An Older Gentlemen in my class discussion pointed out that Robert Kennedy was the AG when MLK JR.

was being harassed by the FBI. He suggested that FBI surveillance of prominent black activists had not turned into out-right harassment until the Kennedy administration.

I wanted to get some thoughts from DU on this subject, especially from some older folks. He seemed perplexed by why liberals (this guy is a liberal himself) liked the guy. He seemed bitter as to what the Kennedy's (in his view) did to King, Jr. and blamed Robert Kennedy for attempts at slandering him.

I personally am just beginning to research the subject and have not formed an opinion. But I have just found this article (see below) from the Atlantic and thought perhaps it was worthy of some discussion. I am young enough to have only learned of Kennedy's speech on the day MLK was assassinated. This discussion did not match the image I thought I knew. I want to save it or revise it.

Just seeking some insight.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200207/garrow

...and was doing pretty much whatever the hell he wanted to; the AG had little input or impact.

was afraid of Hoover. He had something on everyone and if you were squeaky clean he figured out a way to make you look bad. He was a very bad man. Robert Kennedy had nothing to do with the FBI.

start by looking up Inga Arvad.

it's been out there for a long time. not like it's any kind of deep, dark secret

that's really all you need to know

Hoover had the goods on everybody in DC

how do you think he lasted so long

Kennedy didn't want to allow that....he had no choice. not excusing it, by any means, but had he not done Hoover's bidding......

Kennedys and that he tried to control them through blackmail.

I have never known what to believe. I am sure that the old cross dresser wasn't above that type of shit. It does seem right up his alley.

His three largest files on individuals were on "Wild" Bill Donovan OSS/CIA, Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King.

wrong post?

anything on Ike or Truman. I've read FDR was thinking of firing him after the war because he was pissed Hoover's people bugged one of Eleanor's hotel rooms.

"...he had a file on everyone."

Born too late I guess to get caught up. I liken it to the mystique that certain younger folk have for the Reagan era...

Yeah--this is sacrilege to some, but looking at the actual events, actions and then the wholesale worship of the family/man -- something just doesn't connect in both cases.

Too much cult of personality.

As to Hoover, his FBI spied on blacks for 30 years before JFK was elected.

Hoover was gay and afraid that that fact would get out to the general public, so he spied on everyone, planted stories, and put those stories(gossip obtained via "interviews" and sometimes actual media "speculation")in what he called the "raw file" to prove whatever smear he was selling, and the conservatives and the media ate it up and made him untouchable.

Tell the idiot that suggested RFK started the spying on MLK that that is a story planted by Hoover with little to back it up beyond RFK being interested in what MLK was doing - mainly because RFK acted as a political weather vane for JFK and wanted to know where the next wind was blowing in from.

The chasing MLK's sex life, bugging motels he used, was classic Hoover - not RFK.

You and your friend are selling GOP bullshit - inadvertently I assume, but GOP crap nonetheless.

that this is an attempt at "selling GOP bullshit." Anyone who wants to find out the truth about the FBI's troubling relationship with Martin can simply pick up any one of a dozen good books and learn about when it started, and follow it to the conclusion of King's life. However, one has to work quite hard to promote the lies about RFK "directing" Hoover to spy on King.

It's not that Kennedy's presidency was perfect. But he had promise; the country had promise then. Until a "lone gunman" blew out his brains. Then a lone gunman blew out MLK's brains. RFK's character grew mightily--until the usual lone gunman intervened.

Reagan had his own encounter with a lone gunman--a friend of the Bush family, in fact. But he survived & lived a long life. So did J Edgar Hoover.

I think our country would have been better if these three men hadn't been murdered. If you think that's "cult of personality"--tough.

and total embrace of emotion-laden nostalgia that blinds one to what takes place in the world.

Acting like a lemming is easy; the fall off the cliff is the tough part.

The more power in an office, the deeper they dug.

that spied on MLKJ. He was doing allot of things without the Kennedy's knowledge. He also was spying on John and Robert Kennedy along with the rest of their family. Hoover was a mean SOB and he did not hide the fact that he hated the Kennedy's as well as MLK jr. Also on the day King was killed, Robert Kennedy made a speech at a campaign stop about what a great man King was and asked that the nation not be caught up in violent protest because that was not what King stood for. Robert was truly hurt by Kings murder. You have to remember that in those days Hoover was spying on most of Washington and Hollywood. That's why he stayed on as FBI chief so long, because he could blackmail anyone he wanted.

Which was one of the many reasons that RFK and Hoover were mortal enemies.

--nobody directed him to do anything. He was a vicious, vindictive fucker, and blackmailed everybody. This has NOTHING to do with RFK.

It was started while her husband was president.

That proves Hoover was able to work without anyone in the executive branch knowing.



This older gent is fuking naive.

Her file was one of the three largest Hoover had.

Again proving my point.

Proving MY point.

So there!

a couple of pages into the FOIA MLK documents

http://foia.fbi.gov/king/mkl1a.pdf

n/t

sure was enlightening.

I'm off to bed.

....nobody ran Hoover. He was a vindictive nut job...if you get a chance, read a book about him. It will give you a whole new perspective.

Cheers

pretty much hated each other. so i think it`s bullshit that the kennedy boys had it in for king..hoover hated everyone but his boy friend and the mob buddies he meant at the race track each week...

Just curious...is the FBI really withholding secret surveillance tapes of MLK? The white supremacists who run martinlutherkingjr.org keep claiming that these tapes will bring him down due to alleged rape and physical abuse of women that he had affairs with. I know that he did have affairs, but I have a very hard time believing that he raped and beat women.

Kennedy actually received some flak over this during the 1968 presidential election from Eugene McCarthy. I would point out that the Joe McCarthy-induced hysteria of the 1950s was still rampant during the 1960s and it was probably not unusual for public figures to be placed under surveillance and wiretapped. Add on to that J Edgar Hoover's racist paranoia and zealotry, and you had a situation where innocent and good men like Dr King and even RFK and JFK were targeted and harrassed by the FBI

Kennedy was walking a tightrope. He knew he needed J Edgar Hoover if he wanted to accomplish anything in the Attorney General's portfolio and he knew that J Edgar Hoover would be a formidable enemy if he was confronted. What I find amazing is how much progress was made on civil rights issues under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations (much of it achieved while Kennedy was AG) despite the efforts of J Edgar to impede the progress of civil rights reform. Sure, much more could have been done but Kennedy and the two Presidents accomplished quite a lot considering the obstacles

That doesn't excuse the surveillance and harassment of Dr King and prominent civl rights officials and leaders and doesn't exonerate Kennedy from making a much more tough and principled stand. But it was nevertheless a tough situation and it must be considered in the appropriate context

This gentleman in your class actually thinks Hoover was doing Kennedy's bidding?

Zowie!

Julie