Also, with information having just come out at the time about J. Edgar Hoover's electronic surveillance of Dr. King, it gave greater weight to the statements of those persons who were alleging involvement of the FBI.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
With respect to the FBI, they had problems communicating in a vertical way, within the FBI itself, so that information of importance could get pushed up to those who were decision-makers.
And it turned out that the Roberts Commission did not fully utilize the information available and that it came to conclusions which were I think quite short sighted and, indeed, in some cases, scapegoated individuals.
Now the interesting thing about the movie is that many of the questions it raised about the Warren Commission and its investigation were all investigated by our committee 13 years ago. We published our findings in 27 volumes of information and evidentiary material.
You know, back in the 1950s and '60s, when J. Edgar Hoover was making the FBI the respected organization it used to be, oftentimes they would find a fugitive and basically have his house surrounded, and then put out a press release saying he was on the top 10 most wanted list. And 10 minutes later, he'd be arrested.
I would like you to consider the difference in the time from 1963 to date. The FBI, at that time, was headed by Mr. Hoover who had been appointed Director continuously. He had, I would say, a good reputation.
Some believe that the FBI has these phenomenal capabilities to access any information at any time - that we can get what we want, when we want it, by flipping some sort of switch. It may be true in the movies or on TV. It is simply not the case in real life.
I grew up with J. Edgar Hoover. He was the G-man, a hero to everybody, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the big, feared organization. He was ahead of his time as far as building up forensic evidence and fingerprinting. But he took down a lot of innocent people, too.
In its attempt to crush the Black Panthers, the FBI engineered frequent arrests on the flimsiest of pretexts.
I explained to the president that I've been pleased with my conversations with the Attorney General and Civil Rights Division regarding their helpful understanding that they aren't taking over this investigation, but are conducting a parallel review of the events that led to Michael Brown's death.
In all, we investigated, I think, close to 50 rumors about offers to kill Dr. King around the country. But we found no evidence to support rumors of FBI involvement in the assassination.