governor Agnew believed encouraged black residents to burn the town. The FBI took Brown into custody on 26 July, the day after this call, at National Airport in Washington. By 1967, SNCC had evolved into a black-only civil rights group advocating self-defense. Vilified by the press and political leaders, Brown was a fierce advocate for Black Power and frightened his opponents by calling for the use of guns for protection. They burned down, I think, two squares of the Negro ghetto. The thing that is significant is that both in Detroit and in Cambridge the Negro homes have been burned and destroyed, [President Johnson acknowledges] so it hasn’t been limited solely to the white merchants and the white homes.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Which I think is very significant.

Yes, it is. I think you ought to look at the [Congressional] Record today personally yourself and get some of your men that you rely on up at the—on the Hill. Take the [Everett M.] Dirksen [R–Illinois] statement, and [Michael J. “Mike”] Mansfield [D–Montana] on Subversive Activities [Control] Board.[note 9] Everett M. Dirksen was a U.S. senator [R–Illinois] from January 1951 until his death in September 1969, and Senate Minority Leader from January 1959 to September 1969. Michael J. “Mike” Mansfield was a U.S. senator [D–Montana] from January 1953 to January 1977, and Senate Majority Leader from January 1961 to January 1977. We’ve got a kind of a campaign going on. They jumped on the [Simon F.] McHugh [Jr.] boy because they felt that that was one way to get at me and get at the board.[note 10] Simon F. McHugh Jr. was a member of the Subversive Activities Control Board from 1967 to 1972. He’s a good Catholic boy that grew up here in Washington [D.C.], not a Republican or a Democrat. He didn’t ask for it, didn’t want it. I appointed him because I knew him and because I didn’t think he was a left-winger—

Yes.

—and I thought he’d be all right. But they asked the [Senate Government Operations] Committee to study it before they made their appropriation, and they tell me—Dirksen tells me and Mansfield that they talked to [John L.] McClellan [D–Arkansas], and McClellan is the chairman of the committee and he’s strong for it.[note 11] John L. McClellan was a U.S. senator [D–Arkansas] from January 1943 to November 1977; chair of the Senate Government Operations Committee from 1949 to 1953 and 1955 to 1972; chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee from 1972 to 1977; and chief sponsor of the Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor and Management Field. And he doesn’t want the Board abolished. And Dirksen is going to add their little amendment to something out of Judiciary [Committee], and if Mansfield supported him, that’d give us a little chance.[note 12] Dirksen was Senate Minority Leader and the sponsor of legislation for the Board, and Senate Majority Leader Michael J. “Mike” Mansfield [D–Montana] supported keeping it in operation despite it not having found a single subversive in 17 years. Fred P. Graham, “Board Without a Job,” New York Times, 20 August 1967.

[speaking over President Johnson] Yeah, and they are not understanding it’s drafting legislation that will strengthen the board.

Yeah, that’s right. But he doesn’t—[the] man—he’s Mansfield’s man from Montana, and he’s a loyal boy, and he’s a veteran, and he’s not for any of these left-wingers.

No.

And he supports [Cartha] Deke [DeLoach], and he thinks he follows his leadership, but he hasn’t got the horsepower.[note 13] Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1928 to 1970; was assistant director of the Crime Records Division from 1959 to 1965; and served as assistant to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover from 1965 to 1970. Some of your boys ought to tell McClellan and Dirksen that they ought to go on with this.

I—

And I told [W.] Ramsey [Clark] he ought to make up his goddamn mind to either give them something or get off the pot and let us give them something.[note 14] W. Ramsey Clark was U.S. assistant attorney general from 1961 to 1965; U.S. deputy attorney general from January 1965 to March 1967; acting U.S. attorney general from November 1966 to March 1967; and U.S. attorney general from March 1967 to January 1969.

Well, the—

I wasn’t going to mess with these liberals over in the Justice Department very long.

We’ve got a load over here. I’m sending over to you today the memorandum on the Subversive [Activities] Control Board. There are four organizations if the department just got off of their ass and really did something, they could present those cases to the Subversive Control Board. They are good cases.

They say they haven’t got any evidence, and so on—

Yes, they have.

Well, you just tell them that now, and you send me that memo, and you tell Deke to get off his tail and get up there and tell Dirksen and McClellan that we’ll do it. And you and I stay together, and we’ll have a group in there. And then let’s get somebody else, as this man [Edward C.] Sweeney resigns, let’s get another good man [Hoover acknowledges] that’s got good background and put him on there, and let’s give him something to do.[note 15] Edward C. Sweeney of New York was an Eisenhower appointee. He died of cancer less than a month after this call. “E. C. Sweeney Dies,” Washington Post, 15 August 1967.

Of course, there’s plenty of work for them to do, and the departments had the material. We’ve sent it over to them by literally hundreds of copies, but, of course, the so-called procrastination here is at times almost frustration.

Well, you just get with Ramsey and tell him that you’re going to do this, [Hoover acknowledges] and I’ll tell him to send them, and then be sure to get Deke or whoever you have or yourself to—

I’ll do it.

—talk to McClellan and Dirksen and just tell them that—

I’ll talk with—

[speaking over Hoover] That they oughtn’t to let these left-wingers smear something this way.

I’ll talk with McClellan and with Dirksen myself.

OK. Fine.

And I plan, if you have no objection, the memorandum I’m sending over to you on the Subversive [Activities] Control Board to send a copy to Ramsey.

That’s good.

So, he can see—

That’s good.

—exactly what we’re telling you.

That’s good, and I’d talk to him, too. I’d tell him that [Hoover acknowledges] when the first time I saw him. He’s going to have you tomorrow or something. And you just get ahold of him and tell him this, and tell Dirksen and McClellan, and then that’ll get him, too.

And I’ll have for you tomorrow that memorandum you want on all the riots in the country—

That’s right.

—that’s been studied.

And I want you to keep your men busy to find a central connection. I’m not—I wouldn’t be a damn bit surprised if this poverty group here is not stirring up some of this, and some of my friends and your old friends that are after both of us are not stirring this up around the country. [Hoover attempts to interject.] So, you better watch Newark [New Jersey] and watch Detroit and watch Plainfield [New Jersey] and see, and we’ll find some central theme down the road a little bit.

We’ll dig into that very thoroughly.

All right. OK.

Fine. Thank you, Mr. President.