Hot Spots

The Village Voice reports in its latest issue that a former anti-Castro gunrunner with ties to the CIA may be a central figure in the Martin Luther King assassination. In a copyrighted article, reporter Dick Russell (the author of the SUN's piece on the SLA last issue) identifies the mysterious gunrunner as Walter A. "Jack" Youngblood. Youngblood's name first surfaced last month when one of James Earl Ray's attorneys stated that Youngblood "might have pulled the trigger" in King's murder.

The Voice account quotes several witnesses who claim to have seen Youngblood at the murder scene, some saying he boasted about having inside knowledge of the murder. It also turns out that Youngblood was arrested within a block of King's motel the day after the assassination. He was later released, but all police records pertaining to the arrest have mysteriously disappeared from police files. Meanwhile, James Earl Ray has reportedly identified Youngblood from photographs as a man who was following him around Memphis just before King was killed.

Presidential aspirant and Senator Frank Church's Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is on the verge of issuing its final report and closing investigations, just at the point when much fresh information is coming out. It appears that Church has decided to keep the damper on some of the hottest material. Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, a Committee member, is pressing his colleagues to extend its current deadline in order to continue the hunt.

In particular, Mondale wants to look into the FBI's "Co-Intel-Pro" operation against leftist groups, especially the Black Panther Party of the late '60s and early '70s. Several Cointelpro documents indicate that the FBI may have been responsible -- at least "indirectly" -- for the shooting deaths of up to half a dozen members of the party. Mondale wants written controls on the FBI to come out of the hearings.

And speaking of government agents, Dr. Timothy Turncoat Leary says he expects to be released from federal custody in California within the next six weeks. Leary has already served 42 months in various prisons for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, a crime now punishable by a $100 fine in California. He is also serving time on an escape charge, but apparently those charges have been mitigated by Leary's cooperation with federal authorities on securing indictments against many of his former associates and attorneys. Leary says he plans to set up a publishing company upon his release. His current cellmate in San Diego is Eldridge Cleaver, interestingly enough. Eldridge had Leary put under house arrest during the "revolutionary" twosome's stay in Algeria...

COINCIDENCE DEPARTMENT: An FBI agent scheduled as an important witness in the current trial into the shooting deaths of Chicago Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark has been killed in a Chicago car "accident." Agent Ira Roten had been subpoenaed to testify on his association with William O'Neal, the paid FBI informer who became Hampton's "bodyguard" and provided police with maps of the apartment where Hampton and Clark were assassinated. Kind of smells like the recent murder of Mafia figure Sam Giancana in Chicago just before he was due in Washington to testify on his work with the CIA on assassinating Fidel. Of course, Sen. Church isn't looking any deeper into poor Sam's demise.