j edgar hoover hates him
j edgar hoover %uh
believes that he is a pernicious
abnormal and fraudulent person
%uh and %uh hoover
is already wiretapping stanley levison who
is one of
%uh kings best friends and closest advisers
and for a variety of reasons is able to get
the attorney general's permission
to wiretap king's phones in his hotel rooms
starting in nineteen sixty three
and what that produces is abundant evidence
of the degree to which
king was engaged in his own series of extramarital
affairs and partying
and basically king
%uh does not know that all this is being 
taped and he does not know that that hoover
is taking this to journalists and asking them to
publish it but he does know the f_b_i_ is
essentially trying destroy him
and
when he finds this out
first hand and personal
is when
the FBI sends a tape
of all these indiscretions
to SCLC's headquarters
which is then sent home to mrs. king because
she'd liked to listen to dr king's speeches
and they thought it was speeches
%uh and she and he listened to this together
and it's accompanied by a letter which is written
by the associate director of the FBI we
now know
but not in official language
in which he basically is called an abnormal
fraudulent self and said there's only one way out
for you and you know what it is
the implicit suggestion that he take his own life
this kind of %uh
ubiquitous
persecution is just there all the way through
and it just %uh it makes king depressed
%uh it creates a problem for him as he tries
to find ways of keeping the movement together
it follows him as he makes the decision to
speak out against the war in vietnam
and it follows him
all the way through the poor people's crusade
and that final trip to memphis when he spends
his final day preaching
non-violence
this excerpt is brought to you by the massachusetts
school of law
