G-Man, page 90
Between June 23 and 25, Hoover and Johnson spoke on the phone no fewer than eight times. In those conversations, Hoover advised the president to keep press comments about Mississippi to a minimum. He also agreed to run interference with the state’s law enforcement, unrelievedly hostile to Johnson but still occasionally willing to work with Hoover. Johnson recognized the value of Hoover’s Southern network; now, at a moment of crisis, the director was one of the few executive-branch officials able to command respect and cooperation where it was needed most. From Washington, Hoover was designated to serve as an emissary to Mississippi governor Paul Johnson (no relation to the president), who was refusing to accept calls from either the White House or the attorney general’s office. When Hoover called, the governor evaded him, too, but Hoover managed to get a message passed along through local contacts. As he proudly reported back to the White House, Hoover suggested that the governor supply state patrolmen to search for the bodies and deliver a public statement in support of bringing “the perpetrators of this crime to justice.” Hoover admitted that the situation was touch-and-go. “Now whether he’ll say that or not, I don’t know,” he acknowledged.
The president’s chief goal was to keep the situation contained until he could wrap up the civil rights bill, so agonizingly close to becoming the law of the land. At two p.m. on July 2, the House voted to accept the Senate’s revised version of the legislation. Three hours later, Hoover called Johnson with an update about the Mississippi situation before the president took the final step of signing the bill into law. “If this thing blows up, I want to be in a position of saying I took precautions,” Johnson explained, “and I put all the people that Edgar Hoover could spare down there to try to track down these violators and perpetrators of these crimes.” Hoover assured him that a crack team was now in place and that the Bureau was working around the clock to find the missing men.[16]
With that assurance in hand, Johnson made his way to the East Room of the White House to perform one of the most significant deeds of his presidential life. At Johnson’s invitation, Hoover ventured over to observe the ceremony, a florid old figure seated amid some one hundred other handpicked witnesses, including Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Just after seven p.m., with the television cameras rolling live for the nightly broadcast, Johnson sat down at a small table and looked directly into the television camera. “We believe that all men are entitled to the blessings of liberty,” he read, his Texas drawl making the words seem all the more significant. “Yet millions are being deprived of those blessings—not because of their own failures, but because of the color of their skin.” As applause swept through the room, he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing racial discrimination in public accommodations. He used seventy-two pens to sign the bill, a ceremonial gesture intended to recognize the many different hands that had gone into making the moment possible. He handed one pen each to Kennedy and King, in tribute to the fierce labor they had devoted to the civil rights cause. Another pen went to Hoover.[17]
* * *
—
In their conversations before the signing ceremony, Hoover and Johnson had agreed that the Bureau would need to make a big splash in order to demonstrate that the civil rights bill meant what it said: the federal government was now taking charge of desegregation. The great cautionary example was what had happened after Brown, when delays in enforcement had allowed white Southerners to rally together in the massive-resistance campaign. This time, Hoover proposed swift action. Though the FBI had always stationed agents in small offices throughout Mississippi, the Bureau had never maintained a full field office in the state. Now, he suggested, the FBI should open a field office in the state capital of Jackson, where tensions over the missing civil rights workers and the Freedom Summer “invasion” posed an immediate threat to the law’s peaceful enactment.
Johnson loved the idea. When he arrived at the East Room on the evening of July 2 to sign the bill, he had already approved a basic outline of Hoover’s plan. Earlier that afternoon, local Bureau agents had rented an entire floor “in an air-conditioned building” in downtown Jackson, as Hoover informed the president, and efforts to bring in the necessary filing cabinets, phones, safes, and desks were already underway. Johnson took this as a promise that Hoover would support a more robust exercise of federal enforcement power in Mississippi, especially now that the civil rights bill made segregation in public accommodations illegal. Their only point of disagreement concerned the degree to which Hoover was willing to put his own reputation—and his political relationships in the South—on the line for this particular cause. Johnson wanted Hoover to go to Jackson and open the office himself, to use the same leverage that had induced the governor to cooperate in the kidnapping case in order to get Mississippi officials on record in support of enforcing the new law. “I’m perfectly willing to do so,” Hoover said before offering a list of reasons why it might not be a good idea.[18]
Johnson won in the end. In a statement released on July 9, Hoover announced that he planned to go to Mississippi the next day, implicitly inaugurating a new era of federal law enforcement in the South. Early on July 10, he and Tolson boarded an air force jet out of Washington and set off on their first-ever trip to Mississippi. DeLoach flew ahead to coordinate local arrangements, and to ensure that the day’s pageant conveyed a seamless message of local, state, and federal cooperation. From the airport, all three were driven to the governor’s house in downtown Jackson, a white-pillared, antebellum mansion and a monument to Old South nostalgia. Their escort consisted of both highway patrolmen and FBI agents, all supposedly dedicated—for the day, at least—to ensuring the legitimacy of federal power. Even Governor Johnson participated in the pageantry, welcoming Hoover, Tolson, and DeLoach into his home to discuss how they might all work together.
Hoover was unusually blunt in that conversation, handing over the names of known Mississippi Klansmen, including those employed by the state highway patrol, and urging the governor to purge official ranks. Once they stepped back into public view, however, both men exuded nothing but optimism and agreement. During a stop inside the state capitol’s senate chamber, the governor pointed out a subtle connection to Hoover’s past. Engraved on the ceiling was the phrase “Dieu et les Dames”—“God and the Ladies”—the motto of Kappa Alpha.
That moment was more than a mere tourist coincidence, one man honoring another’s college years. It also reflected a shared history and outlook: you, the governor hinted, understand why the men and women of the white South fought so hard against this day. And Hoover did understand. Though his professional duties required him to act, he, too, had succumbed with reluctance to the politics of the moment. Nobody else in American government could strike quite the same balance: at once an emissary of federal power and an icon of Old South culture and values.
Hoover adopted a similar position at the afternoon’s press conference, staged from the FBI’s new headquarters in downtown Jackson. The office was as yet a Potemkin affair, all temporary walls and hastily thrown-together displays of books. Despite soaring temperatures, Hoover wore the usual dark suit and crisp white shirt, the official costume of a G-Man. With sweat trickling down his forehead and onto his bifocals, he read a prepared statement for the fifty-plus reporters who had assembled for the event, many of them dispatched from the major papers and networks in Washington, Los Angeles, and New York. When he was finished, a full supporting cast of Mississippi officials stepped to the podium to offer words of praise and agreement. “We’re delighted to have the FBI here in Jackson,” the governor enthused. “Mr. Hoover and his party is welcome to this state.” Not to be outdone, Mayor Allen Thompson urged the people of Jackson to embrace the “wonderful” FBI presence. To visiting newsmen, accustomed to the usual Southern diatribes against federal power, it was an extraordinary—even baffling—moment. “In Mississippi,” wrote Chicago reporter Nicholas von Hoffman, “Hoover is one of the most popular—perhaps at this juncture the only one popular—of all federal officials.”
In all the praise and excitement, reporters tended to miss a sobering aspect of Hoover’s visit: though he had traveled to Mississippi to promote the observance of the new federal law, he had barely spoken with civil rights supporters. Nor had he invited any Black men or women to participate in his press conference. As Hoover was leaving the press conference, Mississippi NAACP field director Charles Evers, brother of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, intercepted him and asked to meet. Hoover sat down with him for about half an hour but showed little of the goodwill and understanding he had expressed toward white officials. “Mr. Evers stated he sometimes becomes discouraged, particularly because of the constant threats of his life,” Hoover wrote in a summary memo for the White House. “I told him that while I could understand his feelings, he must expect some degree of personal danger.”
Later that evening, when Evers contacted Hoover again, the director was even less sympathetic. Evers had hoped that Hoover might want to meet personally with local civil rights workers and perhaps gain a firsthand impression of conditions on the ground. Instead, Hoover flew off to New York with Tolson the next morning, avoiding a scheduled trip to Neshoba County. He left Evers with a reminder that the FBI’s willingness to engage came with certain conditions. “I specifically made the point that the FBI had solved the murder of his brother at great cost and sacrifice, yet we had never hesitated in our quest for solution,” Hoover reported to the White House. “I added that despite this hard-earned success, a number of Mr. Evers’ followers, both before and after the solution of the murder, had unjustifiably criticized the FBI.” He warned Evers that “such tactics are divisive and do nothing to resolve the troublesome issues confronting the American people.” He said nothing about the divisiveness coming from within the FBI.[19]
Chapter 49
All the Way with LBJ
(1964)
Hoover and President Lyndon Johnson, friends and allies. Johnson described Hoover as the only trustworthy man in Washington.
COLLECTION OF THE National Law Enforcement Museum
Less than a week after Hoover’s visit to Mississippi, the city of New York exploded.
The incident that “triggered the seething unrest,” as Hoover would later describe it, involved a fifteen-year-old Black boy named James Powell, who lived in the Bronx but happened to be attending summer school on the wealthy Upper East Side. On the morning of July 16, Powell was walking to school with friends when a white building superintendent sprayed them with a hose. The man vowed, according to Powell’s friend, to “wash the black off” them. They chased their tormenter into his building; some witnesses said they threw bottles and garbage-can lids, too. When they reemerged, laughing, Powell caught the attention of Thomas Gilligan, an off-duty white police officer shopping nearby. Gilligan later maintained that Powell rushed him with a knife, a claim widely questioned by other witnesses. Seizing his service weapon, Gilligan fired off three quick shots at the children. Two of them hit Powell. The boy died on the sidewalk in front of a group of school-age children from his nearby summer program.
As Time later noted, this was the sort of incident—the killing of a Black teenager by a white police officer—“that in other, quieter times would have passed almost unnoticed.” In the summer of 1964, with Birmingham and Mississippi seared into the national consciousness, with the president’s ink barely dry on the new civil rights law, it sparked a rebellion. For the next week, Harlem residents took to the streets, sometimes chanting in organized protest, sometimes throwing bottles, bricks, and Molotov cocktails at the police. The images of the crackdown were as dramatic as anything out of Birmingham. Time printed a photograph of an armed-and-helmeted white police officer chasing a group of skinny Black boys, his baton poised to smash down on their unprotected heads. What most worried Johnson, though, was the opposite impression: that not enough was being done to contain the riots, that his civil rights act was now encouraging rebellion, looting, and disorder. Throughout the country, columnists were starting to joke about “Goldwater riots,” shorthand for the idea that Black vandalism or urban disorder automatically meant more votes for the Republican.[1]
Hoover was eager to assist Johnson—to show that he could handle New York the same way he had handled Mississippi. On July 21, five days into the disaster, Johnson had drafted a press release announcing that the FBI would be taking on the Harlem investigation. Then he called Hoover, who agreed to put in a personal appearance in New York, just as he had done in Mississippi, in support of Johnson’s plan. Johnson was thrilled at first, but soon grew worried that Hoover would be setting a pattern, boxing himself in to appear anywhere and everywhere a racial disturbance might occur. They settled on a more contained approach: Hoover would consult with the city and state officials, and would keep the president abreast of what he learned.
On Johnson’s behalf, Hoover spoke with New York mayor Robert Wagner and governor Nelson Rockefeller, urging them to handle the crowd-control situation without relying on federal intervention or troops. At the same time, he assured Johnson that the FBI was firmly in control on the investigative side. He promised to produce a report describing what had happened in Harlem. Preferably, the report would show that Johnson’s civil rights law was not responsible for the violence—and it would make that point well before the election.[2]
* * *
—
Though Johnson was eager for Hoover’s cooperation in New York and Jackson, a nagging problem remained: the FBI had still not found the three missing civil rights workers in Neshoba County. Lest the nation lose sight of this fact, on July 21, while Hoover and Johnson were busy sorting out plans for Harlem, King announced that he would be visiting the site of their abduction, along with other Mississippi areas where voter registration work was in progress. Local Klansmen promptly vowed not to let King leave the state alive. Their announcement, in turn, set off a minor panic at the White House. As Bobby Kennedy put it to the president, “If he gets killed, it creates all kinds of problems.”[3]
Hoover knew about the rumored plots against King. “There are threats that they’re going to kill him,” he told Johnson when the president called just after noon on July 21. But Hoover had no intention of doing much about it. He had refused to notify King about previous death threats. He also still resisted attempts to induce his men to perform guard duty. “Once we start protecting them, we are going to have to do it for all of them,” he had complained to Bobby Kennedy just minutes before speaking with Johnson. In that conversation, he vowed that they were not going to act as bodyguards for King or anyone else. When Johnson called, though, Hoover softened. “Talk to your man in Jackson and tell him that we think it would be the better part of wisdom, in the national interest, that they work out some arrangement” for protecting King, the president begged. Under pressure from Johnson, Hoover did what no other president, ally, or critic had been able to make him do: he sent a detail of FBI agents to perform guard duty for a civil rights leader.[4]
The bugs and taps were still in place, as was the scheme to “neutralize” King when the time seemed right. But for a few crucial days that July, the FBI placed itself between him and the Klan. Agents were there when King landed at the Jackson airport, acting not just as a party of observers but as a personal security detail. From there, they followed him wherever he went: to a pool hall and mass meeting in Greenwood, back to Jackson, then another mass meeting, and finally out to Neshoba County. Along the way, King offered occasional criticism of the Bureau. In an interview with Walter Cronkite, he noted that “if the FBI was so talented,” it “should be able to solve the crime involving the three missing civil rights workers from Mississippi,” in the words of an FBI summary. Though the words no doubt rankled Hoover, he did not react or respond in kind. Instead, on July 22, he let Johnson know, “We got Martin Luther King through the evening safe and sound.” He promised to keep doing so as long as the president wanted.[5]
Secretly, the FBI was also making progress on the very case that King had accused them of neglecting. In late July, at the same time King was accusing the FBI of dragging its feet, a member of the Mississippi Highway Patrol decided to start talking. Like many of the Southern lawmen who had quietly aided the Bureau over the years, he did so at considerable risk. To gain his information, Hoover authorized payments of up to thirty thousand dollars, perhaps even more if necessary (though it remains unclear if and how much money changed hands). Everyone understood that the strategy of buying information reflected desperation rather than skill. “Under no circumstances should there be any indication in subsequent press, that would disclose our modus operandi,” Al Rosen wrote on July 31, hoping to protect “the Bureau’s prestige.”[6]
On August 4, acting on their hard-won tip, agents hauled construction equipment out to a twenty-foot-high earthen dam on a farm outside Philadelphia, Mississippi. From there, they began scraping away layer after layer of dirt. After two hours, they could smell “faint traces of the odor of decaying organic material.” At three p.m., they saw the heels of a man’s boots poking up through the soil. By the end of the day, they had uncovered the corpses of three young men, stacked atop each other and buried deep in the dam. Without the tip-off, nobody would have been able to find them.[7]
Johnson was ecstatic at the discovery, not just because it signified progress in a horrific crime, but because it showed what federal authority could accomplish in Mississippi. On August 5, he called Hoover to make sure that the director understood how grateful he was. “I didn’t know how long it’d take, but I knew . . . you’d bring in results,” Johnson told Hoover, an affirmation of the implied promise between the White House and the Bureau. Hoover warned Johnson that the next steps in Mississippi might be difficult, because both the local sheriff and his deputy appeared to be involved in the murders. Johnson expressed confidence that Hoover would stick with the case no matter the obstacles. “If you just think that you are going to get off the payroll because you’re getting a little older, you’re crazy as hell,” the president said, in what might be construed as both a compliment and a warning. “I don’t retire the FBI.”[8]
