Washington Post Mag -The Arrest that charged the world

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THE 1960 JAILING OF MARTIN LLI'l 11ER KING JR . PU T

THE KENNEDYS IN THE WHITE HOUSE . A BEHIND-THESCENES LOOK FROM A NEW BOOK BY TAYLOR BRANC H

Why Washington Is in a Texas State of Mind

In 1960, JFK had a problem : how to appeal to black voters without becoming the first Democrat in more than 100 years to lose the Solid South .

The arrest of Martin Luthe r King Jr. handed him the key

By TAYLOR BRANC H

i

N 1960 THE COUNTRY EXHIB -

ited a mood of tranquil optimism . As the bitterness of the McCarthy years faded , the United States continued to build it s "economic miracle" through an unbroke n generation, with no sign of slowdown i n sight . Americans had licked polio . Cance r was next . A majority of employees wore white collars, and economists puzzled over the enigma of surplus, wonderin g what else people could want . Automobile s were everywhere, and those who turned on their car radios were most likely to hear the strings of the Percy Faith orchestra playing the winsome "Theme From a Summer Place," the No. 1 son g that spring .

Building all through the year—lai d down along the heart of the culture some where between the threats of holocaus t and the gurgle of pop entertainment — was the presidential campaign . The con test for the Democratic nomination drew a host of candidates, each of whom wa s perceived to have a fatal flaw. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson enjoyed the support of nearly every leading Democra t in Congress, but he and everyone else knew that no pure southerner had ru n successfully for president in more than a hundred years . Adlai Stevenson, the best known Democrat, was a two-time loser t o Eisenhower . Senator Hubert Humphre y of Minnesota was not very well known,

De Otis un ton Post illaga3ine

and his reputation as a champion of civi l rights and labor unions was thought t o confine the range of his appeal . Senato r John Kennedy of Massachusetts bega n with a limited political network as a result of his run for the vice presidency at th e 1956 convention, but he was young an d he was Roman Catholic .

Early bickering among the Democrat s seemed to work to the advantage of Vic e President Nixon . Possessed of broade r experience than any of the Democrats , and with the mantle of Eisenhower at least formally on his shoulders, Nixon wa s shrewd enough to warn against the sort of complacency that had led to Dewey' s upset by Truman in 1948 . Theirs was still a minority party, he kept reminding hi s supporters, and he was not Eisenhower .

"Anyone who does not recognize that w e are in for the fight of our lives must b e smoking opium," he told Nebraska Republicans .

Kennedy eliminated Humphrey fro m the race by winning early primaries i n Wisconsin (next door to Humphrey' s home state) and in the Protestant stronghold of West Virginia . The unannounce d candidates grumbled that Kennedy's wit and glamour were seducing the party to ward defeat, and the leading Democrat s looked on the new front-runner with distaste . Only two senators endorsed him fo r the nomination . Eleanor Roosevelt continued to campaign for Stevenson, makin g scathing remarks about Kennedy as a puppet of his millionaire father and a coward in the battle against McCarthyism .

(Kennedy had been the only Democratic senator who neither voted for nor announced his support of the historic censure resolution against McCarthy in 1954 .)

Race played a large role in the campaign, less because of the civil rights movement than because the polls were

showing the Negro vote to be divided an d volatile . The candidates competed in tensely for Negro votes, but they tried t o do so in ways that would generate as littl e controversy as possible among whites .

Kennedy's insecurities peaked when h e allowed a campaign aide to talk him int o attending an NAACP dinner, only to hav e Jackie Robinson refuse to have his pictur e taken with Kennedy. Stung and embarrassed, Kennedy left, saying he thought Robinson was for Humphrey . This was true, he learned, but Robinson considere d himself a Republican for Humphrey, and if Humphrey did not win the nomination , the forrner Dodger star might suppor t Nixon. Hard on this intelligence came the rumor that even NAACP head Roy Wilkins felt misgivings about Kennedy .

"We're in trouble with the Negroes," sai d campaign manager Robert Kennedy . He assigned Harris Wofford, a white lawye r who had known the Rev . Martin Luthe r King Jr . since the days of the Montgomery, Ala ., bus boycott, to work full time o n the Negro vote .

Senator Kennedy himself was so alarmed by his lack of feel for race politic s that he decided to investigate personally .

One night late in May, he carved a hole i n his campaign schedule, jettisoned his retinue of advisers and instructed his drive r to wait for him outside Harry Belafonte' s apartment building on New York's West End Avenue . After thanking Belafonte fo r agreeing to the hastily arranged visit , Kennedy came straight to the point . H e said he knew Belafonte was for Steven son . That was all right, he could under stand it . But Kennedy was looking ahea d to the fall campaign against Nixon . H e was worried about Jackie Robinson, an d he had two favors to ask . Could Belafont e explain to him how someone like Jacki e Robinson could ever endorse Nixon fo r president, and would Belafonte conside r organizing Negro stars for Kennedy t o offset the political damage of Robinson's likely defection ?

Belafonte made small talk as he absorbed the many surprises of his first fe w seconds with Kennedy—the candidate' s assumption so early in the contest that h e would win the nomination, his sharp intuition that Jackie Robinson was a politica l problem that he must address forcefully , his capacity to ask penetrating question s and request brash favors under cover o f his charm . Belafonte replied that he coul d understand why Robinson and othe r prominent Negroes did not prefer Kennedy . Kennedy was an unknown to them , without friendships or even acquaintances, and he had no record of sympath y with the cause of civil rights . Belafont e confessed, however, that he had no bette r idea than Kennedy why Jackie Robinso n might endorse Nixon . He considered 18

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Nixon anathema for his role as a leader o f the McCarthy witch-hunts, during whic h W .E.B . Du Bois had been arrested, Paul Robeson driven from the country, and Belafonte himself partially blacklisted . On civil liberties grounds alone, said Belafonte, he would do everything he could to help Kennedy defeat Nixon, if Kenned y won the nomination . In the course of the long strategy session that followed, Belafonte recommended above all that Kennedy establish a close relationship wit h Martin Luther King Jr .

"Why do you see him as so important? " Kennedy asked . "What can he do? " Belafonte paused . It was clear to him that Kennedy saw King as an unfamilia r preacher who had once led a bus boycott in Alabama and was now facing trial o n income tax charges . Belafonte tried to explain to Kennedy his belief that the Negro vote no longer could be contested o n the basis of popularity, because civil rights was building to the status of a sacred cause . He said he was not a religiou s man himself but had seen and felt King' s impact . "Forget me," he advised Kennedy . "Forget Jackie Robinson and every body else we've been talking about . If yo u can join the cause of King, and be counseled by him, then you'll have an allianc e that will make the difference . " Kennedy made no commitments an d disclosed no plans . At the end of nearl y three hours' discussion, he made his wa y back downstairs to his car . Belafont e called King almost immediately with a report on Kennedy, whom he described as unschooled and unemotional but very quick . He recommended that King mak e every effort to get to know Kennedy .

King was receiving the same advice fro m Harris Wofford.

Wofford operated from an unadvantageous position within the Kennedy campaign . He held what was traditionally a separate and minor portfolio in nationa l political campaigns, tasked with "gettin g out the black vote" by whatever possibl e means . Although Sargent Shriver, his immediate boss, was married to a siste r of John and Robert Kennedy, Shriver wa s merely an in-law, teased for being to o liberal .

It was all Wofford could do to schedule a meeting between Kennedy and King, a s Belafonte had suggested . This was finally arranged for breakfast on June 23, in th e New York apartment of Kennedy's father .

It turned out to be a hurried introductio n and a general talk . All Kennedy had to say afterward was that he felt he had "made some progress" in winning King's sup port . King told Wofford that the meetin g had been pleasant but that Kennedy lacked a "depthed understanding" of the civil rights issue .

Shortly after meeting King, Kennedy

made his most direct campaign statemen t on the lunch-counter sit-ins, telling a group of African diplomats that "it is in the American tradition to stand up fo r one's rights—even if the new way t o stand up for one's rights is to sit down . " The comments may have been partiall y the result of King's lobbying, but Kennedy seemed to aim them more pointedl y at Jackie Robinson . A week after the Kin g breakfast, Kennedy held a summit meeting with Robinson, the result of whic h was a publicly released letter from Kennedy promising full support for Negro rights . Robinson told reporters that h e was "not nearly as critical as I have been, " but he stopped short of endorsing Kennedy .

Nixon came out of the convention wit h a lead over Kennedy in the polls . Privately, Eisenhower criticized him for choosin g U .N . Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge a s his running mate . Lodge was too libera l on civil rights and too genteel to be an effective campaigner, thought Eisenhower, who had lobbied for a rich Texan an d for a general on the grounds that they ha d proven they could manage dollars an d people in the millions .

King, meanwhile, had returned hom e to Atlanta thinking there was not muc h difference between Kennedy and Nixon on civil rights . King was inclined to b e neutral in the fall election.

N THE KENNEDY CAMPAIGN

staff, the civil rights people kept a profile in keeping with their issue—low and tucked away . Campaign manager Rober t Kennedy put them in a K Street offic e building, physically separated from the national headquarters on Connecticut Avenue, and there was much internal controversy over the desire of Shriver and Wofford to call their section the "Office o f Civil Rights . " For Shriver and Wofford, the status o f their office was further diminished by unseemly infighting between two Negr o groups within the campaign competin g for stationery privileges, office space and public visibility with the candidate .

To mediate the dispute, then supplant the rivals, Shriver appealed to Louis Mar tin . He was no ordinary fixer. Hard headed, fun-loving and rich, he ha d bought and sold insurance companies , founded a newspaper in Michigan, pre sided over the Negro Newspaper Association and worked in presidential campaigns since 1944 . Shriver admired hi s bluntness so much that he asked wha t Martin recommended as the single most

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On the Kennedy campaign staff, th e civil rights people kept a profile i n keeping with their issue low an d tucked away.

The president-elect and Adam Clayton Powell Jr ., below, confer in November 1960. Powell was recruited to make 10 campaign speeches for Kennedy a t $5,000 each in an effort to counteract Jackie Robinson's support of Nixon .

Kennedy's kitchen cabinet advisers, top righ t watching network coverage of the 196 0 Democratic convention, were divided about how t o approach civil rights issues . Louis Martin, top left , and Harris Wofford, middle left, in the campaign' s civil rights office, tried to align Kennedy wit h Martin Luther King Jr ., but aides worried abou t offending white voters . The candidate and his campaign manager, Robert F . Kennedy, above , consult during the convention in Los Angeles .

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important step the Kennedy campaig n Powell himself, and that the elaborately could take to win Negro votes. "Well, a s described infrastructure was a sham . He an old newspaper man I may be preju- and Jones quickly established a flinty, addiced," Martin replied . "But I think you've versarial rapport that enabled them to got to go after the Negro newspapers. reach a tentative agreement on the su m They lynched [Sen. John] Sparkman an d of $50,000 for 10 Powell endorsemen t [Sen . Estes] Kefauver as southerners , speeches . and they'll lynch Lyndon Johnson th e Powell ratified the arrangement on hi s same way if you don't do something about return from the Mediterranean . Every it . And I know those papers aren't going thing was in place before the two-day Nato do a damn thing for you unless you pa y tional Conference on Constitutional us some money . " Rights opened in Harlem on October 11 , Shriver recognized instantly that Mar - 1960, at which Senator Humphrey, Eltin understood the inner workings of th e eanor Roosevelt and some 400 civil right s Negro world in a way that could be com- leaders gathered to prepare a report on municated effectively to Robert Kennedy , how a Democratic president should apLawrence O'Brien, Byron (Whizzer) proach the civil rights issue . Senator KenWhite and the other insiders of the Ken- nedy drew cheers with a declaration tha t nedy campaign . Martin knew how to President Eisenhower should have called transfer the money safely—through th e such a conference six years earlier, after purchase of advertising space—and h e the Supreme Court decision on Brown v. seemed to know precisely how muc h the Board of Education, and more cheer s money each editor needed to temper hi s with his bold campaign promise to end rahostility toward Lyndon Johnson . cial discrimination in federally subsidize d Shriver decided that Martin was a god - housing by presidential executive order , send . From the day he first talked wit h "with the stroke of a pen ." Caught up i n Martin about the campaign job, he did no t the euphoria of the moment, he declare d rest until he had persuaded him to mov e that racial freedom was an American idea , to Washington . not a Russian one . He shouted out that i n Louis Martin did not always produc e Africa there were no children named Lemiracles, however, as glaringly demon- nin or Marx or Stalin, or, for that matter , strated by his failure to obtain Jackie Rob- Richard Nixon . All this brought roars o f inson's endorsement for Kennedy . As approval . "But there are children calle d Senator Kennedy had feared months ear- Thomas Jefferson! There may be a coupl e lier, the most widely admired living Ne- called Adam Clayton Powell! " gro announced his support for Nixon early "Careful, Jack," Powell called out devin September . Robinson went on the road ilishly from behind, and a peal of laughte r almost full time to campaign for the Re - went up in tribute to Powell's playboy publican ticket . Inside the Kennedy cam- reputation .

Ten days later, the announcement o f paign, this was a disaster that grabbe d the attention of the advisers close to th e Powell's divorce became the biggest stocandidate . To them, the single most im- ry in the Negro press . Kennedy's adviser s portant endorsement after Robinson were delaying the release of the promised would be Adam Clayton Powell . Since the report from the big civil rights conferDemocratic convention in Los Angeles , ence, and Martin Luther King Jr ., unexCongressman Powell had been cruising on pectedly, was in jail . a yacht in the Mediterranean amid well founded reports in the Negro press that he was laying plans to divorce singer Hazel Scott, his second wife . From hi s cruise, which lasted nearly 2'/2 months , Powell sent radiophone instructions for a n emissary to open negotiations with th e N WASHINGTON, THE PRESKennedy people . The emissary made his sure of a presidential election only thre e way to Shriver, who discerned that remu- weeks away was weighing on Louis Mar neration in the form of hard cash was in- tin and Harris Wofford. The Kenned y volved . A hasty series of meetings among campaign as a whole was scoring on th e top Kennedy aides produced a decision to race issue at the expense of Henry Cabot pass off the negotiations to Louis Martin .

Lodge, Nixon's running mate . Lodge , When Powell's emissary, Ray Jones , caught up in the spirit of a Harlem rall y laid out the terms—$300,000 cash in ad- just after Kennedy's, had either promise d vance to buy a complete, nationwide Pow - or predicted that a Nixon administration ell organization for turning out the Negro would appoint a Negro to the Cabinet . vote—Martin laughed out loud, as if to Senator Kennedy pounced on this stateremind Jones that he was not dealing wit h ment as "racism at its worst ." He and some skittish white novice . Martin knew Lyndon Johnson each pledged that a Kenthat there would never be any nationwid e nedy administration would not consider organization, that the money was for race or religion at all in Cabinet appoint20

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ments—they would consider only "qualifications ." Although the episode worke d to Kennedy's advantage, Wofford an d Martin winced at the underlying realit y that this was really a pitch to white voters . Lodge had given Kennedy and John son a safe way to attack the Republican s for excessive sympathy for Negroes.

Wofford and Martin searched for a n offsetting gesture to Negro voters . Martin's constant refrain at the office wa s "Let's get all our horses on the track!"— newspapers, the NAACP, churches, Powell, Negro celebrities . One horse not quite on the Kennedy track was King . Althoug h King told Wofford and Martin that h e could not formally endorse either candidate, he had been hinting at a willingnes s to say something favorable about Kennedy's commitment to civil rights if Kennedy would do something mildly dramatic to justify it . What King had in mind wa s for Kennedy to visit him, possibly at a Southern Christian Leadership Conference meeting in the South. In an era o f unenforced court decisions and showcas e civil rights planks, it would mean almos t nothing for King and Kennedy to meet i n New York or Chicago, but it would mea n a great deal in Atlanta or Montgomery .

King talked by phone with Martin an d Wofford about various cities and particula r statements . The Kennedy men, knowing that they would have to sell any propose d deal to hostile superiors, tried to talk Kin g into a compromise city such as Louisvill e or St . Louis. They argued that King should be flexible on the city because he wa s refusing to give an outright endorsement .

While bargaining, Martin warned King tha t major civil rights demonstrations before the election would almost certainly rui n any possible agreement . Demonstration s were anathema to Kennedy campaig n strategists, who did not want to remin d Negro voters in the North that Kenned y was aligned with the same southern Democrats who would repress the demonstrators . Demonstrations would make it impossible for Kennedy to meet with some one like King . Opinion polls alread y showed that Kennedy might become th e first Democrat to lose the South in mor e than a hundred years .

One day while King was negotiatin g with Wofford, he was approached by Stu dent Non-Violent Coordinating Committee members at his parents' home, wher e Mother King nearly always had some turnip greens on the stove . He was munching the greens, dipping bread into th e juice, while the students pressed him t o participate in a demonstration, sayin g they were ready to move within 48 hours .

Daddy King burst into the kitchen wearing a glower of disapproval . "MI., you don't need to go!" he said urgently . "Thi s is the students, not you . "

Police and store officials confront students, left, at one o f the eight segregated lunch counters in Atlanta where 8 0 demonstrators requested service on Oct. 19, 1960 .

Although King did not want to go to jail, he told the judge, `I cannot accept bond. I will stay in jail one year , or 10 years.'

Martin Luther King Jr ., above, leaves Rich's Department Store in Atlanta on Oct . 19, 1960 , after being arrested during a restaurant sit-in . King asked to be served in the store's fancy Magnolia Room, where the board chairman of Rich's personally interceded .

UHRBROCK / LIFE MAGAZINE

King, front row, thir d from right, and students arrested during sit-i n demonstrations await hearing before Judge lames E . Webb . Kin g subsequently refuse d $500 bond and made a nervous courtroo m oration in which he asked the judge to vacate the charges against him . Web b refused, and King wa s hustled off to spend hi s first 'night in jail .

OC"fOBER 23 . 1988

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Daddy King scattered the students lik e bowling pins . King put up his usual sof t defense against his father's arguments , agreeing whenever he could . Soon the students circled back to renew their pep talks. All the while, King took phone calls from Wofford in Washington . At one point, Wofford thought he had clearanc e to offer a Kennedy-King meeting in Nashville, which was "southern enough" for King but "too southern," as it turned out , for Kennedy's top strategists . Wofford then called King to offer Miami instead of Nashville . King was not very happy abou t the switch . Wofford repeated the Kennedy arguments that Miami was a "Dee p South city," but he did not do so forcefully . He said it was the best he could do .

King thought it over, then told Woffor d that one reason he was inclined to accep t Miami was that it would overlap with the student demonstration boiling up in Atlanta . "I don't want to have to be there," he said . Wofford replied that the Kennedy people would not be happy to hear of a demonstration whether King was there o r not . King said he had tried to get the students to delay the new sit-in until afte r the election, but his heart was not in it .

Wofford understood this . His firm Gandhian belief in civil disobedience occasionally shined through his corporate lawye r persona .

"I'll do it," King told Wofford . "But you should tell Mr . Kennedy that I will be obliged to issue a pro forma invitation to Mr . Nixon . " Wofford's heart sank . "Do you really feel you have to do that?" he asked .

"Yes," said King . "I don't think Mr .

Nixon will accept, but I have to give hi m the chance . " When Wofford hung up, he decided that this latest twist was something h e should take directly to Senator Kenned y himself, if possible, because his aides would certainly shoot it down . He squeezed in a minute or two with Kennedy, who was getting ready to leave for Miami, to explain the condition of a parallel invitation to Nixon . "The hell with that," Kennedy replied instantly . "Nixon might be smart enough to accept. If he does, I lose votes . I'm taking a much greater risk in the South than Nixon, bu t King wants to treat us as equals . Tell him it's off. " The next day, Tuesday, October 18 , Daddy King joined the leadership of th e Atlanta Baptist Ministers Union in an endorsement of the Nixon-Lodge ticket .

These were the city's senior Negroes , men who had grown up with a loyalty to the "party of Lincoln" and whose statu s within their community as relatively big businessmen reinforced that identity . And there was an additional factor binding them as conservative Baptists to the Re 22

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publicans : Kennedy's Catholic faith .

Also that day, Atlanta student movement leader Lonnie C . King called his pastor at Ebenezer Church to make a fina l plea for the demonstration . "You are the spiritual leader of the movement, and you were born in Atlanta, Georgia," he told King . "And I think it might add tremendous impetus if you would go . " "Where are you going to go tomorrow , L .C .?" asked King .

"I'm going to be on the bridge down a t Rich's . " "Well, I'll meet you on the bridge to morrow at 10 o'clock," said King .

E

IGHTY DEMONSTRATORS ,

their watches synchronized, requeste d service in eight different segregated establishments at precisely 11 o'clock th e next morning . King's group was refuse d service at a snack bar in the covere d bridge that connected buildings of th e Rich's Department Store complex . Company officials did not ask the foregathere d police officers to make arrests, however , and the demonstrators then took an elevator to the sixth-floor Magnolia Room , the store's most elegant restaurant .

There the board chairman of Rich's interceded personally. Failing to persuad e the demonstrators to leave, he had the m arrested under a state anti-trespass law.

King was first to speak in court tha t night before Judge James E . Webb, wh o set bond at $500 pending trial . "I cannot accept bond," said King . "I will stay in jai l one year, or 10 years ." In a brief, nervous courtroom oration, King explained that h e did not want to go to jail, nor to "upse t peace," but that his decision to choose jai l was in accord with the principles of a movement that went "far beyond" dinin g room segregation . He urged the judge to vacate the charges . When Webb refused , King was hustled off to spend the firs t night of his life behind bars . Thirty-five students followed him in quick succession .

Tension gave way to euphoria shortly after the new prisoners found themselve s in a special cell block of the county jail, i n the care of Negro guards who supplie d games, books and phone messages . The first meal they received in prison—stea k smothered in onions—confirmed tha t these particular prisoners had been marked for favorable treatment . The students, realizing that the worst was over , turned with enthusiasm to the task of creating a communal regimen that would se e them through weeks, even months, in jai l together .

Boredom had no chance to penetrate

the cell block . News filtered in hourly about how their arrest was gripping th e city of Atlanta and beyond . Mayor Willia m Hartsfield was holding meetings. Atlant a Police Chief Herbert Jenkins was giving the demonstrations his personal attention .

Reporters counted as many as 2,000 Negro student picketers around segregate d targets on Thursday, the second day .

On Friday, jail authorities allowed Kin g and student leaders to hold a press inter view, at which King spoke quietly, almost shyly, about his reasons for joining the student protest . "I had to practice what I preached," he said .

The sense of crisis returned in new form when jail officials notified Negro lawyers that they had received a benc h warrant ordering them to hold King on other charges . Cries of betrayal went up.

The warrant was issued on the authority of a judge in neighboring De Kalb County .

The previous May, King and his wife, Loretta, had driven writer Lillian Smith t o the hospital there for her cancer treatments, and a De Kalb policeman ha d stopped them for questioning—as wa s frequently done when patrol officers spotted interracial groups of travelers . Th e officer, finding that King was still drivin g on his Alabama license some thre e months after moving to Georgia, ha d charged him with the misdemeanor of driving without a proper permit, an d Judge Oscar Mitchell had given King a 12-month sentence, which he suspended , plus a $25 fine . Now Judge Mitchell aske d Fulton County to keep King in jail pendin g a hearing on whether the Rich's arres t violated the terms of his suspended sentence in the May traffic case .

At the hearing Mitchell revoked King' s probation and ordered him to serve four months at hard labor on a state roa d gang, beginning immediately . Mitchel l denied a motion for bond and ordere d sheriff's deputies to take King away .

Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver' s press spokesman praised Mitchell's decision. "I think the maximum sentence for Martin Luther King might do him som e good," he said .

At the SCLC, Wyatt Tee Walker spread the alarm by telephone in advance of the headlines . He forgot partisanship , protest and even segregation, believing that the only issue now was King's life .

The road gang meant cutthroat inmate s and casually dismissed murders . King had to be freed or he would be dead.

In Washington, Harris Wofford responded to the news that same day by drafting a dignified statement of protest for Senator Kennedy to make . His draft was promptly buffeted around inside th e Washington campaign headquarters an d over the wires to the Chicago suburbs , where Kennedy was making speeches .

Inevitably, phone calls buzzed down int o Georgia and back by the dozens and Wofford was soon hearing that Governor Van diver had promised to get King out of jai l on the condition that Kennedy make n o public statement . Vandiver wanted t o send out a strong, clear signal of segregationist resolve in Georgia . The governor and his allies won the quick round o f infighting with the Kennedy campaign , which earned the loser, Harris Wofford, a quick mollifying call from Senator Kennedy that night . "What we want most is t o get King out, isn ' t it? " Kennedy asked.

These and countless other phone calls went on until after midnight . By then , King and eight other prisoners had divided up the bunks inside a crowded cell a t the De Kalb County jail, and King ha d dropped off to sleep, only to be wakene d by a voice calling, "King! Get up!" Grabbing his suit, King stumbled out into th e hands of sheriff's deputies, who wordlessly handcuffed and shackled him . He was led clanking through the cell block ou t into the night, then deposited inside a police car .

King's attorney, Donald Hollowell , called the jail just before 8 o'clock tha t Wednesday morning to advise authorities that he was on the way with a writ of habeas corpus . King, he was told, ha d been transferred to Reidsville, a maximum-security prison . Hollowell recoile d in shock . His news swept through Negr o Atlanta within the hour, and the alar m calls went out again . Coretta King was nearly hysterical by the time she reache d Wofford . No one had any idea what woul d happen next .

These developments further undermined Harris Wofford's faith in Vandiver's promise to release King . A fe w retellings of the Reidsville story reveale d to them, however, that the Negro an d white perceptions of the event wer e growing ever further apart . Those wh o identified with King felt the terror of th e shackles and the tough cops, the quic k bang of the gavel and the unschedule d nighttime ride 230 miles out into rura l Georgia. Those with more detachmen t saw the case as a matter of southern ignorance that would be reversed sooner o r later, and to them the issue of how an d when King was transferred to Reidsvill e was relatively unimportant . Prominen t Democratic lawyer Morris Abram argued that King actually was safer at Reidsvill e than he had been at the De Kalb County jail . Such nonchalance undercut Wofford' s efforts to stir up new interest within th e Kennedy campaign . In fact, Kennedy' s aides were neglecting to return his phone calls, the better to avoid his nagging .

Wofford called his own boss, Sargen t Shriver, who was in Chicago, where the candidate's entourage was passing

King was greeted b y his family, left, at a n airport outside Atlanta about two hours afte r he was released fro m eight days and nights in three differen t Georgia prisons . A caravan of well-wisher s and demonstrators followed him t o Ebenezer Church, below, where King spoke about jail as a test of faith . We mus t master the art of creative suffering," h e said. His father, Dadd y King, took th e opportunity to reverse his endorsement o f Nixon and to declare that "Senator Kennedy . . . can be m y president, Catholic o r whatever he is . "

When King was released from prison, Daddy King and a hundred sit-i n veterans made a caravan of cars to Ebenezer Church, where Daddy Kin g announced his endorsement of Kenned y for president .

OCTOBER 23, 1988

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through . Kennedy was huddled with hi s advisers in a special holding suite at O'Hare Airport, waiting for his plane t o leave . Wofford's call found Shriver there .

In emergency shorthand Wofford blurte d out the headlines—King snatched off t o state prison, no release from Vandiver , Coretta hysterical, the campaign civi l rights office swamped with calls. He sai d he and Louis Martin had given up the ide a that Kennedy should make a public statement, but they had something simpler an d less controversial in mind. "If the senato r would only call Mrs. King and wish he r well," said Wofford, "it would reverberat e all through the Negro community in th e United States . All he's got to do is sa y he's thinking about her and he hopes everything will be all right . All he's got to d o is show a little heart . He can even say h e doesn't have all the facts in the case . . . " "All right, all right," Shriver said hurriedly . "You've got to give me some good numbers ." After money and publicity, ac curate phone numbers were the mos t precious commodity in a campaign . He took down the King home number in Atlanta, put it in his pocket and rejoined th e huddle around Kennedy.

Shriver waited, hoping that Ted Sorensen, Ken O'Donnell, Pierre Salinger, Lawrence O'Brien and the other members o f Kennedy's kitchen cabinet would rush off to telephones and typewriters . He did no t want to mention Wofford's idea in thei r presence . If they did not strangle the ide a on sight, the aides, who liked to speculate about how contemplated moves might pla y in The New York Times, would object tha t Kennedy could not possibly do anythin g quiet in the King case, which was on tha t morning's front page . Finally, Kennedy said he was not feeling well and went int o the bedroom to lie down . Shriver alone followed him . Gently but urgently, he repeated Wofford's proposition, stressin g what he called King's "lousy treatment" in jail and Coretta King's near hysteria . " I think you ought to give her a call, Jack," he concluded .

Kennedy sat up wearily on the bed .

"What the hell," he said . "That's a decen t thing to do. Why not? Get her on the phone . " The phone rang in the King bedroom , where Coretta was dressing to keep a n appointment with Morris Abram . Daddy King, who had decided that this situatio n was grave enough to require the influenc e of a white lawyer like Abram, was on hi s way to take her with him .

After greeting her, Kennedy said, " I know this must be very hard for you . I understand you are expecting a baby, and I just wanted you to know that I wa s thinking about you and Dr. King . If there is anything I can do to help, please fee l free to call on me ."

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It was over within two minutes . Coretta called Mother King fairly burstin g with the news, and Shriver sneaked ou t the back door of the suite before the aide s arrived to whisk Kennedy to the plane .

On the campaign flight to Detroit, Senator Kennedy mentioned casually t o Pierre Salinger that he had made a personal call from Chicago to Mrs . Marti n Luther King . It was not quite a confession and not quite a warning, but Salinger and the others had no trouble figuring out tha t Shriver had slipped something past them , probably on the urging of the pesky Wofford . Salinger was concerned enough t o call Robert Kennedy on the radiophone .

To protect himself inside the campaign, Wofford first called Coretta Kin g and told her that it was vitally importan t for her not to tell any reporters abou t Senator Kennedy's call without Wofford' s consent . Then he and Louis Martin bega n to guide reporters toward a story in Atlanta, moving delicately and indirectly , mentioning Abram and others who kne w of the call while trying to keep them selves hidden as sources. The gam e ended abruptly when a New York Time s reporter called Wofford wanting to kno w why Coretta King was saying that sh e would not talk to reporters without clearance from Wofford .

The summons from Robert Kenned y was received by Wofford and Martin as a calling card from the executioner . "Well, I think you're the best one to tell Bobby what happened," Wofford said to Martin .

"He said both of us," Martin protested , trying to laugh . He agreed, however, to go to Kennedy's office a few minute s ahead of Wofford, hoping to soften th e blow .

Robert Kennedy picked up with Marti n where he had left off with Shriver, in a stream of curses delivered in an ominously quiet manner . As Martin waited for an opening to defend himself, it seemed t o him that Kennedy's outburst was strangely disconnected from the facts—that hi s ranting was the nervous frustration of a campaign manager only 13 days from the election . "Well, one reason we did it, " Martin interjected, "was that they took Dr. King out of Atlanta on an old traffic charge of driving without a license . The n they sentenced him to four months on th e chain gang, denied bail, and took him off in the middle of the night to the stat e prison . All in one day . " "How could they do that?" Kenned y asked doubtfully . "Who's the judge? Yo u can't deny bail on a misdemeanor . " "Well, they just did it," said Martin .

"They wanted to make an example of hi m as an uppity Negro . That's why it's s o dangerous to us in the campaign . I've heard that Jackie Robinson is trying t o get Nixon to hold a press conference and

blame the whole thing on the Democrats .

Those are all Democrats running things down there ." Martin stopped . For all h e knew, the Jackie Robinson story, which he had invented on the way to Kennedy' s office, might be true .

Kennedy paused for a number of seconds and then said, "Uh, goddamit," a weary expletive that could have cut in many directions .

When Wofford joined them, Kennedy chewed him out for insubordination, for pushing his brother into a politically ex plosive controversy . He commanded that the civil rights office do nothing else controversial for the duration of the campaign—no literature, no press conferences, no little schemes, nothing that might get into the newspapers—and the n dismissed them curtly . After they left , Kennedy asked his aide John Seigenthale r to drive him to the airport to catch a plane to New York for a speech . On th e way, he wondered out loud if there wa s something he could do to draw fire awa y from his brother in the King case. Seigenthaler advised him to do nothing .

Later that night, the Kennedy campaign plane also landed in New York . A s the candidate stepped off the plane, a re porter asked him if it was true that he ha d called Mrs . King earlier that day. "She i s a friend of mine," said Kennedy, who ha d never met Coretta and never would, "an d I was concerned about the situation . " The next morning's New York Time s contained a two-inch item on Page 2 2 noting that Kennedy had made a sympathy call to Mrs . King, and that a Republican spokesman said Vice Presiden t Nixon would have no comment on th e King case . The Times played it as a mino r story, and most of the nation's majo r news outlets gave it even less attention .

This was just what Wofford and Martin had wished . They would have an opening to publicize among Negro voters an even t that went practically unnoticed among whites . But Robert Kennedy had ordered them to be silent.

N ATLANTA THAT MORNING ,

Donald Hollowell dispelled gloom when he trumpeted the news that Judge Mitchel l had changed his mind and signed an orde r to release King on $2,000 bond . In a mad scramble of joy, SCLC officials raided their treasury to charter a private plan e and took off for Reidsville ahead of three other private planes filled wit h lawyers and reporters . It was soon recorded that King emerged from the priso n at 3 :46 p.m ., free after eight days and

nights in three different prisons .

When his son arrived at an airport out side Atlanta, Daddy King escorted him into a Cadillac limousine big enough t o hold the entire family . A hundred sit-i n veterans were waiting in cars at the Fulton County line on the way into Atlanta .

King's caravan pulled over to the side o f the road, where they sang "We Shal l Overcome ." Then the combined line o f cars made its way to Ebenezer Church fo r a spontaneous mass meeting . King wa s the object of thanksgiving, but Dadd y King was the master of the overflow crowd . He spoke of God and courage an d fear and then chose that moment to make the announcement he had promised Harris Wofford earlier that day . "I had expected to vote against Senator Kenned y because of his religion," he declared . "But now he can be my president, Catholic o r whatever he is . It took courage to call m y daughter-in-law at a time like this . He ha s the moral courage to stand up for what h e knows is right . I've got all my votes an d I've got a suitcase, and I'm going to tak e them up there and dump them in his lap . " The crowd roared approval, and roare d again when Ralph Abernathy said it was time to "take off your Nixon buttons . " About the time King's plane fro m Reidsville touched down near Atlanta , David Brinkley of NBC's "Huntley-Brinkley Report" called Wofford to verify a wire service story that "a brother of Senator Kennedy" had called Judge Mitchell personally to secure King's release . Wofford denied the story, saying it was s o implausible as to defy belief .

When Robert Kennedy checked in b y telephone that night, Seigenthaler tol d him about the press rumor : "Guess wha t that crazy judge says in Georgia? He says you called him about King not getting bail . " There was a long pause on Kennedy' s end of the line . "Did he say that? " "Yes," replied Seigenthaler. "But don' t worry . I . . . put out a denial. " "Well, you better retract it," Kennedy said . To Seigenthaler's astonishment, h e admitted rather sheepishly that he ha d made the call to the judge from Ne w York . Kennedy explained that he had gotten steamed up on reflecting that a lynchlaw judge was "screwing up my brother' s campaign and making the country look ridiculous before the world . " Inside the Kennedy campaign's civi l rights office, Martin and Wofford re ported to Shriver that the acute sensitivity to the King case was causing a phenomenal "sea change" within the Negr o electorate . Now that Robert Kennedy ha d broken his own ban against campaign in volvement with the case, they were seeking permission to exploit the change .

Although John F . Kennedy never publicly said anything abou t how influential his phone call to Coretta King had been i n winning him the presidency, his rousing inaugural speec h praising a nation of liberty, below, gave additional hope t o many southern civil rights leaders .

Eisenhower blamed Nixon's loss on ` a couple of phone calls' by John an d Robert Kennedy in the King case .

During the March on Washington in 1963, Kennedy and Vic e President Lyndon Johnson, above, met with civil rights leader s and those drawn to the cause . From left, Whitney Young of the National Urban League, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee , Rabbi Joachim Prinz of the American Jewish Congress, Eugen e P . Blake of the National Council of Churches, A . Philip Randolph of the AFL-CIO, Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers an d Roy Wilkins of the NAACP .

continued on page 46 OCTOBER 23, 1988

25

KENNEDY'S DILEMMA

continued from page 25 Their scheme was to print a pamphlet fo r mass distribution within the Negro churches of the nation on the last Sunday before the presidential election . They would run no newspaper ads, nor do anything else likely to filter into the white press . They would establish a "dummy committee" of preachers to protect the Kennedy campaign against being identified as the sponsor of the pamphlet . They would include no statement from a Kennedy spokesman . In fact, the pamphle t would consist of nothing more than statements by the King family and Negro preachers about Senator Kennedy' s phone call to Coretta .

Shriver okayed the pamphlet, but he ordered Wofford and Martin to say nothing of it to Robert Kennedy .

Neither Nixon nor Kennedy mentione d the King arrests or related matters in public . Eisenhower attacked Kennedy for "bewailing America's strength," for "talking loosely about relative militar y strength" and for "wringing his hands " about the nation's prestige in the world .

Nixon flew more than 7,000 miles on th e last day of the campaign before collapsin g in the Royal Suite of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles .

Kennedy was making his way eastwar d from California, where he unveiled hi s plan to establish a Peace Corps of unarmed American volunteers in the poor nations of the world, warning that "th e enemy advances now by non-military means ." On reaching Connecticut, he said , "I run as a candidate for the presidenc y with a view that this is a great country , but it must be greater ." He flew on to Boston and finally, exhausted, arrived a t the family compound at Hyannis Port .

Far removed from these twin storms o f political attention, beneath the notice o f campaign professionals, the Kenned y campaign's "blue bomb" was spreadin g throughout the Negro culture by mean s of the most effective private communications medium since the Undergroun d Railroad—the church .

Shriver and Martin felt it on Sunday , November 6, the mass-distribution da y for the "blue bomb." Both were home i n Chicago, working frantically for the las t two days of the campaign . They venture d that morning to Olivet Baptist Church — the largest congregation in the city— curious to see what the worshipper s were doing . Shriver stood with his children across the street from the entrance , transfixed by the sight of all the churchgoers carrying the blue pamphlets . They 46

THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE

were not bringing them out of the church , as expected ; somehow they had gotten hold of them in advance and were takin g them into church, along with their Bibles .

Nearly all those who passed by seemed to be talking about what King had suffered and what Kennedy had done . Shriver realized in a rush that the pamphle t touched something transcendent . It pu t him in awe to witness such a silent tremor among the common people of a cultur e different from his own, and to feel it shaking something as close to him as the Ken nedy campaign .

ING TOOK NO ACTIVE PART I N

the campaign . On Monday, snug within his own world, he addressed 1,500 beauticians at the Bronner Brothers Fall Beau ty Clinic on Auburn Avenue . On election day he was not permitted to vote . Georgia officials ruled that he had not established residency long enough to vote i n Atlanta, and Alabama officials said that i t was too late for him to pay the $1 .50 pol l tax required to vote by absentee ballot i n Montgomery . Like the two candidate s and millions of TV viewers, he went to bed not knowing who would be the nex t president . Toward dawn the next morning, electoral votes were still shiftin g from one column to the other . In fully one-third of the states, the Kennedy an d Nixon totals were hovering between 4 8 and 52 percent. When Senator Kennedy emerged from his bedroom at 9 a .m ., hi s aide Ted Sorensen greeted him with the news that he had won California and therefore the presidency . As it turne d out, Sorensen was wrong about California but right about the election . Nationally , Kennedy had received 34,221,463 vote s to Nixon's 34,108,582, for a popular mar gin of two-tenths of 1 percent . The tiniest of changes—5,000 votes in Illinois an d 28,000 in Texas—would have opened the White House to Nixon instead of Kennedy .

A dejected President Eisenhower , stunned by what he regarded as a "repudiation" of his eight years in office, firs t blamed Henry Cabot Lodge for promisin g a Negro Cabinet member . Soon, however , the president reversed himself to say that the Nixon campaign had been too littl e concerned with Negro votes, not too much . He then blamed the loss on "a cou ple of phone calls" by John and Robert Kennedy in the King case .

What happened between Eisenhower' s instinctive reaction and his considere d one was a nationwide detective search fo r the secret of the 1960 election. As le-

gions of analysts sifted the results, it di d not take them long to discover that th e most startling component of Kennedy' s victory was his margin among Negro voters . In 1956, Negroes had voted Republican by roughly 60-40 ; in 1960, the y voted Democratic by roughly 70-30 . Thi s 30 percent shift accounted for more vote s than Kennedy's victory margins in a number of key states, including Michigan , New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, an d the Carolinas . On the day after the election, Republican National Chairman Thruston B . Morton declared that his party had taken the Negro vote too muc h for granted .

It turned out that many people insid e the Nixon campaign—Attorney Genera l William Rogers, among others—had implored Nixon to say something supportiv e of King, but Nixon had declined .

In Washington, the hindsight attention to the King story troubled the presidentelect, who worried that the new perception of him as a man beholden to Negr o voters would impair his ability to gover n the divided country . Within days of th e election, Kennedy sent out word that his administration did not contemplate seeking new civil rights legislation or supporting challenges to the filibuster rule in th e Senate . The president-elect said nothing publicly about how the King case migh t have affected his victory .

Many clouds distorted or obscured interpretation of the pivotal election, whic h emerged as a kind of mythological puberty rite for the United States as a superpower . Still, one plain fact shined throug h everywhere : two little phone calls abou t the welfare of a Negro preacher were a necessary cause of Democratic victory .

That something so minor could whip silently through the Negro world with such devastating impact gave witness to th e cohesion and volatility of the separat e culture . That at the heart of this phenomenon was not just any preacher but Mar tin Luther King gave his name a symboli c resonance that spilled outside the smal l constituency of civil rights . Before, King had been a curiosity to most of the larger world, as remote as the back seats of buses or the other side of town . Now, as a historical asterisk, a catalytic agent in th e outcome of the presidential election, h e registered as someone who might affec t the common national history of whites and Negroes alike . n Copyright © 1988 by Taylor Branch. Adapted from the forthcoming book Parting the Waters : America in the King Years, 1954-1963 . To be published this fall by Simon & Schuster.

Next week : The war between the Kennedys and Hoover over FBI wiretaps of Martin Luther King Jr.