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16th Street Church Bombing — Part 32

107 pages · May 08, 2026 · Document date: Apr 17, 1964 · Broad topic: Terrorism · Topic: 16th Street Church Bombing · 107 pages OCR'd
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Mennv for Mr. Tolson Re: Bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church Grand Jury as well as "fringe members" close to the "action" group who appear to be on the edges of the conspiracy but not directly involved in the bombings, yet apparently in possession of valuable information. Inspector feels that with additional coverage it may even be possible to catch some of the Klan "action" squad in the act of committing violence such as we did in solving the Florida train bombings recently. If this is not feasible we must at least place ourselves in the position where we are aware of new bombings and taxe aporopriate preventative action. At the present time all 6 bombings are being worked out of one case, i.e., bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. This was done with Bureau approval on the theory that the suspects in the Baptist Church bombing were the same as those in the other bombings. At one time this may have been desirable, but at the present time Inspector feels this is highly undesirable. Subsequent investigation nas disclosed that while there are some instances where the same individual may possibly have participated in several bombings, there are other instances where different individuals of the Klan "action" squad apparently participated in the different bombings. The office has naturally concentrated on the key suspects of the Baptist Church bombing wherein the 4 little giris were killed. However, by doing this the investigation on some of the logical suspects in the other 5 bombings have more jor less drifted and lost intensity. Inspector feels these cases should be worked separately and investigation of these 5 bombings intensified. Tne Birmingham Office had been submitting a daily teletype summary } to the Bureau up until 3/12/64. They are now submitting a weekly summary. In order to intensify the pressure on this case and provide for closer supervision, Inspector feels that Birmingham should be required to submit a daily summary on the Baptist Church bombing and a weekly airtel! summary on the other bombings. When special squad in Birmingham, we had SAC Roy Moore of Little Rock, devoting full time to this case. SAC Faisst in Birmingham has over 406 cases on his desx, including the bombing cases, together with the bulk of the public relations, personnel responsibilities, etc. Inspector does not fee! Faisst can provide necessary leadership, guidance and impetus to the $6 bombing cases with such a heavy work load. Inspector feels Faisst should be authorized to use Retief Suvervisor on his desk 50% of each day and that Faisst be required to spend 50% of his time supervising and providing the necessary imaginative, vigorous and ingenious approach on these § bombings so that they will be solved. An equivalency of 4 Agents have been working on instant bombings for the past 2 months. With the return of 2 men from special assignment, the office contemplated assigning 6 men to these bombings. Manpower analysis conducted -3-
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