Volume 15, Number 6 · October 8, 1970
Martin Luther King's Second Assassination
By Richard John Neuhaus
The King God Didn't Save
by John A. Williams
Coward-McCann, 221 pp., $5.95
This book is news. Time magazine says so. Its publication was announced in the August 17, 1970, issue not back in the 'Books' section along with conventional literary events, but right up front in 'The Nation,' with a full-page spread including a big picture of Martin Luther King, Jr., leaving J. Edgar Hoover's office after their famous 1964 meeting. Curious about Time's generous attention to the book, I was assured by one of their senior editors that the story is not part of any policy decision to vilify King: 'It was probably published because Williams represented a hard look at King by a black man, and his debunking was interesting from a journalistic viewpoint.' The writer of the Time story agrees that there is probably no new information about King in the book, 'but Williams's evaluation that King was a tool of white power is new.' I did not press this point.
Review, 4138 words
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