Pepper, William F. Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin
Luther King. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1995. 537 pages.
Normally we avoid books on the 1960s assassinations that contain the
word "Truth" in the title. This one, however, does not exaggerate. Pepper
was an associate of Martin Luther King in 1967-68. After the assassination
he abandoned politics until 1977, when Ralph Abernathy asked him to see
James Earl Ray. Over the last 18 years, Pepper and his investigators have
located and interviewed witnesses long forgotten or long ignored, tracked
down numerous leads, and reconstructed the conspiracy. One or two of these
witnesses have confessed to complicity, while others have mentioned their
involvement to other witnesses. To put it bluntly, Pepper is close enough
to the truth that it will never make the cover of Newsweek, and his client
James Earl Ray will never get out of prison.
The culprits in this horror story are organized crime, FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover, U.S. military intelligence, and some spineless or corrupted
petty officials in Tennessee, from the Memphis police to the court system.
They all worked together. Ray was merely hired to be at a particular place
at a particular time, without knowing why. Although the triggerman was
contracted by organized crime, the U.S. military had a team of snipers in
place as back-up. It's frightening how close we were to fascism in 1968 --
and may be still.
ISBN 0-7867-0253-2
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