The politics of protection: The U.S. Secret Service in the terrorist age

Engineering & Transportation

Melanson, Philip H.

Engineering

Praeger

Politics of Protection: The U.S. Secret Service in the Terrorist Age

Criminal Law

Praeger Pub Text

Murkin was the code name chosen by the FBI for their investigation into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. Today, 20 years after the fatal shooting of the civil rights leader, Philip H. Melanson, a renowned authority on American political assassinations, unveils his own investigation into the murder. Melanson . . . has done an exhaustively thorough job on the still-mysterious King assassination. After following Melanson's meticulous pursuit of seemingly every lead in the case--including interviews with the men whose names were used as aliases for alleged killer James Earl Ray--there can be little doubt in the reader's mind that neither of the two official versions of what happened could have been the whole truth. The first was the ever-popular notion of the lone killer: Ray. The second, propounded by a clearly inept congressional investigation a decade after the 1969 shooting, was that an ill-defined racist conspiracy was behind the assassination. What seems unarguable is that Ray, a petty criminal, could not have killed King unaided. There are too many improbabilities--the source of his carefully chosen Canadian aliases, the identity of the `fat man' who brought him a `letter' in Toronto during his escape, the odd setup at the rooming house from which the shot was fired. It is Melanson's thesis that there was high-level intelligence involvement, probably by the CIA, which was violently alarmed by King's anti-Vietnam stance. Publisher's Weekly
Murkin was the code name chosen by the FBI for the investigation into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968. Today, twenty years after the fatal shooting of the civil rights leader, Philip H. Melanson, a renowned authority on American political assassinations, unveils his own investigation into the murder. Through extensive interviews, research, and Freedom of Information Act requests, Melanson analyzes the official investigations, the evidence, the performance of law enforcement officials, the role of James Earl Ray, and the questions of conspiracy. Much of the data presented has never before been published. Based on his detailed investigation, Melanson offers a revisionist interpretation of the King case, demonstrating that it remains unsolved.
Melanson argues persuasively that both the FBI's conclusion that Ray acted alone and the later 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations decision that Ray was backed by a conspiracy of St. Louis-based white supremacists are not supported by the evidence. Although Melanson concludes that Ray did not, in fact, act alone, he contends that the official investigations were so flawed that the conspirators behind him are still unidentified. His own conclusions regarding the probable source of the conspiracy offer a sobering indictment of the ways in which powerful interests, left unchecked, can wreak havoc on American democratic processes.

The Murkin Conspiracy: An Investigation into the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

History

Americas

Examines the questions and controversies surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald that still linger nearly thirty years after the Kennedy assassination

Spy Saga: Lee Harvey Oswald and U.S. Intelligence

Traces the death of Robert F. Kennedy, raising questions about coerced testimony and other issues

Shadow Play: The Murder of Robert F. Kennedy, the Trial of Sirhan Sirhan, and the Failure of American Justice

Klaber, William

St Martins Pr

Provides a provocative study of the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, drawing on secret LAPD and FBI files, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with accused killer Sirham Sirham to examine the killing, raising questions about coerced testimony and other issues. Reprint.

Shadow Play: The Untold Story of the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination

Biographies & Memoirs

True Crime

The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency

Pulling the veil off a highly visible yet tight-lipped federal agency, acclaimed scholar Philip Melanson has created the first definitive history of the Secret Service. With 8 pages of photographs, rigorous research and interviews with former White House staffers, retired agents, Service training dropouts, and the first female agent on the presidential detail, Melanson presents the agency's hidden history and examines its role in the headlines of our times. Here are revelations about the assassination of JFK and the shooting of President Reagan, along with threats against other presidents; presidential demands on agents and agency funds (by JFK, LBJ, Nixon, the Bushes, and Clinton); alcoholism, divorce, and burnout among agents; the Service's inexplicable failure to develop a profile of assassins that would facilitate effective prevention; and how the gender gap within the Service has been institutionalized. Assailing the image of a highly professional and apolitical organization, the book examines the pervasive, often detrimental influence that politics exerts on the Service, typified by Kenneth Starr's efforts to use agents' testimony against President Clinton. Melanson also discusses the profound new challenge facing the Secret Service: How to respond in a post–September 11 world, as brazen new assassination methods proliferate. With this provocative study, one federal agency still veiled in secrecy is exposed for all to see. Explosive and revealing, this is the first comprehensive history of one of our government's most shrouded agencies.

Stevens, Peter F.

Basic Books

The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination

Politics & Social Sciences

Barr Audio

A reexamination of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy presents new evidence that suggests that Sirhan could not possibly have acted alone and calls for a reopening of the case.

The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover-Up, 1968-1991

Shapolsky Publishers

"After following Melanson's meticulous pursuit of seemingly every lead in the case there can be little doubt in the reader's mind that neither of the two official versions of what happened could have been the whole truth." - Publisher's Weekly - The Reverend Martin Luther King was not merely targeted by white supremacists or the gun of James Earl Ray. Agents of the U.S. Government plotted to silence this civil rights leader's opposition to the Vietnam War. This courageous, independent investigation reveals shocking new information about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. DISCOVER THE TRUE AND DISTURBING FACTS BY READING INTERVIEWS WITH: FBI operatives who tracked the King family and a high-ranking CIA agent who tells how the Agency targeted MLK. The courier who brought James Earl Ray his escape money. The James Earl Ray look-alike planted at the murder scene. Learn the unreported truth about the complicity of the Memphis police, the planting of manufactured evidence, and the government's propaganda effort to push the lone-assassin claim. FIND OUT HOW AND WHY THE CIVIL RIGHTS GIANT WAS FELLED BE ELEMENTS OF THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

The Martin Luther King Assassination

S.P.I. Books

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