Subject: Army Intelligence death squads?

Claims regarding the existence of death squads in America have usually
been met with disbelief and scornful skepticism. Those who have tried to
publicize evidence that such squads may exist have usually been branded
"conspiracy nuts." Nonetheless, many educated, rational, intelligent
investigators have concluded that such squads were born in America as long
as three decades ago.
There is good reason to believe that such squads were formed and trained
by the Military Intelligence Division in the 60s. And there is  good
reason to suspect that one of these squads was involved in the murder of
Martin Luther King.
Due to the current interest in these clandestine dispensers of death,
sparked most notably by Sarah McClendon's claims and recent postings on
the Net, I exhumed this piece to offer as historical background.

Reprinted from Franklin's Focus, June '93.

DID ARMY INTELLIGENCE KILL MARTIN LUTHER KING?

In 1917 the United States Army Intelligence launched a domestic spying
division that would grow into the largest internal surveillance system
ever created in a democracy. By 1968, 304 offices were spread throughout
the country and nearly 20 million dossiers were filed in the Index of
Investigations. Army spies routinely opened over 100,00 pieces of private
mail weekly. In their frenzied overkill, the military snoops used U2 and
SR71 spy planes to photograph civil rights demonstrations in the South. A
vast number of black churches were bugged. Church ministers, board
members, and even janitors were kept under surveillance.
To enlarge the scope of their spy network, the Military Intelligence
Division (MID) recruited the Ku Klux Klan as an arm of government.
Weapons, training camps, and other logistical support were given to the
KKK. Green Beret units returning from Vietnam were placed in mobile spy
and assassination units. Sniping maps of American cities were plotted.
Fanatics such as Major General William Yarborough were running the MID in
1967. At that time, Yarborough saw Martin Luther King as a traitor who was
seeking to overthrow the Government by fomenting armed insurrection.
Prolific and semi-hysterical surveillance of King was carried on under the
general's aegis.
The MID learned that King would be in Memphis to support a labor strike. A
special eight-man unit of the Green Berets (not the usual 12 men) was
dispatched to Memphis before King's arrival. The unit left Memphis
immediately after King's assassination.
James Earl Ray, serving 99 years for the assassination, says he was
working under orders from a mysterious Raul. This shadowy figure allegedly
sent Ray to buy a sniping rifle with a scope. When Ray returned with a
perfectly good rifle and scope, Ray claims Raul made him exchange it for a
30.06 with scope-a demand that Ray saw as eccentric. 
The MID considered the 30.06 to be the *only*  rifle for sniping. The MID
stole thousands of these weapons from Army depots and supplied them to the
KKK, Southern police departments, and the MID's special Green Beret units.
Why has nobody looked into possible links between the MID and the slaying
of MLK? The answer is simple: everybody has focused attention on the FBI,
the Justice Department, and Southern racist groups. The MID has been
ignored.

 Those who are interested in a more exhaustive treatment can download
(thru Dialog) a long investigative article by Stephen Tompkins, published
in the March 21, 1993 edition of The Commercial Appeal, a Memphis, Tenn.,
newspaper. This was a piece that merited consideration for a Pulitzer
Prize but was studiously ignored by every national news organization.

Richard L. Franklin
Publisher, Franklin's Focus