Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr. And the International Hunt for His A

decided on a Redfield 2x7. Wood asked Galt to give him a few hours to mount the scope, and Galt took off. Wood mounted it himself, setting it to 7x, the maximum magnification--so a deer viewed through the Redfield's crosshairs would appear seven times closer than it was. The Redfield company boasted that its 2x7 offered a 'wide enough field of view²⁶⁵ for tracking moving animals [but] good compromise power for varminting.' Another nice feature was the magnesium fluoride film coating on the scope's lens, which enabled a shooter to see his target in low-light situations--even at late dusk.

The only problem with the scope was that, once mounted, its high profile prevented the Gamemaster from fitting into its original box. At three o'clock, when Galt returned, Wood suggested that he might want to buy a nice leather gun case, but Galt didn't want to spend any more money. So Wood improvised a solution: he rummaged around in the back of the store and found an old box for a Browning rifle, which was slightly bigger than the Gamemaster box. Wood stuffed the scope-mounted rifle into the carton--it just fit--and secured the slightly cumbersome assemblage with Scotch tape.

Pleased enough with the jury-rigged packaging, Galt selected a twenty-round box of the Remington-Peters .30-06 cartridges and told Wood he was ready to settle up. He took out his wallet and completed the exchange, paying the difference from the previous day's purchase in cash.

Again, Galt gave his name as 'Harvey Lowmeyer' with a Birmingham address. Wood did not ask his customers to show identification--nor was he required by any law to do so. Galt smiled awkwardly, picked up the package, and turned toward the door.

17 TO LIVE OR DIE IN MEMPHIS

THAT SAME MORNING, in Atlanta, King held an emergency meeting of his SCLC executive staff to discuss what to do about Memphis. The all-day conclave was held in a paneled conference room on the third floor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue. Key advisers had flown in from all over the country: Chauncey Eskridge, one of King's legal counselors, came in from Chicago; Stanley Levison, from New York; Walter Fauntroy, from Washington; a labor delegation from Memphis. All King's regular staff was there, too: Andrew Young, James Bevel, Dorothy Cotton, Hosea Williams, James Orange, Jesse Jackson, and, of course, Abernathy.

All through the morning, King sat at a cramped Sunday-school desk, a creaky affair with a tiny wooden writing surface attached by a slender arm. He listened quietly to his staffers as they deconstructed the disaster in Memphis. They bickered and hurled accusations and named names. They agreed on little--except that Memphis was a catastrophe, and that under no circumstances should King go back to that troubled river town. The situation in Memphis, said one adviser, 'was a set up,'²⁶⁶ possibly orchestrated by the FBI to ruin King once and for all. It was a detour, a dangerous left turn. And it was a drain on resources that the SCLC did not have.

King listened to the dissension with growing agitation and distress. More painful to him was that many members of his staff clearly were not on board with the Poor People's Campaign. The Washington project, they said, was too ambitious, too logistically complicated, too diffuse in its goals. King held his tongue as staff members put forward their own ideas about what they should be doing. Jim Bevel wanted to concentrate on the Vietnam War. Jesse Jackson thought grassroots economic initiatives like the one he headed up in Chicago--called Operation Breadbasket--were the most promising use of the SCLC's time and energy. Hosea Williams said the real secret to gaining power was voter registration drives to elect leaders sympathetic to their cause.

After a while the discussion became a blur to King. His young staffers were headstrong. They were growing restless and wanted to take the movement in their own directions. Some of them thought they were smarter than King--and that he'd lost his touch.

Slowly, King rose from his Sunday-school desk and vented his feelings. 'We are in serious trouble,'²⁶⁷ he said. 'The whole movement is doomed.' Couldn't they see? It wasn't about Memphis anymore, or even Washington. It wasn't about the fine points of protest strategy. It was about the very foundation of nonviolence itself. Their flame was in danger of flickering out. Everything they'd worked for since Montgomery was on the line. Forget Washington. They couldn't even think about going there until they had proved to the nation that they could bring off a nonviolent march and redeem their mistakes and reestablish the primacy of their central creed.

'Memphis,' he said, 'is the Washington campaign in miniature.'²⁶⁸ They had no choice. They had to go back there before they could go anywhere else. 'The Movement lives or dies in Memphis,' he said.

The staff would not relent. As far as most of his advisers were concerned, both Memphis and Washington were mistakes.

King finally lost patience with his staff. They were too impressed with themselves, too full of private ambition. He was especially angry with Jesse Jackson, who seemed to be trying to create his own fiefdom in Chicago. 'You guys come up²⁶⁹ with your projects,' King said, 'and you always pull me in. If I sensed that this was important to the movement and to you, it always had my full support. Now, I'm not getting your full support. Now that I want you to come back to Memphis to help me, everyone is too busy.'

Finally he turned to Abernathy. 'Ralph, give me my car keys.²⁷⁰ I'm getting out of here.'

Abernathy looked puzzled. During the conversation, he'd been playing with King's keys on the table, and he'd absentmindedly stuffed them in his pocket. Now he handed them over, and King stormed down the hall toward the stairs.

Abernathy followed him. 'Martin,' Ralph said. 'What's bugging you?'

'Ralph, I'll snap out of it. Didn't I snap out of it yesterday?'

'Will you let me know where you'll be?'

King didn't answer.

Then Jesse Jackson tried to follow King down the stairs. 'Doc, don't worry,' he said. 'Everything's going to be all right.'

King paused on the landing and wheeled on Jackson. 'Jesse,' he said. 'Everything's not going to be all right.²⁷¹ If things keep going the way they're going now, it's not just the SCLC but the whole country that's in trouble. If you're so interested in doing your own thing that you can't do what this organization's structured to do, if you want to carve out your own niche in society, go ahead. But for God's sake, don't bother me!'

Jackson stood speechless as King climbed in his car and took off, leaving the staff flummoxed and heartsick. Abernathy tried to pick up the pieces. 'The leader is confused,'²⁷² he said somberly. 'He's under great stress. We need to rally around him in this difficult time.' What happened in Memphis had shaken him to the core. He was experiencing a spiritual crisis. They had no choice now--they all had to go back to Memphis and make things right.

Everyone in the room agreed. 'We had never seen Martin²⁷³ explode that way, not with us,' recalled Andrew Young. 'After he left, people were so stunned they finally began to listen. Finally, the team of wild horses was one.'

They talked about Memphis. They would send some of their best people ahead of King to work with the Invaders and plan every aspect of the march. They would give King everything he wanted.

The transformation was so complete that some board members thought the Holy Spirit had been in the room. There were war whoops and hallelujahs.²⁷⁴ Andrew Young danced a little jig. Out of dissension, a consensus had formed.

Yet for several long hours they couldn't locate King to tell him the good news. What he did during his absence remains a mystery. Some said he met one of his mistresses²⁷⁵ in an apartment hideaway. Others said he conferred with his father, Martin Luther King Sr.--Daddy King, as he was known. Still others said he experienced a kind of Gethsemane moment, a period of private doubt and soul-searching in some favorite place of seclusion.

When he showed up late that afternoon, King was immensely relieved to hear the staff had come together.