MLK Press Release

COINTEL PRO & CIA "Back Pocket Agents"

There are five very important insights to understand about past Government led dirty tricks and illegal activities.

1. From 1956 to the early 1970s, the secret domestic intelligence operations of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) for the most part were performed without the upper level political leaders of the US Government knowing the truth. In other words persons conducting these domestic activities even fooled them. Thus most of the campaign was unknown to the upper echelons like the Presidents and Attorney Generals while the key elements of the IC deployed dirty trick specialists from the FBI, CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) against so-called enemies of the state such as dissidents, the peace movement, and made secret war on select individuals and groups, particularly Blacks and Native Americans.

2. The FBI was not alone in doing these dirty deeds. Other members of the Intelligence Community (IC) collaborated and conducted the dirty tricks along side the FBI’s COINTEL PRO.

3. COINTEL PRO was not a Counter Intelligence operation.. However, it was a Covert Action Intelligence operation equal to if not better than what CIA could perform.

4. Most of the so-called adversaries were not really “bad” people but the nature of dirty trick operations by the US Government made these persons appear “dirtier” than they were. They used labeling, propaganda, and other smear tactics.

5. Several CIA components performed illegal domestic intelligence activities in concert with the FBI’s COINTEL PRO. As an IC activity, the COINTEL PRO “neutralized” and fabricated threats against individuals and organizations. The IC activities sowed distrust and disinformation utilizing a controlled system of informants and provocateurs against various individuals and organizations.

COINTEL PRO was unconstitutional clandestine activity to shape and manipulate the sociopolitical landscape by preventing or disrupting the exercise of First Amendment rights and advocacy. They wanted to suppress speaking, teaching, meeting, writing and publishing. Vigilante-style domestic covert action and propaganda was used against American citizens.

Agents infiltrated, manipulated and disabled organizations, conducted “dirty tricks” psychological warfare, used the legal system, warrantless black bag breakins, stalking, assaults and beatings for harassment. They inflicted physical, emotional and economic damage, and did not stop short of using assassinations to “neutralize” their adversaries. [ ] www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/c...portIIIa.htm

Murdering a King Among Men

One of the main objectives of secret counter intelligence program COINTEL PRO was to prevent the rise of a “black messiah.” The Black Panthers, NAACP, Malcolm X, and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as other Black nationalists were heavily surveilled. Andrew Young often repeats that he and Dr. King, Jr. knew that the government surveilled him and his people, because they even discovered microphones.

In Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King, Jr. himself on the day after the ceremony while attending the the U.S. Ambassador’s reception for him told Leutrell Osborne, Sr. that he knew that the Government was watching him and his people in the USA. The legacy of this domestic spying continues today in the lies and continued persecution of political targets, such as former Black Panther, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Osborne wonders why forty years after the fact, CNN (April, 2008), validates disinformation by pointing the finger at Ray and restating the lies about the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination. Neither James Earl Ray nor Lloyd Jowers did the killing but both have dirty hands.

Osborne’s opinions come from working directly with some of the principle investigators of the King murder and his deep experience in intelligence and clandestine operations. He knows how things work, how plans are executed with “plausible deniability.”

William Pepper, Attorney

The King family brought a civil suit against Jowers because they refused to believe Ray was the killer. The jury blamed Jowers for 30% of the liability and 70% to others, including “governmental agencies.” Pepper argued in Orders to Kill (1995) that King was the victim of an elaborate plot involving the Mafia, the FBI, the CIA, military intelligence - and the highest levels of the U.S. government.

“In an unlikely alliance, the King family was represented in the [Memphis wrongful death] case by William Pepper, who had been Mr. Ray's lawyer. The King family maintains that Mr. Pepper's version of the assassination is the one that gets at the real truth behind Dr. King's death, not the official version with Mr. Ray as the gunman. Mr. Pepper said federal, state and Memphis governmental agencies, as well as the news media conspired in the assassination.”
query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html

Why doesn’t media get the truth and point the fingers in the correct directions at COINTEL PRO and organized crime? The latest CNN documentary continues pointing at James Earl Ray and Lloyd Jowers. But the bullet has never been linked to Ray’s rifle.www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/200....in.america/. Let's focus on telling the truth at the 40th anniversary of King’s untimely death. The full story still hasn’t been told.

Truth At Last (2008) is the title of a new book by James Earl Ray’s older brother John Larry Ray. [ ] He claims there is forensic evidence that exonerates his brother. He also says Ray was inducted into the CIA, then used as a patsy. He blames “white America,” but the perps may be fewer in number. The government is not the country.

"Martin Luther King Jr. was a man admired by millions, but my brother didn't kill him," John told the New York Daily News. "I believe my brother was not only misused by conspirators within our government but also greatly misconstrued as a 'racist' and a 'murderer' by the media." www.globepequot.com/special/...illedmlk/

Attorney Ray Kohlman

Ray Kohlman conducted an investigation for the King family and James Earl Ray. He still believes a massive government conspiracy conceals the identity of King’s true assassins. There was a mystery man in James Earl Ray’s narrative, Raoul or Raul, who many believe was his intelligence handler.

The "problem" with Pepper's Raul, was that when Ray was in a Montreal bar, he was appraoched by Raul. Another British seaman was also approached by the same Raul, asking about smuggling weapons on the British liner. The descriptions of Raul by the two people correlate 80 - 90+ %.

A person who could have been "Raul" was also involved with Houston, Texas smuggling of weapons. This is from a 3rd person who's decription match the other two persons. James Ray stayed away from drugs and drug smuggling. Any criminal operation he was involved with was very lilimited becuase Ray was a klutz (shot himself with a revolver). Raoul/Raul is a fictious name used by the person who was controlling Ray's activities.

By eyewitness accounts, the shot came from across the street above the retaining wall, not the bathroom. The participants knew this as they ordered the COMPLETE CLEANING of the bushes. Eyewitness also saw a puff of smoke (probably dirt, etc from the muzzle blast) from the bushes. (Kohlman, 2008; private correspondence).

“According to Kohlman, a Memphis police officer named Earl Clark actually committed the crime and Ray was framed by the federal government Kohlman said he has evidence that Clark was hired by a friend named Loyd Jowers to kill King. Jowers, in turn, Kohlman said, was paid $100,000 by "Fat Frank" Liberto, a Mafia boss who may have been in league with the FBI and U.S. army.

Kohlman said King's April 1967 speech, in which he denounced the Vietnam War, led the government to worry that his words would lead to an anti-war uprising in the already volatile South. "The FBI did not pull the trigger [in King's assassination]," Kohlman said. "But they were definitely implicated in his death."

“Kohlman said he has evidence that the military or the CIA probably hired a Portuguese immigrant named Raul to provide them with a perpetrator - Ray - whom they could blame for King's murder. Raul was never questioned by the government and recently retired from his work in the import-export business.” [ ] www.stanforddaily.com/article...nspiracy “Attorney Claims MLK Murder Conspiracy,” Melissa Lambert, Feb. 7, 2000.

Investigator Gary Revel

Gary Revel was commisioned by the US government in 1977 to go undercover and find the King killers. Since then, he has not been fired, decommissioned, told the job was done, nor been paid. The stark reality is that the King killers have not yet been found.

This only offically appointed investigator of the MLK assassination doesn’t mince words – he names names: Lyndon Baines Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover, Vito Genovese, Santo Trafficante Jr., Sam Giancana, Meyer Lansky, Joseph Colombo, Frank Costello, Don Carlo Gambino, Joseph Bonnano, Paul Castellano, Carlos Marcello, and the CIA's E. Howard Hunt. [ ] leutrellosborne.50megs.com/what....html

Revel speaks of Raoul, based on the description of witness Grace Walden of the man who left the bathroom where the kill shot allegedly came from. A sketch artist produced a face Revel is convinced implicates E. Howard Hunt.

There was more than one 'Raoul'. In conversations I have had with JR, some which are recorded and held by the US Government, JR states that there were several 'Raouls' that he met with on different occasions. He identified one of them in 1977 for the HSCA's attorneys in Brushy Mountain Prison as one of the 3 tramps in the November 22nd, 1963 Dealy Plaza photograph. (Revel, 2008, private correspondence).

Revel previously advised Osborne about information that might lead to solving other related deaths to the assassination of King. When Osborne learned about the deaths of people associated with the investigation of King such as the two judges and six FBI Special Agents (SAs), Osborne said "There has to be fire where there is smoke."

Revel laid out these details to Osborne:

Two of the judges in Tennessee, who were planning to give James Earl Ray the trial he never had, died of heart attacks just before their plans could be put into place. Six FBI officials, all of which were to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), were prevented from doing so because of their deaths. Revel said deaths of these FBI SAs could be more significant than what many realized because all six of these FBI SAs were identified to Revel as being important witnesses for the HSCA. "Is it likely that the stress of the planned testimony really brought on heart attacks to three of these people?" questioned Revel.

Osborne now knows of eight people who died or were killed within a 6-month period. All eight were directly related to Revel’s investigation of the King assassination. When including other deaths during that year that were official suicides, accidents or deaths under unusual circumstances related to the work of the HSCA then a judicious person has to pause for thought. There is truth yet to be learned about unknowns who were directly involved in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X.
[ ] leutrellosborne.50megs.com/what....html

Osborne’s Take

Let me frame one of the most important insights into the events surrounding the assassination of Dr. King, Jr that I, Leutrell "Mike" Osborne, Sr., am able to state as of 040308. First ignore every mention of COINTELPRO as a counter intelligence operation of the FBI. COINTEL-PRO was not CI.

"The FBI led domestic dirty tricks intelligence operation known by the acronym COINTEL PRO was a Covert Action intelligence operation equal to if not better than one led and directed by the CIA Clandestine Service Spy Masters that I worked with in the past." This may be the most important insight I have for you to understand. CA as I define it included both assassinations and collaboration with intelligence operation resources such as organized crime and international hit persons. That is the way CA used to be even though there are rules of the game that tend to state that the US Government doesn't participate in such activities today. We are discussing the past.

Further, it is enlightening that much of the COINTELPRO or COINTEL FACTOR (as I prefer to call it) was not performed so that neither the White House nor the Attorney General knew in advance what was taking place. This observation is based on my research and reading so-called official documents.

Further many of the DOJ and FBI post investigations in my opinion confused matters and did not include persons doing the investigation who had a paradigm of a CIA Spy Master like me and others who understand the protocols and downside of CA intelligence operations. Plus many departments and agencies in the Intelligence Community collaborated both wittingly and unwittingly during the COINTEL FACTOR in the dirty tricks against US citizens especially Blacks and Native Americans.

One more point and I will hold for now. Also discount the mis-information about James Earl Ray and the true COINTEL FACTOR professionals mostly out of the FBI and some of the US Army intelligence organizations on the contrary there used Loyd Jowers being the assassins. Perhaps the only true link is the coordinator and agent handler known as Raul.

In my opinion Raul had the attributes of a person trained by Spy Masters but Raul is not what I call a Case Officer, per se. However, he has the attributes that tend to resemble a "trained agent or asset who knows how to handle agents" or people like Ray and Jowers in this case. During my life I have been blessed to meet people who have first hand knowledge of COINTEL PRO and the related events concerning the assassination of Dr. King, Jr. (Osborne, 2008)

Gary Revel suggests, based on his personal interviews of James Earl Ray, that there were several “Raul’s” or “Raoul’s” and all were covers for handlers. Revel’s opinion from deep within his own investigation winds up countering Pepper’s theory and naming former CIA officer and White House Watergate secret agent E. Howard Hunt once again holding the black bag. Revel summarized his findings relative to the King assassination in a post to this author on April 4, 2008. It connects the players and their respective motives.

E. Howard Hunt was the Team Leader of a group of assassins that included former CIA operatives (Employed or Contracted) and Mafia Assets. James Earl Ray was a patsy (ie: Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan) in that he was set up to take the fall for the killing. Oversight of the crime scene and homicide investigation was supervised and directed by Frank Holloman - the appointed Director of the Memphis Police and Fire Department.

The orders to terminate MLK was made by President Lyndon B. Johnson in association with J. Edgar Hoover and the Italian Organized Crime group, aka Mafia. The motive for the killing was MLK's public stand against the Vietnam War as that stand was considered by US National Security Officials as a threat to them and their policies.

[It also threatened] the economic fortunes of the Mafia (The billions of dollars made by the Mafia via the Heroin Pipeline.) The pipeline began in Burma and was strung by sea and air via Southeast Asia to the rest of the world most of which ended up on the streets of the biggest cities in the US. The presence of US Military in Southeast Asia served to protect that pipeline for the Mafia. If the Vietnam War had ended earlier the Mafia would have lost billions of dollars in illegal drug and black market weapons sales. When the Vietnam War finally ended in 1975 the Mafia's cash cow from illegal drug sales changed to the Cocaine trade from Colombia. (Revel, 2008)

Osborne disagrees strongly and counts Hunt out of the still-shadowy picture of the hidden truth of the assassination, which is not to say there was no intelligence handler involved. All agree there was a dark marriage of organized crime and clandestine government and military behind the trigger with media manipulation after the fact, including contemporary depictions. Osborne even wonders if CNN isn’t under “adversary control.” But then what 3-lettered acronym organizations aren’t? Perpetual suspicion goes with the territory.

As with many obfuscated mysteries of history, the “truth” is a relative value which lies in the “Eye of the Beholder.” But for those who at least bother to dig, to inform themselves, it is not a “blind eye.”