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

inventory.

The first and most obvious thing that drew his attention was the black cardboard rifle box. It was originally made for a Browning but now contained a Remington Gamemaster .30-06 rifle. Jensen quickly ascertained that it was a Model 760, serial number 461476, and it seemed to be newly purchased: it hardly had a scratch on it. The weapon was mounted with a Redfield telescopic sight. The magazine was empty, but inside the chamber he found a spent casing, which he carefully removed.

Jensen also found a twenty-round box containing nine cartridges. They were Remington-Peters .30-06 soft- pointed, metal-jacketed Springfield High Velocity cartridges--150 grain.

Beside the box of ammo was a blue plastic zippered suitcase approximately twenty by thirty inches, stuffed with an odd miscellany of objects. Among other things, Jensen removed a magnetic tack hammer, a pair of flat- nosed duckbill pliers with the words 'Rompage Hardware' stamped on the handle, and two road maps--'The United States' and 'Georgia-Alabama.' He also found that morning's front section of the Memphis Commercial Appeal. On page one, the newspaper conspicuously carried reports about Dr. King's efforts in Memphis and mentioned that King and his entourage were staying at the Lorraine Motel.

Then, from deeper inside the bag, Jensen retrieved a pair of binoculars, which seemed brand-new and were packed with an instruction booklet and lens cloth as well as a box and a black leather carrying case. The binoculars were made by the Bushnell company, serial number DQ 408664. Jensen confirmed that two slender buckled leather straps that Memphis police had earlier found in John Willard's room fit the binoculars perfectly--evidence that whoever dropped the bundle outside had almost certainly been in 5B.

There was little mystery when and where the binoculars had been purchased--Jensen found a paper sack that said, 'York Arms Company,' with a receipt for $41.55, dated that very day. York Arms, Jensen knew, was just down Main Street from the rooming house, on the same stretch of the street where the striking garbage workers had been picketing each day with their I AM A MAN sandwich boards.

The bag held a few clothing items, too--a pair of long black socks, a gray cloth belt, a pair of gray and white undershorts rather clumsily darned in the crotch with brown thread, a white handkerchief, a Jockey Power-Knit T- shirt. Picking further into the folds of the suitcase, Jensen found a brown bag containing two aluminum cans of Schlitz--'The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous,' the labels said. Stickers affixed to the can bottoms indicated that the six-pack had been taxed and purchased in Mississippi.

Jensen found that most of the remaining items in the suitcase were drugstore sundries--a tube of Colgate toothpaste, a Pepsodent brand toothbrush, an aerosol can of Gillette shaving cream, Right Guard deodorant, razor blades, Bufferin tablets, a bar of Dial soap, Palmolive Rapid Shave, One A Day vitamins, Mennen Afta aftershave lotion, Head & Shoulders shampoo, a box of Band-Aid sheer strips, Brylcreem, a can of Kiwi brown shoe polish. There were also two small hotel-size bars of soap--Cashmere and Palmolive--that the assailant had perhaps taken from a motel bathroom somewhere along his travels. Whoever he was, Jensen thought, the guy was frugal and very keen on personal hygiene and the maintenance of his clothes--an incongruous fact, given the slovenly standards at Mrs. Brewer's flophouse. Some of these toiletries had been bought in the Memphis area, Jensen realized: they bore adhesive price stickers stamped 'Oliver Rexall, Whitehaven.'

There was one final item in the suitcase, a piece of merchandise that gave Jensen pause: a pocket-sized transistor radio made by Channel Master. The radio looked as though it had some miles on it; the maroon plastic housing was smudged and scratched, and the perforated silver grille over the speaker had a few dings.

On the side, faintly scratched in small numerals, the radio bore a curious aftermarket identification number. But Special Agent Jensen couldn't make out the numerals; to him, it looked as though the number had been deliberately tampered with in order to make it illegible.

28 THEY'VE TORN IT NOW

PRESIDENT JOHNSON SAT at his mahogany desk⁴²¹ in the Oval Office, staring in disbelief at a one-page typed memo that had just been handed to him by an aide. 'Mr. President,' it succinctly said, 'Justice has just advised⁴²² that Dr. King is dead.' It was 8:20 eastern time.

For the next few minutes Johnson turned toward his bank of three television screens built into the wall, his eyes shifting restlessly from NBC to ABC to CBS. In a corner, the wire-service Teletype machines nattered away. Drinking a Fresca, the president paced the green carpet and digested the reports steadily seeping into the Oval Office. He had brief phone conversations with Clark and then DeLoach. A familiar dread settled over him: having been ushered into office by an assassination, he now confronted another momentous rip in the national fabric. 'A jumble of anxious thoughts⁴²³ ran through my mind,' Johnson later recalled. 'What does it mean? Was it the act of one man or a group? Was the assassin black or white? Would the shooting bring violence, more catastrophe, and more extremism?'

Johnson instantly knew that his ambitious plans for the evening, for the week, possibly for the month, were wrecked. At 8:00 p.m., he was supposed to attend a $250-a-plate Democratic fund-raising dinner at the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue, then fly all night to Honolulu aboard Air Force One to confer with General Westmoreland about possible Vietnam peace negotiations. Since withdrawing from the presidential race four days earlier, Johnson had been on a high, basking in wide praise for his statesmanlike decision, full of new optimism about the chances for ending the war and energetically turning attention back to his beloved Great Society programs for his final months in office. Just as he'd hoped, abdicating the throne had seemed to ease all his problems. Staffers noticed a new spring in his step as he dove back into the fray, blessed with what seemed to be fresh political capital.

Yet now, with the King assassination, LBJ understood his brief reprieve was over. 'Everything we've gained⁴²⁴ in the last few days we're going to lose tonight,' Johnson said morosely.

Johnson met with his staff and frantically began to make plans. He would postpone, if not cancel altogether, his trip to Hawaii. First thing the next morning, Friday, he would dispatch Attorney General Clark to Memphis to spearhead the FBI investigation. Later in the morning, he would meet at the White House with the nation's most prominent black leaders to discuss the future of civil rights. Then he would attend a King memorial service that was now being planned at the National Cathedral, where King had spoken on Sunday. A White House telegram of condolence would go out to Martin Luther King Sr. and his wife. That Sunday--Palm Sunday--would be declared a day of national mourning. All federal flags in the land would fly at half-staff--the first time in American history that a private citizen would be so honored in death.

But right now, Johnson realized he had to go on live television and talk to the nation. While speechwriters crafted a statement, he slipped down to the White House barbershop for a quick trim and then a dab of makeup. From the barbershop, he called Coretta King at home in Atlanta--she'd just returned from the airport--and offered her his condolences. At just before 9:00 eastern time, he strode out to the West Lobby and stood at the podium before a nest of microphones. The night air was heavy with moisture--rainstorms were in the forecast. Framed by a set of French doors, President Johnson wore a dark suit, the crisp fold of his handkerchief peeking from his pocket.

'America is shocked⁴²⁵ and saddened by the brutal slaying tonight of Dr. Martin Luther King,' he told the cameras. 'I ask every citizen to reject the blind violence that has struck Dr. King. I pray that his family can find comfort in the memory of all he tried to do for the land he loved so well. I have just conveyed the sympathy of Mrs. Johnson and myself to his widow, Mrs. King.'

Johnson paused and gathered strength for the larger message he wanted to convey. 'I know that every American of goodwill joins me in mourning the death of this outstanding leader and in praying for peace throughout this land. We can achieve nothing by lawlessness. It is only by joining together that we can continue to move toward equality and fulfillment for all of our people.'

The president returned to the Oval Office and made calls to governors and mayors across the land. He wanted to impress upon them the importance of police restraint and worried that too large a show of force out in the city streets would only escalate the violence. We're not at war with our own people, he kept saying. 'Don't send your skinny little rookies⁴²⁶ out with great big guns all by themselves--if