Al Franken Gets It Wrong

17 Comments

1. 

   grannyhelen on April 12, 2005 at 6:24 pm

   I normally don’t diary twice in one week, let alone one day. But I get so frustrating hearing Kyles repeat stuff I know isn’t true.

   • 

     Dean Pajevic on April 12, 2005 at 6:32 pm

     Good for you.  Let’s hope this finds its way to Franken .. not optimistic.

     • 

       grannyhelen on April 12, 2005 at 6:35 pm

       but…if folks wanna head on over to the blog and put in their $0.02… 🙂

   • 

     sgilman on April 12, 2005 at 7:01 pm

     Thanks for the info, I hope someone with AAR reads your post on their blog.

     Who won the argument over at dKos?

2. 

   grannyhelen on April 13, 2005 at 9:21 am

   thanks for the recommends, everyone!

   • 

     Man Eegee on April 13, 2005 at 9:51 am

     No thank YOU for the info.  I didn’t realize the scope of controversy regarding Dr. King’s assassination.

     • 

       grannyhelen on April 13, 2005 at 10:16 am

       …there are over 1200 pages of transcripts from King v Jowers.

       It’ll blow your mind by the time you’re done reading it.

       • 

         bood abides on April 13, 2005 at 11:06 am

         He typed clandestinely while at work….

         • 

           grannyhelen on April 13, 2005 at 1:08 pm

           Whew – it ain’t gonna be easy…

           1. Trial started when Lloyd Jowers, previous owner of Jim’s Grill, was interviewed in a national news show, stating that he was a “bag man” in the conspiracy to assassinate MLK.

           Jowers’ taped interview with Dexter King can be found at this link (NOTE: he rambles a lot – just be prepared): http://www.thekingcenter.org/news/trial/Volume5.html

           2. Jowers’ testimony is borne out by his African American mistress and employee at the time, who worked with him at Jim’s Grill, which was located in on street level in the same building as the boarding house where Ray was charged with firing the fatal shot that killed MLK.

           Ms. Spates’ testimony – which is pretty compelling – is here: http://www.thekingcenter.org/news/trial/Volume13.html

           Here’s an excerpt. NOTE: previous to this she had been intimidated, and misquoted in the press – the hesitations you hear from her I believe is that she’s still a little freaked out by that:

           MR. PEPPER: Reference here is to an affidavit that she is being questioned on.

           “Question: Okay.

           Answer [Ms. Spates]: Yeah, I remember saying it.

           Question: Okay. Question, in quotation marks, while I remember hearing what sounded like a firecracker going off, and within seconds, Loyd came running through the back door carrying another different rifle. Do you remember that statement?

           Answer: Not exactly like that.

           Question: Okay. Well, essentially is that statement correct, what I just read to you, the paragraph?

           Answer: Would you read it again, please?

           Question: Question, quotation marks, while there I remember hearing a sound like a firecracker going off, and within seconds, Loyd came running through the back
           door carrying another different rifle.

           Answer: Yes.

           Question: Question, quotation marks, he was white as a ghost and very excited and wearing black trousers, a white shirt, and a black bowtie, as usual. The gun he was carrying had a shorter barrel than the first one, and the handle was a darker shade of brown. Full stop. It also had a scope and something screwed on to the end of the barrel.

           Answer: Yes.

           Question: Question, quotation marks, he looked like a wild man. His hair was all messed up, and he had obviously been on his knees on the damp ground because the knees of his trousers were wet and muddy. He looked at me and saw me looking at him and said words to the effect, you would never say anything to hurt me, would you? And I said, no, of course I wouldn’t. Do you remember that?

           Answer: Yes.”

           MR. PEPPER: Move down to line 21.

           “Question: Question, okay. Quotation marks, only twice did he refer to the incident, once as it happened and he saw me watching him and then sometime later when
           he said to me some words to the effect, you would never say anything to hurt me, would you? Do you remember that?

           Answer: I don’t even understand what you just read.

           Question: Let me say see if I can get another version of it here. Okay. Quotation marks, only twice did he refer to the incident, once as it happened and he saw
           me watching him and then sometime later when he again said to me words to the effect, you would never say anything to hurt me, would you?

           Answer: Yes.”

           MR. PEPPER: Let’s move on, please, to page 46. “Question: Question, again in quotation marks, I finally told the details of this story to Dr. William Pepper, the attorney for James Earl Ray, in 1992 and was going to testify at the HBO tele-trial of James Earl Ray but did not testify because I was too frightened. Is that true?

           Answer: Yes.

           Question: Question, speech marks, recently I was interviewed by investigators from the TBI — the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation — who I understand have been looking into Loyd Jowers’ story at the request of Shelby County Attorney General, end of quotation marks. Is that true?

           Answer: I really didn’t understand that.

           Question: Question, recently I was interviewed by an investigators.

           Answer: Yes, that’s true.

           Question: Question, quotation marks, I recall that he did not ask me what I knew about the killing of Dr. King or what I saw but only asked me to answer yes or no to various statements contained in Mr. Kenneth
           Herman’s affidavit of 25th January, 1994.

           They also asked me if I had been offered money for my actual story. I said no.

           Answer: True.

           Question: Question, Mr. Herman’s statement was basically correct as to what I saw, and I told them so. Is that true?

           Answer: Yes.

           Question: Question, quotation marks, I was therefore surprised to be shown an article in the Tennessean newspaper on Thursday, February 10th, 1994, which stated that the Shelby County Attorney General said three witnesses, including myself, who had tied Jowers to the assassination now said nothing about Jowers’ involvement, full stop. Do you remember that? It says Ms. Jowers, but, I’m sorry, Ms. Spates.

           Answer: Yes.

           Question: Question, quotation marks, I said no such thing to the TBI investigators and resent any statement I did. I will not retract the truthful account of the events which I witnessed around 6 p.m.
           on Thursday, April 4, 1968, which confirm Mr. Jowers’ involvement. Is that true?

           Answer: True.

           Question” — this is being quoted again — “I confirmed that no one has paid or offered to pay me any money for relating what I saw. Based on everything I know, James Earl Ray was not the person who shot Dr. King. Other persons have tried to get me to change my story, saying that if I did so, I
           would benefit financially. I refused to do so and will continue to refuse. I resent any attempt by the Attorney General or his TBI investigators to imply that I am telling lies for money. The story I told is actually against my interest but nevertheless I tell
           it because it is the truth, and I believe that an innocent man is in prison. Do you remember that statement?

           Answer: That’s true.”

           MR. PEPPER: Turn next, please, to page 83, line 21. Redirect examination by Mr. Garrison.

           “Question, Ms. Spates, let me ask you a couple of other things and I’ll be through. On the day before this occurred, do you remember seeing any money in the
           restaurant there or any place?

           Answer: I don’t know if — yeah, I remember seeing money.

           Question: Where was the money?

           Answer: It was in the stove in the kitchen.

           Question: Where was the — tell us where the stove was located in the kitchen. Upon entering from the front door, would it to be to your right or left?

           Answer: The left.

           Question: The stove would be to your left?

           Answer: Yes.

           Question: Question, when you saw the money, Ms. Spates, did it appear to be a lot of money or a very small amount? Would you describe it for us?

           Answer: I don’t know the denomination, but it was from the front of the stove forward, but I don’t know whether it was all the way back lined up back there,
           but it was a lot from the front.

           Question: It was bills?

           Answer: Yes.

           Question: It wasn’t coins?

           Answer: No.

           Question: It was bills, right. Were they wrapped with something did it appear, or was it all stacked up on top of each other?

           Answer: They were stacked very neat, so I don’t know.

           Question: You couldn’t tell the denomination, like if they were dollar bills, five, ten, fifteen, what they were?

           Answer: No.

           Question: Was it a large stack of bills?

           Answer: Yes.

           Question: Okay. Would it have been say four inches, six inches, a foot? What would be your best —

           Asnwer: If this is the front of the stove right here, it was all the way from about the top of the stove.

           Question: Was it packed up pretty high, the money?

           Answer: Yeah, from the bottom to the top.

           Question: Had you ever seen any money before all the time you were there before this?

           Answer: Pardon?

           Question: Had you ever seen any money before this time that you noticed it? Had you ever seen any money like that before all the time you worked there?

           Answer: No place.”

           3. Onto the “murder weapon” they recovered with Ray’s fingerprints. It was found in a bundle pretty close to the boarding house. But…it was never “sited in”, which means it would have been pretty impossible to actually hit anything with it. Pepper goes into this and Judge Joe Brown’s attempts to get the rifle tested in “Act of State”, Dexter King also talks about this in “Growing Up King”.
           4. The conspiracy. Nathan Witlock, taxicab driver and musician, testified the following about Frank Liberto, local grocery store owner who was an alledged member of the Mafia. Long-ish excerpt, but compelling:

           Q. [Pepper] But did you when you first met [Liberto] him and you heard he was associated with the Mafia, did you know what the Mafia was at that point?

           A. No, sir. I asked Mr. Frank what it was.

           Q. What did he say?

           A. I asked him, I said, what is the Mafia? Is it a bunch of bad guys that sit around and table and scheme up something mean to do? He said, no, it is a bunch of
           businessmen that take care of business.

           Q. Now, did there come a time, Mr. Whitlock, when you heard about a conversation that Mr. Liberto had with your mother?

           A. Yes, sir. Pertaining to Martin Luther King?

           Q. Yes, sir. Pertaining to Martin Luther King.

           A. Yes, sir.

           Q. And did that conversation on the day of the assassination of Martin Luther King that he had with your mother, did that upset you in some way?

           A. Yes, it did, in a way it did. Because that he would talk to my mother directly about gangsterism, that is what I was predominantly upset about. It wasn’t the
           subject matter of what it was about, it was the fact that he would think that he could, you know, go to that level to talk to her about that. That’s what upset me more than anything.

           Q. When you heard about this, what did you do?

           A. I went directly to Mr. Frank about it when he showed up at the pizza parlor and just asked him, I said, hey, Mr. Frank, did you kill Martin Luther King?

           Q. Because what had you heard that he had said to your mother?

           A. He told mama that he had killed Martin Luther King — had Martin Luther King killed. I didn’t like him talking that to my mother. I thought he was out of line for coming forward with that, talking to her. He could talk to me about it. But he stepped over the line. So that’s when I approached him.

           Q. You became offended and you actually just went up to him and confronted him?

           A. That’s right.

           Q. How old were you at that point, Mr. Whitlock?

           A. Eighteen.

           Q. As an eighteen-year-old young man, you went up to this fairly formidable individual, wasn’t he?

           A. Define “formidable.”

           Q. He was good sized, he had an aura of power about him?

           A. He was a big man, yes, sir.

           Q. You confronted him by asking him the question, did he kill Martin Luther King?

           A. Uh-huh.

           Q. What did he say to you?

           A. He glared at me, he says, you’ve been talking to your mother, hadn’t you? I said, yeah. He said, you wired? I didn’t even know what he meant by that. I went, no, I’m not wired.

           Q. He asked if you were wired, and you didn’t know what he meant by that?

           A. I thought he was talking about — I thought he meant am I taking amphetamine pills and wired up. I said, no, I’m not crazy. He sat there for a second.

           He says —

           THE WITNESS: Your Honor, I don’t want to offend anybody, and I don’t know how many people are watching this television, but I’m going to have to use some —

           Q. (BY MR. PEPPER) Just speak clearly and plainly, just what he said.

           A. I’m going to use that N word nobody wants to hear. I don’t want to offend anybody by saying this.

           Q. Mr. Whitlock, just say what you know.

           A. He told me, he said, I didn’t kill the nigger, but I had it done. I said, what about that other son-of-a-bitch up there taking credit for it? He says, ahh, he wasn’t nothing but a troublemaker from Missouri, he was a front man. I didn’t know what that meant. Because “front man” to me means something different than what he was thinking about. I said, a what? He said, a setup man.

           I said, well, why did you kill the preacher for? He
           says, ahh, it was about the draft. He says, boy, you don’t even need to be hearing about this. He said, don’t you say nothing. He stood up and he acted like
           he was going to slap me up upside the head.

           So I stood up there. Me and him are looking at each other. He has got this glare look on his eye. I could tell he was thinking about hitting me.

           It run through my head, you old son-of-a-bitch, you hit me, I’m going to knock a knot upside your head, I don’t care who you are. He is standing there glaring at me.

           He says, you fixing to go to Canada, aren’t you? I said, yeah. Then about that time the phone rang. I just walked over there and answered the phone and was busy with the pizza stuff, I looked up, and he is
           gone. He left his beer sitting there on the table. It was about half full.

           Q. Did you ever have any other discussion with him about this matter?

           A. No, sir.

           Q. And do you recall what year this was?

           A. 1979.

           Q. 1979?

           A. Uh-huh.

           Q. You went off to Canada, then?

           A. Yes, sir.

           Q. Played your gig?

           A. Uh-huh.

           Q. Did you ever see or talk to Mr. Liberto again?

           A. My time frame — he called me, okay, on the phone, right after that, and he says, Nate, I’ve got a job for you. I went, oh, man, he is going to want me to — well, let me back up just a little bit here.

           Mr. Frank — there was something that happened over at the pizza parlor prior to this conversation I had with him about him having Martin Luther King whacked. Something took place right prior to that at the pizza
           parlor that left him open to talk to me in these kinds of ways.

           It was a pretty nasty situation, but I had to do what I had to do over there. I don’t tell everybody what I did. About a week or two prior to this conversation I had with Mr. Frank, some guy came in, he looked kind of like John Wayne. He was a big guy, a redneck guy, walked in my mother’s restaurant drinking a beer.

           Mama runs over there to the door and she says, you can’t bring a beer in here but I’ll sell you one. He just — once again, I’m going to have to use some nasty language to make it how it was. He says, I just might buy this mother-fucking place, and he back-handed my mama.

           When he did, I walked around from the counter with a nightstick and knocked fire from his tail end and knocked him through the front door, hit him across here and busted his eye open real bad, busted his
           head open, knocked him out on the front doorstep out there and whacked him again with that stick.

           There was a man that was working out there named Louis Bonsella. He come running out there and said, don’t hit him no more, Nate, you are going to kill him. I said, I’m trying to kill this MF. Some other guy come
           running out the door and says, oh, wait a minute, come on, Red, talking about the guy I hit with the stick, come on, Red, they are going to kill us. So I hit him in the GP.

           So the last I saw these two knuckle-heads, they were dragging each other down the sidewalk. Meanwhile, Mr. Frank had got me up in a truck a couple days later, he
           got me up in there. Mama called the cops. They come over there. She filed a report on the guy causing such a disturbance.

           The lieutenant shows up over there. He gets me out on there on the sidewalk and says, Nate, you are going to have to watch yourself because there is going to start a war over here. I whacked this guy good with that stick.

           Mr. Frank got me in the truck. He started asking me about this fight. He says, were you going to kill him, Nate? I said, yeah, I was, but Louis stopped me. He said, who? He said, the guy over there working at
           the place. He said, oh, that old dago son-of-a-bitch.

           Then he says, well, it is a good thing you didn’t kill him, you would have been in a whole lot of trouble if you would have. You got out of it, but I would have
           helped your mama. He said, could you do it again? I said, I guess so, if somebody come up in the pizza parlor acting the fool and hit mama, I said, yeah, I’ll tear them up.

           He says, no, would you do it just in general? I said, to who? He said, mostly dope niggers over there on around Hollywood, going up around the Hollywood over Plough Boulevard. He motioned over there towards Hollywood.

           I said, I don’t know. He said, could you do it for some money? I said how much money? He said, five or ten, it depends. I said, who is it? He says, these
           dope boys get these white girls over there, the families still care something about them, either the police can’t or won’t do anything about it and he said that’s it, that’s who we want to get right there.

           I said, who exactly is it? He said, there is always some nigger around here needs to be killed. I don’t know. I’ll let you know.

           Well, when he called my back after we had this conversation about Martin Luther King, he told me about that, he said, oh, I’ve got a job for you, Nate. Oh, God, he is going to want me to kill some dope idiot over here somewhere.

           He says, get your nigger. I had a guy, a black man, that played drums for me, and another man. He says meet Billy down at the Cook Convention Center. He was talking about a music job.

           Q. It wasn’t a contract to kill somebody?

           A. Yeah. He wanted me to play for Sheriff Bill Morris’ Christmas party. I was to go down there to the Cook Convention Center, play this Christmas party and I get
           paid a check. Then he shows back up over there at the pizza parlor. That’s what the conversation was about.

           Q. Did there come a time years later when you wrote a letter to a government official in which you discussed or in which you stated what you have told this Court and jury today?

           A. I didn’t go into detail, but I had written the governor of Tennessee with a copy written to John Wilder, the lieutenant governor, and to the — I sent one to the person at the Board of Responsibility and to another Memphis attorney, yes, sir, I did.

           Q. And were there any repercussions on you as a result of that letter and what you said about this case?

           A. Yes, sir, it was.

           Q. What happened you to?

           A. Well, I started having this guy follow me around in a car that was undercover car that had a bunch of antennas on it. I was working my taxicab. He was constantly following me for about two days.

           Then I got down here at Poplar and Cleveland and I called my mother-in-law, ex-mother-in-law up on the phone in Shelby Forrest, and I had a bunch of cops roll down on me, a bunch of police. I said, heck, there is a robbery somewhere, I better get out of here. I hung up the phone and took off.

           I didn’t know they was there for me. I get around the corner and I’m pulled over. I had three squad cars with loads of police with guns to my head. They hit me in the groin twice, smashed my face up against the back of the car, stretched me out.

           One of them cops — I used to wrestle a couple years ago at the Coliseum, and one of the cops recognized me from when I wrestling. He said, wait a minute, this is
           Nate. They was working on the hood smashing my face down in that thing, you know. I was just taking it. They didn’t put anything on me that I hadn’t hardly had before.

           So I’m just taking it however I can take it. But the one cop stopped it. The guy had a gun to my head while the other one was working on me. He said, wait a minute, Nate, what is this about? I said, I don’t
           know, man, I guess it is my ex-wife or something. I didn’t know what it was about.

           Q. You didn’t put it together at that point?

           A. Not at that moment, no, I didn’t. The top cop that knew me, he put me in his squad car and looks back at me, he said, Nate, have you been making phone calls to
           Nashville? I said, ug-huh, not me.

           They jerked me out of the car again. They said, how much change you got on you? I had like eighty cents in change.

           They are all looking like he ain’t got enough money to make a long-distance phone call. I said, what are you talking about? He says — the cop asked me, he says, do you — have you been making bomb threats? I said, I can’t even set my VCR much less make a bomb. I don’t know what you are talking about. This is the cop I know.

           He says, have you been trying to embezzle money out of anybody, some government guy? I said, no, ma’am, what the heck is this? Then all of a sudden this guy
           that has been following me, he pulls up there real quick in this unmarked car, because they are on the radio saying — I said, if this is all what is going on, you’ve got the wrong guy, you need to go back over there wherever he is on the phone and see if you can find him, because you’ve got the wrong person here.

           Well, when that took place, the cop that put all the regular Memphis police on me, the undercover guy, he come wheeling up and blocks his face so he can’t see me and walks by the car and said, here is the number he is calling. I’m listening out the window
           to them. I call him a lying SOB when he walks by the door because that’s what he was was. I ain’t called anybody in Nashville.

           Q. Well, the upshot of it all was that this was serious harassment that happened you to?

           A. That’s an understatement. Then they got me downtown, read me my Miranda rights. I said, am I under arrest? He said, boy, you in a lot of trouble. He said, you can’t get no lawyer, you can’t get no bond. He said, why does the Secret Service have a hold on a cab driver?

           This is that cop up there named Johnstone, eleventh floor, bomb unit. I says, I can’t tell you. He said, well, you going to have to tell me. I said, I’ll talk
           to the AG about it because he told me not to say a word to nobody about this.

           He said, you ain’t talking to nobody until you tell me why the Secret Service has ahold on this cab driver right here. I said, okay if you really want to know it, I’ll give it you. There are entities within the
           government — he is taking a statement. They give my give me my Miranda rights. I’m not sure if I’m under arrest or not. Then I give the statement. You can’t make a statement unless I done read you your rights, he said.

           I said, fine. Okay. I guess I was arrested.

           I give the statement. I said, the reason why they doing this to me is there are entities within the United States government that don’t want me to say what I know about the assassination of Martin Luther King. He almost fainted. He walked out of the room.

           I saw him through the window. He was on the FAX machine and he was working the FAX machine. I read the heading of the paper he had. It had something on there that said Washington. He walks back in there with the
           FAX. Him and Larkin, the other major up there, they read it, and they said, get the hell out of here.

           I was arrested with guns to my head,hit in the groin, read my Miranda, then un-arrested and kicked loose all at the same time.

           Q. My goodness. Nate, thanks very much for coming down here this afternoon.

           MR. PEPPER: No further questions.

           5. Government involvement – okay, not going to use excerpts on this part. Please go to the entirety of trial transcripts – all info is there.

           *Memphis Fire department pull the 2 black firemen away from the fire house that overlooked Lorraine Motel.

           *FBI had previously issued article through “friendly” outlets in the local African American media in Memphis, criticizing MLK for staying at “white” hotels like the Rivermont and chastizing him for not staying at the Lorraine. This is a part of the Church Committee report on COINTELPRO.

           *MLK’s room gets moved from a secured bottom story to an unsecured top story room. It’s done by “someone in King’s party”. This individual has never been identified.

           *Marrel McCoullough(sp?), who was working with Military Intelligence, is the individual pictured in the famous photograph of MLK. He is kneeling over MLK’s body and checking vital signs. Mr. McCoullough now works at the CIA, as verified by Sam Donaldson.

           *A local division of the US armed services was moved to the area around Memphis shortly before the assassination of MLK.

           *The “brushy area” under the boarding house where it is alleged the actual shot came from that killed Dr. King was cleared away by City of Memphis Department of Parks and Sanitation early the morning after the assassinaton.

           This is a quick run-through (I know…”quick” is relative. There’s over 1200 pages of material).

           Hope it helps – please let me know if you have ??’s.

         • 

           bood abides on April 13, 2005 at 4:47 pm

           I certainly feel safer sleeping at night now…not!

         • 

           grannyhelen on April 14, 2005 at 6:07 am

           …speak out against the war in Iraq, call America the most prolific exporter of violences in the world, and try to organize poor and working class people to demand stuff like a living wage so they can actually get by on 1 job and spend time with their kids…

           …you’ll be fine.

       • 

         Man Eegee on April 13, 2005 at 11:13 am

         Thanks again, lately I’ve been like a sponge for info.

3. 

   sybil on April 13, 2005 at 3:24 pm

   I listened today, thinking he might include this mistake in his ‘Boring Corrections’ but instead he apologized for getting the days of the week wrong. Talk about trivial.
   He prides himself on only the truth on his show.

   I have to admit, that Samuel “Billy” Kyles sounded very convincing with his deep speaking voice. Very authoritive.
   But you have raised some serious doubts here.

   • 

     grannyhelen on April 13, 2005 at 3:29 pm

     If anyone wants to try to email him, however, I wouldn’t mind 🙂 .

     Tried to do so and couldn’t get the web form to work, so I resorted to his blog. That seems not to have worked, either…

4. 

   Hausfrau on April 14, 2005 at 3:36 am

   Thank you so much for posting this diary Grannyhelen!  I have been very busy this past week but I just wanted to take a minute here for thanking you for bringing this to light. I was listening to the interview on AirAmerica with my cordless headphones while doing dishes and had no idea I was being had by the MSM again. Sad to think that Al Franken is MSM but please keep in mind that he thinks that Bush won fair in square in November 2004.  Oy!

   • 

     grannyhelen on April 14, 2005 at 6:13 am

     …looks like Kyles was a “last minute replacement” for Benjamin Hooks. Not surprising. I hear tell from someone who works at NCRM that Kyles is a close family friend of Beverly Robertson, in addition to being on NCRM’s board of directors.

     And unless you know what the deal is with King v Jowers, and unless you’ve read Abernathy’s autobiography and unless you’ve toured NCRM with a critical eye for detail (for instance, when the expansion exhibit there first rolled out I brought to NCRM’s attention that in the old exhibit it place Kyles in King’s room at 5:30, and in the new exhibit it placed him in the room at 5:00, so they can’t even get their own fiction consistent)…

     …well, you wouldn’t know, would you?

     So, my point is not to take pot shots at Franken but to encourage him to have Pepper on his show in the interest of fairness and balance, which I think is a prerequisite to seeing the truth of anything.

     • 

       Hausfrau on April 15, 2005 at 6:42 am

       Well, I loved Al Franken’s book and I still listen to him but I am still mad at him not covering the Voter Fraud issue.