Frame-Up by Harold Weisberg

Author:Harold Weisberg [Harold Weisberg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781628734737
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2013-08-15T16:00:00+00:00

14. Look and You Will See

As we have studied the minitrial, so let us study from the April 15, 1969 issue of Look the statements made after the minitrial by Ray’s three “defenders”–Huie, Hanes, and Foreman. Because each had assumed responsibility for a man’s freedom and for seeing to it that justice was done, the crime solved, their purchased pronouncements of his guilt should be examined.

With such defenders as he had, James Earl Ray was plentifully supplied with enemies.

The financial arrangements his defenders made concerning the rights to Ray’s story and the story of the case have been obscured because there are inconsistent statements about them and because, as will become understandable, no formal statement was ever made about them. The literary jackals who clean up after the “no-conspiracy” messes are well paid and are never called “scavengers.” By the strange morals of the modem literary world, they are sought after, respected, and well publicized. But no decent, self-respecting barnyard would tolerate them.

One published account, attributed to Foreman, reports Look paid $85,000 for the writings of Ray’s three horsemen in the magazine’s April 15 issue. All accounts award Foreman a modest 60 per cent.

All three of the horsemen agree in this issue that Ray was the murderer. But none has or offers any proof, none suggests possession of secret proof, and none makes a credible argument. Foreman’s contribution, which he could have dictated to his secretary in ten minutes, has no fact or pretense of fact in it. Huie and Hanes are foresighted enough to hedge on the question of conspiracy.

Even Look has a line to leeward at the very end. “This is the state of our knowledge up to this point. [“Knowledge” is hardly the right word.] But, more than a year after the murder of Dr. King, there still remain certain basic, nagging, unanswered questions, the result in good part of the deliberately evasive silence [sic] of James Earl Ray. . . .”

Here Ray’s defenders were not limited by the rules of evidence, nor were they handicapped by confrontation with an adversary. All they had to do was satisfy Look it was getting its money’s worth. In short, each in his individual piece is defending himself, his reputation, and his honor–is explaining the reasons behind his behavior and view of the crime.

This interest cannot readily be separated from the financial stake each had in Ray and the contracts struck with Ray. The original Huie arrangement gave him 40 per cent and Ray and Hanes each 30 per cent. In fairness to Huie, this could be interpreted as giving Ray 60 per cent, which he shared with Hanes. The lawyer was representing Ray against a charge that, in theory, could cost Ray his life and, in actuality, would determine what, if any, part of his life would be spent outside a jail.

Once Foreman came into the case, with his “Beggar’s Opera” solution (in that work, the problem of witnesses is to be solved by nailing their lips shut–the opposite

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