REMEMBERING MALCOLM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404060002-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: February 26, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404060002-7
AMTplr1E APPEARED
r
r n- S-'
r?
VILLAGE VOICE
26 February 1985
STAT
By Hat Hentoff
It was before Malcolm X's picture had
been in the white press. Indeed, very lit-
tle about Elijah Muhammad's Lost-
Found Nation of Islam had appeared in
the white media when I first went to see
Malcolm in the mid-1950's. I knew some-
thing of the Black Muslims because I
read the black press and because a num-
ber of jazz musicians had been talking
about the growing, disciplined ranks of
the Honorable Elijah Muhammad's
straight,backed legions. And they had
been talking about this tall, lean prince
of the' Nation of Islam, this Malcolm X,
who was one hell of a soloist.
I had never seem Malcolm afraid be-
fore. I had never seen any fear in him.
But fear was in him that afternoon. He
told me he did not expect to live much
longer. And the last thing he said to me,
"Whatever happens, it won't be Elijah."
He didn't say any more. What I
thought he meant then, and what I still
think he meant was that the CIA had
tta_rgeted him. Malcolm had been -wire-
tapped and surveiled by the FBI in the
interests of "national security" from the
time he had become reasonably promi-_
nent, and probably before. He said he
was certain the CIA was on his trail in
Africa.` IVfaIcolin, after all, was becoming
more and more a figure of symbolic sig-
nificance in the Third World, and he.had.
plans to become a familiar presence -at
the United Nations. - .
Twelve days before his assassination,
Malcolm was scheduled to_ speak .at. S.
meeting in Paris, but the French govern-
ment refused him entrance as an "unde-
ai.-able." French authorities explained
z_:at Malcolm s speech could have pro
-.
yoked demons ::goes undermining "the
In his 1973 book, The Dec;r and Life
of Malcolm X (Harper & Row), Peter
Goldman speculates that Malcolm was
barred from France because the French
had "acted on the representation of two
of their lately liberated colonies, Senegal
and the Ivory Coast, that Malcolm-aid-
ed and abetted by Nasser and Nkru-
mah-might try to overthrow moderate
pro-Western governments like their
own."
If the French believed Malcolm was
that mighty a wind of disruption, the CIA
might well have also been convinced that
Malcolm was becoming too formidable to
be endured. And, as we learned - much
later, the.CIA was accountable to no one
but itself during this. period.
I ,have been-a- journalist -too long' to be
infatuated.with conspiracy` theories, cite.
the CIA poasibility here because of what
Malcolm said to me and because of what
the CIA's record during the 1960's says
about the CIA. We shall probably never
know if there was any CIA involvement
in the murder of Malcolm; this is not the'
kind of information that comes pouring;
forth when you make a request under the
Freedom of Information Act.
Despite what Malcolm said about not
having long to live, his murder stopped
me cold. Having taken my two young
daughters home, I was walking along up-
per Broadway listening to a transistor ra-
:dioi.And there it was. I was in a daze for
some time. All'that intelligence, energy,
passion, and leadership gone. In the years
since, I have often thought of what might
have been if Malcolm had been organiz-
ing and analyzing and teaching all these
years. Maybe, among other things, he
could have taught and organized leaders
to come. Ain't many of them now.
There have been enough pieces about
the aftermath of the murder and the slip-
pery failure of police and press to follow
through on who ordered the killing. 1 just
want, however, to point out once more
that there were a lot of undercover
cops-with guns-in the Audubon Ball-
room in Harlem on that Sunday after-
noon. On February 23, the New York
Herald 2hbune quoted a "high police
official" as saying that several members
of the city's Red Squad, the Bureau of
Special Services (BOSS) were in the
room when Malcolm was killed. There
also had to be FBI undercover men pres
ent, and maybe some from the CIA. Yet
there was no rush by these agents of the
state to go after the assassins, let alone to
protect Malcolm once the first shot had
been fired.
The easy- explanation-accepted by the
vast majority of the press and by those of
its readers who still have an interest in
the case-is that Malcolm was cut down
by followers of Elijah Muhammad in
punishment for Malcolm's having so pub-
licly broken with the shepherd of the Na-
tion of Islam. But just as Malcolm alive
was not an easy man to figure out, so the
agents behind the agents of his death
remain difficult to identify.
The one element of his death that
would have caused Malcolm acute em-
barrassment was the photograph, shown
widely around the world, of his body-
guard, on the ground, apparently trying i
to give Malcolm artificial respiration.
Malcolm prided himself on being able to
detect not only ordinary phonies, but also
the most dangerous of the breed-under-
cover cops. He used to tell me how care-
ful he was to screen everyone who worked
closely with him.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404060002-7