Lis­ten now: Side 1 | Side 2 | Side 3 | Side 4 | Side 5 | Side 6 | Side 7

This series ana­lyzes the assas­si­na­tion of Dr. Mar­tin Luther King Jr. In addi­tion to ana­lyz­ing the FBI’s extended efforts to polit­i­cally neu­tral­ize King, the series dis­cusses the com­bi­na­tion of national secu­rity and orga­nized crime ele­ments that appear to have per­formed the assas­si­na­tion. Based on the book Orders to Kill by William Pep­per (Hard­cover edi­tion pub­lished by Car­roll and Graff in 1995), the series dis­cusses, among other things: an orga­nized crime arms-smuggling ring, which maneu­vered accused assas­sin James Earl Ray into posi­tion to take the fall for the crime; the mem­ber of that arms-smuggling ring who boasted of actu­ally done the shoot­ing; the Army intel­li­gence pro­gram to sur­veil and neu­tral­ize black Amer­i­can lead­ers (includ­ing King); the 20th Spe­cial Forces Group “A team” that,according to Pep­per, served as a backup sniper team poised to kill Dr. King and his then-aide Andrew Young (in case the orga­nized crime marks­man missed); and the appar­ent role of ele­ments of the National Secu­rity Agency in help­ing to set Ray up for the assas­si­na­tion. (Recorded in Sep­tem­ber of 1995.)