“But to kill him? For King to want to die? That’s extreme on both sides, wouldn’t you say?”
“It was a different time in so many ways. A white establishment truly existed then. Hoover existed. Blacks were just beginning to come out from under the clouds of segregation and discrimination. But only baby steps had been taken. Martin’s ability to mold public opinion had diminished. The FBI wanted, using Jansen’s words, to knock him off his pedestal. Before they could succeed, though, he found a way to get ahead of them. I know now that it was the correct path.”
I continued to stare at the reel-to-reel recorder and recalled what Valdez had said about meeting with Hoover. When the kill order had been issued.
Late January 1968.
Right in the correct time frame.
“There was something else that worked in our favor,” Foster said. “By March of ’68 public opinion on the Vietnam War had gone negative. A majority no longer supported the war. That’s when LBJ lost the New Hampshire primary to Eugene McCarthy and withdrew from the presidential race. Jansen was really concerned about that. He told me Martin’s opposition to the war might no longer be an obstacle. He might even be deemed prophetic. They were scared he could have a resurgence. Martin had me use that fear to move them forward with the assassination.”
“Which makes his death wish even more puzzling. He could have weathered the PR storm.”
“He’d fought the fight for a long time. He told me the fact that white people might decide that the war was bad for them would mean nothing for the oppression of the black and the poor. He might win on one front, but lose on the other. He believed his death would cut across all of that. And it did.”
I recalled what Foster had told Coleen.
I loved Martin Luther King Jr. like a father. I admired him more than any man I’d ever known. I still do to this day. I would have never betrayed him.
“You really didn’t betray him,” I said.
“I did exactly as he wanted.”
“Why did he choose you to do it?”
Foster stayed silent a moment.
Then he explained.
“It has to be you,” King said. “Andy, Jesse, Ralph have all been with me for so long. That fact alone would never allow them to be a part of this. They also each have their own agendas, their own paths to follow. They are good, determined men. The movement will need them in the future, and they’ll make a difference. But you, Ben. You are lost, and have been for a long time.”
“I can do great things, too.”
The indignation in his voice was hard to conceal.
“I agree, but there are many different ways in which to do great things. I don’t say this with any malice in my heart, nor with any ill intent. But you are not meant to be a leader of this movement. There are captains and there are lieutenants. You are the latter, so your fate will be different from the others’. You have a talent for people, a way of sensing what they think and telling them precisely what they want to hear. But, like me, you are flawed. You’re searching, Ben, looking for something in your life. Whether that will be in the pulpit of a church remains to be seen. Maybe this will help you find what it is you are searching for. You’ve done a good job keeping me pointed in the right direction. I’ve come to depend on your watchful eye. When I decided that it was time for me to meet God, you were the only one I would want to make that happen.”
“I wasn’t sure whether to be offended or honored,” Foster said. “He essentially called me a con man. But he was right. He knew me better than I knew myself. I could con the FBI because I’d spent my life conning others. I was good at it. Ralph, Andy, Jesse—none of them ever liked me. I was tolerated because Martin liked me. The day after the assassination Ralph told me that my services, as a traveling secretary, were no longer needed. He fired me.”
“None of them had any idea what really happened?”
He shook his head. “The old proverb is true. The buyer needs a hundred eyes, the seller but one. Thankfully, Jansen never looked close enough to realize he was being played. Martin used to say I was a little bit of a lion, but more a fox.”
I grinned.
“The FBI cut me loose after Martin died, too. They gave me the coin and told me to disappear. That’s when I decided to go back to preaching. By then I’d changed. I was a different person. Martin’s death made me someone else entirely. A new man, one I came to embrace and like.”
I needed more details so I decided to probe. “Why in Memphis?”
“Martin didn’t want it to happen in Atlanta. That would be too close to his family. He also wanted to die at a dramatic moment. His death had to mean something. Memphis seemed the perfect place. Tensions were high. The danger real. Looking back, it seems that fate was working with us the whole time. The night of April 3, before he went to sleep, he told me to set it up for the next day at 6:00 p.m. He said he would make sure he was out on the balcony at the Lorraine for several minutes. The perfect target. So I told Jansen where and when and to be ready if the opportunity presented itself. Of course, I knew that it would.”
I could only imagine the courage that had taken.
“There was a big rally scheduled for the night of the third at the Masonic Temple. The weather was bad. Rain, with a threat of tornadoes. Martin was battling a cold and was a little depressed, as you might imagine, so he opted not to go. Abernathy went instead to address the crowd, but they wanted Martin. They chanted for Martin. So Ralph called the Lorraine. Martin was already asleep. I answered the phone and, at Ralph’s insistence, went to wake him. He was really moved that so many people wanted him to be there, so he dressed and we both went over to the temple.”
I was amazed listening to history, seen through Foster’s eyes, ingrained in his memory.
“When we got there a huge thunderstorm erupted. Rain pounded the roof. Thunder clapped. It was almost biblical, like a sound effect from a movie. Martin took the pulpit and the place went dead silent. Keep in mind he hadn’t intended on coming, so he’d prepared no remarks. He spoke straight from the heart. It was nearly a year to the day since he’d denounced the war and started a public free fall. The last year of his life was about over. He already knew that a white man would gun him down at 6:00 p.m. the next day. Have you ever studied what he said that night? What they now call the Mountaintop Speech.”
I shook my head.
Foster stood from the table and left the room for a moment, returning with a book containing the published works of Martin Luther King Jr.
He opened to the right page and passed it to me.
I read.
Chapter Sixty
Something is happening in Memphis.
Something is happening in our world.
And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?” Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, “If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.”
Now that’s a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around.
That’s a strange statement.
But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.
Something is happening in our world.
The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today the cry is always the same. We want to be free. Now, I’m just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period to see what is unfolding.
And I’m happy that He’s allowed me to be in Memphis.