Documents / FOIA release

FOIA on Martin Luther King

Central Intelligence Agency · 2025-06-12 · 295 pages · text by OCR

This Central Intelligence Agency FOIA release, dated 2025-06-12, collects 1976 CIA paperwork on Harold Weisberg's request (76-F-382) for records on Martin Luther King, Jr. It includes routing slips, an Operations Staff memorandum listing releasable press items and exempt cables, dispatches and memoranda, and a CI Staff reply citing a 1968 Office of Security memo on Coretta Scott King. It also contains a 16 May 1968 memo to the FBI reporting that Gerald Lee Richards, investigated in Japan, did not resemble suspect James Earl Ray.

  • p. 167 …mysterious autopsy photographs which the Warren Commission never saw—do they support the Commission's lone…
  • p. 169 …The Kent State incident had never been fully cleared up. But one subject seemed to loom…
  • p. 170 …I worked there years and never saw or heard any-suggesting the Agency was involved assassination…
  • p. 171 …There was occasional stress, but it never reached the high level I was finding in the…
  • p. 172 …The bullets never gained perfectly intact, as the one found the stretcher, they became twisted lumps…
  • p. 173 …The word "never" was a perfectly "trimmed hedge." "I have found nothing since that time." he…
  • p. 206 …and documents were destroyed through some catastrophe never resumed business or were permanently closed down within…
  • p. 250 …mysterious autopsy photographs which the Warren Commission never saw—do they support the Commission's lone…
  • p. 252 …The Kent State incident had never been fully cleared up. But one subject seemed to loom…
  • p. 253 …I worked there three years and never saw or heard anying suggesting the Agency was involved…
  • p. 254 …There was occasional stress, but it never reached the high level I was finding in the…
  • p. 255 …The bullets never mained perfectly intact, as the one found in the stretcher; they became twisted…
  • p. 256 …The word "never" was a perfectly "trimmed hedge." I have found nothing since that time." he…
  • p. 291 …Union member on 21 February 1968 but never shipped out. His Social Security Number is 562…
Mr. Gene F. Wilson Information and Privacy Coordinator Central Intelligence Agency Washington, D. C. 20505

Dear Mr. Wilson:

In response to your letter of November 30, 1976, Mr. Harold Weisberg has authorized me to state his willingness to pay search and copying charges up to the amount of $1,000 if such charges are required by his Freedom of Information Act request for records pertaining to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his assassination. Because you require a down payment of half the anticipated charges, I enclose a check for $500.00:

## C.I.A. regulations provide:

This payment of $500.00 and any subsequent payments made in connection with this request are tendered with the express reservation that Mr. Weisberg does not waive his right to recover them.

Records shall be furnished without charge or at a reduced rate whenever the Coordinator determines that waiver or reduction of the charge is in the public interest because furnishing the information can be considered as primarily benefiting the general public. The Coordinator also may waive or reduce the charge whenever he determines that the interest of the government would be served thereby. 32 C.F.R. $ \langle 1900.25(a) $ .

In accordance with this regulation, I call upon you to determine that it is in the public and governmental interest to waive search and copying charges incurred in connection with Mr. Weisberg's request. Enclosed herein is a copy of a letter to Deputy Attorney General Harold R. Tyler, Jr. which makes a similar request of the Department of Justice. The reasons expressed in that letter for granting a waiver are incorporated in my request that you grant a waiver.

Should you require it, I will provide you with affidavits by myself, Mr. Weisberg, and others in support of this request for a waiver of the search and copying charges for these records. If you do wish supporting affidavits, I would appreciate it if you would

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About this file

FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 295 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.