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Frame-Up: The Martin Luther King-James Early Ray Case
Back in print with its original title, Harold Weisberg’s detailed and devastating analysis of the Martin Luther King assassination is as timely as ever. Originally published in 1970, this book examines the circumstances of the murder, accused assassin James Earl Ray’s flight and capture, and the failures of the justice system in this case.While many books about the King assassination have followed Frame-Up , this work remains unrivaled in its retelling of the circumstances which led Ray to plead guilty in a grossly inadequate “mini trial,” and Ray’s almost immediate failed attempt to retract this confession.Weisberg also dissects the evidence in the case, and concludes that while Ray was a part of the conspiracy, he did not shoot Dr. King, serving as another “patsy” in the troubling assassinations of the 1960s.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
Hardcover
First published June 1, 1970
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About the author
Harold Weisberg
40 books7 followersHarold Weisberg was a prolific author & persistent critic of the official report that found a lone gunman responsible for the death of President John F. Kennedy & who was often dubbed the dean of assassination researchers.
Mr. Weisberg's career as the writer of about 10 published & roughly 35 unpublished books on the murders of Kennedy & the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came last in a series of endeavors. He had been a journalist, a labor investigator for then-Progressive Party Sen. Robert M. La Follette Jr. (Wis.), an investigator for a World War II spy agency, a State Department intelligence analyst & a prize-winning Montgomery County poultry farmer.
In an obsession that kept him in financial hardship during the last 35 years, Mr. Weisberg collected in his home more than 250,000 government papers on the 1963 Kennedy assassination & scoured millions more at the National Archives. He produced one of the earliest books about the president's death, in 1965.
Mr. Weisberg also became a leading authority on the 1968 King killing & was an investigator on behalf of James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty to the crime but later recanted his story.
Mr. Weisberg came to believe that neither Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused Kennedy gunman, nor Ray was responsible for the deaths of the prominent leaders. He focused on what he considered the inadequacies of the government investigations, specifically an improper probe of the available evidence. But for all his work, he never found definitive answers.
He detested many other students of conspiracy, foremost filmmaker Oliver Stone, whose 1991 "JFK" spun out all kinds of theories about the president's death.
"To do a mishmash like this is out of love for the victim & respect for history?" Mr. Weisberg said to The Washington Post. "I think people who sell sex have more principle."
In contrast, Mr. Weisberg presented information he gleaned from government investigative papers in an often dry manner--even if that belied his cover tag lines promising "the end of the cover-up--official lies exposed. Never such an investigation--never such evidence!"
His first literary success was a self-published work called Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report (1965). After being turned down by several publishers, he publicized the book himself & sold more than 30,000 copies. Dell then published it & a follow up, Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover Up (both 1966).
Other books followed, including: Oswald in New Orleans: Case of Conspiracy with the C.I.A. (Canyon Books, 1967); Martin Luther King: The Assassination (Carroll & Graf, 1993); and Case Open: The Unanswered JFK Assassination Questions (Carroll & Graf, 1994).
Mr. Weisberg, a Philadelphia native, grew up in Wilmington DE, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He attended the University of Delaware & then wrote articles for the Wilmington Morning News & the Sunday supplement of the Philadelphia Ledger.
In the late 1930s, he worked for La Follette, who chaired a special Senate investigating committee commonly called the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee. Mr. Weisberg was sent to look at suspected labor-rights violations in Harlan County, Ky.
During World War II, he served in the Army & the Office of Strategic Services. He joined State after the war but left in the late 1940s. He turned to farm life near Hyattsville with his wife, & they won prizes for their poultry. They also were early participants in a Peace Corps program called "Geese for Peace," in which the birds were shipped overseas to be raised in poverty-stricken countries. He turned to writing full-time after relinquishing farm life in the mid-1960s.
By that time, Mr. Weisberg's fascination with the Kennedy death was solidified. In September 1964, the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- called the Warren Commission -- concluded that Oswald was solely responsible for
Mr. Weisberg's career as the writer of about 10 published & roughly 35 unpublished books on the murders of Kennedy & the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came last in a series of endeavors. He had been a journalist, a labor investigator for then-Progressive Party Sen. Robert M. La Follette Jr. (Wis.), an investigator for a World War II spy agency, a State Department intelligence analyst & a prize-winning Montgomery County poultry farmer.
In an obsession that kept him in financial hardship during the last 35 years, Mr. Weisberg collected in his home more than 250,000 government papers on the 1963 Kennedy assassination & scoured millions more at the National Archives. He produced one of the earliest books about the president's death, in 1965.
Mr. Weisberg also became a leading authority on the 1968 King killing & was an investigator on behalf of James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty to the crime but later recanted his story.
Mr. Weisberg came to believe that neither Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused Kennedy gunman, nor Ray was responsible for the deaths of the prominent leaders. He focused on what he considered the inadequacies of the government investigations, specifically an improper probe of the available evidence. But for all his work, he never found definitive answers.
He detested many other students of conspiracy, foremost filmmaker Oliver Stone, whose 1991 "JFK" spun out all kinds of theories about the president's death.
"To do a mishmash like this is out of love for the victim & respect for history?" Mr. Weisberg said to The Washington Post. "I think people who sell sex have more principle."
In contrast, Mr. Weisberg presented information he gleaned from government investigative papers in an often dry manner--even if that belied his cover tag lines promising "the end of the cover-up--official lies exposed. Never such an investigation--never such evidence!"
His first literary success was a self-published work called Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report (1965). After being turned down by several publishers, he publicized the book himself & sold more than 30,000 copies. Dell then published it & a follow up, Whitewash II: The FBI-Secret Service Cover Up (both 1966).
Other books followed, including: Oswald in New Orleans: Case of Conspiracy with the C.I.A. (Canyon Books, 1967); Martin Luther King: The Assassination (Carroll & Graf, 1993); and Case Open: The Unanswered JFK Assassination Questions (Carroll & Graf, 1994).
Mr. Weisberg, a Philadelphia native, grew up in Wilmington DE, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He attended the University of Delaware & then wrote articles for the Wilmington Morning News & the Sunday supplement of the Philadelphia Ledger.
In the late 1930s, he worked for La Follette, who chaired a special Senate investigating committee commonly called the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee. Mr. Weisberg was sent to look at suspected labor-rights violations in Harlan County, Ky.
During World War II, he served in the Army & the Office of Strategic Services. He joined State after the war but left in the late 1940s. He turned to farm life near Hyattsville with his wife, & they won prizes for their poultry. They also were early participants in a Peace Corps program called "Geese for Peace," in which the birds were shipped overseas to be raised in poverty-stricken countries. He turned to writing full-time after relinquishing farm life in the mid-1960s.
By that time, Mr. Weisberg's fascination with the Kennedy death was solidified. In September 1964, the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy -- called the Warren Commission -- concluded that Oswald was solely responsible for
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 6, 2009
I don't think Weisberg gets everything right in this but he does a good job of showing (in a boring way) the impossibility of the official accepted government version of what went down with the Martin Luther King assassination. I think what really happened is up for debate but I don't believe for one second that James Earl Ray, who never struck me as being the brightest lightbulb in the box, pulled this off himself and there were no co-conspirators. Maybe he was a mindwashed Manchurian candidate, maybe he was manipulated by others into committing the act and maybe he was a totally innocent scapegoat. The only thing I am sure of is that Ray was not a lone wolf assassin, even if it was actually him that pulled trigger and committed the actual act.
The easy and predictable route for people to take is to claim Ray was mixed up with some sort of racist Klan types but I see more of a US Government involvement in this. They had good reason to want King dead because he had began to shift his activism from the forced race mixing, which the system promotes, to workers rights and protesting the Vietnam war. The system of course making money from the Vietnam war and exploiting workers it was only a matter of time that a leader with as much power and charisma as King had was going to get iced by the system. Its actually a shame they killed him because although I consider King to be a total scumbag he was actually in a position where he may have actually finally done a lot of good if he had lived.
The easy and predictable route for people to take is to claim Ray was mixed up with some sort of racist Klan types but I see more of a US Government involvement in this. They had good reason to want King dead because he had began to shift his activism from the forced race mixing, which the system promotes, to workers rights and protesting the Vietnam war. The system of course making money from the Vietnam war and exploiting workers it was only a matter of time that a leader with as much power and charisma as King had was going to get iced by the system. Its actually a shame they killed him because although I consider King to be a total scumbag he was actually in a position where he may have actually finally done a lot of good if he had lived.
September 23, 2021
Perhaps, the old curmudgeon Harold Weisberg was the original inspiration to Roger Hargreaves' Mr Uppity in his Mr Men series of children's books.
'Martin Luther King: The Assassination', previously published under the title 'Frame Up' is a five hundred and thirty page no holds barred vitriolic filled rant at both prosecution and defence lawyers in this case, the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover in particular, the Memphis police, the U.S. Attorney General and many of his staff in the Department of Justice, the U.S. State Department, the mainstream media as well as full broadsides at the highest positions of U.S. government.
Earlier works from Weisberg were self published assaults on the Warren Commission's shambolic verdicts on the JFK assassination, so by 1971, the copyright date of this MLK/Ray publication, he was in full swing. The work of Weisberg and partner Bernard Fensterwald has to be admired for their tenacity and courage, for their FOIA pursuits if nothing else. Two knights tilting at more than windmills. Weisberg, the former Senate investigator, shows throughout the text that he is more than a match for the legal, as well as illegal machinations against James Earl Ray. In addition, old Harold, the lone gumshoe, rigorously examines the so called prosecution evidence in the case.
All in all, here is a very disturbing synopsis, which when accompanied with William F. Pepper's 'An Act of State' should be much food for thought and grave doubts on the facts of the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
'Martin Luther King: The Assassination', previously published under the title 'Frame Up' is a five hundred and thirty page no holds barred vitriolic filled rant at both prosecution and defence lawyers in this case, the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover in particular, the Memphis police, the U.S. Attorney General and many of his staff in the Department of Justice, the U.S. State Department, the mainstream media as well as full broadsides at the highest positions of U.S. government.
Earlier works from Weisberg were self published assaults on the Warren Commission's shambolic verdicts on the JFK assassination, so by 1971, the copyright date of this MLK/Ray publication, he was in full swing. The work of Weisberg and partner Bernard Fensterwald has to be admired for their tenacity and courage, for their FOIA pursuits if nothing else. Two knights tilting at more than windmills. Weisberg, the former Senate investigator, shows throughout the text that he is more than a match for the legal, as well as illegal machinations against James Earl Ray. In addition, old Harold, the lone gumshoe, rigorously examines the so called prosecution evidence in the case.
All in all, here is a very disturbing synopsis, which when accompanied with William F. Pepper's 'An Act of State' should be much food for thought and grave doubts on the facts of the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
April 12, 2021
Enjoyable, but not the 'end all, be all' source one might have hoped for. Some of the names are relatively new, but this is mostly the 1st to market, not the best.
November 24, 2025
Exhaustive! At times
exhausting. Exonerates
Ray, tried "ex parte."
exhausting. Exonerates
Ray, tried "ex parte."
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews