Murkin was the code name chosen by the FBI for their investigation into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. Today, 20 years after the fatal shooting of the civil rights leader, Philip H. Melanson, a renowned authority on American political assassinations, unveils his own investigation into the murder. "Melanson . . . has done an exhaustively thorough job on the still-mysterious King assassination. After following Melanson's meticulous pursuit of seemingly every lead in the case--including interviews with the men whose names were used as aliases for alleged killer James Earl Ray--there can be little doubt in the reader's mind that neither of the two official versions of what happened could have been the whole truth. The first was the ever-popular notion of the lone killer: Ray. The second, propounded by a clearly inept congressional investigation a decade after the 1969 shooting, was that an ill-defined racist conspiracy was behind the assassination. What seems unarguable is that Ray, a petty criminal, could not have killed King unaided. There are too many improbabilities--the source of his carefully chosen Canadian aliases, the identity of the 'fat man' who brought him a 'letter' in Toronto during his escape, the odd setup at the rooming house from which the shot was fired. It is Melanson's thesis that there was high-level intelligence involvement, probably by the CIA, which was violently alarmed by King's anti-Vietnam stance." Publisher's Weekly

Murkin was the code name chosen by the FBI for their investigation into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. Today, 20 years after the fatal shooting of the civil rights leader, Philip H. Melanson, a renowned authority on American political assassinations, unveils his own investigation into the murder. Melanson . . . has done an exhaustively thorough job on the still-mysterious King assassination. After following Melanson's meticulous pursuit of seemingly every lead in the case--including interviews with the men whose names were used as aliases for alleged killer James Earl Ray--there can be little doubt in the reader's mind that neither of the two official versions of what happened could have been the whole truth. The first was the ever-popular notion of the lone killer: Ray. The second, propounded by a clearly inept congressional investigation a decade after the 1969 shooting, was that an ill-defined racist conspiracy was behind the assassination. What seems unarguable is that Ray, a petty criminal, could not have killed King unaided. There are too many improbabilities--the source of his carefully chosen Canadian aliases, the identity of the `fat man' who brought him a `letter' in Toronto during his escape, the odd setup at the rooming house from which the shot was fired. It is Melanson's thesis that there was high-level intelligence involvement, probably by the CIA, which was violently alarmed by King's anti-Vietnam stance. Publisher's Weekly Murkin was the code name chosen by the FBI for the investigation into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. Today, twenty years after the fatal shooting of the civil rights leader, Philip H. Melanson, a renowned authority on American political assassinations, unveils his own investigation into the murder. Through extensive interviews, research, and Freedom of Information Act requests, Melanson analyzes the official investigations, the evidence, the performance of law enforcement officials, the role of James Earl Ray, and the questions of conspiracy. Much of the data presented has never before been published. Based on his detailed investigation, Melanson offers a revisionist interpretation of the King case, demonstrating that it remains unsolved. Melanson argues persuasively that both the FBI's conclusion that Ray acted alone and the later 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations decision that Ray was backed by a conspiracy of St. Louis-based white supremacists are not supported by the evidence. Although Melanson concludes that Ray did not, in fact, act alone, he contends that the official investigations were so flawed that the conspirators behind him are still unidentified. His own conclusions regarding the probable source of the conspiracy offer a sobering indictment of the ways in which powerful interests, left unchecked, can wreak havoc on American democratic processes.

The first comprehensive history of conspiracies and conspiracy theories in the United States. Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive, research-based, scholarly study of the pervasiveness of our deeply ingrained culture of conspiracy. From the Puritan witch trials to the Masons, from the Red Scare to Watergate, Whitewater, and the War on Terror, this encyclopedia covers conspiracy theories across the breadth of U.S. history, examining the individuals, organizations, and ideas behind them. Its over 300 alphabetical entries cover both the documented records of actual conspiracies and the cultural and political significance of specific conspiracy speculations. Neither promoting nor dismissing any theory, the entries move beyond the usual biased rhetoric to provide a clear-sighted, dispassionate look at each conspiracy (real or imagined). Readers will come to understand the political and social contexts in which these theories arose, the mindsets and motivations of the people promoting them, the real impact of society's reactions to conspiracy fears, warranted or not, and the verdict (when verifiable) that history has passed on each case.

Expanded and Updated Because Weird Things Keep On Happening The effects of the Invisible Hand are all around us, machinations to control the world are happening right under our noses-and The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time lists them all. This book presents a feverish feast of the most far-reaching, far-out, and startling conspiracy theories ever. Now this instant classic has been brought up to date with late-breaking mysteries and coverups, including: * Enron-a faked energy crisis that led to a devastatingly real economic one * Anthrax nation-just who sent lethal bacteria through the mail to the U.S. Congress? * Votescam 2000 * 911 and the theories surrounding the terrorist attacks * Echelon, the global electronic spying network-Big Brother made real * Who was the Zodiac Killer? * And more! Whether you believe any of these theories or merely enjoy a walk on the wild side of alternative history, The 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time will provide hours of provocative reading. You will never look at the world in quite the same way again.

divdivThere is a hunger for conspiracy news in America. Hundreds of Internet websites, magazines, newsletters, even entire publishing houses, disseminate information on invisible enemies and their secret activities, subversions, and coverups. Those who suspect conspiracies behind events in the news—the crash of TWA Flight 800, the death of Marilyn Monroe—join generations of Americans, from the colonial period to the present day, who have entertained visions of vast plots. In this enthralling book Robert Goldberg focuses on five major conspiracy theories of the past half-century, examining how they became widely popular in the United States and why they have remained so. In the post–World War II decades conspiracy theories have become more numerous, more commonly believed, and more deeply embedded in our culture, Goldberg contends. He investigates conspiracy theories regarding the Roswell UFO incident, the Communist threat, the rise of the Antichrist, the assassination of President John Kennedy, and the Jewish plot against black America, in each case taking historical, social, and political environments into account. Conspiracy theories are not merely the products of a lunatic fringe, the author shows. Rather, paranoid rhetoric and thinking are disturbingly central in America today. With media validation and dissemination of conspiracy ideas, and federal government behavior that damages public confidence and faith, the ground is fertile for conspiracy thinking. /DIV/DIV

A re-examination of the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., argues that convicted killer James Earl Ray did not act alone, offers a look at Ray's life, his encounters with the feds and the mob, and the crime itself.

Mississippi is a unique case study as a result of its long-standing defiance of federal civil rights legislation and the fact that nearly half its population was black and relegated to second-class citizenship. According to the vast majority of Mississippi daily press editorials examined between 1948 and 1968, the notion that blacks and whites were equal as races of people was a concept that remained unacceptable and inconceivable. While the daily press certainly did not advocate desegregation, in contrast to what many media critics have reported about the Southern press promoting violence to suppress civil rights activity, Mississippi daily newspapers never encouraged or condoned violence during the time periods under evaluation. Weill places coverage of these important events within a historical context, shedding new light on media opinion in the state most resistant to the precepts of the civil rights movement. This is the first comprehensive examination of civil rights coverage and white supremacist rhetoric in the Mississippi daily press during five key events: the 1948 Dixiecrat protest of the national Democratic platform; the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision to desegregate public schools in 1954; the court-ordered desegregation of Ole Miss in 1962; Freedom Summer in 1964; and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. From nearly 5,000 issues of Mississippi daily newspapers, more than 1,000 editorials and 7,000 news articles are documented in this volume.