Was Malcolm X Betrayed By an African American CIA Agent Posing as a Mozambican Freedom Fighter?

From [HERE] Surveillance of Black Americans, especially those viewed as subversives, has been an enduring process for U.S. governmental agencies. Whether defined as the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOJ, the State Department, or other law enforcement agencies, a close watch on the words and deeds of militant or radical Black Americans has been an active endeavor at least since the dawn of the twentieth century. Long before eavesdropping or wiretapping were the usual means of keeping tabs on subversives, agents were busy spying on and compiling dossiers on individuals who would later be added to the government’s “enemies list.” 

Malcolm X believed he was on this list and that he was being intensely pursued and shadowed by the government. A few years after his assassination on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights, it was disclosed that his organizations—the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity—were polluted by undercover cops. Even so, to date there has been no deep-dive into Malcolm and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), though there appears to be extensive coverage and lengthy dossiers available in their files, some of which Don and I obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. 

Such a study or book we thought would be a logical extension of Malcolm X: The FBI File,compiled by Clayborne Carson, edited by David Gallen with an introduction by Spike Lee. The CIA is mentioned only once in the book in which it summarizes a four-page memorandum from the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), dated in the summer of 1965. Basically the memo states that Malcolm, since his break with the Nation of Islam and his travels to Africa, had become a growing threat “all of which was reason for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to want MALCOLM X to be assassinated.”1 

If there is any credibility to an article by Paul Meskil of the New York World-Telegram published four days after Malcolm’s assassination, the leader was not killed by Muslims “but by persons who thought he knew too much about a Harlem dope racket with supply lines stretching to Cuba and Red China,” Meskil wrote, adding that Malcolm was furious that the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) had been infiltrated by “pro-Peking fanatics” and peddling dope in Harlem.

The gunmen who killed Malcolm were clearly black but they, according to CORE’s (Congress of Racial Equality) leader James Farmer, were not Muslims. He believed the assassination, as well as the subsequent fire-bombing of the mosque, were distractions to cover up “a much more sinister plot,” Meskil concluded.  How much Malcolm knew about drug trafficking at that time and his interest in ending it remains unknown.    

According to Meskil, several of Malcolm’s top lieutenants had been informed of the flow of cocaine and other drugs from China to Cuba to be dispensed in the U.S. and speculated that Malcolm was possibly on the verge of revealing who they were when he was gunned down.2

Meskil cited what he called a reliable report under investigation by the FBI and the CIA that, “the Reds paid at least part of the tab for Malcolm’s tours of Africa, Europe and the Middle East.”3  Was Malcolm concerned that his leadership role was being undermined and sabotaged by the Reds, as Meskil concludes, thus preparing to expose them?  That question as well as where Meskil got his information have never been answered.  And who was Paul Meskil? We know he was a highly respected journalist with the New York Daily News until 1991 and was an expert on the Cosa Nostra, who he configured into his story about the Reds in Harlem and their threat to overtake their drug operation. Meskil, 82, died in Sarasota, Florida, on Oct. 11, 2006. [MORE]