FBI wiretappers intercepted these emotional exchanges over Levison’s office lines in New York and forwarded transcripts to headquarters, where Levison’s defense of O’Dell doubtless made perfect sense as one Communist vouching for another. The internal strife at the SCLC also was ample proof that the Bureau’s first active blow against King had landed with telling effect. FBI agents had planted the unsigned New Orleans article, along with virtually identical ones in four other newspapers scattered from St. Louis to Long Island.
