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Cambodia's other madmen
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A real growth stock
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Viagra may give you the perfect penis -- but beware, there may be problems in getting what you wish for
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The smearing of Judge Woods
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TRIUMPHANT IN DEATH | PAGE 2 OF 2
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Two figures loom over the way in which the Kings have succeeded in making themselves into national laughingstocks. The first is Pepper, Ray's lawyer, whose outlandish claims of government involvement in King's slaying have been disproven and destroyed by both ABC News' "Turning Point" and CBS News' "48 Hours." The Memphis district attorney's report highlights "the pervasive mention of monetary reward that key witnesses relied upon by Dr. Pepper refer to in their statements." In the current Time magazine, longtime civil rights journalist Jack E. White accurately characterizes Pepper as "either a credulous buffoon or a con artist." Most people who've seen Pepper's work up close would vote for the second.
The other figure is movie director Oliver Stone, whose forthcoming film, "Memphis," will be made in partial cooperation with the King family. If Pepper is little more than a con artist, Stone more accurately fits into White's category of the "credulous buffoon." Granted a personal interview with the now-deceased Ray, Stone came away just as wowed as Dexter King: Ray "looks you in the eye and there's just an honesty to the look," Stone endearingly declared. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised, after "JFK," that Oliver Stone would be the last person in America capable of seeing through Ray's self-serving lies.
In addition to the influence of Pepper and Stone, the King family is also motivated by a desire to remain in the public eye, and its embrace of the conspiracy theory certainly achieves that. But there is also something else, as one person close to the innermost circle for more than a generation hesitantly explains. "It's not rational," he says. "They've got to blame someone else more important [than Ray], no matter what the evidence." The unquenchable need to fill the lifelong gap left by King's murder has left them grasping at even the most outlandish claims, even at the price of destroying virtually all of their own individual credibility.
James Earl Ray's most successful crime was not his murder of Martin Luther King Jr., because for that crime he was imprisoned for life. No, Ray's most successful crime was the huge and grotesque historical scam that he triumphantly perpetrated upon the King family during the last year of his life. Having destroyed, irretrievably, the surviving family members' credibility, it remains to be seen whether King's own long-term legacy has also been harmed and diminished by the foolishness of his widow and children.
James Earl Ray no doubt was bemused by the King family's mourning of his fatal illness, but of one thing we can be absolutely sure: that Ray died a happy man. Not only has he gone down in history as the killer of one of America's greatest figures, but he also pulled off an even more unimaginable offense: convincing the victim's relatives to champion his own innocence and importance. No killer of historical import has ever come close.
There's much here to mourn, and none of it is for James Earl Ray.
SALON | April 28, 1998
David J. Garrow is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Bearing the Cross" and numerous books on Martin Luther King Jr. and the American civil rights movement. His latest book is "Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe V. Wade," scheduled to be published in an updated and expanded edition in October 1998 by the University of California Press.

O N+O T H E R S I T E S Primary source documents in the Paula Jones case from ABCNEWS.com T A B L E+T A L K Another school shooting: Discuss kids and guns and schoolyards in the Headlines area of Table Talk D A I L Y+Q U O T E President Clinton on Salon R E C E N T L Y American Spectator audit: Is the fox guarding the henhouse? By Jonathan Broder Theodore Olson, a close friend of Kenneth Starr's and a former attorney for David Hale, heads the embattled magazine's crucialinternal investigation (04/27/98) Cambodia's other madmen By Judith Coburn and Joshua Phillips However monstrous Pol Pot's actions, he is not the only one to have turned the country into a living hell (04/24/98) A real growth stock By David Friedman Viagra may give you the perfect penis -- but beware, there may be problems in getting what you wish for (04/24/98) The smearing of Judge Woods By Joe Conason, Gene Lyons and Murray Waas How newspaper articles of questionable origin were used by Kenneth Starr to remove a federal jurist in a Whitewater case (04/22/98) Salon Exclusive: Starr deputy met with Scaife private investigator By Murray Waas Whitewater prosecutor Hickman Ewing did not fully report on meetings with anti-Clinton operative (04/20/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		TRIUMPHANT IN DEATH \| PAGE 2 OF 2 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Two figures loom over the way in which the Kings have succeeded in making themselves into national laughingstocks. The first is Pepper, Ray's lawyer, whose outlandish claims of government involvement in King's slaying have been disproven and destroyed by both ABC News' "Turning Point" and CBS News' "48 Hours." The Memphis district attorney's report highlights "the pervasive mention of monetary reward that key witnesses relied upon by Dr. Pepper refer to in their statements." In the current Time magazine, longtime civil rights journalist Jack E. White accurately characterizes Pepper as "either a credulous buffoon or a con artist." Most people who've seen Pepper's work up close would vote for the second. The other figure is movie director Oliver Stone, whose forthcoming film, "Memphis," will be made in partial cooperation with the King family. If Pepper is little more than a con artist, Stone more accurately fits into White's category of the "credulous buffoon." Granted a personal interview with the now-deceased Ray, Stone came away just as wowed as Dexter King: Ray "looks you in the eye and there's just an honesty to the look," Stone endearingly declared. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised, after "JFK," that Oliver Stone would be the last person in America capable of seeing through Ray's self-serving lies. In addition to the influence of Pepper and Stone, the King family is also motivated by a desire to remain in the public eye, and its embrace of the conspiracy theory certainly achieves that. But there is also something else, as one person close to the innermost circle for more than a generation hesitantly explains. "It's not rational," he says. "They've got to blame someone else more important [than Ray], no matter what the evidence." The unquenchable need to fill the lifelong gap left by King's murder has left them grasping at even the most outlandish claims, even at the price of destroying virtually all of their own individual credibility. James Earl Ray's most successful crime was not his murder of Martin Luther King Jr., because for that crime he was imprisoned for life. No, Ray's most successful crime was the huge and grotesque historical scam that he triumphantly perpetrated upon the King family during the last year of his life. Having destroyed, irretrievably, the surviving family members' credibility, it remains to be seen whether King's own long-term legacy has also been harmed and diminished by the foolishness of his widow and children. James Earl Ray no doubt was bemused by the King family's mourning of his fatal illness, but of one thing we can be absolutely sure: that Ray died a happy man. Not only has he gone down in history as the killer of one of America's greatest figures, but he also pulled off an even more unimaginable offense: convincing the victim's relatives to champion his own innocence and importance. No killer of historical import has ever come close. There's much here to mourn, and none of it is for James Earl Ray. SALON \| April 28, 1998 David J. Garrow is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Bearing the Cross" and numerous books on Martin Luther King Jr. and the American civil rights movement. His latest book is "Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe V. Wade," scheduled to be published in an updated and expanded edition in October 1998 by the University of California Press.