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1969 JUNE 2h DAILY COLUI; . a ORAS aN ho at tie PBI Se RS oS OS en Isn't Telling. Truth? - = Aydt ae en By Carl Rowan » WASHINGTON — Atlorneys ‘for former heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay have -Yiled papers in U.S. Federal Court accusing FBI officials of Lyi ing about the wiretaps and ! bursings of the late Dr. Martin Luther King and Elijah Mu- chammmuad, leader of the Black : Mustins. . Clay's lawyers have cited ‘some glaring discrepancies between statements made here the last few days by FBI Direc- tor J. Edgar Hoover and other top FBI officials and testimony in a recent Clay hearing in U.S. District Court in Houston, Tex. The brief, filed in Houston last Friday, says the FBI hus produced a “gup of credibility (that) now approaches acra- ter.” Access Denied Clay’s lawyers are seeking access to wiretap information and personnel that the govern- ment so far has avoided mak- ing available. The Clay hear- ing, in which the fighter seeks reversal of his conviction and five-year sentence for draft evasion, touched off the cur- rent furor over FBI wiretap-, ping and bugging. It was in these Houston heurings that the government conceded that it had illegally tapped the telephones of King and both wiretapped the phone and bugged the home of Elijah Muhammad. ; ‘A column by (his reporter provoked the FBI to claim that the late Robert F. Kennedy, as Attorney General, both pro- posed and authorized the tap of King’s phones. Keunedy’s suc-, cessor as Atforucy General, Nicholas DeB. Kavenbach, and his successor, Ramscy clark, have both disputed the FBI ‘claim that Kennedy proposed the wiretap on King, although they acknowledge that he ap- proved it. But the brief filed in Hous- ton Friday may be of extreme significance because it could force the government to pro- duce documents, wiretap und bugging transcripts, and other information that will leave the public without doubt as to who is lying. Here are some of the glaring contradictions that are at issue: 1. Hoover told the Washing- ton Evening Star that he had memoranda signed by Kennedy authorizing the wiretaps on King. +2. The Federal court brief claims that either Hoover fied in saying that the King wiretap was discontinued on April 30, 1965, or eise FBI Special Agent Robert Nichols perjured him- self in his Houston testimony. 3. The Houston brief calls the court's attention to another seeming discrepancy. 4. There apparently is no question in the Houston court proceedings that the wiretaps were illegal, whether Hoover, Kennedy, or a anyone cise “au- thorized” them, However, in a fetter to this reporter, Clyde W. Tolson, associate director of the FBI, took the position that the King wiretaps were beyond criticism because they were “withis the provisions laid down by the then President of the United States.” Clay’s lawyers claim that the Federal government is now lrying to do “‘an uppurent about-face” in a Chicago cuse involving anti-war activists who were indicted for inciting riots at the Democratic Na- tional Convention last August. The government is uraving in that case that the President “has the constituyional power to authorize electronic surveill- ance to gather intelligence in- formation concerning domestic Organizations which seck to attack and subvert the govern- ment by unlawful means.” Clay’s attorneys thus may hasten a ruling on whether the Justice Department and FBI, representing the President, can wiretap and bug virtually any- one or any group without court permission. , Clay's attorneys also seck to force the government to pro- duce the mysterious FBI em- ployee “AT-1379-S (1) wha ‘supposedly did the sciual ;eavesdropping on Dr. King. They want the court to de- termine who, in this contradic- tory welter of FBI stories. is not telling the truth.