Posted on 02/08/2006 4:48:14 AM PST by pjsbro
THE RECENT controversy over warrantless national security telephone taps, coupled with Martin Luther King's birthday, remind me of my time in the Department of Justice in the 1960s. It was a period of turbulent demonstrations, marches and sit-ins, many of them led by King in support of the constitutional rights denied by Southern law enforcement to black citizens. And it was a time of growing animosity between King and J. Edgar Hoover, who had created the Federal Bureau of Investigation and led it since 1924. That animosity created a growing problem for Atty. Gen. Robert Kennedy and those of us on his staff. Hoover had built a great institution in the FBI, essentially from nothing. In the public eye it stood for fair and decent law enforcement — the rule of law — and was a model of integrity and efficiency. Hoover was a national hero, responsible for putting killers like John Dillinger behind bars. Kids wore Junior G-Man badges. During World War II, he fought Nazi spies, and during the Cold War he went after members of the communist conspiracy.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
JFK and RFK were behind the wiretappers!!!
When Hoover asked for the wiretaps, Bobby consulted me (I was then his deputy) and Burke Marshall, head of the Civil Rights Division. Both of us agreed to the tap because we believed a refusal would lend credence to the allegation of communist influence, while permitting the tap, we hoped, would demonstrate the contrary.
Yes, it would lend credence because there WAS communist influence. King had -- naively, in my opinion -- made Levison his close advisor. There was reason to investigate.
Nice spin
And they had to walk 12 miles to school in the snow. It was uphill both ways.
Somebody check and see if Katzenbach has managed to auger himself into the ground with his spinning.
In other words, the tap was approved because if they didn't tap MLK, people (i.e., voters) would think that Kennedy was soft on communists.
That is purely political.
It will only wash with those to young to remember.
Johnson replaced this guy with Ramsey Clark ....to moderate the Kennedy influence.
They may be too young to remember, but old enough to demand to know the truth.
LBJ sure had enough guts to tell Hoover to wiretap Barry Goldwater and 4 years later Richard Nixon.
And I don't buy the crap the Bobby Kennedy was squmeish about tapping King. Bobby Kennedy was a first class prick and would play any dirty trick if it could help him. He was not the "Saint Bobby" the mainstream created.
Ramsey Clark as Attorney General and then in other capacities for Jimmy Carter gives us a true look at the nature of the enemy....wacko---sure, but still accepted by the mainstream liberal demmies from Carter to Kerry.
I've read that LBJ used to call Hoover, who shared raw data about sone people w/LBJ, and they laughed together over the "evidence".
Bobby Kennedy used the IRS to attack his political enemies list as well. Living in Mass years ago, I met several of his victims.
Katzenbach was a fool in the 60's, and he still is. I thought folks were suppossed to get smarter as they aged, but in his case the opposite occured.
Even the peaceful civil rights movement - led by MLK - was somewhat disappointed with the Kennedy's, especially John, I believe, and the Kennedy's lukewarm "support" of the movement, until the latter months of JFK's life. JFK was a political animal first, and through much of his presidency, he put practicality before conviction when it came to civil rights. Actually, there probably was little conviction on his part until the last few months.....The wiretaps, and it's apparent in what Katzenback wrote, continued into the Johnson (democrat) administration, apparently with the support of at least some in the administration.......Katzenbach writes in the last paragraph of how there has been blood shed to protect freedom. How true. There will likely be much more blood shed if the wacky left succeeds in hamstringing Bush of his legal means to do what he can to monitor people wanting to kill us.
Simply amazing...
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