◆ SpookStack

: Oo \oe 3 1 IT DOESN'T EXPLAIN, is the following ir, pr years ago, an ex-FBI agent I knew asked me tr hin. .dr a round of golf. - After the round, we sat in the clubhouse chatting. He rked the conversation around to Dr. King. . He told me the FBI had been using a variety of electronic vesdropping devices on Dr. King. Besides tapping his phone, they had planted listening Sevices in hotel rooms he used while traveling. . - The result, he saidywas a very thick file on Dr. King. : He gave me some’exampies. , - They were very personal things. They were things I’m eure Dr. King would not want anyone else to know about. If ... you bugged almost anyone’s bedroom long enough, you - would bear things that person didn’t want anyone else to _. know about. BUT NONE OF THE THINGS this ex-FBI agent told me reflected in any way on Dr. King’s loyalty, his Americanism, or seemed to be remotely related to national security. ’.” Nor did they reflect on his role as a Jeader in the civil rights crusade, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, or a figure of historic importance. ‘* °-7 asked the ex-FB] agent if his information was merely ' gossip or if he was sure about it. — . He said he had visited J. Edgar Hoover in Washington and had been briefed on the contents of the King file. It was not uncommon, he said, for trusted ex-agents to be let in on such things. Obviously, | was supposed to be shocked by the things he told me. And I was. But not for the reasons he assumed. The shocking part of it was that he was actually sitting there telling me such things. ; They were none of my business, and they were none of his business. They. were nobody's business but Dr. King’s. ; IT WAS PLAIN OLD MUD-SLINGING, on a level with the ’ Jowest scandal magazines and transom-peeking publications. H - There was no doubt in my mind then, and none now, that M4 ‘it was being leaked to me for the purpose of discrediting Dr. - King. . , The same type of thing, I have since learned, occurred in other cities, with other newsmen. And it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out why. Dr. King and Hoover had engaged in a furious public quar- rel. Hoover, quite clearly, did not like Dr. King. . . That’s why I suggest the FBI hasn’t given an adequate ex- planation. ..” If the wiretapping was being done for national security, I presume that it should have been kept a-big secret. '_. Secret? How much of a secret was it if a newspaper col-_ umnist in Chicago knew of the eavesdropping? Or if a for- mer agent — a private citizen — could talk about it? | (For the record, the ex-agent was not a two-bit gumshoe SS 4 CJ given to flights of fancy. He was then a well known and highly respected investigator. He is today a famous and powerful man.) AND IS THE PURPOSE OF SUCH official eavesdropping ' to gather spite material, transom-peeking tidbits that will be { S __— whispered in the ears of opinion-makers? . That, of course, is the greatest danger from Big Brothe a and his big ear. ° If that’s what Dr. King’s file was used for, then J’ll gladly 2 second Rowan’s suggestion that Hoover he replaced. 42> > The scandal-sheet business should be left to private indus- ™ try. + “J ay-- nm.