Republican Senator Strom Thurmond encouraged FBI to build case against Martin Luther King, memo reveals

U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond and his staff tried to get the FBI to build a case against civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 on the grounds that King was "controlled by communists," according to a recently released FBI memo on the late senator from South Carolina. The memo shows Thurmond's attempt to marry two causes dear to him - fighting communism and defeating civil rights. On Monday, the FBI released a portion of Thurmond's FBI file - nearly 600 pages of sometimes heavily edited memos, letters and other documents. The file details a long, secret and mutually beneficial relationship between Thurmond and the FBI. Another 1,700 pages remain to be released. The documents were released in response to requests by The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C. Thurmond wasn't the only conservative politician who tried to paint the civil rights movement's leaders as "red." But the FBI memo plumbs the depths of Thurmond's aversion to desegregation. And with other pages in the now-public file, it shows how much of Thurmond's politics was dedicated to fighting the "Red Menace." Thurmond, an iconic figure in Southern political history and an ardent segregationist who later publicly embraced his black constituents, was willing to go to great lengths to vilify King in the 1960s. The Sept. 15, 1965, memo, written by Cartha "Deke" DeLoach, a top deputy to then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, recounts a meeting in the senator's office that was supposed to include Thurmond; instead, Thurmond was represented by aides. One Thurmond aide, according to the FBI memo, said the senator wanted King to be exposed as a communist. DeLoach's memo recounts the aide "stated that it was widely understood that King was controlled by communists in this country." The aide, whose name the FBI edited out of the memo, also reportedly asked DeLoach "if there was a concerted effort on the part of the FBI to discredit King." DeLoach wrote that he responded that "such matters were beyond our jurisdiction." It was later revealed that the FBI indeed had tried to discredit King by secretly wiretapping his telephone and leaking information to reporters and others. [more]