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…
# OGC 76-5403

## MEMORANDUM FOR

: Associate Deputy Director for Administration Attn: Chief, Security Analysis Group, OS Director of Personnel

Associate Deputy Director for Science and Technology Associate Deputy Director for Operations Attn: ISS/IP/EIS

D/DCI/Intelligence Community

D/DCI/for National Intelligence Officers

Legislative Counsel

Inspector General

Executive Secretary

FROM : Richard H. Lansdale Associate General Counsel

## SUBJECT

: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

1. At the Attorney General's direction, a task force was established in May 1976 by the Office of Professional Responsibility of the Justice Department to review the activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in relation to the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., his assassination and the Bureau's investigation of that murder.

2. Pursuant to the Attorney General's directive, Justice is canvassing those investigative agencies of the Government which might have been contacted by the FBI to secure or deliver information for intelligence, for investigative assistance (before or after the assassination), or for any form of counterintelligence action in relation to Dr. King.

3. It is requested that a check be made of your records to determine the extent and nature of any contacts with CIA by the FBI in regard to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

4. . DoJ has expressed some urgency in responding to their request. Therefore, please advise this Office of the results of your search at your earliest convenience, but no later than close of business, 21 October 1976.

Richard H. Lansdale

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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.