Frank Holloman 15

And I also as a matter of public knowledge that after the march, which was disrupted in violence on Beale Street, I recall the exact date of that. March 28. That the next day there were leaflets put out and distributed in the community referring to Dr. King's movement not as black power, but as yellow power. Those were distributed in Memphis, and were public knowledge. Do you have any? I did have. They are probably in the police department files. I do not have any personally. I was trying to remember, I don't know whether we do or not. And there was publicity at the time, I believe, if I'm not mistaken I believe that the newspapers carried some references to it at the time. Now, again I'd like to ask you, during the strike and again for your determination to keep the peace, you did use informers. I guess that's part of the police work. We had sources of information, yes, definitely. You're saying this with a smile. I have to record this. Yes, and I would say that we had very reliable sources of information. I will say at this point in describing whether they're reliable or not, that in hindsight the information that we received always proved correct. And, very, very frankly it was information that I would, that was not something that was bad, it was information that we would have gotten if we had had direct personal contact with Dr. King and his representatives. Could you tell us a little bit about that, again for the record now, you know. I don't want to spy on you, or even on the police, and some of it is written down and people have written books, and so on. But could you tell us a little bit, say about how you did this? Well, no. I'm not willing to because I think that we're now talking about a police procedure, which will be used again in the future. But I will say this, that in view of the present climate in America, I can assure that there, that we are not talking about telephone taps or microphone taps or things of that kind. We are talking about individuals who would furnish us information, who were in position to have the information. In other words there was no (muffled) technical means of securing this information, it was strictly through persons, people. Right, yeah. And again for the record, you are referring to the climate of the times, which we now term Watergate. True. Which unfortunately will go down in history, and people will remember it. Well, since you won't tell us, I will have to get my other informers to give us information. Now I want to get back to something you did say, and again I have to ask this question. You did say that, and you said it on our first tape that your whole attitude and thrust was to keep out of the philosophical concern of the strike itself. That's right. But, however, as it went on and as we approached the 27th, 28th, and perhaps particularly after the 28th when people who were not otherwise very much concerned or who were definitely on the side of the mayor to continue the strike, there was a sentiment in the community saying we ought to get it over with. Were you ever approached by anyone to use whatever influence, contact you had with the mayor? No. No, I was never asked to use any influence with the mayor. I, on occasions I met with certain individuals in an attempt to let's have, it's difficult to describe it, except for the fact that I met with certain... Can you identify these individuals? No. No, I would not because they were off the record meetings. They were meetings that actually people never knew that took place. They were with members of the black community, as well as with the members of the white community who were legitimately and very sincerely attempting to find a solution, and I think that my involvement in it was strictly a police involvement as to my advice to them, or my input as to what could be the final solution because I think that the police were playing a prominent part in it because they were involved in providing the security for the marches and the demonstrations and so forth. So, I think that my part was not from an administration representative. As a matter of fact, some of the meetings that I participated in the mayor never even knew that I participated. Well, now how -- I don't completely understand how could the police concept of it be involved in the solution of this strike? Because I had information from the activities that had been going on, I think that I had probably in my position rather objective information as to what was happening in the community, who was doing what in the community, what the atmosphere in the community was, which would give these leaders a better insight as to conditions with which they were faced at the time.