Deep Politics Timeline

[Tracy Riddle]

• 3/1968 Students in North Carolina organized a sit-in at a local lunch counter that spread to 15 cities. Students from all five public high schools in East L.A. walked out of their classes protesting against unequal conditions in Los Angeles Unified School District high schools. Over the next several days, they inspired similar walkouts at fifteen other schools. Italian students closed the University of Rome for 12 days during an anti-war protest. British students turned violent in their anti-war protests (opposing the Vietnam War), physically attacking the British defense secretary, the secretary of state for education and the Home Secretary.
  
• 3/1968 Israeli forces assault Jordanian village Al Karamah in retaliation for terrorist raids in the West Bank; they met heavy resistance by armed members of Al Fatah.
  
• Early 1968 Sirhan joins the Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosicrucians (AMORC). Sirhan begins to practice shooting his new pistol this month.
  
• 3/1968 Public rallies held in Prague and other cities and towns in support of reform policies voice growing criticism of Novotny's presidency.
  
• 3/1968 Johnny Meyer and Aristotle Onassis meet with Mahmoud Hamshari at the cafe in the Place de la Sorbonne in Paris. Meyer walks across the square to sit at a table outside a bar to wait for Onassis and Hamshiri to conclude their private meeting. Commuting under various aliases between Paris and Los Angeles, Hamshari appears to have become a sidelined figure in the Palestinian cause. During a meeting the previous June, Hamshiri had proposed that Fatah "kill a high-profile American on American soil."
  
• 3/1/1968 a clash known as battle of Valle Giulia took place between students and police in the faculty of architecture in the Sapienza University of Rome.
  
• 3/1/1968 The Kerner Commission publishes its Report on Civil Disorders, warning that "our nation is moving towards two societies - one white, one black - separate and unequal."
  
• 3/1/1968 UPI reported that Rep. L. Mendell Rivers (D-South Carolina) urged the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons at Khesanh if it becomes clear it cannot be held. Not to use nuclear weapons under those conditions would be unwarlike and un-Christian.
  
• 3/2/1968 RFK met with Larry O'Brien, and told him of the politicians, such as California's Jesse Unruh, who were urging him to run. (No Final Victories)
  
• 3/2/1968 James Earl Ray graduates from bartenders' school in Los Angeles.
  
• 3/4/1968 Hoover issued a memo on COINTELPRO ("Counter-Intelligence Program - Black Nationalist-Hate Groups - Racial Intelligence"): "1. Prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups...An effective coalition of black nationalist groups might be the first step toward a real 'Mau Mau' in America, the beginning of a true black revolution. 2. Prevent the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement...3. Prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups...pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them...4. Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability, by discrediting them..."
  
• 3/5/1968 Senate voted cloture on the Civil Rights debate.
  
• 3/6/1968 500 New York University (NYU) students demonstrated against Dow Chemical because the company was the principal manufacturer of napalm, used by the U.S. military in Vietnam.
  
• 3/6/1968 C.R. Smith is sworn in as Secretary of Commerce.
  
• 3/7/1968 A NY Times article quoted high sources saying that LBJ would not enter any primaries; Ira Kapenstein had been the source of the article, and LBJ was not pleased. (No Final Victories)
  
• 3/7/1968 Sen. Fulbright began a Senate debate on the war, declaring in his opinion that the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was "null and void…The resolution has effectively been repealed because it was based on false representations…"
  
• 3/7/1968 Sirhan left his job at the Pasadena Health Food Store.
  
• 3/7/1968 Excerpts from a CIA memo: RELEASED PER P.L. 102-526 (JFK ACT) 7 MAR. 1968 MEMORANDUM SUBJECT: Garrison and the Kennedy Assassination: Cubans and Other Latin Americans Allegedly Involved 1. This memorandum provides a complete list of all Cubans and other Latin Americans who have come to our attention as involved or possibly involved in the Garrison investigation. It does not contain all the information available on these persons. As appropriate, references have been made to previous memoranda. Persons and organizations not previously brought to the attention of WG/COG have been underlined. Americans who had Cuban or Latin-American connections and who have been mentioned in previous reports are not reported herein. All personnel mentioned herein have been or are being traced in RID. 2. Cubans or possible Cubans,...c. Sergio ARCHACHA Smith. He is the former New Orleans delegate of the FRD. Garrison is attempting to extradite him from Texas. (R&A Memorandum, 28 September 1967, paragraph 3)... g. (1) Mario BERMUDEZ Nunez (201-283562) (2) Mario Enrique BERMUDEZ Quiones (201-054474). One Mario BERMUDEZ allegedly accompanied CLAY SHAW to Cuba on a gun-smuggling operation in 1959. (Playboy correspondence 23 July 1967) BERMUDEZ Nunez is a Cuban national who was recruited by JMWAVE for possible PM use. BERMUDEZ Quiones is a Colombian national associated with the New Orleans Municipal Government for many years [redacted] #67-302 27 September 1967)...i. Carlos Jose BRINGUIER (201-289248). He is a DRE leader who has been interrogated and polygraphed by Garrison. (R&A Memorandum No. 8, 12 January 1968, part II, paragraph 4a) j. Julian BUZNEDO Castellanos (201-289995). Garrison alleges he is one of the assassins and that he took part in the Houma burglary. He was an Agency PM maritime trainee from January 1961 to April 1962. (R&A Memorandum No. 3, 1 June 1967, paragraph 5d)
  
• 3/8/1968 Polish political crisis began with students from the University of Warsaw who marched for student rights and were beaten with clubs. The next day over two thousand students marched in protest of the police involvement on campus and were clubbed and arrested again. By March 11, the general public had joined the protest in violent confrontations with students and police in the streets. The government fought a propaganda campaign against the protestors, labeling them Zionists. The twenty days of protest ended when the state closed all of the universities and arrested more than a thousand students. Most Polish Jews left the country to avoid persecution by the government.
  
• 3/10/1968 Lady Bird: "This was a day of deep gloom - that is to say, gloom was purveyed in the newspapers and on TV." (White House Diary)
  
• 3/10/1968 The press broke the story about Westmoreland's secret request for 206,000 more troops. The public and congressional reaction was angry.
  
• 3/10/1968 Peter Edelman RFK aide and speechwriter: "There has been some confusion over when Robert Kennedy actually decided to run for president. In fact, Senator Kennedy decided to run at least two days before the New Hampshire primary. I went with him to California to visit Cesar Chavez on that Sunday, March 10, 1968. John Seigenthaler and Ed Guthman joined us en route. I wondered why Kennedy had asked Seigenthaler and Guthman to join us, and on the flight, I found out. RFK told Ed, John and me that he had decided to run for president. I was exhilarated, so I recall the moment with particular clarity. The following week was a blur of frenzied activity, as we began putting a campaign in motion, given that the announcement was to be made the following Saturday, March 16. I've always thought RFK would have been nominated and elected. Key party people like Mayor Daley of Chicago and Governor Hughes of New Jersey were moving in his direction, and I think many party professionals would have supported him for the nomination, although some (no doubt) would have done so out of self-interest rather than principle. And I don't think Richard Nixon was a very strong candidate on the other side, as is clearly indicated by the closeness of his actual contest with Vice President Humphrey. As President, RFK would have negotiated an early end to the Vietnam War and worked hard toward racial reconciliation and narrowing of income gaps at home. How much would he have accomplished? Even with the mandate he would have had coming into office, he necessarily had limited political capital every president does and he was addressing difficult and divisive issues, to say the least. We well know that the next challenges of civil rights good jobs, a good education for every child, and so on were and are even harder than ending state-mandated segregation and assuring equality before the law. Still, Robert Kennedy would have taken the country in a direction very different from what did transpire, and I think we would be in a different place today as a consequence."
  
• 3/10/1968 An HSCA document from the 70s says that Harold Weisberg and Jim Garrison met with an informant, a man in his 40s who is the son of famous show business parents, who warned them of a plot to kill Robert Kennedy.
  
• 3/12/1968 Eugene McCarthy won 42% of vote in Democratic New Hampshire primary, demonstrating serious divisions in the party, and embarassing Johnson, who won 50%.
  
• 3/14/1968 Memphis: 9000 blacks listened to speeches supporting the garbage strike by Bayard Rustin and Roy Wilkins.
  
• 3/15/1968 Charlie Company (Company C), 1st Battalion, 11th Infantry Brigade, many of whom lacked combat experience, for the last few months had been in the Quang Ngai Province to "sanitize" the area of VC. This evening, Commanding officer of Charlie Company, Ernest Medina, briefed the entire company, working them up for a confrontation that "looked like a tough fight", and that they would finally get their chance to "get even with the VC". The intelligence reports given claimed that one of the Viet Cong's top units was established in My Lai-4, a subhamlet of the village of Son My, about 6 miles NE of Quang Ngai City. The orders were to destroy the enemy battalion and the hamlet. By attacking at 7:30 AM, it was believed that the women and children would be on their way to market, leaving some 250-280 of the enemy troops. The plan was, following an artillery barrage west of My Lai-4, Lt. Calley (commanding the 1st Platoon) would come down from the north, moving south, moving the enemy to the east. The 2nd Platoon, led by Lt. Brooks, would clear out the northern area. Lt. La Crosse's 3rd Platoon (accompanied by Medina), would stay at the airstrip for communications, and later "mop up the area". In addition, helicopter gunships would be circling the area. Medina, urging the men to be aggressive, ordered that everything in My Lai-4 was to be burned or destroyed.
  
• Delivering a speech in mid-March 1968, President Johnson contended that as long as the foe in Vietnam "feels that he can win something by propaganda in the country that he can undermine the leadership that he can bring down the government that he can get something in the Capital that he can't get from our men out there he is going to keep on trying."
  
• 3/16/1968 LBJ decides to send 35-50,000 more combat troops to Vietnam. Around this time, there had been talk between LBJ and the JCS about the possibility of invading Laos or North Vietnam, but Johnson decided to keep the war limited.
  
• 3/16/1968 Senator Robert F. Kennedy announces he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination. Across the country, in Portland, Oregon, Richard Nixon watches the event from his suite in the Hotel Benson. After RFK has finished, he sits staring at the blank television screen. "We've just seen some terrible forces unleashed," he says. "Something bad is going to come of this ... God knows where this is going to lead." Jackie Kennedy tells Arthur Schlesinger: "Do you know what I think will happen to Bobby? The same thing that happened to Jack. There is so much hatred in this country, and more people hate Bobby than hated Jack. I've told Bobby this, but he isn't fatalistic, like me."
  
• 3/16/1968 The My Lai massacre. The soldiers found no insurgents in the village on the morning of March 16, 1968, although they had been psychologically prepared for a major attack. The soldiers, one platoon of which was led by Lt. William Calley, killed hundreds of civilians primarily old men, women, children, and babies. Some were tortured or raped. Dozens were herded into a ditch and executed with automatic weapons. At one stage, Calley himself turned a machine gun on a ditch full of villagers. The precise number reported killed varies from source to source, with 347 and 504 being the most commonly cited figures. A memorial at the site of the massacre lists 504 names, with ages ranging from as high as 82 years to as low as 1 year. According to a South Vietnamese army lieutenant to his superiors, it was an "atrocious" incident of revenge. A US Army scout helicopter crew famously halted the massacre by landing between the American troops and the remaining Vietnamese hiding in a bunker. The 24-year-old pilot, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, Jr., confronted the leaders of the troops and told them he would open fire on them if they continued their attack on civilians. While the other two members of the helicopter crew Spc. Lawrence Colburn and Spc. Glenn Andreotta brandished their heavy weapons at the men who had participated in the atrocity, Thompson directed an evacuation of the village. The crewmembers have been credited with saving at least 11 lives but were long thereafter reviled as traitors. - Lt. Calley's 25 men came off the helicopters firing into what they thought was an area infested with VC; none were found when they landed. An unarmed old man was then spotted and shot dead. About 20 minutes later, as the troops approached the hamlet some Vietnamese began to run across the open fields, and were shot down. It turned out to be women and children. Most of the villagers knew better than to run and get shot, and sat inside their huts, and waited in front as the soldiers came. The 1st Platoon began rounding up the villagers. The 2nd Platoon began killing as soon as they reached the western edge of the hamlet. Many soldiers yelled "Lai Day" ("come here"). When no one responded, grenades were thrown in. In some spots, huts were set on fire, and the villagers were bayoneted or shot when fleeing. Some were evacuated by grenades. Two young women were raped and then shot. Some 15-20 women and children, "praying and crying" around a temple, were shot in the head by troops walking by. Those who were rounded up were taken primarily to two spots; one group of 20-50 were taken to a clearing; a second group of nearly 80 were taken to a drainage ditch. Just after 8 AM, Lt. Calley told the men guarding the first group, "You know what I want you to do with them." The men watched over the group until 10 minutes later when Calley returned and said, "Haven't you got rid of them yet? I want them dead. Waste them." From about 10-15 feet away, Calley began shooting, and ordered the men to do the same. Some began to and stopped, one fired away, crying as he did so, some continued as they were told. It took many clips of bullets to finish off the group, some of whom had even shown identification that they were not VC. About 45 minutes later Calley came to the ditch where anywhere from 80-150 villagers were waiting. When some tried to crawl out of the ditch, once again Calley started shooting, and commanded his troops to do the same. One soldier reportedly refused, but the rest once again reluctantly followed orders. One source indicates that a 2-year-old avoided the bullets, crawled out of the ditch, and began to run to what used to be his home. Calley grabbed him, threw him back into the ditch, and shot him. Soon afterwards, he told his men to take a break. At some point someone in one of the helicopters overhead was heard over the radio, "From up here it looks like a blood bath. What the hell are you doing down there?" Word was relayed back to Captain Medina at the air strip that no VC were there. Medina reportedly told the men to continue what they were doing. During all this, Medina called headquarters to tell them that 85 VC had been killed and 20 suspects captured. By 9 AM all of Charlie Company had reached My Lai-4. Instead of rounding up the villagers, the men just began firing at the people. Many fled to bunkers, and when they were full, hand grenades were tossed in. After refueling at 8:45-9:00, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, piloting a helicopter doing reconnaissance in the area, noticed wounded villagers on the ground. He marked the location of the wounded and contacted another chopper to request aid for those wounded. At the same time, his crew chief , Glenn Andreotta (killed 3 weeks later), spotted the ditch where so many had been killed. Noting that some were still alive, Thompson landed between the ditch and Calley's defensive perimeter at 9:15-9:30. The response to Thompson's request for aid to the wounded was that the "only way to help them is to kill them." Thompson thought the respondent was joking, and took off. Andreotta observed a sergeant shooting into the ditch. When Thompson returned later, he saw all were dead. He then saw a small boy bleeding. Once again, he marked the spot with smoke, and watched as someone shot the child. He them came across yet another bunker filled with children, and observed soldiers approaching the area. He landed again, placing himself between the bunker, and the oncoming soldiers. He told his gunner, Lawrence Colburn, that he was to set his weapon on the soldiers, and that if the troops fired while Thompson tried to get the civilians out of the bunker, Colburn was to fire on the American soldiers. He asked a Lieutenant (reportedly Brooks) to help them get the civilians out, and was told, "The only way to get them out is with a hand grenade". Soon two helicopters landed and helped evacuate the people. Medina told Brooks (in the subhamlet of Binh Tay) at 9:30 to stop his 2nd Platoon from any more of the killing and raping going on (although the killing from the 2nd Platoon continued until 10:15). The remaining people of Binh Tay were then rounded up and moved out. Back in the My Lai-4 area, the heroics mentioned above by the helicopter crew were going on. Sometime past 10 AM, the only American casualty occurred. A PFC shot himself through the foot while clearing his .45 pistol (some reports claim it was on purpose to leave the madness). Sometime between 10:30 and 10:45, Captain Medina received an order from Colonel Calhoun to stop the shooting. Medina assumed it was as a result of Thompson's having observed Medina's earlier shooting of a woman. Still, some of the injured were killed with a bullet to the head. Soon before noon, the company moved out of the area. 3 weapons were found in the whole village. If VC had been there they would likely have found many more. No less than 175-200 Vietnamese were killed by Charlie Company. Another study put the figure at 347. Reports in newspapers years later put the total at 504. Army photographer Ronald L. Haeberle was present to record the massacre. Chopper pilot Hugh Thompson, door-gunner Lawrence Colburn and crew chief Andreotta happened upon the massacre and landed their helicopter in the line of fire, placing themselves between the attacking American troops and the fleeing Vietnamese villagers. They then trained their own weapons at the US soldiers to prevent further killing. Thompson confronted the leader of the American forces. Andreotta died in battle three weeks later, but the three men were honored in 1998 with the Army's Soldier's Medal for their efforts.
  
• 3/16 or 3/17/1968 James Earl Ray left Los Angeles, indicating his ultimate destination on a postal change of address order as Atlanta. He was actually on his way to New Orleans.
  
• 3/17/1968 NY Times reported that Jim Garrison angrily said that Lyndon Johnson "should be hanged for suppressing evidence."
  
• 3/17/1968 an anti-war demonstration in Grosvenor Square, London, ended with 86 people injured and 200 demonstrators arrested.
  
• 3/17/1968 MLK was in Los Angeles and spoke at the Second Baptist Church: he said that hatred had become a "national malady…Hate is too great a burden to bear. I can't hate."
  
• 3/17/1968 Ray's story told to William Pepper: "After returning to Los Angeles with Charlie Stein around the middle of January Ray moved into the St. Francis Hotel. On March 17, following instructions from Raul, he left for New Orleans, arriving a day late. He found that Raul had gone to Birmingham, leaving word that he would meet him at the Starlight Lounge the next day. Somehow Ray got lost on the way to Birmingham and wound up in Selma. Since it was dark by that time, he spent the night there."
  
• 3/17/1968 NY Times reported that US forces in Vietnam had killed 128 enemy soldiers in a successful "pincer movement" against communist forces. This story came from "American headquarters in Saigon" and was actually a cover story for the My Lai massacre. "While the two companies of United States soldiers moved in on the enemy force from opposite sides, heavy artillery barrages and armed helicopters were called in to pound the North Vietnamese soldiers." No civilian casualties were cited; no women raped were cited; no babies shot as they crawl for safety were cited. 128 Viet Cong soldiers were claimed to be killed in action, and that is what was sent to divisional and corps commanders. And yet only 3 weapons were captured. Also, different reports were given as to civilian casualties; one was 10-12, another 12-14, another 20-28.LBJ told a group of farmers, "The time has come when we ought to stand up and be counted, when we ought to support our leaders, our government, our men, and our allies until aggression is stopped..."
  
• 3/18/1968 NYT reports that an "Army Exhibit Bars Simulating Shooting at Vietnamese Hut." The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry had featured an exhibit where visitors could enter a helicopter for "simulated firing of a machine gun at targets in a diorama of the Vietnam Central Highlands. The targets were a hut, two bridges, and an ammunition dump, and a light flashed when a hit was scored." Protesters at succeeded in pressuring the Army to take out the hut.
  
• 3/18/1968 MLK flew east toward Memphis. James Earl Ray was driving his Mustang across the Southwestern desert, from Los Angeles to New Orleans. Reaching Memphis, King gave a speech in support of the 17,000 strikers. He announced that 3/28 he would lead a citywide demonstration in their support.
  
• 3/20/1968 MLK is in Mississippi. Ray arrives in New Orleans.
  
• 3/21/1968 Nelson Rockefeller announced that he would not be a candidate for the GOP nomination.
  
• 3/21/1968 Ray left for Birmingham.
  
• 3/22/1968 Westmoreland is named as Army Chief of Staff.
  
• 3/22/1968 Ray spent the night in Selma, Alabama. MLK had just left the area the day before.
  
• 3/22/1968 Czechoslovakia: Novotny resigns as president, after facing pressure by party liberals.
  
• 3/23/1968 James Earl Ray drove on to Atlanta. "Ray arrived in Birmingham on the following day, March 23, once again running somewhat behind schedule, and went straight to the Starlight, where he met Raul. Raul seemed to be in a hurry to go to Atlanta, though he didn't say why. They set out immediately. On arriving in Atlanta they drove to the Peachtree and 14th Street area, where Ray rented a room from the very drunk landlord, James Garner. After a meal at a local diner Raul left, saying he'd be back in the morning." (William Pepper)
  
• 3/24/1968 Los Angeles Times reported that Nixon had been working behind the scenes to pass an open housing bill.
  
• 3/24/1968 William Pepper: "The next morning, Ray took the room for a week. He was able to get his room free because he convinced Garner that he had paid him in advance the night before. Later, on the telephone, Raul told Ray not to get too far away in case he needed him quickly; he might be required to drive to Miami in a few days. Raul wanted to be able to come and go freely from his confederate's room without being seen by the landlord or anyone else. Ray was unable to duplicate a door key for him (though he had taken a locksmithing course), so he agreed to leave the side door open. This didn't work too well, however, because the landlord's sister kept locking it. Raul apparently left town, telling Ray he'd be back in a couple of days. Some six days later he returned, saying he was now ready to put the gunrunning operation into full gear. He instructed Ray to get a large-bore deer rifle fitted with a scope, plus ammunition, and to ask about the price of cheap foreign rifles. Raul originally wanted the gun to be bought in Atlanta, but Ray suggested that he could buy a rifle in Alabama more easily, since he had an Alabama ID. Raul agreed. With that part of the operation set, Ray packed up some of his belongings; he left other things behind at the rooming house: his pistol, some clothes, a television set, and a typewriter. He fully expected to return. Raul and Ray drove together to Birmingham, where Ray rented a room in the Travelodge motel. There Raul briefed him further on the gun purchase and gave him money: They went to a tavern, probably the Starlight Lounge, where Raul told him to go to Aeromarine Supply to buy the rifle."
  
• 3/25-26/1968 Senior Advisory Group on Vietnam (Harriman, Acheson, Ball, Clifford, Cyrus Vance, Matthew Ridgway, Bundy, Dillon, Rostow) recommends de-escalation, to Johnson's surprise.
  
• 3/25/1968 AP reported: Campaigning in Southern California, Senator Robert Kennedy met a barrage of questions today on whether if elected President he would open the United States archives to reveal details of the assassination of his brother, President John Kennedy. RFK is greeted at San Fernando State College with placards including one asking "Are you going to open the Archives up?" During question period students ask whether if elected he will open the archives. "I would not reopen the Warren Commission report". Mr. Kennedy told students at San Fernando Valley state college [California]. "I have seen everything that's in there. I stand by the Warren Commission." He did not elaborate on whether he would open the archives. Several times the senator, campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, tried to ignore questions from students. He became obviously more distressed as they persisted. Finally, he said: "your manners overwhelm me. Go ahead, go ahead, ask your questions." A student shouted: "will you open the archives?" Mr. Kennedy said: "Nobody is more interested than I in knowing who is responsible for the death of President Kennedy." [UPI quotes him as saying "I have seen everything that is in the archives."] An aide says this is Kennedy's first public statement of this kind.
  
• 3/26/1968 In a letter, Eisenhower wrote about RFK: "It is difficult for me to see a single qualification that the man has for the presidency. I think he is shallow, vain and untrustworthy - on top of which he is indecisive. Yet his attraction for many people is extraordinary..."
  
• 3/27/1968 Sirhan is paid $2000 by the Argonaut Insurance Co. for injuries from his fall.
  
• 3/28/1968 the Military Police of Brazil killed high school student Edson Luís de Lima Souto at a protest for cheaper meals at a restaurant for low-income students. The aftermath of his death generated one of the first major protests against the military dictatorship.
  
• 3/28/1968 Memphis: a poorly-organized march was quickly taken over by black militants, who began breaking store windows; police responded violently. A 16-year-old black youth was shot and killed by police; 60 people were injured. MLK was so discouraged he didn't want to come back to Memphis again, but he was persuaded to change his mind.
  
• 3/29/1968 Ray is given $750 by "Raoul." Today he bought a .243 Remington rifle and telescopic sight at a Birmingham, Alabama gun shop. William Pepper: "At Aeromarine Supply, Ray told the clerk he was going hunting with his brother-in-law, looked at a number of rifles, and finally selected one and asked to have a scope mounted on it. He asked the salesman to "throw in" some ammunition. Ray purchased the gun under the alias Harvey Lowmeyer, the name of a former criminal associate in Quincy, Illinois. At the last minute he believed it would be safer to buy the gun under another alias. If the clerk requested identification, he would go elsewhere to purchase the rifle under his verifiable alias, Eric S. Galt. He took the rifle back to the motel and showed it to Raul. To Ray's surprise Raul said it wouldn't do. Ray had picked up some brochures in the store, so Raul marked the rifle he wanted and told Ray to try to make an exchange. Ray called Aeromarine Supply, said that his brother-in-law didn't like the rifle, and asked if he might exchange it for another; the store said the rifle could be exchanged but he would have to wait until the next day."
  
• 3/29/1968 Steve Burton, national chairman, Citizens Committee of Inquiry, writes open letter to RFK challenging his statement that he has read everything in the Archives. Says this is impossible to believe and tells why. LA Free Press
  
• 3/30/1968 Czechoslovakia: General Ludvik Svoboda is elected president. Svoboda was a war hero who had also served in the Czechoslovak legion at the start of the Russian Civil War in 1918.
  
• 3/30/1968 Ray exchanged the .243 for a 30.06 Remington Gamesmaster rifle. William Pepper: "The next morning, March 30, Ray picked up the new rifle (which we know was a Remington 760 Gamemaster. The salesman threw in some ammunition free of charge. Raul approved. (At the time of our interview, Ray appeared to be genuinely ignorant about the brand, type, and make of the gun bought on the 29th, as well as the one obtained in exchange on the 30th -- even now, long after the details have been publicly revealed, Ray seems not to recall these details). Before leaving the motel Raul instructed him to check into the New Rebel Motel on Lamar Avenue in Memphis on April 3 and to bring the gun with him."
  
• 3/31/1968 LBJ gave a televised address to the nation: "The Joint Chiefs of Staff have recommended to me that we should prepare to send during the next 5 months support troops totaling approximately 13,500 men. The tentative estimate of those additional expenditures is $2.5 billion in this fiscal year and $2.6 billion in the next fiscal year." But then he said, "Tonight I have ordered our aircraft and our naval vessels to make no attacks on North Viet-Nam, except in the area north of the demilitarized zone where the continuing enemy buildup directly threatens Allied forward positions...I call upon President Ho Chi Minh to respond positively and favorably to this new step toward peace." At the end of his address, he dropped a bombshell that surprised nearly everyone: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President." LBJ claimed this would allow him to spend his last year negotiating with the North Vietnamese and not have to worry about a political campaign. A Gallup poll published today showed that only 26% of Americans approved of LBJ's handling of the war. Only 35% approved of his performance overall. "In retrospect, it would seem probable that the operative cause [of LBJ's decision not to run again in 1968] was less the much advertised student unrest than a revolt of big business and corporate finance, frightened by the damage Johnson's policies were inflicting on the US economy and on its economic position abroad." (Geoffrey Barraclough, New York Review of Books, 8/7/1975)
  
• 3/31/1968 When RFK heard the news, his aides were euphoric. William vanden Heuvel recalled, "He was the one who understood the dangers ahead. He said, with that tight smile of his, The joy is premature.'" (American Melodrama p6) RFK's plane is just landing at La Guardia in NYC as LBJ's announcement is being broadcast. An aide rushes to RFK with the news that LBJ is not going to run. "You're kidding," is RFK's reply. He is unusually quiet for the rest of the evening.
  
• 3/31/1968 Also on this day an article by Mike Dorman appears in Ramparts magazine that is extremely critical of LBJ. The article describes how LBJ had been "bought off" years ago by Carlos Marcello to look out for his interests in federal gambling legislation. Jack Halfen, a well-known bagman for Marcello, states that he personally passed $100,000 a year - for ten years - to LBJ. LBJ reportedly has read the manuscript of the article prior to it being published. (RFK has been very helpful to Dorman in researching LBJ's Senate voting record - and met with him personally to discuss the article.)
  
• 3/31/1968 William Barnet also publishes an article in the Dallas Times Herald today that reads: "Two years ago this month, convicted swindler Billie Sol Estes told a startling tale to a grand jury in rural Robertson County. The legendary con man claimed Lyndon B. Johnson, about to become vice president, had ordered the 1961 murder of U.S. Agriculture Department agent Henry H. Marshall. Estes said the future president was fearful Marshall, of Bryan, could link Johnson aide Clifton Carter - and thus Johnson - to Estes' fraudulent activities. Testifying with immunity, Estes even named a hitman: Malcom E. "Mac" Wallace, a former University of Texas at Austin student body president. Wallace had been convicted of murder with malice in the 1951 killing of Austin golf pro J. Doug Kinser. After hearing Estes, the grand jury changed the official cause of the death of Marshall - who had been found with five bullet shots to the side - from suicide to homicide but said there was no one alive to indict..."
  
• 3/31/1968 This afternoon, MLK said in the National Cathedral in Washington, "I don't like to predict violence, but if nothing is done between now and June to raise ghetto hope, I feel that this summer will not only be as bad, but worse than last year."
  
• 3/31/1968 William Pepper: "Ray set out from Birmingham and proceeded as instructed toward Memphis at a leisurely pace, spending the night at a motel in Decatur. On the 31st he stayed at another motel in the Tuscumbia-Florence area."
  
• 4/1968 Easter: Shooting of student radical leader Rudi Dutschke leads to bloody student unrest in West Germany and West Berlin.
  
• 4/1968 Spanish students protested at the "fascist regime" of Franco sanctioning a mass for Adolf Hitler. At the beginning of spring the University of Madrid was closed for thirty-eight days due to student demonstrations. Students protesting against the military dictatorship were killed in Brazil.
  
• 4/1968 A series of articles in the Chicago Daily News by Richard Billings reported: "Contending with Garrison has been Washington's problem for some time. Officially, the federal government won't admit he's worthy of concern, while in fact the FBI watches every move he makes. Agents trail him whenever he leaves New Orleans."
  
• 4/1/1968 Hiram Ingram, a Dallas sheriff, falls today and breaks his hip. Three days from now, he will be dead of "cancer." He is 53 years old. Penn Jones Jr. insists that Ingram had knowledge of an assassination conspiracy. Ingram was a friend and former colleague of Roger Craig.
  
• 4/1/1968 Ray left some clothing at the Piedmont Laundry. Ray later denied making this trip back to Alabama. William Pepper: "On April 1, he spent the night in a motel in Corinth, Mississippi (which he subsequently identified as the Southern Motel)."
  
• 4/2/1968 so-called Marian sightings in Zeitoun, Cairo, Egypt. Numerous passers-by observed figures like white doves, which had fluid outlines and slowly met in a mist, above the domes of the old Coptic church in the Cairo suburb of Zeitun. In a ghostlike metamorphosis the mist assumed the aspect of a human figure. It was so radiant that the spectators were blinded and could only follow the phenomenon with their eyes screwed up. The vision showed itself at the same place in the same way on other evenings.
  
• 4/2/1968 Wisconsin primary. McCarthy won 56%, while 6% voted for RFK.
  
• 4/2/1968 Larry O'Brien met with LBJ, who told him, "there'll always be those who will say all I care about is politics. So now I've done the one thing that proves it's not politics. Larry, I've done everything you fellows urged me to do and more: I've cut back the bombing and I'm trying to negotiate and I won't be a candidate again. I still doubt that it'll work, but I've gone the distance." (No Final Victories)
  
• 4/2/1968 Ray left Atlanta and drove to Memphis. William Pepper: "He spent the night of April 2 in the DeSoto Motel in Mississippi, just south of Memphis. (Harold Weisberg told me some years later that in 1974, while working for attorneys Bud Fensterwald and James Lesar in preparation for an evidentiary hearing for Ray, he spoke to the manager and some cleaning staff, who confirmed that Ray was at the DeSoto Motel as he claimed. The manager claimed that the records had been turned over to FBI agents when they visited shortly after the assassination.)"
  
• 4/2/1968 The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, using information fed to them by the FBI, ran an editorial calling MLK "one of the most menacing men in America."
  
• 4/2/1968 Hoover memo to Ramsey Clark: "In view of the recent developments in Memphis, Tennessee, where King led a march that ended in a riot, it is reasonable to assume the same thing could happen later this month when King brings his 'Poor Peoples March' to Washington D.C." Hoover said that King's "long-time secret Communist Party member, Stanley Levison" was urging King to go ahead with the march. Hoover again asked for wiretap authority, and Clark refused it.
  
• 4/3/1968 (Wed) William Somersett calls Miami Police Detective Lt. C.H. Sapp and informs him that he has learned through his connections of a plot to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis tomorrow.
  
• 4/3/1968 RFK meets with LBJ at the White House - hoping to set up a sort of truce. LBJ tells RFK that he intends to stay out of the campaign. RFK isn't fooled. LBJ is secretly throwing all his support behind Hubert Humphrey. LBJ is also leaking unfavorable reports about RFK to the press.
  
• 4/3/1968 RFK speech: "We've had difficult times in the past. We will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder."
  
• 4/3/1968 Today, David Karr and Drew Pearson meet with LBJ in the Oval Office. Karr tells LBJ that Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy are going to eventually wed. Shortly after this visit, Eugene McCarthy sees LBJ, and when he brings up the subject of RFK's presidential run, "The president said nothing; instead he drew a finger across his throat, silently, in a slitting motion."
  
• 4/3/1968 North Vietnam, via Hanoi radio, offers to participate in peace talks.
  
• 4/3/1968 King returned to Memphis to address a gathering at the Mason Temple (World Headquarters of the Church of God in Christ). His airline flight to Memphis was delayed by a bomb threat against his plane. With a thunderstorm raging outside, King delivered the last speech of his life, now known as the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address. As he neared the close, he made reference to the bomb threat: "And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats... or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. [applause] And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! [applause] And so I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" MLK arrives in Memphis and checks into room 306 at the Lorraine Hotel; he had returned to give more support to the garbage workers' strike. That night, he spoke before an enthusiastic crowd of 2000 at the Mason Street Temple Church: "Well, I don't know what will happen ahead. We've got some difficult days ahead. I've been to the mountain top. I won't mind. Like anybody, I'd like to live a long life...but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will, and He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man." Andrew Young recalled thinking that the speech seemed "almost morbid."
  
• 4/3/1968 US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled "that the evidence introduced by the Government is not sufficient to sustain the conviction" and ordered Richard Case Nagell set free.
  
• 4/3/1968 Ray checks into the New Rebel Motel in Memphis using the name Eric S. Galt. William Pepper: "On April 3, Ray drove across the Mississippi-Tennessee state line and checked into the New Rebel Motel in Memphis. Late in the evening, Raul appeared at the doorway wearing a raincoat, and Ray let him in. Ray didn't know where he came from or how he got there. Raul told him they were going to rent a room near the river. There they would work the first stage of the gunrunning deal. At the time, Ray figured that Raul wanted the room in a rundown part of Memphis because they'd be less conspicuous. As usual, he didn't ask Raul any questions. Raul wanted Ray to rent the room using the Galt alias, but Ray was uncomfortable with this and suggested using an alias he had used previously -- John Willard. Raul then wrote out the address of a tavern named Jim 's Grill and instructed Ray to meet him there at 3:00 the next afternoon. Earlier in the day, Ray had brought the rifle in its box into the room wrapped in a sheet or bedspread. Just before Raul left, Ray gave him the gun, and Raul left with it under his coat. He had no idea why Raul wanted to take the gun. James Earl Ray has remained adamant that after turning the gun over to Raul at the New Rebel Motel on the evening of April 3 he never saw it again."
  
• 4/3/1968 Rothermel memo to H.L. Hunt: "A CIA agent in Houston, Texas has indicated that an effort is being made to have a lunacy hearing on Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney. The informant said he did not know who would push the lunacy charges but that the CIA seems concerned enough to be behind the movement." (Texas Rich p241)
  
• 4/3/1968 At 11:09 tonight, LBJ's daughter, Lucy, calls "asking her father if we wanted dinner sent over." LBJ declines.
  
• 4/4/1968 (Thursday) Rothermel memo to H.L. Hunt: "Bill Wood, former CIA man and investigator for Jim Garrison, came to see me today. He said that he had heard that I was incensed with him for having made investigations which tended to indicate that he Wood was checking on Mr. Hunt as involved in the assassination...Wood was here with hat in hand to try to explain that Garrison was in no way concerned with H.L. Hunt and that Garrison further wanted my personal cooperation as I had given valuable information to him in the past. He said that Garrison will prove that the assassination was a plot by officials in the Federal Government and consisted of CIA, Secret Service, FBI and one or two military men...he hoped that we realized that Garrison had to come forward with statements which would bring him both leads for investigation and throw off the CIA which was trying to thwart his investigation..." (Texas Rich 241; The Man Who Knew Too Much)
  
• 4/4/1968 King spent the last day of his life in the Lorraine Motel talking with aides and planning strategy for the upcoming demonstration. He planned to have dinner at the home of Rev. Samuel B. Kyles that evening at six. APRIL 4, was the fifty-third day of the strike. While Dr. King slept, Judge Bailey Brown began to hear arguments on whether the temporary restraining order should be made permanent, thus making it illegal for the march which had been rescheduled for April 8 to go ahead. The legal team representing Dr. King and his colleagues requested a dismissal or a modification of the existing order and proposed a series of restrictions on the march, acceptable to Dr. King. Around 4:00 p.m. that afternoon, Judge Brown announced that he was going to let the march proceed, subject to those restrictions.
  
• 4/4/1968 In the late morning Dr. King met with some of the Invaders and then met with Abernathy over lunch in their room, 306. Abernathy recalled that after the meal, Dr. King and his younger brother, Alfred Daniel "A. D." King, who had arrived unexpectedly, joked with their mother on the telephone to Atlanta, probably from A.D.'s room, 201. Shortly afterward the executive staff meeting began in room 306. Hosea Williams has told me that at that meeting Dr. King took him to task for attempting to put some of the Invaders on the SCLC's staff (Hosea was always a keen strategist, and he saw the usefulness of co-opting some of the Invader leadership to their side). Dr. King said that he couldn't appreciate anyone who hadn't learned to accept nonviolence, at least as a tactic in the struggle if not in one's way of life. He said he didn't want the SCLC to employ anyone who didn't totally accept nonviolence. The meeting was in full swing when Andy Young returned from court to give his report. He was later than expected and had also neglected to call in and give a report on how the proceedings in court were going, as King had asked him to do. He was jokingly taken to task. Hosea remembers Dr. King tussling with him in the room, saying, "I'll show you who the leader is." Just about the time that the staff meeting was heating up in the motel, less than three hundred feet away a man calling himself John Willard was registering for a sleeping room in the rear of the South Main Street rooming house whose back faced the Lorraine. Also during this time, one of the SCLC's senior field organizers, the Rev. James Orange, went off to do some shopping, driven by Invader Marrell McCollough. On the way back to the motel they picked up James Bevel at Clayborn Temple. About two hours later, J. Edgar Hoover was about to have the first of his predinner martinis at his usual table at Harvey's Restaurant in Washington. The fact that he attended Harvey's for dinner as usual on that day would be cited by defenders of the FBI as indicating a lack of knowledge of the events that were to take place in the next half hour.
  
• 4/4/1968 William Pepper: "After checking out of the New Rebel Motel on April 4, Ray stalled for some time, did some shopping, changed a slowly leaking tire, and then drove downtown. He left the car in a parking lot and proceeded on foot to look for Jim's Grill. He first went into a tavern on Main Street called Jim's Club and noticed a fellow in the. tavern who looked at him "kind of funny," then eventually located Jim's Grill down the street, at 418 South Main Street. Not seeing Raul inside, he retrieved the car and parked it at the curb just outside the grill around 3:30 p.m. By then Raul had arrived. Ray remembers Raul asking him where the car was. Ray pointed to it. Ray rented a room in the rooming house above the grill for a week, using the name John Willard. There Raul told him to get a pair of infrared binoculars; the people who were buying the guns wanted them too, he said. When Ray asked for them at the York Arms Store on South Main Street, he was told they could only be bought at an army surplus store, so instead he bought a pair of regular binoculars. When he returned, he noticed that the man whom he had first seen at Jim's Club was inside the grill. He apparently didn't notice Ray, who didn't go inside but went up to the room where Raul was waiting. Ray tried to tell Raul about the man downstairs, but Raul ignored him and told him he was going to meet a very important gunrunner and that they were going to the outskirts of town to try out the rifle. Raul told him to bring his stuff upstairs, so Ray got his bag out of the Mustang. He also brought a bedspread up in case he had to spend the night there, because he didn't want to sleep on the one in the room. Raul gave him $200 in cash and told him to go to the movies and come back in two or three hours. Ray was instructed to leave the Mustang where it was because Raul said he would probably use it."
  
• 4/4/1968 3pm Reverend Kyles stated that he arrived at the motel around 3;00 p.m. and went from room to room for a period of time, visiting with various people. Dr. King and about fourteen other aides were to go to his house for a buffet dinner organized by his wife, Gwen. In At the River 1 Stand, [4] Joan Beifuss records in detail Kyles's comments on his activity during the last hour of Dr. King's life, which have now become accepted as fact. In light of what I learned later, I believe it useful to quote verbatim from her transcription of Kyles's story: "Ralph was dressed when I got in [to room 306] and Martin was still dressing. ... Ralph said, "All right now, Billy. I don't want you fooling me tonight. Are we going to have soul food? Now if we go over there and get some filet mignon or T-bone, you're going to flunk. ..." Martin says, "Yeah, we don't want it to be like that preacher's house we went to in Atlanta, that great big house. We ... had some ham -- a ham bone -- and there wasn't no meat on it. We had Kool Aid and it wasn't even sweet. ..." I said, "You just get ready. You're late." I had told them 5:00 and I told my wife 6:00. I said, "Hurry up. Let's go." He was in a real good mood. ... It may have been from what they accomplished in the staff meeting. ... When Martin's relaxed he's relaxed. ... He'd put his shirt on. He couldn't find his tie. And he thought that the staff was playing games with him, but we did find it in the drawer. When he put the shirt on, it was too tight. And I said, "Oh, Doctor, you're getting fat!" He said, "Yeah, I'm doing that."...Ralph was still doing something. He's very slow. And we went back out together, Dr. King and myself, and stood side by side. ... Solomon Jones [King's local driver] said something about it was getting cool and to get your coat. ... I was greeting some of the people I had not seen. ... Martin was leaning over the railing ....I called to Ralph to come on. They were getting ready to load up. I said, "I'll come down. Wait a minute. Somebody can ride with me." As I turned and got maybe five steps away this noise sounded. Like a firecracker."
  
• 4/4/1968 5:20 PM William Pepper: "Ray went downstairs for the last time around 5:20 p.m. He had talked to Raul for about forty-five minutes. Back in the street, he looked in at Jim's Grill and didn't see the man he suspected had been following him. He remembered that the Mustang had a flat spare tire and decided to have it fixed so that Raul wouldn't have any trouble if he used the car later. Ray said he was uneasy about the man, who he thought had followed him, and concluded that he was either a federal narcotics agent or the "international gunrunner" Raul had mentioned."
  
• 4/4/1968 5:30pm Rev. Kyles walked into King's motel room and announced, "OK, Doc, it's time to go."
  
• 4/4/1968 5:50-6:00PM William Pepper: "Ray drove to a gas station to have the tire repaired, arriving there sometime between 5:50 and 6:00 p.m. Since there were a lot of customers, he simply waited, because he was in no hurry. Finally an attendant came over and told him that he didn't have the time to change his tire. Ray remembered that an ambulance raced by with its siren blaring. Driving back, he was confronted by a policeman who had blocked off the street about a block away from the rooming house. The policeman motioned to him to turn around. The policeman's presence told him that something was wrong, and his inclination, as always in such circumstances, was to get out, so he drove south toward Mississippi, intending at first to get to a telephone and call the New Orleans number. It wasn't until he had almost reached Grenada, Mississippi, that he heard on the radio that Martin Luther King had been killed. When he heard that the police were looking for a white man in a white Mustang, he realized he might have been involved with a man or men who had conspired to kill King. He took back roads rather than the interstate highway because he was afraid he might be the object of a search. On his way he stopped and threw away the photography equipment and then drove straight to Atlanta, where he abandoned the car."
  
• 4/4/1968 5:59pm King and Kyles stepped out onto the balcony; MLK talked with several people in the parking lot below, most of them his aides. Ralph Abernathy was inside the motel room. Kyles left the balcony. King was smoking a cigarette, something he never did in public.
  
• 4/4/1968 6:01pm A single shot rings out and tears into the right side of King's face, knocking him violently backward.
  
• 4/4/1968 Some minutes after the shot, photographer Joseph Louw snapped the picture flashed around the world that showed a group of SCLC staff, including Andy Young, standing on the balcony pointing in the direction of the back of the rooming house. In the photograph a person is kneeling at the feet of the others, apparently checking Dr. King for life signs. At the time no one seemed to know who this person was.
  
• 4/4/1968 6:03 pm The first call for help to the police department's dispatcher was recorded at 6:03 p.m. Calls went out from police dispatch and fire station 2 diagonally opposite the Lorraine, where patrolman Willie B. Richmond had sounded the alert. Lt. Judson E. Ghormley of the Shelby County Sheriffs Department commanded TACT unit 10 (TACT 10) that afternoon. They were in place with three cars at fire station 2 on South Main and Butler. The TACT units each consisted of twelve officers from the MPD and the Shelby County sheriffs department. All, except officer Emmett Douglass, who was sit- ting in the unit's station wagon monitoring the radio, were inside the fire station drinking coffee, playing ping-pong, making phone calls, or talking. When the shot rang out and Richmond called out, "Dr. King has been shot!" all of the men ran out the north exit of the station and around to the rear of the building. Ghormley said he stopped at the concrete wall at the rear of the fire station, turned around, ran back to the front of the station, and headed north up South Main toward the rooming house, arriving in front of the recessed doorway of Canipe Amusement Company at 424 South Main within two minutes of the shot. There he found a bundle that contained a gun inside a cardboard box and several other items, including nine 30.06 unfired rifle bullets. One of the two customers in Canipe Amusement Company and Canipe himself described hearing a thump as the bundle was dropped and said that they noticed a young man pass by and a white Mustang parked just south of the shop pull away.
  
• 4/4/1968 6:06pm An ambulance arrives for King. According to those present, Dr. King was lifted onto a stretcher and carried down the stairs to a waiting ambulance. Ralph Abernathy rode with him to St. Joseph's Hospital. Bernard Lee, Andy Young, and Chauncey Eskridge, King's personal lawyer, followed behind in a car driven by Solomon Jones, a driver for the R. S. Lewis Funeral Home who had been provided to Dr. King as his chauffeur when he was in Memphis. At that time Mayor Henry Loeb was on his way, driving south on Interstate 55 for a speaking engagement at the University of Mississippi. He spotted Sheriff Bill Morris's car. Morris told him what had happened. After the news was confirmed by MPD director Holloman, Loeb's car turned around and headed back to Memphis.
  
• 4/4/1968 6:08pm Police broadcast a local call to stop a white Mustang.
  
• 4/4/1968 6:35pm A phony CB radio broadcast causes police to go on a wild chase in northeast Memphis. Around 6;30 p.m. a police dispatcher, William Tucker, received a call from a patrol car that supposedly was chasing a white Mustang across the northern part of the city.
  
• 4/4/1968 Upon hearing about the shooting, Lorraine Bailey had screamed, run to her room, and collapsed on her bed. She suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital. She never regained consciousness and died the following Tuesday, just as the funeral for Dr. King began in Atlanta.
  
• 4/4/1968 Rev. A. D. King had been in the shower when the shooting occurred. He was dressing when the ambulance left, and he remained at the motel, waiting for word from the hospital and keeping in touch with his parents in Atlanta.
  
• 4/4/1968 At St. Joseph's, King was worked on feverishly by a team of five or six doctors in the emergency room while police sealed off the hospital. Early on it became apparent to the medical team that the high-velocity bullet had entered the right lower facial area around the chin, penetrated downward, and severed the spinal cord in both the lower neck, upper chest, and back regions. Andy Young and Chauncey Eskridge waited in a small anteroom. Ralph Abernathy and Bernard Lee stood against the wall of the small emergency room, waiting while the doctors worked. Finally, neurosurgeon Frederick Gioia approached Abernathy and told him that there was no hope. The only life function remaining was King's heartbeat. Finally, that too ceased.
  
• 4/4/1968 7:05pm Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. The hospital chaplain, Faith Coleman Bergard, reached the emergency room shortly afterward, and while Dr. King's aides prayed in the anteroom, he bent over the body, prayed, and closed the dead man's eyes.
  
• 4/4/1968 After hearing of the shooting, LBJ cancelled a scheduled trip to Hawaii for meetings about the war. Walter Cronkite had almost finished broadcasting the "CBS Evening News" when he received word of Martin Luther King's assassination. His report detailed the shooting and the nation's reaction to the tragedy. He reported that a "well dressed young man" was seen running from the scene. Officers also reportedly chased and fired on a radio-equipped car with two white men.
  
• 4/4/1968 8:15pm Fear and uncertainty prevailed in Memphis that evening. Telephone communications broke down in the central city. Though a curfew had been imposed and the meeting at Mason Temple, at which Dr. King was to speak, had been called off, masses of blacks, some unknowing, some in defiance, converged on the temple. By 8:15 p.m. window-breaking and rock-throwing incidents were increasing. By 9:00 sniper fire was reported in northern Memphis, and by 10:00 a building supplies company, just north of downtown, was the scene of a major fire. Rioting and looting became rampant, with liquor stores the main target. The first contingent of a four-thousand-strong National Guard force moved into the streets, joining the police, sheriffs deputies, state highway patrol, and fifty Arkansas highway patrolmen. Eventually, Ralph Abernathy, Andy Young, Hosea Williams, and the other SCLC staff members regrouped at the motel and met into the early hours of Friday, April 5. All pledged loyalty to Ralph Abernathy as Dr. King's appointed successor.
  
• 4/4/1968 Riots broke out in 125 cities, causing 46 deaths, 21,000 arrests and 55,000 Federal and National Guard troops used in riot control. The biggest riots were in D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, and Kansas City. "For the first time in history, the situation room in the basement of the west wing of the White House was plotting the course of a domestic crisis." (American Melodrama p17)
  
• 4/4/1968 In Washington, DC, singer James Brown went on national TV to urge restraint and a positive channeling of anger. That night, musicians Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King and Buddy Guy gather in a New York club to play blues all night; at the end of the show, they took a collection for the SCLC, to which Hendrix personally donated $5000. California Gov. Reagan said that this was the sort of "great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they'd break." He didn't go to King's funeral.
  
• 4/4/1968 RFK, against advice from his campaign workers, goes to a ghetto rally site in Indianapolis. His police escort peels off as he enters the ghetto. He is the one who tells the crowd that Martin Luther King is dead. Later that night, back at his hotel, RFK for the first time in the hearing of any staffer, mentions the name of his brother's alleged killer. He calls him "Harvey Lee Oswald," just as the gunman had been misidentified in the first radio reports from Dallas. Even later in the evening, RFK will say to Joan Braden in reference to MLK's murder: "That could have been me." Following King's death, the French novelist Romain Gary tells RFK "Somebody is going to try to kill you." Bobby replies, "I am pretty sure there'll be an attempt on my life sooner or later. Not so much for political reasons ..." To Pierre Salinger Gary says: "Your candidate's going to get killed." One day, RFK believes, people will no longer be able to mention "the Kennedy assassination" without specifying which one, and reporters covering his campaign share the premonition: He has the stuff to go all the way, but he isn't going to make it. "The reason is that somebody is going to shoot him," Newsweek's John Lindsay tells Jimmy Breslin. "I know it and you know it ... He's out there now waiting for him."
  
• 4/5/1968 (Friday) By Friday morning the autopsy by Shelby County's medical examiner, Dr. Jerry Francisco, had been completed at John Gaston Hospital. Dr. King's body was then taken to R. S. Lewis and Sons Funeral Home, where people came to pay their respects.
  
• 4/5/1968 Coretta King was on her way from Atlanta to escort the body home, and the SCLC staff gathered at the funeral home to take the body to the airport when she arrived. She and her children never left the private jet Sen. Robert Kennedy had chartered for her. Attorney General Ramsey Clark visited her on board and publicly announced, "All of our evidence at this time indicates that it was a single person who committed this criminal act." In a press conference, Attorney General Ramsey Clark announced that "we are getting close" to an arrest and said the evidence "indicated a single individual" was involved and there was "no evidence of a widespread plot." (NY Post 4/6)
  
• 4/5/1968 President Johnson met with twenty-one civil rights leaders called to Washington from across the country. He then went to the National Cathedral and attended a memorial service for Dr. King in the midst of the ongoing insurrection and civil disorder in the capital.
  
• 4/5/1968 Czechoslovakia: Action Program of the Communist Party is published, part of the effort to provide "socialism with a human face." It calls for the "democratization" of the political and economic system. The document refers to a "unique experiment in democratic communism." The Communist Party would now have to compete with other parties in elections. Document envisages a gradual reform of the political system over a 10-year period.
  
• 4/5/1968 RFK said, "We must recognize that this short life can neither be ignobled nor enriched by hatred and revenge. Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land."
  
• 4/5/1968 [B]Rumours were already spreading that Kennedy would die during the campaign. The FBI had picked up reports of an overheard conversation betwe