Joseph Milteer and Willie Somersett on JFK and MLK Plots

[John Bevilaqua]

JFK, KING:
The Dade County links

Is it mere coincidence that a Miami police informer was able to
predict with astonishing accuracy the assassinations of both John F.
Kennedy and Martin Luther King? Apparently, the FBI thought so

By Dan Christensen

Nov. 9, 1963 – Miami Police tape-record a conversation in which an
extreme right-wing political organizer accurately predicts the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy just as it was to happen 13
days later. The man said the President would be killed by shots fired
"from an office building with a high-powered rifle."

Jan. 13, 1964 – The same man, using an alias, withdrawn $12,000 from a
savings account at a now defunct bank in Provo, Utah. The man, who
lived in Georgia, had opened the account the previous July.

Nov. 1, 1963 – A Cuban exile walks into the Parrot Jungle gift shop
and tells a female employee he hates the President and he could "shoot
Kennedy between the eyes." He has a "friend named Lee," he says, "who
is also a sharp-shooter," and that Lee spoke Russian and German and
was living in either Texas or Mexico. (Lee Harvey Oswald spoke
Russian, lived in Texas, and earlier in the fall had been traveling in
Mexico.)

These intriguing incidents suggest the surreal atmosphere permeating
Miami in 1963. Not only were many newly arrived Cuban refugees making
raids on their homeland in attempts to overthrow the regime of Fidel
Castro, but America's home-grown right-wing fanatics were conducting a
last-gasp effort to head off the drive for equal rights by blacks.
For both, the prospects seemed bleak, and for both, hatred focused on
John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

To Cubans, Kennedy was the ultimate betrayer. He had backed out of
supportive air strikes when a Cuban exile brigade landed at the Bay of
Pigs, and he had knuckled under to Nikita Khrushchev in 1962 when he
pledged not to invade Cuba in return for removal of Soviet missiles
from the island. Kennedy had committed himself and, as long as he
lived, a return to Cuba would be impossible.

On the right-wing fringe, Kennedy was hated for other reasons, mainly
his stand on integration. He was feared also as a leader who was
setting the United States up for some nebulous takeover conspiracy by
the United Nations and the despised Jews, extremist documents show.

Miami Magazine's inquiry into the assassination began with the Miami
Police tape-recording. Scattered references have been made to the
recording since it was uncovered in 1967, most notably by
assassination researcher Harold Weisberg who published the transcript
in his 1970 book "Frame-Up." Investigation of this incident led to
discovery of the Parrot Jungle threat.

Circuit Judge Seymour Gelber, then an assistant to State Attorney
Richard Gerstein, provided nearly all the initial information about
the tape-recording. Not only did he save records and memoranda from
the investigation, he kept a diary. The diary was invaluable in our
research. Gerstein too has been totally cooperative.

Their investigation, which culminated in the tape-recording of Nov. 9,
1963, began in February 1962 after a series of local bombings,
including an attack upon the home of Miami Herald editor Don
Shoemaker. A few days after that bombing, Willie Somersett, a union
organizer with extensive right-wing political ties (he was a
Klansman), showed up at the Herald building to offer his services as
an informer. Quickly, he began working for the Miami police and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. The police were never advised of his
ties to the FBI. (Actually, he had worked for the FBI, off and on,
for about a decade, it is now known). Over the next several months,
Somersett imparted enough information to state investigators to enable
them to arrest and convict several of the bombers.

After the bombing investigation, Somersett remained on the payrolls of
both the city and the FBI, revealing extremist activities. In April
1963 he traveled to New Orleans for a meeting of the Congress of
Freedom party. The COF, a confederation of right-wing political
groups, still exists, acting, its leader Mary Cain of Summit, Miss,
says, "to get patriot organizations together to discuss the issues."
It was in New Orleans that Somersett hooked up with an old friend,
Joseph A. Milteer, now deceased, the man who later made the
tape-recorded threats against JFK.

Willie Agustus Somersett, at age 61 in 1963, was a mountainous figure
who was beginning to feel the agony of afflictions that eventually
would kill him. Dubbed agent ‘88' by Miami police, if was said he
reminded one of an Oldsmobile 88. Gerstein described him as "a real
Sidney Greenstreet type."

Somersett had lived in Miami for about four years by 1963, sharing a
room in a semi-flophouse with his wife Peggy. He managed his union
affairs out of the old Dolphin Hotel, headquarters for his
pretentiously titled National Federation of Labor. He died May 7,
1970, in Goldsboro, N.C., just a few miles from where he had been
born.

In an interesting sidelight to Somersett's death, his closest friend
in Miami, George Brackett, received a mysterious call at 3 a.m. from a
man who claimed to be at Washington's Walter Reed Hospital. The man,
who wouldn't identify himself, told Brackett of Willie's death and
said he was calling because Brackett's name was on an emergency card
in Somersett's wallet. Relatives say Somersett died in North
Carolina.

Through the years Somersett had been associated with right-wing
politics, but he disliked groups pressing for violence. Why he became
an informer is uncertain. Money? Honor? Patriotism? It could just
have been his job.

Joseph A. Milteer, a wealthy rabble-rousing racist from Quitman, Ga.,
devoted his life to right-wing causes, belonging to at least four
ultra-conservative organizations: the National State's Rights Party,
The White Citizen's Council, The Dixie Klan, and the Constitution
Party. He rarely stayed at home, choosing instead to traverse the
country attending meetings and calling on other true believers. At
least once in 1963, he visited Dallas.

When Milteer was at home, he churned out reams of what he and fellow
Georgians called "yellow sheets" in which he blasted Kennedy, Jews,
Communists, the Un, local politicians and the federal government. He
also sold tape-recorded speeches of notorious patriotic zealots.

When he wasn't busy with politics, Milteer tried his hand as a
mail-order salesman for various novelty items. And he bootlegged wine
from a still in a shed in his backyard.

Milteer died Feb. 28, 1974, two days after his 72nd birthday –
reportedly from burns inflicted when a gas heater in his home
exploded. Several days later, a small cache of arms and ammunition
was uncovered in his car.

Because of mysterious circumstances shrouding his death, I went to
Quitman to explore Milteer's life in detail. Since he had no known
relatives, his estate has remained in probate, his dilapidated
Victorian home unexplored for two and half years.

Milteer lived like a packrat. Besides saving junk mail and trivial
belongings of his dead parents, he kept carbon copies of letters he
sent during his prolific career. Some were cryptic. Most were mild.
All belied the deadliness with which he had spoken in Miami.

Since Milteer's death, the house has been ransacked several times.
What was taken is unknown. A neighbor told probate Judge James R.
Knight that she saw men in a truck with Texas license plates carting
boxes of Milteer's belongings away.

The most fascinating evidence found at Milteer's home was in a
bankbook tucked away amid piles of letters in his closet. The savings
account, No. 115376 from the now-defunct Utah savings and Loan
Association of Provo, Utah, was made out to one Samuel Steven Story
and Mrs. C. C. Cofield. The address given was 212 South Troupe St,
Valdosta, Ga., Mrs. Cofield's home. (Cofield had been Milteer's
common-law wife for many years and lived with him until her death in
1971). When the account was opened on July 31, 1963, an initial
deposit of $5,000 was made. There followed bot two others, one of
$5,000 and another of $2,000 on Aug. 20 and Sept. 24, respectively.
On Jan. 31, 1964, (52 days after the assassination,) all $12,000 was
withdrawn abruptly and the account was closed.

There is no doubt that Story was an alias for Milteer. A letter to
the bank was found, typed on Milteer's "yellow sheets" with Story's
signature which matched Milteer's'; along with it was another letter
to the same bank, dated the same day, with Milteer's signature.
Apparently he had an account under his own name as well. There is no
evidence to indicate Milteer ever used an alias except during that
brief, crucial period.

It is significant that with exception of a series of invitations to
notables (George Wallace and Klan leader Robert Shelton) to attend a
Constitution Party meeting in mid October, 1963, no letters found
dealing with 1963 were found, despite detailed correspondence for the
years before and after.

Unearthed amid the rubble of his decaying house was part of a diary,
ostensibly by him, that briefly recounts events from July 8, 1963
through October 1, 1963. It mentions the trip to Dallas and a meeting
with arch-conservative commentator Dan Smoot.

Unanswered questions about Milteer's death abound. Apparently, he was
fatally burned Feb. 9, 1974 when a Coleman stove he was using for heat
in his antiquated bathroom exploded. He died two weeks later.

According to the death certificate, Milteer died of "severe third
degree burns on both lower extremities." Marion Maxwell the local
mortician, says, however, the burns he saw on Milteer's body weren't
severe enough to have caused death. In fact, he said they were
already partially healed. No autopsy was ever performed.

Milteer himself mentions receiving burns similar to those that
allegedly caused his death in an unfinished letter dated Jan. 27,
1964: "I had an accident wherein I knocked over a sauce pan of hot
water on the floor into which I fell and the hot water burned the
small of my back."

Milteer had attended the April 1963 meeting in New Orleans as a
representative of the Dixie Klan, a notoriously violent faction of the
KKK based in Chattanooga, Tenn. And advocated a coordinated
assassination program that would eliminate a long list of prominent
government officials and businessmen. He felt that the "patriot"
organizations should act swiftly because Kennedy was on the verge of
turning the U.S. government over to the United Nations.

Somersett, in recounting the meeting, said that the visible leaders
didn't discuss violence but he said, "Not only Milteer, but others
said they would start as soon as it was deemed necessary to prevent
the UN from taking over the U.S. . . .They felt that the President of
the U.S. or the Congress was handling over the United States to the
UN, that these people were the conspirators, and (that) they should be
killed immediately. I am satisfied Milteer is one of the high command
in the policy group."

Earlier Somersett had said of Milteer. "He is one of the most
violent-minded men in the country."

Several times during his debriefing, Somersett referred to "the
national hidden hand of this organization." He theorized that it
included Milteer, several admirals and ex-generals and assorted
right-wing big shots.

As he gave the testimony about New Orleans, Somersett was earning
respect and credibility with Miami authorities. The FBI, in its
documents about the incidents, called Somersett "a source who has
furnished reliable information in the past." Gelber characterized his
informant in even more respectful terms: "Somersett frequently uses
the expression ‘the most violent man I know' in describing a
particular person (Milteer) . . . I am beginning to suspect he is
intuitively separating the talkers from the doers. Whereas we can
only guess, Somersett obviously senses who among them spells danger."

Somersett smelled danger at the COF meeting. Toward the end of the
questioning about his New Orleans trip, he said, "If the Congress of
the U.S. doesn't cut the UN out, if it continues that way for twelve
months, there has got to be some violence. You could tell if you had
been there and stood around and seen the people, the expression on
their faces, heard the way they talked. Those people are people of
means, financially, and educationally. They are not there just for an
ice cream party. This can't continue on, with the people financing
these things, something must happen. I will bet my head on a chopping
block there will be some people killed by this time next year and it
will be in high places."

Somersett encountered Milteer again in early October at a meeting in
Vero Beach. At that meeting, Milteer again proposed violence and
announced that "the National States Rights Party is going to move in
Miami fast."

At Vero Beach, Milteer promoted an impending convention of the
Constitution Party the following week in Indianapolis. As a member of
that group's board of directors, Milteer helped formulate "plans to
put an end to the Kennedy, King (Martin Luther), Khrushchev
dictatorship over our nation."

Gelber's diary reveals that "before they parted, Milteer confided to
Somersett he was certain that Dixie Klan Imperial Wizard Jack Brown. .
. . either placed the bomb, or engineered the act, which caused the
death of four children in the Birmingham church bombing." (The case
remains unsolved today.)

In Indianapolis, Milteer persisted in calling for violent action.
Jack Brown, the man Milteer had blamed for the Birmingham bombing, was
there. According to Somersett and another informant, Stanley
Pospisil, Brown implicated himself in the Birmingham bombing, and was
"virtually bragging about this role there." Brown, according to
Harold Weisberg, was a gas station operator extremely active in the
Klan. "He was reported to be a ‘contact man' for the United White
Party; to have been an NSRP presidential elector, to have died of a
heart attack in 1965."

After the Indianapolis meeting, Gelber suggested Milteer be
tape-recorded during his upcoming visit to Miami.

Milteer arrived in town the weekend of Nov. 9 and scheduled breakfast
with Sommersett at his apartment. Detective Everett Kay, Somersett's
police contact, set up a tape-recorder in a broom closet off the
kitchen early, then left. Somersett was to plug the recorder in when
Milteer knocked on the door.

The well laid plans of the Miami PD almost went awry when Milteer
showed up unexpectedly and caught Somersett outside the apartment.
Willie kept his cool, however, and plugged the tape-recorder in as he
looked at the nearby refrigerator, saying. "This damn box gets all
frosted up if I let is run overnight. I just pull the plug at night
and put it back in the morning." With that, he and Milteer began
their notorious talk.

As Somersett led his duped friend through a series of loaded
questions, startling revelations emerged. Not only did Milteer
implicate Brown in the church bombing again, he also told how Brown
had tried to kill Martin Luther King. "He followed him for miles and
miles, and couldn't get close enough to hit him."

Then he dropped his tape-recorded bombshell.

Somersett: . . . I think Kennedy is coming here on the 18th . . . to
make some kind of speech. . . I imagine it will be on TV.

Milteer: You can bet your bottom dollar he is going to have a lot to
say about the Cubans. There are so many of them here.

Somersett: Yeah, well, he will have a thousand bodyguards. Don't
worry about that.

Milteer: The more bodyguards he has the easier it is to get him.

Somersett: What?

Milteer: The more bodyguards he has the more easier it is to get him.

Somersett: Well, how in the hell do you figure would be the best way
to get him?

Milteer: From an office building with a high-powered rifle. How many
people does he have going around who look just like him? Do you know
about that?

Somersett: No, I never heard he had anybody.

Milteer: He has about fifteen. Whenever he goes anyplace, he knows he
is a marked man?

Somersett: You think he knows he is a marked man?

Milteer: Sure he does.

Somersett: They are really going to try to kill him?

Milteer: Oh, yeah, it is in the working. Brown himself, Brown is just
as likely to get him as anybody in the world. He hasn't said so, but
he tried to get Martin Luther King.

After a few more minutes of conversation, Somersett again spoke of
assassination.

Somersett: . . . Hitting this Kennedy is going to be a hard
proposition, I tell you. I believe you may have figured out a way to
get him, the office building and all that. I don't know how the
Secret Service agents cover all them office buildings everywhere he is
going. Do you know whether they do that or not?

Milteer: Well, if they have any suspicion they do that, of course.
But without suspicion, chances are that they wouldn't. You take there
in Washington. This is the wrong time of the year, but in pleasant
whether, he comes out on the veranda and somebody could be in a hotel
room across the way and pick him off just like that.

Somersett: Is that right?

Milteer: Sure, disassemble a gun. You don't have to take a gun up
there, you can take it up in pieces. All those guns come knock down.
You can take them apart.
Before the end of the tape, the conversation returns to Kennedy.
Milteer: Well, we are going to have to get nasty. . .

Somersett: Yeah, get nasty.

Milteer: We have got to be ready, we have got to be sitting on go,
too.

Somersett: Yeah, that is right.

Milteer: There ain't any countdown to it, we have just got to be
sitting on go. Countdown, they can move in on you, and go they can't.
Countdown is all right for a slow prepared operation. But in an
emergency operation, you have got to be sitting on go.

Somersett: Boy, if that Kennedy get shot, we have go to know where we
are at. Because you know that will be a real shake. . .

Milteer: They wouldn't leave any stone unturned there. No way. They
will pick up somebody within hours afterwards, if anything like that
would happen, just to throw the public off.

Somersett: Oh, somebody is going to have to go to jail, if he gets
killed.

Milteer: Just like Bruno Hauptmann in the Lindbergh case, you know.

The entire tape-recording lasts roughly a half-hour and much of it is
either garbled or irrelevant. Each voice is distinctly unique.
Somersett spoke his words quickly, infusing each syllable with a thick
Southern accent. Milteer's high pitched, effeminate voice dilutes the
deadliness of his words.

Kennedy came to Miami Nov. 18, 1963 for the Inter-American Press
Association convention at the Americans. The Secret Service, alerted
about the tape by Miami authorities (and certainly by the FBI who
received the information directly from Somersett), abandoned a planned
motorcade. Instead, the President helicoptered to Miami Beach.

In his diary, Gelber says a police detective assigned to the case
assured him the Secret Service knew where Brown and Milteer were. Bob
Newbrand, a local Secret Service spokesman, says that he doesn't
understand Gelber's statement: "I know for sure we didn't put him
(Milteer) under surveillance. We were never that much involved with
that. If anybody made a threat we wouldn't put him under
surveillance, we'd lock him up!" (What really happened?) The
contradictions of Newbrand's statement and Gelber's diary are
staggering. If Milteer and Brown weren't under observation , why
weren't they? Was this simply considered a frivolous threat? Miami
PD took it seriously.

Milteer and Somersett were to meet once more, On Nov 23, the day after
the assassination, Somersett traveled to Jacksonville Where he
rendezvoused with Milteer before making a quick trip to Columbia, S.
C. for a session with KKK members. When he returned to Miami, he
reported to the police what he had learned: "During the journey to had
learned: "During the journey to S.C. he (Milteer) told me that he was
connected with an international underground
He said there would be a propaganda campaign put on how to prove to
the Christian people of the world that the Jews, the Zionist Jews, had
murdered Kennedy.

"He was very happy over it and shook hands with me. He said: ‘Well, I
told you so. It happened like I told you, didn't it? It happened
from a window with a high-powered rifle.' I said, "That's right. I
don't know whether you were guessing or not, but you hit it on the
head pretty good.' He said, ‘Well, that is the way it was supposed to
be done, and that is the way it was done.'

"From the impression he gave me, and what he told me, the Oswald group
was pro-Castro. This group was infiltrated by the patriot underground
who arranged from there to have the execution carried out and drop the
responsibility right into the laps of the Communists. I don't think
there was any agreement with this little flimflam organization that
Oswald belonged to . . . I don't believe Milteer did it, but it might
be a possibility that he knows who engineered it. The impression I
get from him, I think the thing was set up to kill Mr. Kennedy in the
South, in some southern state . . . Milteer is too much enthused about
it, before hand and after, not to know something about it."

Later, Miami authorities tried to get Milteer and Brown to come to
Miami where they again could make tape-recordings. On Dec. 4,
Somersett got a shock when he called Milteer and discovered the FBI
had questioned Milteer and Brown as part of a mess roundup of
extremists. From Gelber's diary: "Somersett is extremely concerned
about this turn of events. Milteer did not accuse him of being an FBI
informer, but inasmuch as the questioning appeared to be based on the
statements made to Somersett, suspicion would inevitably rest on him .
. . There is no chance of getting Milteer and Brown to Miami now and
there is a possibility they will show considerable caution in future
conversations in Somersett's presence. . . I wonder why the FBI picked
these people up after the President's assassination rather than before
the act? All this manages to do is jeopardize the safety of our
undercover agent. Based on the Milteer tape, I had anticipated such
government action prior to the President's visit to Miami . . . I did
not expect it as an afterthought . . . There is nothing of substantial
value to be gained by this dramatic move except to scare hell out of
Milteer, Brown and a few others . . . It ruins our investigation and
further weakens the effectiveness of the undercover agent, not only
for us, but also for the FBI."

Declassified FBI documents, obtained by Harold Weisberg under the
Freedom of Information Act, prove the Bureau was doing just what
Gelber's diary suggests. Without naming him, they identify Somersett
as the informant.

Perhaps the most fascinating document the FBI released deals with its
interview of Joseph Milteer by agents from the Atlanta office.
Milteer, in that report, "emphatically denies ever making threats to
assassinate President Kennedy or participating in any such
assassination." He said he didn't know Lee Oswald or Jack Ruby.

A 1968 Miami police memo on Somersett relates how he traveled to New
Orleans and spoke with some of then-District Attorney Jim Garrison's
agents. Garrison was conducting his JFK assassination probe and
requested Somersett's help. Somersett told his story and mentioned a
letter he had received from Milteer, dated Nov. 18, 1963 and
postmarked Valdosta, Ga. Garrison's men wanted the letter, but the
memo never indicated whether Somersett gave it to them. He never
revealed its contents, but Detective Kay confirms the existence of the
letter. Neither he nor anyone else knows where it is today.

Other unusual disappearances of information have hampered our
investigation. The state attorney's office, which keeps all its
records of old cases on file in a North Miami warehouse, says the
records on this case, and all others pertaining to the JFK
assassination are missing, despite a thorough search. No one can
account for their absence.

The Miami police intelligence unit, now called the Special
Investigations Section, says there are no files on the assassination.
Kay, however, says he looked at such files only six months ago, before
his retirement. We have no reason to doubt his word. Do the files
exist or don't they? In a quote that sounds as if it could have come
from "Catch 22," former special section chief Major Herbert Breslow
said: "If I found out where it (the file) was, I wouldn't tell you
anyway. I'd just say nothing. You must believe me when I tell you we
don't have any files, even though I wouldn't tell you if I did." The
FBI added a strict "no comment" on all questions.

The Parrot Jungle incident involved different characters. Initial
information in this case came from former Dade Circuit Judge Alfonso
Sepe, whom I contacted about the Milteer tape.

During our discussion, Sepe revealed a "super-secret investigation" he
had directed as assistant state attorney in 1967. He had initiated it
because of exciting information he received from a friend.

What he discovered was disturbing. In sworn testimony taken by Sepe,
Mrs. Lillian Spingler, an employee of the Parrot Jungle gift shop in
1963, told how a Cuban man had entered the shop in late autumn and
"initiated a conversation with her in which he stated that he could
write with both hands simultaneously and that he was a sharpshooter.
This Cuban male allegedly told Mrs. Spingler that he had a friend
named Lee who could speak Russian and German and was living in Texas
or Mexico, and that Lee was also a sharpshooter. Mrs. Spingler told
some friends, but the conversation she had with the Cuban male was
passed off until the night of President Kennedy's assassination (22
days later) when Mrs. Spingler was riding in a car with her husband, a
close friend and a relative from New Jersey, on their way back from
Key West to Miami. Mrs. Spingler said that before she heard the name
of the President's assassination, she remarked that she knew who the
assassin was. Because she had told several friends, the incident was
reported to the FBI.

"I interrogated Mrs. (Ruth) Bastholm, Mr. (William) Vander Wyden (Mrs.
Spingler's boss at Parrot Jungle), and Mrs. (Aliese) Trigg. Mrs.
Trigg remembered learning of Spingler's conversation from Mrs.
Spingler prior to the assassination, and corroborated to some degree
Mrs. Spingler's version."

He also said he hated the President and "could shoot Kennedy between
the eyes."

Sepe said the incident was relayed to the FBI in late December 1963
when Mrs. Spingler called them. After a quick investigation, FBI
agent in charge, James O'Connor told her to "just drop it and not
mention it." Mrs. Spingler is still taking O'Connor's advice and has
refused to comment, saying only, "They told me not to talk about it.
Goodby." The FBI would say nothing.

The investigation the FBI conducted bears examining. Several months
after the threat relayed by Mrs. Spingler, the man who made the threat
was identified when he returned to the Parrot Jungle and was spotted.
Alertly, Parrot Jungle employees wrote down the license number of his
car. They informed the FBI.

Several weeks passed before Special Agent O'Connor called Mrs.
Spingler to tell her that he had in custody Jorge Soto Martinez.
O'Connor told her that Martinez, at the time of the threat, had been
employed as a Fontainebleau Hotel bellhop.

Martinez didn't deny having a conversation with Mrs. Spingler. He did
deny making threats against the President or saying he knew Lee
Oswald.

>From Sepe's report: "Agent O'Connor asked Mrs. Spingler if she wanted
to come to the FBI office and identify the man. Agent O'Connor and
Mrs. Spingler both state that Mrs. Spingler refused to go to the FBI
office to identify Martinez because she was afraid of personal harm."
Still, O'Connor was satisfied the Mr. Martinez was not involved in an
attempt to assassinate President Kennedy and did not know Oswald. So
the FBI closed its investigation.

In 1967, Sepe threw some light on the FBI's earlier report. He called
O'Connor and received the opinion that Martinez had nothing to do with
the assassination. O'Connor offered the theory that Mrs. Spingler had
"exaggerated the conversation she had with Martinez and that in all
probability (had) misunderstood Martinez when he said that he would
like to kill Castro." O'Connor also obligingly pointed out that
because of Martinez' heavy accent, Mrs. Spingler thought Martinez said
"Lee," when he had said "he."

"Lee" could certainly be mistaken for "he," but "Kennedy" doesn't
rhyme with "Castro," even when spoken with an accent. Or by an FBI
man.

In her statement to Sepe, Mrs. Spingler reasserted her belief that she
had heard Martinez correctly. "I know – was sure he said Lee because
I associated General Lee with it . . . That's my way of remembering,
like ‘He's a sharpshooter, General Lee,' you know."

Mrs. Spingler told Sepe she had never been contacted by anyone
representing the Warren Commission. "Mr. Conley (sic) told me to
forget it all and I figured, well, I told what I knew to the FBI. If
they want to further investigate it, then do it. I was just following
his instructions."
Curiously, the FBI never even had her identify the man she saw. She
was shown some pictures of possible suspects, but never one the could
identify. Sepe asked her if she was certain the FBI had picked up the
man she had talked to.

"I really don't know for sure," she replied. "It didn't even dawn on
me until now that you are questioning me. I just had the license
number and I never met him again or saw his picture."

Sepe probed, trying to learn how the FBI had identified the man they
had picked up. He asked Mrs. Spingler why she hadn't gone to the FBI
office and identified him through a one-way mirror. She answered that
the agent-in-charge had never suggested it.

Mrs. Spingler finally identified Martinez as the man she had talked
to, in 1967, when Sepe located Martinez and obtained a photo.

Martinez was totally cooperative during Sepe's investigation, even
submitting to a lie detector examination. During the test, he denied
all Mrs. Spingler's allegations. Warren Holmes, nationally recognized
polygraph expert, determined that Martinez probably was telling the
truth "with the exception that in a temperamental outburst to Mrs.
Spingler, (he) might have said some unkind things about President
Kennedy which he had originally denied to (Sepe). Specifically, he
showed deception in his denial to the question: "Did you tell the
woman at the Parrot Jungle that you were going to Washington and shoot
the President between the eyes?" He later admitted to Holmes,
following the examination, that he recalled making some stupid
statement like that . . . He stated he had a habit of shooting his
mouth off, but vehemently denied mentioning the name of Lee."

Sepe still thinks Mrs. Spingler was truthful in her statements
concerning Martinez.

If the FBI had chosen to check into Martinez' life more thoroughly,
his alleged remarks might have been taken more seriously.

Martinez had gotten his job at the Fontainebleau because of a plug
given him by a Mike McLaney. McLaney had been Martinez' employer in
Havana. He had hired Martinez to clean out slot machines at the
casino he operated at the Nacional Hotel. When Castro banned
gambling, both McLaney and Martinez fled to Miami. McLaney lived in a
houseboat docked across Collins Avenue from the Fontainebleau and
prevailed on them to help get Martinez a job. Both McLaney and Ken
Humphreys, Martinez' boss at the Fontainbleau, confirmed McLaney's
role in the hiring.

Told of the allegations against Martinez, McLaney said that he knew
nothing about any assassination plot and offered his impression of
Martinez. "George (Jorge) wouldn't harm Mickey Mouse. He has the
courage of a little less than a mouse. It's startling to me to hear
this." He said he doesn't know where Martinez is now. I made
repeated efforts to locate Martinez to no avail.

Do the tangled facts that surround both the Milteer and Martinez
incidents mean anything? Perhaps not, but the fact that they were
never sufficiently explained is unsettling.

There are numerous implications that have been raised by this
investigation. Ponder this list of questions that still need answers.

-Why were Milteer and Brown picked up after Kennedy's assassination
and not before?
-If, as Gelber says, Milteer and Brown were under surveillance during
the President's Nov. 18 trip to Miami, were they also being watched on
Nov. 22? If they were, why doesn't the FBI says so?
-Why did the FBI round up the two extremists for questioning on Nov.
27, ruining a Miami police plan to spy on them?
-Why did the FBI take Milteer's denial that he threatened the
President when they had him on tape saying the opposite?
-Why did it also take him at his word when he denied knowledge of the
Birmingham bombing?
-Why didn't they investigate the threats he made in New Orleans and
Indianapolis?
-What was the significance Milteer's Utah bank account?
-Why did he use an alias?
-Why are there still unanswered questions about his death?
-Why does the FBI continue withhold evidence concerning the tape?
-Why did the Warren Commission report fail to mention this Miami
connection?
-Why did the FBI tell Mrs. Spingler to forget about the Parrot Jungle
incident and not to mention it to anyone?
-Why do Warren Commission files fail to make mention of it?

Sepe thinks the Martinez incident is important. "It is far more
significant in hindsight than it was at the time," he believes. "So
man facts have surfaced, and so much intrigue has been suggested, that
gives rise to challenges to the authenticity and thoroughness of the
Warren Commission investigation. I believe a new investigation is
fully warranted, and all record should be unsealed and everybody who
has any relevant information should be questioned exhaustively.

Judge Gelber thinks the information about this case bears further
examination by the federal government. "I think an oversight
committee should be established which would re-evaluate all the new
evidence that has come to light recently. If for no other reason than
to satisfy the general public. This data about Milteer is raw
intelligence and should be treated as such, but I it is important. It
cannot be ignored. This information has never had an priority
consideration. The authorities didn't consider it serious enough when
it was first available. I think that when Oswald was arrested
activity in other areas diminished particularly in this one."

State Attorney Gerstein was more subdued in his comment about the
Milteer incident but said. "The overwhelming majority of the people
of the United States do not believe that Oswald acted alone and are
not satisfied with the conclusions of the Warren Commission. As to
whether or not it will be fruitful (to reopen the case) or not, leave
to someone else's judgment."

Next month: Miami Magazine inquiry into apparent Dade County links to
the assassination of John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
leads to more reasons to believe that King's killer wasn't alone.

King Assassination:
FBI ignored its Miami informer

Told of information uncovered in our investigation, a Justice
Department attorney – obviously taken aback – called the previously
unpublished police memo' as interesting a piece of information as I've
ever heard'

By Dan Christensen

At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, a single shot rang out in Memphis,
Tennessee. In that moment, the civil rights movement lost its
greatest leader.

The assassin(s) who struck was not alone in knowing that Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. was destined for violent death. A Miami police/FBI
informer had learned of a plot and warned his superiors the previous
day.

This astonishing revelation is one of several previously unpublished
facts contained in a series of 1968 Miami Police Department memoranda
obtained by Miami Magazine in its probe of Dade County's link to the
assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr.
Last month Miami Magazine exposed new evidence and raised new
questions concerning the Kennedy killing. Much of our information
came from materials provided to law enforcement agencies by
professional informant and two-bit union organizer, Willie Augustus
Somersett. In this report on King, Somersett, who died in 1970, is
again the chief provider.

Copies of Somersett's debriefings, contained in police memos on King,
were furnished us, almost as an afterthought, by Dade Circuit Judge
Seymour Gelber while he was aiding our investigation of the Kennedy
assassination. The Dade State Attorney's office cannot find its files
on the matter, despite an exhaustive search undertaken several months
ago at Miami Magazine's request. Miami police, through a public
information officer, would only say, "We don't have any files on that
subject at all. I don't know if it was destroyed or what."

Martin Luther King Jr. first went to Memphis in March, 1968 to help
organize the 1,300 mostly black sanitation workers who had been
striking since Feb. 12 for higher wages and better working conditions.
While there, he led a parade on behalf of the strikers, represented
by Local 1733 of the American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees.

Violence Flared and one black youth was killed, 60 were injured and
200 arrested. Deeply disturbed, King suspended his activities, but
promised to return to Memphis when the situation calmed.

Somersett's dour prediction in Miami came in a confidential memorandum
dated April 25, 1968, written by former police Lt. Charles H. Sapp and
addressed to Miami's late Chief of the Police Walter E. Headley. The
memo begins:

"On Wednesday, April 17, 1968, informant ‘88' (Somersett's police code
name) went to Atlanta, Ga. in an effort to find more information
concerning the death of Martin Luther King. This informant remained
in Atlanta until April 22 and returned to Miami on April 23, 1968.
Informant contacted me (Lt. Sapp) and we met in the downtown area of
Miami. This informant states that on April 1. 1968 he was in
Washington, D.C., attending a (National) Labor Relations Board
meeting, and when it adjourned he overheard a conversation between
members of the Longshoremen's Union and the Sanitation Workers' Union
in which they discussed the sanitation workers' predicament in
Memphis, (the crisis that brought King to Memphis). One spokesman
stated that ‘when Martin Luther King returns to Memphis, we don't have
any alternative but to kill him. He has stopped being a preacher and
is interfering as a labor organizer and has caused one riot in Memphis
and one man's death and that he is hurting the labor cause rather than
helping it.'

"When the informant returned to Miami on April 4, he heard by the news
media that Martin Luther King had in fact returned to Memphis and was
going to lead a parade the following day. This informant feared that
he might be a suspect and questioned concerning anything that might
happen to Martin Luther King. He went to a filling station and garage
operated by Mr. Frank Love, on the corner of NE 1st Avenue and 10th
Street, and during a conversation, told him that he believed that
Martin Luther King would be assassinated that night and stated his
reasons for believing so. This statement was allegedly made in front
of Frank Love (now dead) and two or three of his Negro employees at
the garage. This occurred at approximately 4 p.m., after which King
was murdered at approximately 7 p.m. (EST).

"On April 25 this reporter (Lt. Sapp) contacted Frank Love at his
place of business and Mr. Love reluctantly verified the statements
made by the informant. Also, one of the Negro employees, at this time
known only as George, verified the informant's statement (George
remains unidentified today)."

What Sapp doesn't say in the memo, but told me when I asked him was
that Somersett had made the same prediction to him, as well, the day
prior to the murder.

"He called me at my home the night before King was killed to let me
know that if something happened he didn't want to be connected to it,
"Sapp recalled. (Apparently, Somersett feared his background as a KKK
member and blatant racist made him a suspect.)

"I don't think that I told the FBI before Martin Luther King was
assassinated because the information he gave me was so vague," Sapp
continued, "but I know I definitely did (tell them) after. We also
passed on all subsequent information developed."

Did Willie Somersett, a veteran FBI undercover informant, give the
news directly to the FBI prior to the shooting? Says Sapp, "I
couldn't even guess if he did...but he certainly was working for the
FBI during that time, as well as with us."

Martin Luther King Jr. returned to Memphis on April 3, 1968, and along
with his entourage, checked into the Lorraine Motel.

That night, in a fiery speech before 2,000 followers, King seemed to
know what fate awaited him. "It really doesn't matter with me now,"
he shouted, "because I've been to the mountaintop! And I don't mind.
Like anybody I would like to live a long life; longevity has its
place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's
will! And he's allowed me to go up to the mountaintop, and I've
looked over and I've seen the promised land...So I'm happy tonight;
I'm not worried about anything; I'm not fearing any man!"

Within 22 hours this Nobel Peace Prize winner would be killed on the
balcony of the Lorraine Motel by a sniper's bullet that would rip into
his neck and jaw and sever his spinal column. He would die instantly.

Two months later, after an international manhunt, James Earl Ray –
habitual criminal, penny-ante hood and escapee from the Missouri State
Penitentiary – was captured at London's Heathrow Airport. On March
10, 1969, he pleaded guilty to first degree murder in Dr. King's death
and was sentenced to 99 years in jail. In what has come to be called
his ‘mini-trial,' Ray hinted of a conspiracy.

By 1968, Willie A. Somersett's relationship with the FBI had been a
long and enduring one. Independent accounts given by his brother,
Rufus, and Miami Detective Sgt. Sapp, indicate the relationship began
in the early 1950's while Somersett served time for white slavery in a
federal prison in Atlanta. In return for his good works as a stool
pigeon on the inside, he was released early and continued to sing for
the federals whenever they called. He later expanded his clientele to
include the Miami PD, ostensibly, says Sapp, because he feared and
mistrusted the Bureau.
Perhaps his most important role came on Nov. 9, 1963 when he and right
wing extremist Joseph A. Milteer were tape-recorded by Miami police
undercover agents as Milteer described President Kennedy's impending
murder in Dallas. Almost incidentally during that conversation,
Milteer spoke of an earlier plot to kill King in Atlanta by one Jack
Brown, a Klan member who reportedly died in 1965.

After King's death in 1968, this 1963 tape-recording would help
trigger the Miami PD and Dade State Attorney's investigation into his
death. Judge Gelber, then an assistant attorney general for Florida,
says another reason was a similar threat made in May, 1964 by a former
Miami house painter, (name withheld), who Somersett reported, planned
to kill King on May 17, 1964 in Mobile, Ala.

In a letter dated April 9, 1968 Gelber wrote then-U.S. Attorney
General Ramsey Clark, telling him of these threats. A reply, sent the
following week by one of Clark's asides, indicated the FBI had been
informed of Gelber's statements. Gelber, however, never heard from
either Clark or the FBI again.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1968, at the State of Florida's
expense, Somersett continued to explore the King assassination in
tripe around the South. In the additional memos we have obtained
(dated April 30, June 11, July 3, July 8 and August 29) no mention is
ever again made of Somersett's prediction. The proposal for
Somersett's undercover investigations, contained in the April 30 memo
written by Sgts. Everett Kay and E.W. McCracken, simply refers to the
1963 Milteer tape as the basis for action.

"Informant ‘88' feels that by contacting such persons as the above
(Milteer and Brown) information will be gained as to what extent these
people, if any, are involved in this assassination."

The use of "concealed electronic devices" to tape-record Somersett's
conversations also was suggested.

It appears that Somersett, out of contact with Milteer and Brown since
the Kennedy assassination when they began to suspect he was an
informant, did not know of Brown's death in 1965. Despite using the
tape-recording as a rationale for investigating, there is no real
indication that Somersett ever contacted Milteer on the Martin Luther
King Jr. matter.

According to former Miami Police Sgt. Everett Kay, surreptitious
taping was tried only once, in Atlanta, and failed to produce any
results. No memorandum on this particular incident was ever located.

Perhaps Somersett's suspicions about Milteer were valid. In a trip to
Milteer's home in Quitman, Ga., in late July, I found a letter dated
April 19, 1968 written to Milteer by Woody Kerns, his close friend and
political ally (they both belonged to the right-wing Constitution
Party).
In the first paragraph, Kerns, a West Virginian, makes a cryptic
reference, apparently to the King assassination.

"Looks as though you (Milteer) and the hunted suspect were in the
capital area about the same time. They found a car there – they say."
Kerns evidently was referring to Atlanta, where the FBI had recovered
a car that purportedly belonged to King's killer.
That brief statement is the only reference to King's death found amid
the detailed correspondence Milteer kept. More might have been
expected because Milteer hated King. But no gloating...nothing.

Getting back to Somersett, the June 11 memo describes trips he made to
South Carolina, New Orleans and Alabama. In South Carolina, Somersett
met with Belton Mims, who he called the first assistant to the Grand
Dragon of the South Carolina Klan. The memo indicates Mims said
nothing of King, but did say a plot to kill the late Congressman Adam
Clayton Powell was in the works, and suggested Somersett see Leander
Perez, an extreme racist and political boss in Louisiana, while he was
in New Orleans. When Perez, who died in 1969, couldn't be found,
Willie Somersett moved on to Mobile, Ala., where he talked with the
former Miami house painter referred to earlier.

The painter didn't speak of King either, at this time, but did
describe to Somersett some terrorist acts he claimed to have
participated in recently. He also told Somersett plans were being
formulated to kill Charles Evers, brother of the slain civil rights
leader Medgar Evers.
In the July 3 memo, events turn once again to Martin Luther King Jr.'s
killing. In it, "88" states that he traveled again as an agent of the
Miami PD to Memphis on June 21 "and began circulating around in order
to obtain information in regards to the assassination of Martin Luther
King...

"After getting settled in (a) room, I went to the neighborhood where
King was killed and made friends with a number of people, both Negro
and white, and had a few drinks with them and began discussing this
incident along with other racial matters. I was introduced to a man
by the name of Charles O. Stevens (sic) at Jim's Club... who said that
he had been questioned with regards to the killing of Martin Luther
King and he had lied to the police and FBI, saying he knew something
about it, whereas he did not."

Charles Q. Stephens, to whom Somersett apparently referred, was one of
the State of Tennessee's chief witnesses against James Earl Ray.
Harvey Gipson, Stephens' lawyer, claims, "He is the only witness who
can directly connect Ray to the crime. They couldn't have extradited
Ray (from England) without Stephens' identification."

Somersett's statement severely impeaches Stephens' credibility, which
has already been under attack by many critics because of his excessive
drinking. If Stephens truly perjured himself, the already shaky case
against James Earl Ray is further damaged. (Asa result of his
testimony Stephens is currently fighting a legal battle to collect
assorted reward monies offered in this case totaling $100,000.)

In the same July 3 memo, Willie Somersett also tells of side trips he
made to Whitehaven, Tenn. And Southhaven, Miss., suburbs of Memphis.

"I attempted to locate a fellow (name withheld) who works as a private
detective and ham
radio operator in Whitehaven, Tenn. And is supposed to be racially
involved. I could not locate him, but my conversation with people
around there made insinuations to the fact that this (man) and an
unknown deputy sheriff may have been involved in jamming the radio
somewhere in the Martin Luther King case."

Somersett was confused about this incident. The CB radios were not
jammed after the shooting, rather false broadcasts were sent out which
drew attention away from the south side of the city, where, Ray
claims, he fled during his escape from the scene. (Perhaps it should
be noted here that Ray, who has long since renounced his guilty plea,
does not deny having been at the site of the crime. He contends that
he was simply an unwitting accomplice and that he was later coerced by
his attorney, the famed Percy Foreman (whom Miamians will recall from
the sensational Candy Mossler murder trial here) to plead guilty.
Ray's latest efforts to win a new trial have been quashed, and he has
stopped appealing.)

Returning to the memos, we find that on the morning of July 8, 1968,
previously mentioned Miami house painter. The painter spoke of his
rage at the death of a young schoolteacher, Kathy Ainsworth, who was
shot by police as she allegedly participated in an attempt to blow up
the home of a prominent Jewish citizen in Meridian, Miss. Her
companion, Thomas Albert Tarrants III, was wounded. "X (the house
painter) said that they are going to set up things in Mississippi and
he is going to kill all the Jews, niggers and the policemen if they
interfere. . .'we will burn Mississippi if necessary,' "X raved.
Tarrants is now serving a 30-year sentence in Mississippi.
In the final memo of August 29 Somersett describes a meeting with X in
Mobile during which the Ainsworth-Tarrants incident was discussed.
According to X, not only was Tarrants being held in the Mississippi
bombing attempt, he also was being investigated in connection with the
king murder. "X says that the car that was used to jam the police
cars on relaying messages of the killing of King on Aug. 4 (sic) was a
car used by Thomas Tarrants. X says that they have information from
the police that Tarrants is talking to the FBI and it looks as if
several people may be indicted by the federal government in connection
with a bank robbery and murder in the state(s) of Mississippi and
Tennessee, including himself, X, who allowed Tarrants to stay at his
home a week or ten days after the killing of Martin Luther King."
Miami Magazine has been unable to determine if X's information proved
true.

In that same memo of August 29, Somersett also tells of a meeting with
representatives of Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney who
gained notoriety for his sensational JFK murder conspiracy trial.
Garrison's people were eager to obtain the fruits of Somersett's 1963
labors, but there is no indication that he ever cooperated with them.

As in the case in Miami Magazine's story last month on President
Kennedy's assassination , we can only speculate on the real
significance of all this. The list of specific question raised is
practically endless, but revolves around one central issue: What did
the FBI do about this information?

There is no evidence, on the record or off, to indicate the FBI did
anything, for no mention of these incidents has ever been made
publicly before. When given the opportunity to comment on our
findings, the FBI refused.

Thomas L. Wiseman, FBI special agent in Washington, "assigned in a
supervisory capacity to the Freedom of Information-Privacy Acts
section of the Records and Management Division," says, in an affidavit
filed in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit by assassination
researcher Harold Wiesberg, that "the only suspect in the Martin
Luther King assassination was Eric Starvo Galt, subsequently
identified as James Earl Ray."

How can this be? Willie Somersett was a long-time FBI informant and,
according to declassified FBI documents, the G-men considered him
"reliable." If so, how could FBI agents simply ignore the bombshells
he was dropping in their collective laps? They must have had more
suspects if, as they claim, they conducted a thorough investigation.
They must also have had grave doubts about the reliability of star
witness Charles Stephens.

No one has been as accurate as Willie Somersett in predicting
political assassinations since the Soothsayer warned Caesar to "beware
the Ides of March" two millennia ago. The FBI knew this, but
apparently did nothing about it.

Motivation for this non-action by the Bureau may have come from the
late J. Edgar Hoover. It is no secret that Hoover despised King and
used all the power in his command to try and thwart King.

This climate was hardly one in which to conduct an impartial
investigation.

Because of the revelation of the attempts to harass Dr. King, the
Department of Justice has been reviewing the files compiled on King
both before and after his assassination. Until now, Justice officials
have been saying that nothing has been uncovered which would suggest
that the FBI's investigation of the assassination was less than
thorough. Told of Miami Magazine's findings, most specifically about
Somersett's prediction, Michael Shaheen Jr., the Department of Justice
attorney in charge of internal investigations in Washington, was
stunned.

"This is as interesting a piece of information as any I've ever
heard," he said. "I am very interested in receiving it."

There are also other people who feel, for these and other reasons,
that the King case should be fully and publicly reopened. The Rev.
Bernard Lee, executive vice president of Dr. King's Southern Christian
Leadership Conference, said, "We believe Ray is not the lone assassin
and that Dr. King was the victim of a well thought-out conspiracy. We
had hoped Ray would get a new trial, but that did not materialize.
There should be some kind of new investigation."
Judge Gelber believes, "All the avenues haven't been explored in the
King assassination. The investigation was cut short by Ray's guilty
plea. There was no Warren Commission to publicly air the facts. What
is necessary is a legislative investigation to satisfy the public that
everything has been looked into."

Finally, State Attorney Richard Gerstein, who has spent several hours
aiding us in our dual investigations, noted wryly, "I don't believe
any person with even minimal intelligence believes Ray acted alone or
without help."

[Walt]

"John Bevilaqua" <cyber...@cox.net> wrote in message
news:53177ce1.03042...@posting.google.com...

> JFK, KING:
> The Dade County links
>
> Is it mere coincidence that a Miami police informer was able to
> predict with astonishing accuracy the assassinations of both John F.
> Kennedy and Martin Luther King? Apparently, the FBI thought so
>
> By Dan Christensen
>

> Nov. 9, 1963 - Miami Police tape-record a conversation in which an

> extreme right-wing political organizer accurately predicts the
> assassination of President John F. Kennedy just as it was to happen 13
> days later. The man said the President would be killed by shots fired
> "from an office building with a high-powered rifle."

MAYBE??.... But IF a shot originated from an office building it was NOT
from the so called "Snoper's Nest" in the SE corner of the 6th floor of
the TSBD.

> Jan. 13, 1964 - The same man, using an alias, withdrawn $12,000 from a

> savings account at a now defunct bank in Provo, Utah. The man, who
> lived in Georgia, had opened the account the previous July.
>

> Nov. 1, 1963 - A Cuban exile walks into the Parrot Jungle gift shop

> and tells a female employee he hates the President and he could "shoot
> Kennedy between the eyes." He has a "friend named Lee," he says, "who
> is also a sharp-shooter," and that Lee spoke Russian and German and
> was living in either Texas or Mexico. (Lee Harvey Oswald spoke
> Russian, lived in Texas, and earlier in the fall had been traveling in
> Mexico.)
>
> These intriguing incidents suggest the surreal atmosphere permeating
> Miami in 1963.

What the information suggests is there was a plot affot to murder JFK and
blame it on Oswald....

Walt