With all the discussion of a new Executive Order for the JFK records release, it would be a mistake not to give some attention to the challenges and opportunities involved with the MLK and RFK assassination records – also covered in the new directive. My friend and co-author Stuart Wexler and I learned some things about the MLK documents in several years of work on the King assassination which may be useful in that aspect of the documents release effort.

The FBI and DOJ are unquestionably home to significant files concerning King’s assassination, especially given the massive manhunt that followed his murder. The scope of major departments who hold relevant MLK files extends even to the military and intelligences services, who surveilled King and other civil rights groups for fear his marches and protests would lead to revolutionary unrest in late 1960s America.

But while these agencies hold important files, they may not be the most important sources of information on King’s assassination. For that, attention needs to be paid to two other critical records repositories – the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), and the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

NARA holds the vast majority of the records related to King’s assassination, known as the MURKIN materials, including essential files from the FBI’s field offices that were crucial to the investigation. These records have never been completely processed, with documents related to key areas still unavailable for research – full transparency on NARA’s MLK holdings could finally provide the answers long sought questions regarding Dr. King’s murder. There is simply no reason to continue withholding the NARA King documents.

A less obvious, but potentially even more important document source, lies in the records compiled by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA). The HSCA conducted original and important investigations, also synthesizing preexisting material from other agencies. But while 95% of the HSCA material on the JFK murder was released to the public by the JFK Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) in the 1990s, almost nothing was disclosed from the parallel HSCA inquiry into King’s death. Admittedly there are personal issues associated to some of the HSCA materials (originating in the FBI’s illegal personal surveillance of Dr. King) but that simply means the release of the HSCA MLK files will deserve some caution.

The answer to an effective release of the HSCA Congressional files related to MLK (now held by the Clerk of Congress) lies with Speaker Mike Johnson and his authority over the Clerk, as well as in the work of the recently formed Civil Rights Cold Case Records and Review Board.  The students from Hightstown High School who drafted the original Cold Case law – ultimately passed by Congress – relied on the text of the JFK Records and Collection Act (which created the ARRB).

The legislation ultimately passed should allow the Cold Case board to function exactly like the ARRB, receiving records directly and deciding their own redactions and postponements as they see fit. The Cold Case Review Board could itself release everything related not only to MLK’s murder, but also the other civil rights cold cases investigated by the HSCA. The tools now exist for full transparency in the King assassination, the question is whether the National Archives, the Speaker of the House, and the Cold Case Review Board will choose (and be allowed) to exercise those tools effectively.

More thoughts on this subject, and the RFK assassination records in a follow-on post…