"Truth and Reconciliation for the National Insecurity State"

audio of my presentation (49 minutes)

www.peakchoice.org/audio/robinowitz-truth-reconciliation-national-insecurity-state-2018-05-04.mp3

"Of Kennedys and Kings: Reinvestigating the RFK and MLK Assassinations at 50"
The 17th Annual Forensic Science and Law Symposium
The Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
www.duq.edu/RFKMLK

we must make what reparations we can for the damage we have done. We must provide the medical aid that is badly needed, making it available in this country if necessary.
-- Martin Luther King, "Beyond Vietnam," April 4, 1967

my abstract for the conference

background:

A half century of documenting difficult truths about the assassinations of the Kennedys and King had mixed results. Much of the public is skeptical of official claims yet confused about which counter narratives are correct. These suspicions were insufficient for a coherent societal response.

methods:

Forensic evidence proved that accused lone gunmen (Oswald, Ray, Sirhan) were not the assassins. Focusing on the motives for these crimes of state might increase understanding of how efforts for peace were thwarted. A South Africa style Truth and Reconciliation Commission may have the potential for transforming awareness. An effort in the United States would likely be non-governmental, without legal power.

results:

The 1999 King family lawsuit was a step toward Truth and Reconciliation, but the documentation and verdict were widely ignored. The media blackout suggested the perpetrators were not subject to political efforts to redress grievances. Extraordinary effort would be required to remedy what MLK called the triple evils of war, racism and economic injustice.

conclusions:

What would the world be if the Cold War had ended in JFK's second term, as planned, freeing up resources for peaceful purposes? What would "The Sixties" have been if President Kennedy's order to withdraw from Vietnam had been implemented? What society would we live in today if we had chosen global cooperation instead of endless warfare? What positive lessons can we learn from these missed opportunities, as nations fight over finite resources?

 

The Legacy of the Sixties

Military Industrial Complex killed Kennedy to prevent him from ending the Cold War

On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech at American University calling for an end to the nuclear arms race. This speech got more coverage in the Soviet Union than in the USA.

On September 20, 1963, at the United Nations General Assembly, JFK offered to convert the "Moon race" into a cooperative effort with the Soviet Union. JFK's change of approach on the Moon race was part of an effort to end the Cold War, the reason the military industrial intelligence media financial complex removed him from office.

What would the world be if the Cold War had ended in JFK's second term, as planned, freeing up resources for peaceful purposes? What would "The Sixties" have been if the War on Vietnam had been allowed to end? What society would we live in today if we had chosen global cooperation instead of endless warfare? Would we have used our creative talents for something better? Would warnings about ecological destruction have been heeded? What positive lessons can we learn from this missed opportunity, as nations fight over finite resources?

We need a South African style Truth and Reconciliation Commission about the National Insecurity State, starting with the coup in Dallas.

— Mark Robinowitz

 

My Personal Revenge
Jackson Browne

My personal revenge will be to tell you good morning
On a street without beggars or homeless
When instead of jailing you I suggest
You shake away the sadness there that blinds you
And when you who have applied your hands in torture
Are unable to look up at what surrounds you
My personal revenge will be to give you
These hands that once you so mistreated
But have failed to take away their tenderness

originally from Nicaraguan poets Tomas Borge and Louis Enrique Mejia Godoy

 

MLK Truth and Reconciliation

by Mark Robinowitz, www.JFKMLKRFK.com

50 years ago, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in Memphis.  

Now, MLK is a cultural icon, memorialized by the federal holiday, with schools and roads named in his honor.  He is best known for his "I have a dream" speech at the 1963 March on Washington, but King's legacy is far broader.

In 1964, King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He received this as a responsibility to do more.  

On April 4, 1967, he gave his most powerful speech, at Riverside Church in New York City: "Beyond Vietnam," an indictment of what he called the "triple evils" of racism, militarism and poverty.  The entire media attacked Dr. King for denouncing the war.  Many of his allies ostracized him.  Donations dropped to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  

He was never invited to the White House again.

In a 2016 article for Sojourners magazine, Rabbi Arthur Waskow recalled that King's "friend and co-worker Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was heard to mutter than by giving this profoundly radical speech he had signed his death warrant -- and indeed, exactly one year later, he was murdered."

When King was killed, he had been organizing the "Poor People's Campaign," a second March on Washington.  The plan was to camp on the National Mall by the US Capitol to demand the government address poverty (not only African Americans).  Federal government leaders saw this as a dangerous threat. They feared MLK would not be able to keep the protest non-violent, especially after their demands were not met.

The official narrative of King's assassination is that he was killed by James Earl Ray, supposedly a lone racist motivated by hate.   King had received countless racist threats, but racism was not the only reason he was killed.

After some years, the King family suspected that James Earl Ray, the accused killer, was framed.  They asked their friend, attorney William Pepper, to investigate.  Pepper had helped persuade King to speak out more against the war on Vietnam, and toward the end of Ray's life, became Ray's attorney.  

Ray never had a trial.  He was coerced into pleading guilty to avoid the electric chair - and spent the rest of his life trying to withdraw that plea.  The King family eventually supported Ray's (unsuccessful) effort for a trial.

Ray died in prison in 1998.  In 1999, the family filed a suit against Loyd Jowers and "other unknown co-conspirators."  Jowers owned "Jim's Grill," near the Lorraine Motel where King was shot.  He had admitted, in a public interview and in talks with Dexter King and Andrew Young, to have hidden the rifle that was used; fired, he said, by a Memphis police sharpshooter.

One piece of evidence that Ray was framed:  several eyewitnesses said the shot was fired from bushes on the street. (Ray supposedly shot MLK from inside a rooming house next to Jim's Grill.)  The next day, the City of Memphis cut down the bushes.

While Ray was a fugitive in Canada, he used multiple identities of actual people who superficially resembled him, a feat that required access to centralized government databases.

King v. Jowers did not seek to prosecute or punish anyone, but to use the legal system to expose the truth. (They only asked for a symbolic fine of $100 and no jail time.)  The family was inspired by the "Truth and Reconciliation" process pioneered in South Africa after Apartheid, which gave amnesty for politically motivated crimes if the perpetrators were willing to confess in public.  The jury heard three weeks of testimony and took one hour to reach a verdict:  elements in the federal and local governments conspired with organized crime to kill King.  

The family said the trial was "everything that the family members have to say about the assassination."  They said they "have done our part [and] those of you, if you find it in your hearts to get the 'powers that be' to officialize what 12 independent people have already done, that is your business."   Since then, there has not been a groundswell to highlight the implications for civil rights, issues of peace and war, and the contrast of poverty in the wealthiest nation in history.  

Truth and Reconciliation applies not only to the perpetrators who ordered this and similar crimes of state, but also to the citizenry who have been hesitant to admit unpleasant parts of our history. The King family's message of love and reconciliation could free our society from fear and divisiveness to reach our positive potentials.

Mark Robinowitz publishes www.JFKMLKRFK.com the legacy of the 1960s.

 

Dexter King testimony: December 1, 1999

MLK Jr's son Dexter King's testimony at the King v. Jowers trial focused on the big picture, not the microanalysis of evidence debunking the official lie that a lone racist supposedly did the crime. That is a more productive approach at this late date.

THE CIRCUIT COURT OF SHELBY COUNTY, TENNESSEE
THIRTIETH JUDICIAL DISTRICT AT MEMPHIS
_____________________________________________
CORETTA SCOTT KING, MARTIN LUTHER KING, III, BERNICE KING, DEXTER SCOTT KING and YOLANDA KING, Plaintiffs,
Vs. Case No. 97242-4 T.D.
LOYD JOWERS and OTHER UNKNOWN CO-CONSPIRATORS, Defendants.

Dexter King shakes hands with James Earl Ray. Toward the end of Ray's life, the family fought unsuccessfully for Ray to have a trial (which he never had) and then, after Ray's death, sued in Memphis to prove the true story.

Dexter King, selected testimony:

Q. Historically have you become aware of what happened to your father and his organization after he came out against the war in Vietnam on April 4, 1967?

A. Yes. He made the statement at the Riverside Church in New York "why I oppose the war in Vietnam." Interestingly enough, as we've been going through this period, it is so amazing for me that as soon as this issue of potential involvement of the federal government came up, all of a sudden the media just went totally negative against the family. I couldn't understand that. I kept asking my mother, what is going on? She reminded me, she said, Dexter, your dad and I have lived through this once already. You have to understand that when you take a stand against the establishment, first you will be attacked, there is an attempt to discredit, second, to try and character assassinate, and, third, ultimately physical termination or assassination, in that order. Now, the truth of the matter is if my father had not -- if he had stopped and not spoken out, if he had just somehow compromised, he would probably still be here with us today.

Q. If he remained a civil rights leader?

A. Exactly. If he had just talked about riding in the front of the bus, being able to sit down at lunch counters, that was not threatening. In fact, that expanded the economic base when there was integration. But the minute you start talking about redistribution of wealth and stopping a major conflict, which also has economic ramifications, and he understood the injustice and the disparity of African-American men fighting on the front lines in a disproportionate number losing their lives with their white comrades but yet could not even come home and eat at the same lunch counter with their white comrades they just fought with in Vietnam or could not live in the same neighborhood or any number of things, he saw this was a major injustice and what it was doing to the black family, the way it was destroying families, all these young black men being sent away and dying in disproportionate numbers. So to make a stand, the fact that a lot of people, soldiers who were on leave were hearing his message, and there was this fear of, you know, desertion, black soldiers saying I'm not going to fight this unjust war, why am I here, so he was certainly seen as a threat. Unfortunately he was not. It was a real tragedy. As he said, there cannot be any great disappointment where there is no great love, I'm forcing my country to live up to its truth. And the rest is history. ...

"have you forgotten that the man which we honor -- this was around the King holiday celebration -- was one of the most controversial individuals of his time. In fact, tell me how he went from being public enemy number one in the 1960's to a national hero with a holiday in the 1980's. Explain that to me. Well, the point I'm making is that he can be relegated to I-have-a-dream land because he is not here. Certainly in death he can be martyred and put on a pedestal, but does America really want to deal with what he was fighting for, what he ultimately died for, in terms of solving the triple evils of poverty, racism, violence and war. ...."

"we were requesting what we saw as a similar model to South Africa's Truth & Reconciliation Commission. We really felt if this truth was going to come out, it had to be done in the context of amnesty or immunity and a healing, a cleansing, that when there are crimes against the people, if you will, by the State, there has to be some type of process so that people can come forward without fear of reprisals ...."

"We're in this to use the teachings that my father taught us in terms of nonviolent reconciliation. It works. I mean, we're living together in the South today because of that great movement, black and white together, different types of advances that have occurred as a matter of a peaceful, nonviolent movement. We know that it works. So, therefore, we have to be true to our cause. We have to practice what we preach. So what we're saying is that we're not looking to -- we're not looking to put people in prison. What we're looking to do is get the truth out so that this nation can learn and know officially. I frankly feel I already know the truth. And, I mean, if the world never finds out officially, it is never broadcast across the world, that's a tragedy."

 

from the Jowers trial transcript

we have always had a no-fault analysis on this. We were not trying to punish anybody. We were approaching this more like they approached it in South Africa, that in order to have a real reconciliation, you have to know the truth.
Andrew Young, p. 645

 

LOYD JOWERS: I think the only way we're ever going to be able to prove that this conspiracy is to get the FBI and CIA's records on it. It is common knowledge, white and black both know, that J. Edgar Hoover hated Dr. King with a personal passion.

ANDREW YOUNG: But there wouldn't be any record of it.

LOYD JOWERS: You don't think they would make records on something like that?

ANDREW YOUNG: No.

LOYD JOWERS: Well, you are probably right. It wouldn't be too smart to, would it? How do you prove it?

ANDREW YOUNG: Well, it is very difficult to prove. That's the reason why we've advocated what they did in South Africa, declare general amnesty and let everybody come forward and clear their conscience. 713-714

related websites:

JFKMLKRFK.com - by Mark Robinowitz - updated February 25, 2024