The following article was prepared as a documentary, to be presented on radio station KTRG in Honolulu, Hawaii. On May 16, 1968, it was placed in the Congressional Record by U. S. Representative John R. Rarick of the 6th congressional district of Louisiana. The opening remarks are those of Mr. Rarick. Mr. Speaker, Mr. John S. Perilloux of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, offers a documented story of Martin Luther King, Jr., with which he feels the American people should reacquaint themselves before the past is forgotten - and history written from halftruths. I include Mr. Perilloux's "Untold Story" in the Record: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (by John S. Perilloux) Few men have had so many words spoken and written about them as has had the late Martin Luther King, Jr. King was the center of a storm of controversy and violence from the time he achieved prominence in 1955, when he led a successful boycott against the bus system of Montgomery, Alabama, until the day of his death in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. Indeed, the controversy continues even after his death. Because of his success in the bus boycott, King gained the respect and admiration of many Americans. Overlooked by some, and unknown to most, were the character and backgrounds of the men and women chosen by King to assist him in his assault upon such formidable obstacles as segregation and racial prejudice. Had he enlisted the support of worthier people as his immediate aides, King could have been a potent force in strengthening America and uplifting his people. However, such was not the case, and from the pinnacle of success in 1955 he descended to an all-time low in April of 1967 when he called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." Who was this man who has been commended as a man of peace and damned as an apostle of violence? To those liberal and bleeding hearts who have not intelligently discerned what King had been saying and doing during his twelve years of prominence this may come as a shock and a tragedy. To those of us who have followed his activities closely and have been aware of his questionable activity, it comes as no surprise at all. In 1967 the real Martin Luther King stood up, and yet, where is the criticism he deserved and should have gotten? On January 15, 1929, Michael Luther King, Jr., was born in a 13-room house in Atlanta, Georgia. When he was 6, his father changed both their names to Martin. He entered Morehouse College in Atlanta at the age of 15 and from Morehouse went to Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. In 1955, King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. On December 1st of that year a Montgomery bus driver ordered Negroes to stand so Whites could sit. One woman, Mrs. Rosa Parks, refused and was arrested. Within hours Negroes began a boycott against the bus system which was to last for more than a year. King's gift of articulateness, his willingness to defy city officials and his apparent lack of personal motives made him the natural leader of the boycott. When the boycott ended Martin Luther King had become world-famous. But who had assisted King in toppling segregation on Montgomery buses? Surely, no one man, no matter how articulate or how brave, could succeed in such an undertaking alone. And who is Mrs. Rosa Parks? King led the boycott as head of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which had been formed by the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, former convict who has also been president of the Southern Conference Educational Fund., Inc. The SCEF had been formed from the Southern Conference for Human Welfare. Identified communist James A. Dombrowski was administrator of the SCHW. Paul Crouch, one of its founders, and an admitted communist from 1925 to 1942, testified that the SCHW "was intended to lead to class hatred and race hatred, dividing class against class and race against race." The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee exposed the SCHW, stating that it was "conceived, financed and set up by the Communist Party in 1938 to promote communism in the southern states." After the SCHW was exposed, the party replaced this organization with the Southern Conference Education Fund. This new communist front continued to use the same address as the SCHW, the same publication, the same telephone number and almost identical officers. Dombrowski continued to serve as administrator, identified communist Aubrey Williams remained on the board, and identified communists Carl and Anne Braden were made field secretaries. After conducting an investigation, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee described the SCEF as a communist transmission belt for the south. It is extremely interesting that the president of the SCEF was at one time the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, founder of the Montgomery Improvement Association and vice-president of Martin Luther King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Also in the Montgomery Improvement Association with King and Shuttlesworth was Bayard Rustin. FBI reports state that Rustin joined the Young Communist League in 1936 while at the College of the City of New York and was active in this organization on the campus and elsewhere. During World War Two, he was arrested several times for advocating resistance to the war and served 26 months in federal prisons for draft dodging. Rustin has worked closely with the War Resisters League, the World Peace Brigade, Liberation, the Medical Aid to Cuba Committee, the Committee for Non-Violent Action, the Greenwich Village Peace Center and similar organizations, often as an officeholder. He has also been active in the American Forum for Socialist Education, a communist-dominated organization. In 1953, in Pasadena, California, Rustin was arrested on a charge of sex perversion and went to jail after pleading guilty. There are those who might argue that Rustin had mended his ways by 1955 when Martin Luther King hired him as his secretary and adviser. Let's follow Rustin's activities since 1955. In 1955, the Communist Party invited him to its 16th national convention as an "observer." He has been socially entertained at the Soviet embassy and in 1958 went to Russia under the sponsorship of the Nonviolent Action Committee Against Nuclear Weapons. The January, 1963, issue of Fellowship reveals Rustin to be a "friend" of Kwame Nkrumah, former communist dictator of Ghana. The same issue of Fellowship credits Rustin with having worked to establish a "center for nonviolence" at Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika, which has proved to be a training center for communist guerillas. Terrorists trained at this center have conducted raids on Rhodesia and South West Africa. In September, 1963, at Richmond, Virginia, Rustin said that "more bloody Negro suffering should be encouraged so that squeamish northern Negroes would be horrified into line." It is possible that some would be horrified. However, it is CERTAIN that this is part of the strategy of the communists for propagating racial warfare in the United States. On August 28, 1963, Rustin led a "march on Washington." On August 29, 1963, he urged that the only hope for Negroes was to "go left." On February 3, 1964, Rustin was a leader of the New York City school boycott. On February 4, he was photographed leaving a cocktail party at the Soviet mission to the United Nations. This, then, was the leadership of the Montgomery Improvement Association; Martin Luther King and two ex- convicts who were also communist-fronters. And what of Mrs. Rosa Parks, the woman who precipitated the bus boycott? Shortly before the incident on the bus, Mrs. Parks had attended the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee. To fully understand the nature and purpose of this school, we must go back to the early 1930s, a time when the Communist Party had great dreams and expectations of using the Negro in the party's plans for overthrowing the government of the United States. It was in the 1930s that the party organized the People's Institute of Applied Religion. As part of its program, this organization set up the Commonwealth College at Mena, Arkansas. It was organized around 1932 by identified communist James A. Dombrowski and fellow-traveler Myles Horton. It was cited by the U.S. Attorney General as a communist front and fined $2500 for violating the sedition statute of the state of Arkansas. The faculty then moved to Monteagle, Tennessee, and organized the Highlander Folk School. In addition to Dombrowski and Horton, those assisting in the school's operation included Don West, district director of the Communist Party in North Carolina, and identified communist Aubrey Williams. In 1945, the U.S. Senate rejected the appointment of Aubrey Williams as administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration because of his communist affiliations. Aubrey Williams was president of the Southern Conference Education Fund until 1963, at which time he became national chairman of the Committee to Abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities. This organization has been cited as a communist front. Can there be any doubt as to what was taught at the Commonwealth College where the hammer and sickle was prominently displayed? Or at the Highlander Folk School, where Rosa Parks was trained? In March, 1967, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was organized in Atlanta. Martin Luther King was installed as president, Fred Shuttlesworth as vice-president and the Rev. Andrew Young as program director. The Atlanta Constitution of July 24, 1963, had this to say about Andrew Young: The Rev. Young has been headquartered rent-free in Savannah in the offices of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. The Subversive Activities Control Board, an agency of the federal government, has found the union to be communist infiltrated. Another coincidence. In 1957, King was photographed at the Highlander Folk School during the Labor Day weekend. Also in attendance and photographed were Rosa Parks, Aubrey Williams, Myles Horton and Abner W. Berry of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Now it would seem that King would have gotten some inkling of the backgrounds of his associates at this school and the nature and purpose of the school itself. Nevertheless, on a form letter from school director Horton, dated May 15, 1963, King is listed as a sponsor of Highlander. In December, 1959, King called upon southern Negroes to practice "civil disobedience" and to break openly any state or local law "not in harmony with federal law." In 1960, Hunter Pitts O'Dell replaced Bayard Rustin as secretary and adviser to King. Let's delve a little into O'Dell's background. In 1956, he refused to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, taking the 5th amendment when questioned about his communist activities. He repeated this performance in 1958. In 1962, the House Committee on Un- American Activities published a report entitled "Structure and Organization of the Communist Party in the United States." On page 576 there is a list of those elected to the National Committee of the Communist Party, USA, as known to the House Committee in November of 1961. Among the names is that of Hunter Pitts O'Dell. The facts are that O'Dell was district organizer for the Communist Party in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1956, was a member of the Communist Party when King hired him and was elected to the National Committee of the Communist Party while on King's payroll. On October 26, 1962, the St. Louis Globe Democrat printed an article stating that King had a communist on his payroll, so King claims to have fired O'Dell at this time. However, O'Dell then went to work as administrator in the New York office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC, you will recall, is an organization of which King was president. Pressure from the press again caused King to "fire" O'Dell, this time on June 26, 1963. In July, 1963, a reporter for United Press International phoned the New York office of the SCLC and was told that O'Dell was still administrator of that office. In 1960, there was the restaurant "sit in" in Atlanta, led by King. In 1961, demonstrations in Albany, Georgia, led to his arrest. He declared dramatically when arrested that he would remain in jail until the city desegregated public facilities. Two days later he was out on bail. In St.Augustine, Florida, after getting Negroes fired up for demonstrations King went to jail amid great fanfare. But two days later he was bailed out again so he could receive an honorary law degree at Yale University. In the meantime, the aged mother of Massachusetts' Governor Peabody remained in the St.Augustine jail after having been arrested in the demonstrations. White segregationists "Hoss" Menuci and Connie Lynch were in St.Augustine whipping up mobs into a murderous fury. King was safely at Yale. King's American Committee for Africa sponsored and financed the American tour of communist terrorist Holden Roberto, leader of the "war of national liberation" which began in Angola on the morning of March 15, 1961. A thousand whites were murdered and dismembered and also about 8,000 Africans. In October, 1962, King met with communist Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria in a hotel in Harlem. From the United States Ben Bella traveled to Cuba for conferences with Fidel Castro. In 1963 there were the demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama. A bomb in a church, which resulted in the deaths of four Negro girls, was described as the work of white segregationists and the Ku Klux Klan. Possible. Equally possible is that it could have been the handiwork of agents provocateurs. Remember Carl Braden? He was indicted, tried and convicted of conspiring with Negroes to bomb the house of a Negro and then place the blame on white segregationists. On October 5, 1963, state and local police raided the office of the Southern Conference Educational Fund at 822 Perdido Street in New Orleans. Quantities of communist literature were seized. Also seized was a check from James A. Dombrowski made out to, and endorsed by, Martin Luther King. There were letters from King to Dombrowski and the Bradens and a photograph of King, Dombrowski and the Bradens. The photograph had been taken at the 5th annual meeting of King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1964 there was the march from Selma to Montgomery. Who were the participants? An entry by U.S. Representative William L. Dickinson in the Congressional Record for March 30, 1965 will help to enlighten us. Mister Dickinson says there were four distinct groups participating in the march. "One group was the Alabama Negro who participated to secure rights and privileges which he felt had been withdrawn from him illegally." A second group were the do-gooders from out-of-state, motivated by compassion for their fellow human beings. He describes the third group as "human flotsam: adventurers, beatniks, prostitutes and similar rabble." And what of the fourth group, the ones who welded the others together and gave them cohesiveness? Who were they? In the words of Congressman Dickinson, "the Communist Party." Look at the speakers on the platform in front of the State Capitol in Montgomery or participating prominently in the march or demonstrations: Carl Braden, a well-known communist who was convicted of conspiring to bomb a Negro's house. Abner Berry, one of the directors of the Communist Party. He was in and out of the Selma-Montgomery area. James Peck who has a federal criminal record and who once tried to prevent the launching of our first nuclear submarine. Bayard Rustin, who by his own admission in the Saturday Evening Post was a Communist Party organizer for 12 years. Martin Luther King, who has amassed the staggering total of over 60 communist front affiliations since 1955. In the Congressional Record, volume 111, part 5, page 6334, there is an affidavit, sworn to under oath, by Karl Prussion, a former counterspy for the FBI. Part of the wording of that affidavit is as follows: "I hereby also state that Martin Luther King has either been a member of, or wittingly has received support from, over 60 communist fronts, individuals, and/or organizations which give aid to or espouse communist causes." In the New York World-Telegram for July 23, 1964, there is an article on page 2 in which King says he is sick and tired of people saying the civil rights movement has been infiltrated by communists and communist sympathizers. He said there were as many communists in the movement as there are Eskimos in Florida. In November, 1964, J.Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said King was the most notorious liar in the United States. In 1965 King began to make critical speeches about U.S. foreign policy. The communist press gave extensive coverage to his speeches, often featuring them in the Communist Party's official newspaper, The Worker. In September of 1965 he called upon Arthur Goldberg at the United Nations and urged the United States to press for a UN seat for Communist China. He also asked for a halt in U.S. air strikes against North Vietnam and recommended negotiations with the VietCong. Has anyone ever heard of King calling on North Vietnam to halt its subversion, murder and terrorism in South Vietnam? In 1965, an organization known as the Citizens Crusade Against Poverty was founded. Respected author and writer George Schuyler has this to say about that organization: Its officers include the Soviet-trained Reuther, Martin Luther King, black power promoter James Farmer, radical socialist Michael Harrington, ADL sneak Dore Schary, the Vietnik Doctor Benjamin Spock and a team of other such revolutionaries crimson enough to dye the Pacific Ocean a brilliant red. Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party, USA, commented, "We are at a new stage in the struggle, because this is the crossroads where the civil rights struggle meets the class struggle." In an interview on Meet the Press on March 28, 1965, King said, "I do think that there are two types of laws. One is a just law, and one is an unjust law. I think we all have moral obligations to disobey unjust laws." And who is to decide which laws are just and which are unjust? King was advocating chaos and anarchy. The connections between the civil rights movement and the Communist Party became stronger in April of 1966 when all three south-wide civil rights organizations lined up in opposition to U.S. policy in Vietnam. These organizations were the Southern Conference Educational Fund, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. They termed their merger a "meshing of the civil rights and peace struggles." The riots which began in Chicago on July 12, 1966, broke out just two days after King held a mass civil rights rally in Soldiers Field. The Chicago Tribune reported that prior to the riots King had shown films detailing the violence of Watts. Asked by the Tribune about this, King replied that the films showing the Watts riots were to demonstrate the negative effect of riots. (Negative effects such as rioters carrying off color TV sets?) During the Chicago rioting, King reportedly sped from one trouble spot to another, but reporters noted that he seldom got out of his car. The Allen-Scott report of July, 1966, states that King and company were contacting and enlisting Chicago street gangs and "bringing them into the civil rights movement to fight the 'power structure'." In a speech in Los Angeles on February 25, 1967, King called for a "merger" of the peace and civil rights movements. He called the Vietnam war the result of "paranoid anti-communism." In a speech at the Coliseum in Chicago, King again called for the merging of the peace and civil rights movements, saying, "We must combine the fervor of the civil rights movement with the peace movement. We must demonstrate, teach and preach, and organize until the very foundations of our nation are shaken." In a statement delivered April 4, 1967, King called upon Negroes and Whites to register their opposition to the Vietnam war by becoming conscientious objectors to military service. On April 4, 1967, the Rev. Martin Luther King rose to the speaker's platform in New York City's Riverside Church and delivered what was later described by a presidential aide as "a speech on Vietnam that goes right down the commie line." In his speech, King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." He charged the nation with "cruel manipulation of the poor" and said that U.S. troops "may have killed a million South Vietnamese civilians - mostly children." He added, "We test our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicines and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe." On April 13, 1967, Michael Laski, Chairman of the Communist Party, USA, (Marxist-Leninist), told a press conference in New York: King knows what's going on. He is allowing himself to be used by the Communist Party....King willingly enters into an alliance with the Communist Party....Mr. King receives financial support from organizations and individuals that are tied to the Communist Party. He knows what is happening, and so does James Bevel. James Bevel just happens to be one of the top men in King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Bevel helped to organize the Spring Mobilization Committee and in July, 1967, met with North Vietnamese and Vietcong officials in Stockholm, Sweden. Bevel's wife, Diane, visited Hanoi in December, 1966, and conferred with women in Ho Chi Minh's government. One of the strongest statements from a fellow-clergyman came in April, 1967, from the Reverend Henry Mitchell. As reported by the Chicago Tribune: The leader of a group of West Side Negro ministers declared yesterday that the Rev. Martin Luther King should "get the hell out of here." His civil rights marching last summer "brought hate." The Chicago chapter of the NAACP, long critical of the civil rights tactics of King, formally split with King's group. From August 29, 1967, to September 4th, the National Conference for New Politics held its convention in Chicago. Every subversive organization in the United States was represented. A partial list of organizations which participated include: Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam Draft Resistance Union Southern Christian Leadership Conference Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee W.E.B. DuBois Clubs Revolutionary Action Movement Socialist Workers Party Progressive Labor Party Communist Party, USA The keynote speaker for the convention was Martin Luther King. Part of his speech follows: These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression. Out of the wombs of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born. We in the west must support these revolutions....A morbid fear of communism has made Americans the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Communism is a judgment of our failure. We have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. The fact is that capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor - both black and white. The way to end poverty is to end the exploitation of the poor and ensure them a fair share of the government's services and the nation's natural resources. We must recognize that the problems of neither racial nor economic injustice can be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power. Lenin couldn't improve on that speech. On September 21, 1967, King was made an honorary lifetime member of ILWU Local 10 in San Francisco. The ILWU, you will remember, is the labor union which was expelled from the CIO when it was found that the ILWU was communist- dominated. The leader of the ILWU, Harry Bridges, is a communist and was ordered deported from the United States. The deportation order was over-ruled by Roosevelt's Supreme Court at the urging of Eleanor Roosevelt. In November, 1967, King was guest speaker at the National Labor Leadership Assembly for Peace in Chicago. In his speech, King denounced the Johnson administration. If communist press reports were accurate, the "left wing" of labor dominated the convention. The Worker of November 19, 1967, says, "This was the most significant anti-war gathering of labor leaders ever held in this country. The conference radiated awareness that here was the force capable of mobilizing the decisive factor of the people, the working class, against the Vietnam war." Communist Harry Bridges got a standing ovation when he addressed the closing session. On March 5, 1968, the Honolulu Star Bulletin carried an article in which King stated that flamethrowers in Vietnam are fanning the flames in the cities of the United States. In 1967, King began planning for massive demonstrations in Washington, D.C. The demonstrations were scheduled to take place beginning on April 22, 1968. In addition to recruiting thousands of the poor, he planned to organize and train black militants involved in last summer's riots for major roles in his campaign of massive civil disobedience. King revealed this in private conferences with Stokely Carmichael, the pro/Vietcong, pro/Castro revolutionary, and other black militants. At one point in their meeting, Carmichael said that the time had come to begin disrupting American cities "TO HELP OUR VIETCONG COMRADES IN ARMS." King, while stressing that he was vigorously opposed to the Vietnam war, argued that if such an objective were announced for his campaign it would backfire. King's plans included: (a) Selection of five cities in which to train 100 neighborhood leaders. The suggested cities were Chicago, Cleveland, St.Louis, Houston and Atlanta. (b) Contacts would be made with the residents of the poor community. Young men who were actively involved in last summer's riots were to be sought out and trained as leaders. King also told Carmichael, "To dislocate the functioning of a city without destroying it can be longer lasting, more costly to the society. It is more difficult for the government to quell it by force. The disruption of the cities you want will come much easier." King also reported that ousted Congressman Adam Clayton Powell would play a major role in the Washington demonstrations. Powell himself has said, "My return to Washington in April will help rock the entire country." Take a close look at this again, ladies and gentlemen. Stokely Carmichael recently returned to the United States after conferring with Fidel Castro, North Vietnamese officials and communist revolutionaries in many countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. James Bevel, who is on the staff of the SCLC, which is drawing up the battle plans for the disruptions, conferred with North Vietnamese and Vietcong officials in Stockholm last July. Adam Clayton Powell was in California recently where he tried to organize students, white as well as black. This is the groundwork for a revolution, and the only people who can possibly benefit from such a coalition are the enemies of the United States. In late March of 1968, King's attention was drawn to Memphis, Tennessee, where a garbage collectors strike was in progress. He went to Memphis and organized a demonstration which culminated in a riot. During the burning and looting that followed, a 16-year-old was killed. A judge issued an injunction prohibiting any more demonstrations because of the explosiveness of the situation in Memphis, but King promptly announced he had no intention of obeying. He had again decided to disobey an "unjust law." On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was killed by a sniper's bullet fired by someone who has not as yet been apprehended, despite a massive investigation instigated by Ramsey Clark. The odd circumstances surrounding the murder are again suggestive of an agent provocateur. On April 11, 1968, U.S. Representative John. R. Rarick of Louisiana inserted in the Congressional Record a news item concerning King. On page 9816 there is the following: [From the Yakima (Wash.) Eagle, Nov. 30, 1967] The first disclosure that an FBI report existed which tied Martin Luther King in communism was published in Washington Observer Newsletter No.13 in the February 15, 1966 issue. At that time, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach refused to turn over this file to the House Committee on Un- American Activities. In fact, Katzenbach, in the presence of Lyndon Johnson, lied and denied to Congressman John Bell Williams that the file even existed. WO is now happy to report that the FBI report is not only in the hands of the HCUA, but copies are also in the hands of Congressman John J. Rooney of New York. The lawmakers were so shocked at what they read in the FBI report that they plan to summon King before their committees and delve deeply into his involvement with communist conspirators. When the FBI agents had King under surveillance, they observed him meet a well-identified Soviet espionage agent at Kennedy Airport in New York. They also secured evidence that King was receiving large sums of money from a well-known American communist agent who gives King instructions which he implicitly obeys. The federal agents also adduced evidence of his unsavory personal conduct in Washington hotels and elsewhere and the fact that he had violated the Mann Act (white slavery). This is a violation of the U.S. criminal code, but neither Attorney General Katzenbach nor his successor, Ramsey Clark, would allow the FBI to present the evidence to a federal grand jury. The record of Martin Luther King strongly indicates he had been grossly irresponsible in learning the backgrounds of his associates and associations or that he chose to use them for his own ends. The only other conclusion that a reasonable person can come to is that Martin Luther King covertly and consciously attempted to promote the cause of the Communist Party. END