Most Notorious Liar: J. Edgar Hoover on Martin Luther King, Jr.

  

As the media and government elite spend today showering Martin Luther King, Jr. the praise many of them either denied or would have denied him had he been alive, it is important to recognize how King was viewed in his own time.

Here is a 11/19/1964 article from the Chicago Defender (An African-American daily) on an unusual press conference held by J. Edgar Hoover the day prior objectively to discuss the findings of the Warren Commission but which became a three-hour, free wielding event in which Hoover gave forth on numerous topics, one of which was Martin Luther King, Jr. The headline truly says it all.

To be fair, Hoover blasted southerners, attacking “red necked sheriffs,” and others at his conference. He also criticized the American Nazi Party, its leader, George Lincoln Rockwell, the John Birch Society, called for stricter gun control., and expressed his disbelief in polygraphs.

Hoover suffered no career damage for his remarks. President Lyndon Johnson carried an earlier plan to have the age limit repealed so that Hoover could continue on as Director of the FBI.

N.B. I edited out the pictures of Hoover and King that were at the end of the article. They served no purpose with regard to this post. I also edited out white space.