have the white reporters gone? because i want to whoop some. so there were moments in which he said i want to whoop some, but not with this audience. so i think there were degrees of self-consciousness, and i think in "i have a dream," you know, i think what happened at "i have a dream" which is one of his, you know, he'd been preaching that for years, usually to black audiences, but he preached it once to the afl-cio convention. [laughter] all these george meanny and these ethnic types. they're not big as we know from obama's experience on lofty language. they like practical, earthy. and king is really soaring with them. ..

and i know you're asking how long. now, usually during the social known that come you got these people that collectively mobilize the belief that it's rationally to keep doing that, a brief moment how long you're asking and he's reassuring them not long. as he does, how long, not one is all his repetition. here he comes out of that turned to black civil rights workers who have been beat up and had

trials and tribulation. he comes back for one second any sort of stumbling. it seems that mahalia jackson says tell him about the dream, but nobody can be sure. john lewis is yes, and then he goes off into that prophecy, right? that musical moment that i did because the two moments that i have a tremendous need be a good place to add around now. remember to musical moments that end i have a dream. the first is when that day comes, we all will fit in my country fit the width new meaning. for the first time we are a nation has begun and actually saying enter the white national anthem, but the blacks in the white is not the end. the slaves have the last word.

and king makes him that day a white children and black children, gentiles will sing in the words of the old spiritual, we are free at last. that we describe rain into the voice that the black slaves. and in some sense, made way by their granddaddy in grant money. so it's an important moment, but it is a very black moment. in style and an implication, even as it is doing one of the great moments of americans of the religion, there's this other thing right in there on the next step. it's drenched in blackness in a variety of ways. i need to and i'm not monnet, but thank you for all coming out tonight. there are books that people want to purchase them. i will be there to sign them.

thank you very much for your questions and for coming out. [applause] >> visit otb.org to watch and programs you see here online. >> coming up next, hampton sides recounts the assassination of the martin luther king jr. and his assassin james or array.

mr. syed detailed the escape from the penitentiary 1967, strauss wrote this out, mexico and los angeles and his assassination of dr. king. the free library of philadelphia as a host of this event. it is about an hour. [applause] >> thank you. it's great to be back. i think that all writers eventually want to go back to the place where they came from. in this case, it was for me to go back to memphis, tennessee were a corrupt,, where i was born and try to understand this pivotal moments in american history and to try to understand inserted deconstruct the most controversial, the most tragic, it the most in many ways complicated event in my city's history. my father was a law professor and italy are at a loss for

environmentalists and rep resented the garbage workers unrepresented king when he came on behalf of the garbage workers. in fact, i got a lot from him about this event. but you know, you always have your memory of things you want your, was the family correct? did you hear the story correctly? you as much a test your memory against the hard, cold documents. but you know, coming back to memphis is also the idea of coming back to the place where it came from in terms of literature. the first writer that i ever met growing up in memphis was the great civil war historian from the ken burns documentary. your member shelby foote, the coveted ear and he looked like a writer, talks like a writer, smells like a writer. he was straight out of central casting. and he really gave me some very interesting ideas early on in life about what narrative

history can be. and what it can aspire to be. he of course came the history through the rack dory purity was a novelist and the mississippi delta and came too late in life trying to write history live on the page. he thought history could be deadly to what is often written an academic situations, academic settings. i'm not certain what i found when i went off to college. i went to yale, studied history, one of the great heavyweight departments. wonderful historians, wonderful writers. but it could be to do though. i don't really remember the word pleasure ever been used, either to describe. we were historians. historians are people who put on the rope and we were arched

through basically an eco-commune with dead people who can't talk back. and that's a very deadly, serious business. it took me a while to go in the world and learn how to write stories as a journalist before i begin to read people like shelby foote and broker tuckerman and some of the great narrative historian. there is another way to skin this cat. shelby foote though, the reason i no shelby foote, his son, how do you come names are strange in the deep south. again iran-iraq and together called our days and we basically did everything we could possibly do to prevent shelby foote from finishing a 6000 page trilogy of the civil war. we were cranking up the jimi hendrix and pink floyd and there may or may not have been smoke in the room. i'm not at liberty to say, but we certainly were having a good

time and would be left in some sort of feedback car robbery and shelby would not come the door and say howdy, turn that racket down. i'm working on mathematics. of course he was working on mathematics. he was working on this amazing 6000 page trilogy, which took many years for me to understand and absorb. for coming back to memphis, memphis is this extraordinary city, perched on the racial fault line. o. cotton of the mississippi delta, capital of rock 'n roll and blues and of course beale street is they are. of course alice come you or theory. but it's also one of the very few cities of any size in america that is named after an african capital with all this had the egyptian pathology around it. so it seems that they grew up in

begin to think about the king assassination, it seemed almost scrape it bistate that king would be killed there. you know, and this is a man who traveled nonstop for over a decade. he could've been killed in anaheim. he could've been killed in akron, ohio. he was killed in memphis, the capital of the blues. so i began to kind of think about that, hideaway make a good. that is -- in which meant this as a character, in which he began to understand the confluence of things that brockington memphis, the garbage strike be the most obvious one. but the whole background, the whole backdrop of memphis. he had come to memphis really because he was beginning to recruit for this very ambitious and very controversial campaign called the poor people's campaign in washington. the idea was to take offense, maybe hundreds of thousands of

poor people, african-americans, but also from other backgrounds to washington and to build this shanty town on the mall to protest multigenerational poverty, systemic poverty. it is a very controversial plan. he was getting a lot of criticism and of course our good friend chad kruger was very suspicious of this thing. he thought it was communism. he thought he was some sort of subversive. but kingsford has made to his left hand turning to memphis when he heard about this garbage strike he says it seemed like the perfect vocal, indigenousexpression of what he was trying to do in washington. these are garbage workers, almost entirely african-american workforce. most of them were former sharecroppers to the mississippi delta. the fourth part of the united states. it made perfect sense to try to represent their cause, even though his staff and the inner

circle of the sclc said this is a tribe. you don't want to do this. this is a mistake. we go to washington. you're making a left turn into memphis. he said no, we've got to do this. this is the perfect illustration of the were trying to do in washington on the local scale. so he comes to memphis and marches down beale street, which the city looked into memphis know its not become the bourbon street of further out to delta. it is certainly overcrowded and overdone now. and it was the classic avondale of black america for over a century. our treated passage that has to do with the march that king that. it started off well, but things turned awry. it became clear that the march was taken over by some young radicals who had different ideas

about nonviolence, who had different ideas about which way the civil rights movement should go. and because of that, because of the violence that breaks out with the leading and writing and the police or to crack down on it. because of that, king realizes he has to come back to memphis yet again to sort of redeem himself and his reputation in a nonviolent march. so this is march 28, about a week or so before the assassination. and he and his inner circle, abernathy leak in the local minister made lawson or mark dunn hill street. and things are starting to go awry. the march began.

jane abernathy, leah moss and what turns in the sun and began walking us we saw the tears word overhead. they left clairborne temple and slept slept a lot and industry for two blocks, and halting, trying to find the right pays. and then they turn left onto beale. in march left in the direction of the mississippi river. no one bothered to form lines. they were jostling and shoving, sending forward wave after wave and stepping on heels. they were going to be trampled. soon they pass to abc had park who first wrote down the blues and shape the form into an internationally recognized

genre. that was the 10th anniversary of the death and someone had laid a wreath besides the bronze statue, standing with his trumpet at the ready. but this beale was a faded version of the streets that the father of the blues had no. had he been alive to see it now, he would've despaired in its merciless state. and handy's heyday, it is the main street of america, a place with deep soul and world-class foolishness, jutland joins us who do and fortunetellers playing on every corner. the streetsmart tamales and pulled pork potsticker large. they enact, so much authentic and sometimes violent fatalities that is handy put it in one of his famous songs, business never closes until somebody could kill. for more than a century, blacks from all across the mississippi

delta came to experience their first taste of city life. workers came from the levee building camps, from the lender and turpentine camps, from the cotton field and the steamboat lines. the only confirmed studio photograph of robert johnson was taken on the field, because the image posting on a fedora and a pinstripe suit with his well-worn guitar. muddy waters, howling wolf and bb king came here to play some of the first city kicks. the south's first black millionaire, robert church leaders real estate fortune. like doctors, but photographers, black mortuaries, black newspapers, hotels and restaurants for colors only. african-american parade is the counterpart. the concept of separate but equal of the moors.

it intended demands. status record once quipped, if you are black for one saturday night, he'd never want to be white again. by the spring of 1968, most of the great clubs and theaters, the casing, palace, monarch, selling, clad handy reported up altogether. those still reputable business closer to name, much had become a drab track of busted concrete liquor stores and pawn shops, populated by winos and petty thieves. as king champ west on the outcome of pass the handy statue, separate was most assuredly not equal. the blue was on a six bed, and an airy dead and gone, now i call him of schiffman carried signs in the direction of city hall, headed for an certain

future. so this is about a week before the assassination. what happens next to skip ahead is that a guy named james earl ray wanders into my hometown and changes history. i have some slide that began to show the evidence against james earl ray. and not so much against 10 and how the fbi caught him. it is a 65 day manhunt and it took some three dozen agents many millions of dollars. it also took the law-enforcement agencies of canada and mexico and portugal and from the scotland yard that caught him, yet heathrow where he was boarding a plane trying to get through the show where he wanted to become a mercenary soldier. this book is largely based out

to be vincent hughes collection. there is a cop in that they insist and infused with a dispatcher and to do that night. this event touched his life in a profound way and changed him forever and decided to go to his entire retirement to collect t-man digitizing all the documents he could get on the kingston nasa station. some 20,000 documents and counting. i found out by accident thursday curator in memphis and that there's this guy named vince you might want to talk to them he's pretty cool. some gaming fans, that sounds -- that's not to have been. put that in my back pocket. the midst of the trips to memphis and then they found out that ends with this amazing guy, if i learned gentleman who had been assembling office staff. annie's not produce or see her and taken years the.

he's pretty much right down the middle. his idea is to create the definitive sort of website open to the public, king assassination. for most of these images come from the collection and begin to show how the fbi put together this puzzle that ended up in james earl ray's capture. once the count. there we go. this is a picture of infused is a police i.d. card. these are pictures of the assassination at 12.

-- itself. and the famous picture where it can be done and the others are pointing towards this room house, the policemen come around to the back on south main and come to this place, apartment rooms for rent. this is busy routers remain a sense of main. they go out to stayers, but before they do, they find a bundle that has been that caring friend to a box amusement store, where they serve and solitude boxes. the bundle as they appeared to nashua to make of it, but policemen got to stayers into this room were supposedly the person named john willard had been staying in room five b. what's noticeable about this photograph is on the floor, there is a strap, which they

don't know what it is. they kind of put that on the back burner and later find out it catches to a pair of binoculars that it can purchase. they noticed that in room five p., the furniture at removed from the window and a chair was set in front of the window. someone had been looking towards the hotel. obviously the shot had not come from there, but it was kind of a nest for surveillance. the people in the flophouse of the shot had come from a communal bathroom down the hall. he went down the hall and found the same window was open and the angle was a direct one from this communal bathroom. the screen had been pried loose from its groove to and they found out just below. the shot had most likely than fired from someone standing in the bathtub.

they found a hand print on the wall if your skin in the bathtub he would lean against the law and that's a crime scene photo of the imprint was raised to certain chemicals. so now they try to figure out, what is the deal with this bundle? was the story with that? why would someone leave a bundle but as the god, a scope, ammunition and all other artifacts. but as he was heading down the sidewalk towards the white mustang that was spotted by numerous people, there is a cop cars you can see right there that was visible and he realized if he had this in a fandom was caught with a murder weapon, so we had to get rid of it in a hurry even that seemed like a pretty move. so he did and the folks that were in the amusement company saw the white mustang head north

on main. they saw this bundle and i began to investigate, what is in this bundle? they realize quickly that everything they needed to solve this case is in the bundle. these are some of the artifacts that were in the school case that was tried in a bedspread. a lot of toiletries, a pair of binoculars, brylcreem and a newspaper that very day. and that article, king challenges the string. if you read the whole article and jumped to the inside, talks about how federal marshals had presented an injunction against king not the marchenko street and a follow-up march in this injunction had been presented at the lorraine motel. so sad right there in the front page article, king and his

entourage were staying at the lorraine. it's public knowledge. it also showed a photograph in the background if you look closely you can see the remember three of six. so is in the public record. they also found in the bundle these binoculars, which they realize had been just purchased two hours earlier to your arms sporting goods store with the receipt they are. a place where i bought my first baseball mitt, the basic sporting goods store in memphis. i live in santa fe now -- and memphis. it's where i bought my first minute. they also found in this bundle a transistor radio, this channel master radio, which is significant only because on the housing of the radio they found a number which they were sure

what to make of. and that they could have been tampered to, but they were able to decipher it. it was 416 -- 00416, some sort of aftermarket number. welcome back to the theater, that it was one of the puzzle is they're trying to figure out early on. i'll say. cannot been purchased in mississippi a couple days earlier that had a very good fingerprints on it. the gun which was a 30 ought six and going off the gun and the serial number on the gun, they were able to trace the web in to this place, the aero marine sporting goods store in birmingham, alabama, where they found the gun had been purchased on the earlier by a guy who called himself harvey lemire. he had come in at trying to buy a slightly smaller weapon, weaker web in. and then he came back the next

day on march 29th day no actually, my brother said we are going hunting in them. we need a much more powerful weapon. and this is the web and he ended up purchasing. also in the bundle was this innocuous things like attacking on a pair of pliers with identification tags, which led the fbi to this romp which is to they have sold out. so not very lucky not this country. they are now working in birmingham. now they look in los angeles. also in the bundle was this. undershirts, which was important only because of the number about the ruler they are, which is a laundry tag number that they found out through some inquiries that kind of a new technology called the thermo seal tape

company i do see are accused, new york. i'm also undershirt 02 b6 they said that most of their machines had been sold out in california, mostly in los angeles. that led them to this laundry and los angeles. they found out that yes indeed the gentleman by the name of eric g-golf had been taking his laundry day once a week for several months before the assassination. so now they are looking for a guy named john willard, but also looking for a guy named harvey lemire. and now they look for training area golf. the laundry had an address. this is the place used in los angeles shortly before the assassination. they found out through the mail that he had been writing letters from this address and this is a letter that he wrote to a group

called the friends of the geisha because he was trying to emigrate to rhodesia, most likely because they did not have an extradition treaty with the united states. they also found that this guy was into dancing. he took dancing lessons. he was particularly interested in the foxtrot and the cha-cha. they begin to get descriptions of the sky from various people who had danced with them and various instruct others. as a place called the national dance studios. folks there said he couldn't dance lessons because he needed to save money for a bartending school. so they start canvassing all the bartending schools in california and arrive at this place, the international school of attending. and there they find out that yes indeed a training eric s. call had taken some lessons.

in this course memorize some 200 recipes for cocktails. but they are wondering, what can you tell us about this guy? the guy who ran this place, thomas reyes said wells, that's easy. every graduate of our school is photographed with his diploma in a tuxedo. so we can show you what he looked like. this is what he looks like. so now we have a photograph of this guy except for one thing, his eyes are closed. they're not exactly sure what he looks like, but this is the first tantalizing images that i did the agents are looking for. also, they found out that eric gault on march 18 had put in a change of address form from his place in los angeles to atlanta,

georgia general delivery, atlanta georgia and had the affair. eric had no connection to atlanta here diego friends they are coming to serious moving to luther king's hometown. okay, so they have a name now. they are really trying to press this name. they go to other hotels and motels in the memphis area and try to find if anyone named eric ault stayed in memphis around the time of his assassination. sure enough they find this place, the new rebel motor hotel on account, the new rebel motor hotel on account, the new rebel motor hotel on account, the new rebel motor hotel on account and check in with a white mustang on april 3rd, and maybe for the assassination. this is his registration card. noting that he listed 26 away highland avenue in birmingham, alabama. but notice that he mentioned the make of the car, mustang and in alabama license plate.

wade -- the go -- bear with me one second. okay, so meanwhile other fbi agents go out all over the south trying to find out if any other eric gault checked into hotels. they did find out on march march 22nd, eric gault had checked into the flamingo hotel in selma, alabama, which was significant because they found that night or in the cooking had been scheduled to give a talk there. it began to seem he was beginning to cross paths with martin luther king. whether this was, they began to do more investigating and found

that he applied for a license in the state of alabama, saying he was a merchant berean unemployed they found that he had stayed at this place on highland. and yes indeed they remembered their gault had lived there. while he was there, he also sent off for some camera equipment, which brown in mail order company in chicago as he began to wonder what is up with all of this camera equipment. but they found out that gault had briefly dabbled with the idea of being a director. this is all part of a scheme he had to get into the business. meanwhile, other agents out of the south of china finest white mustang. two weeks after the assassination may find it in alabama. eric gault, white mustang. the impound vehicles with pictures of the car just hours after it's been impounded.

they also found on the car that it has stickers, which indicated that whoever had been driving had recently been in mexico. so that kind of sense the search down to mexico. dozens of agents go to mexico trying to figure out if someone named eric ault evers a downer in the months leading up to the assassination. sure enough they found that the hotel rio imported by our test this registration card for eric s. gault who called himself now a publisher employed. i'm not sure what that means. somehow in the publishing business now. he began living a 26 away highland avenue. they found out he had been frequenting and when a particular kind to know quite well that she had taken a picture of him. this is the picture she had to

offer. another is a second photograph. his eyes may or may not be shut air, but again they are beginning to be skewed images to work with. a separate from all this, there is a group of fingerprint analysts in washington d.c. who are comparing the fingerprints taken from the cans and the stocks of the rifle and various other artifacts in the bundle, comparing them piece by piece, one by one with the fingerprints of every known fugitives in the united states, a process that would take possibly months. they get a direct match several weeks into the process with an escaped fugitive from missouri named james earl ray. so now, you know, they are realizing they are not looking for a john willard or harvey lemire. they're looking for one guy and his name is james earl ray.

boumediene v.so they found lotsf his criminal past. they learned a little bit about his biography and then they passed for a moment because they see this number 416 and suddenly realize that the number on the radio makes sense. this wasn't a radio he had purchased in person the day before he escaped from a maximum-security prison in missouri. as was required by prison walls come the edge of stamped in an indelible stamp on the house in the sugar prison i.d. number. the dataset the four-run the 416 was about. at this point, davis gone. he was in canada, let them in this house in toronto and getting a new alias for himself. people said well, he must've been really sophisticated, part of some shadowy international can pursue to get these ideas. but in canada come expressionless welcome to

canada, we trust you. i you have to do with what we did here. he went to back issues of the newspaper, from birth notices that people born in his birthday or based on the very scant information he got there, he applied to registrar converts into a duplicate or a certificate, in this case the name of renowned george snape said david to them straightaway on the basis of that, though thought that was required was this duplicate to get the passport. for now he has the passport and air ticket to london. as by this point, it has been well publicized they looking for james earl ray. he knows he's got to get out of north america. unclear exactly where you get the money, but he talks about grabbing a grocery store. he talks about various other stickup city may or may not have done.

somehow he scrapes the my ticket to have the funding. this is his ticket from toronto to london. he has immediately to portugal to get to portugal, he wants -- the ideas he wants to hook up with these mercenary groups, get on a ship to go to angola. and the problem is he doesn't speak the language. he does another culture. if i've been running out of ideas so they go back to london. and now he's really running out of ideas. he rubs a jewelry store, robs a bank. he is trying to get johannesburg or two south very rhodesia. and when they found in a keystroke, yet dishonest person which was a timetable of airplanes to south africa appeared they also found this book, which is sort of an overview guide to a geisha. they also found a loaded revolver, which he had in his pocket. i guess times are very different that then. you can board a plane with a loaded revolver in no problem.

in fact when they caught him, they did make a stink about it. they just wanted to get a permit for his kind. he asked him why do you need a gun? the senate going to rhodesia and things are really difficult down there. and they basically accepted this story. but they said we've compared your fingerprints and compared the fingerprints with those of james earl ray. they said your james survey appeared either separately vmf eight denied he was ray. they've gotten mixed up with this other guy named james earl ray. his lawyer, solicitor in london says that, you know, you're going to be here for a while. how can i help you? i know you're not james earl. he says yes, and snape. this got me mixed up with this guy. i would really appreciate it if you could get in contact with my brother. sure, who is your brother? what is his name? jerry ray,

not realizing his identity has bled into each other at that point. he insisted for a month or more that he was made. he called himself cerebrum snape. finally he loses his extradition hearing and his phone back to memphis aboard a chartered air force jet, where he stands trial and is about to go to china when he plea-bargained thinness to someone under 50 points of fact, saying he did pull the trigger and bought the scope and the ammunition and all this evidence had been showing you tonight, yes, that was my getaway car that you saw me in. and so, he was given a life sentence. only three days later he recanted part of his testimony, saying all of this test is true except for one thing. i didn't pull the trigger. there is a mysterious guy named raul who pulled the trigger,

which open up an internal cataract as conspiracy theories and different ideas about who is this rocha. the ray spent the rest of his life in prison except for one little moment. he does break out one more time from another mac nonsecurity present. this time in tennessee fairly ingeniously on the cumberland mountains for three days until he finally cut the bloodhounds. the lorinda hotel, which is a great source of embarrassment to memphis and most of them fistfights get rid of it. they were embarrassed and ashamed to mortified, but some forward decameters cement this, black-and-white got together and says this is part of our history. it isn't ordinarily i this place to become the national civil rights museum. as probably the most frequent in place after graceland in memphis

and is a beautiful place and third as -- well, it plays for people come to recognize history and figure out what happened here. is there a conspiracy? is there not a conspiracy? try to figure out the different sightlines and go to the flophouse commotions also now part of the museum to figure out what exactly happened. so i would like to hear from you any questions you might have about this project and how i've researched it and how all these different things come together. i don't office mentioned, but booktv is here with us tonight in taping this. any questions you do have come you can make sure you speak to the microphone and the you're clearly here, not just for my benefit but a part in the audience of the television

audience. i want to welcome the audience from booktv and look forward to hearing from you. >> front and center. >> yes, his means of income was probably robbing banks and so on and so are his. were there other means of income? was he receiving monies from other person? >> well, the question of income is probably the central question of the whole case and that his fugitive wandering because the guy got around clearly. and i looked into it as much as they possibly could. he said he was involved in smuggling schemes in fencing schemes. he told one journalist who sold a bunch of pot and other drugs. he had been one person a merchant of amphetamines and saved up some money. the fbi believed that he and his brothers robbed a bank in illinois about two months after he escaped from a missouri prison that netted $30,000.

anything else is guesswork, but i think it is possible he put up with some bounty. he certainly knew about some of them. whether he got paid in full i highly doubt because he wouldn't have tried to rob this grocery store in toronto and robbed a jewelry store in london finally rubbed his bank in london. and he does expose himself a big part of a well-funded scarcity. on the other side of the ledger, you have to realize he lives really, really frugally except her a few things that dancing lessons in the $250,000 most of the month before the assassination, he was living in god-awful flophouses. he was mostly easy minister and with an immersion heater and tries to send tottered through site that. so he wasn't living high in the

heart. let's put it that way. it's a good question i don't have all the answers. i leave a lot of doors open and both were sources of money might have come from. i think his brothers were certainly aiding and abetting him sending money to him. but it's all the steps along the way you see an element of desperation, where the old james earl ray, the old patty criminal is doing rash things, things come in desperate things to finally get to canada and finally get to london. it doesn't feel like a super sophisticated conspiracy to me. thanks for your question though. >> yes sir, very of the room. hold on one sec. >> thank you coming for the light brantford early books, particularly blood and thunder which it very much enjoyed. but she talked about how he was picked up at the airport and in

england? did someone recognized him for the robbery? or had pictures been circulated that he was identified as james threw away the american killer? >> he wanted to give away the book, don't you? i can tell you this. they figured out he'd gone to toronto to get aliases. so basically the fbi asked the royal canadian police to examine every passport application that had been received after the assassination. to single out every photos of the even remotely like jeans or a raid. there was a lily constable, about 21 years old who found this passport tiedemann said that could be changed through rate. i look sort of him. i will put it in a possible style. he's like a hill rahab lasses --

hard to say. they put them in the possibles pile and found that there is a real guide aimed ramón sneed and interviewed him and found out he'd never in in his life applied for a passport. so they figured out this was a fraud. so it got a fraudulent passport. so they called all of the travel agents in toronto and found that a guy named morons made it onto london. they called and had scotland yard to what is called an all were sworn in on this guy, ramon sneed. the person is optimistic customs officer who had no idea he was one for the killing of dr. king. all he knew was the passport was fraudulent than he was to be detained and questioned. but that's the short answer. perception more complexity to it. but he was detained and questioned and that guy of course the question asked henry

james or her way? no, i am remotes made. what kind of name is that anyway? he sat by that story for a month and a half until he finally ended he was james earl ray. yes, sir, right here. >> other than the drama of chasing this man down halfway across the road, what about the personality? did you study and talk about psychology at this man? thursday wasn't a conspiracy based on philosophical and racist reasons directly, why was this guy so committed? that would be kind of an interesting approach. >> well, certainly stewed over it and wondered and worried about it because you kind of inhabit this guy's road for three years. you wonder who he really is. it is not as satisfying as i take it to be. i would like it to be this magical epiphany where i understood him.

but all of us look for some sort of rational explanation for what is fundamentally an irrational and saying that the violent. i think what you really get with ray's not so much a single motivation of the cluster outside motivations. he had financial elements, which is accentuated by years of amphetamine use. he was a racist. while he was in prison he talked to him it's about martin luther as he caught them is going to be his retirement plan. he examined the kennedy assassination and talked about the mistakes that have been made and how he would improve upon them and not make those mistakes. and now, he was a racist, but is not enough by itself to explain him? no. yeah, he wants to emigrate to rhodesia. yeah, he was a big george wallace fan and was volunteering for the george wallace can paint of 1968. he was john bircher.

he was a reactionary in his political view. that is not to be enough to explain him. the biggest explanation was really his son have enhanced and his desperation in the months leading up to the assassination, where you see he is reaching out desperately to find something, some sort of meaning, some sort of her face. he is doing bartending school, dancing lessons. he takes a look at the course. he gets that job and gets into self hypnosis with a bunch of shrinks. and then he starts reading these very self-help books, one in particular found on his person when he was caught in london called psycho cybernetics, which talks endlessly and i read this book and your you guys to read it. it is horrific reading, but the purpose is to show basically to find meaning in life you have to have a goal to aim for and to shoot at. it talks about a person be in a

torpedo, a person being of a live. it talks about a call seeking at msn. i am not a shrink and i don't entertain kind to psychology here, but they do show this to and they show it as sort of mixed all the sudden motivations together and begin to get a sense of james earl ray. these very mysterious. he's a lost soul and i think like so many assassins threaten american has tree, it isn't this magical explanation. he did it because he screwed up. he did it because his boss. he did it because he is taking literally some of the chatter he's hearing out in the airwaves from people like wallace. i think i should telemark at 13. after that, within the lure of the ray family, he was supposedly the ambitious plan.

the one who is going to do big things. he was a hustler, businessman. i don't know about his family. it was late darrell, my other brother darryl. not exactly a family you associate with them titian. but he was the one who is going to do the big things. those are some of the ways that come to think about why he did it. but it is fundamentally unanswerable question the big. yes, sir. >> if the a's are wise as he described in, why wouldn't you posted about having killed king? i am the one who killed this man. wouldn't that satisfy the care or you just described? >> you think. he did those some people. he was married briefly to a woman. there's always some women who gravitates towards someone on

death row. i don't know how that happened, but she married him and was in love with him and it visit in a year later he confess, yeah i killed the son of a then divorced him. he posted to several other people he had done it. but he also is a savvy stairways cared or who understood the way the law works. he loved the chase. i believe he left the -- orchestrating this big chase that went on for 65 days and essentially spent the rest of his time orchestrating of the goat cheese. you love sending out mixed signals and confounding people. there is a pressing shrink this idea that duping delight in this idea of where he was most happy was when he was confusing people and baffling people. people are trying to help him like his own lawyers. one of his lawyers told me in birmingham that you could always tell, you know, the only time you could tell when ray was

lining was when his lips are moving. and you know, it is so true. he sent out the signals throughout his whole career. i described him as kind of like a squid who sports out this cloud coming in now. you try to find out what is he saying quite as he lined? is he telling the truth? is there some part of what he's saying it's true? by 10 you think you've got an answer, is changed. he's gone, changed his name, location, story. he was a pathological liar. he went to his grave and in some ways he's chuckling now because people like me and others are trying to figure out what was he up to? cnl, yes, you think he would've posted to a lot more people than just sent in our circle of his. but in the end, no, the confusion that he put out into

the world was really what animated him and excited and am explain as much as we can understand him, his persona. and then another. >> it seems like it much as jayant curt hoover despised martin luther king after the assassination he was very, very committed to catch the assassin, that it was almost an affront to her that if anybody was going to destroy king and is going to be him. could you speak to that briefly collects >> yeah, i'll hoover hated king. there is no question about that. he and his field agents have done everything they could do to run hand in sabotage the movement and eavesdrop and all that stuff is absolutely true. you could read a whole book just on that subject of why he came

upset him so much and infuriated him so much. but once the assassination hot dance, the ei was under such an enormous amount of pressure to solve this case. pressure coming from lyndon johnson, pressure especially for ramsey clark, the attorney general of the united states who is a huge and ire of king and he was a response, though some say hoover didn't really have a bus. you have to remember that there were over 150 different riots going on around the country. i mean, this manhunt was going against a nation on fire essentially and people had to do me a note from the people it to realize no matter what political persuasions make the abyss donations have their, that solving this crime was of paramount national importance.

hoovered did not want to get involved at first. he wanted to be a local case at the memphis police department. tennessee, you know, authorities. but it became clear this was an international case, that the assassin had fled to another state. this is the biggest assassination that attacked in the kennedy. sevigny and it was really no question. once the fbi gets involved in the job they are supposed to be doing, namely solving crimes and doing police work and detective work, i found out he really did do their job. i mean, the level of police were on the level of sort of shoe leather that was expended, the man-hours, the thousands and thousand that were pursued in addition to the ones that pan out, the number of feature, the number of miles was the largest manhunt in american history up to that point. there is no question in my mind

that the fbi did their job. it was exciting in a way to see them doing this instead of trying to ruin king and his smooth and, they are actually trying. and an ironic way, this very agency that hated king was responsible for finding his killer. in the end is a great source of embarrassment that they didn't find him, but a scotland yard that got him. and you know, he didn't like to give him any credit for it. but that is hoover for you. yes, sir. >> thank you very matched. to what extent was this a well thought out plan versus i get a sense from talking on the presentation that he went out and bought a gun a few days before hand and went to buy the binoculars a few hours before

hand. this seems like i don't know what to do tonight. maybe i'll see a movie or go assassinate dr. king. >> there is an element of that. he reads a lot, plans a lot. he's capable of great methodical plot to us in breaking under maximum security prison. but it's also highly susceptible to the local news and what is going on. sabbagh expecting when he got to atlanta, got the slot past, he some maps of atlanta, not that was later found and entered into evidence and showed that he circled king's house, kings church, office. he was plotting king's world, but he was frustrated because he was never home. he was always struggling because he was coming up reports for the poor people's campaign. he became frustrated because i mike going to this? i've got to intersect in some