Birmingham Bombshell Did Gary Thomas Rowe Bomb and Kill for the F.B.L?
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NATIONAL NEWS Birmingham Bombshell Did Gary Thomas Rowe Bomb and Kill for the F.B.L? DECLAN MAUR -SLACK STAR BY PETER BISKLND he probably knew in advance that the bombing had been planned and failed to Sunday, September 15, 1963 in Bir- report it to the Bureau. He may even have mingham, Alabama was mild and pleas- accompanied Robert Chambliss in the car ant. The sky was partly overcast. The that delivered the bomb. Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which The polygraph tests indicated that had been the staging area for the massive Rowe was "attempting deception" when Black demonstrations that rocked Bir- he denied setting off shrapnel bombs in mingham during the spring, had once Black neighborhoods subsequent to the again become a house of worship. This church bombing. According to The New Sunday was Youth Day. The church was York Times, the investigators suggested full of children. Although the atmosphere that Rowe, paid for information by the in Birmingham was tense—the public F.B.I. on a piece-work basis, may have school system had just embarked on an provoked Klan violence to earn more uncertain course of court-ordered de- money. segregation—many hoped the worst was Rowe also confessed to startled state over. White community leaders had final- investigators that in the confused after- ly realized that Birmingham's ferocious math of the bombing, he shot and killed a race war was bad for business. They had Black man who was allegedly beating up a ended weeks of Black sit-ins and marches white woman. When he reported the by agreeing to integrate downtown lunch incident to his F.B.I. "control", agent counters, rest rooms and drinking Byron McFall, McFall told him to "sit fountains. tight and don't say anything else about At 11:25 a.m., Denise McNair, aged 11, it." McFall, now a federal judge in Okla- and Addie Mae Collins. aged 14, were in homa City, called Rowe's account "an the basement at the rear of the building absolute falsehood", and an F.B.I. putting on robes to sing in the youth spokesman said that the Bureau's records choir. Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robert- show no indication that such a shooting son, also 14, were to be ushers. Suddenly, ever took place. Rowe charged that the a deafening explosion, like a thunderclap, F.B.I. sanitized its files to cover up the shook the church and a storm of flying slaying. glass and falling stone broke over the Finally, both Baxley's investigators and children. The blast knocked down a brick polygraph tests commissioned by ABC's wall, blew out doors, pulverized a con- Inside of bombed 16th Street Baptist news show 20/20 have raised serious crete stairway and shattered stained glass Church. questions about Rowe's role in the March windows. One that remained almost intact old age in their sleep before they were ever 1965 slaying of Viola Liuzzo. Liuzzo, a pictured Christ leading a group of chil- brought into court by Hoover's G-men. Detroit woman in Alabama for Martin dren; now there was a gaping black hole Last November, Baxley managed to con- Luther King's Selma-to-Montgomery civil where the face had been. Bibles and vict one person, 74-year-old Robert rights march, was shot to death one night hymnals lay shredded on the floor like so Chambliss. The investigation is now en- on a lonely back road in Lowndes County much confetti. Blood was spattered over tangled in the ups and downs of Baxley's by Klansmen. It was Rowe who identified the choir robes. The acrid odor of dyna- political fortunes and where it goes from the men in 1965 and it was his testimony mite hung in the air. When the clouds of here is anybody's guess. What does seem that convicted them of conspiracy to plaster dust cleared away, Denise McNair. clear is that the F.B.I. failed to crack the violate Liuzzo's civil rights in their third Addle Mae Collins. Cynthia Wesley and case, not because it couldn't, but because trial. (They were twice acquitted of mur- Carol Robertson were dead. it didn't want to. The Bureau's star in- der.) Rowe told the court that he was in Almost immediately. J. Edgar Hoover former, Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr., who the car with the three men as it pursued flooded Birmingham with F.B.I. agents, penetrated the Klan in the 1960s, may and then drew alongside Liuzzo's car. He calling the Bureau's operation "the most have provoked the violence he was paid to testified that he pointed his gun at Liuzzo, intensive since the hunt for John Dillin- report on. along with the others, but withheld his ger." One top F.B.I. official said: "We'll According to The New York Times, fire, allowing one of his companions to solve the case if it takes 10 years." two separate lie detector reports, com- actually shoot her. According to Alabama In fact, it took 15 years. And were it pleted last year and just made public, investigators, however, Rowe told two not for the intervention of Alabama's indicate that Rowe was telling less than Birmingham policemen that he did in fact Attorney General. Bill Baxley, the the truth when he informed Baxley's participate in the shooting. Birmingham bombers (there are reported- investigators in 1977 that he had nothing Both convicted men, Collie Leroy ly at least nine) would have died quietly of to do with the bombing. They suspect that Wilkens and Eugene Thomas (the third August 5975 NATIONAL NEWS INIONS9WWWw*,:e ... man is now dead), recently submitted to space," said Gallion. "Maybe they threw giants that has run Alabama as long as lie detector tests for ABC's 20/20. The them out." anyone can remember. During his two results indicate that they were telling the Baxley reopened the investigation in terms in office, he has blocked Mobil Oil truth when they claimed that Rowe killed 1971, shortly after taking office. One of from drilling in Mobile Bay, harassed Liuzzo. Rowe also submitted to ABC's the first things he did was to ask the strip miners and taken the Tennessee polygraph test, and denied that he shot F.B.I. for its files on the case. It wasn't Valley Authority, the Environmental Liuzzo. The tests indicated a "decep- until four years later, in 1975, that the Protection Agency, the Army Corps of tion". Last December, Liuzzo's family F.B.I. obliged, after Baxley reportedly Engineers and U.S. Steel to court for filed a 52 million damage suit against the threatened to hold a new conference in polluting Alabama's air and water. He F.B.I., charging that Rowe could and Washington with the parents of the dead has prosecuted white collar criminals, should have prevented Liuzzo's death. girls. "It really hung us up," said Baxley. corrupt officials and backwoods sheriffs. Rowe had already testified before the "We couldn't bring in Suspects for ques- But last fall, a local Montgomery Church Committee on Intelligence in 1975 tioning until we'd found out what they'd reporter, Mark Maclntyre, discovered that the Bureau had encouraged him to said before, over the years, to other some financial hanky-panky between participate in acts of violence. He has agents. And the F.B.I. wouldn't let us Baxley and a New Orleans multi-million- been in hiding with an F.B.I.-supplied talk to their agents who had worked on aire named Lewis J. Roussel. Maclntyre new identity since the Liuzzo trial in 1965 the case. I don't know why. It defies charged that Baxley protected Roussel's and now claims he was victimized by the logic. insurance companies operating in Ala- Bureau. He broke down and cried during "Even when they agreed to cooperate, bama from charges of self-dealing leveled the filming of a recent documentary on we had to know exactly what to ask for by by the state Insurance Department. In —the Klan, advising viewers: "Don't get name: Give me a transcript of this inter- exchange, Roussel contributed generously involved with the F.B.I. I can't see my view with that individual. 1 want this lab to Baxley's campaign coffers (most of kids except for once a year. It wasn't report and that polygraph thing." which Baxley returned). worth it." He says the government still According to Assistant Attorney General Baxley likes to gamble. But when one owes him money. George Royer, who worked on the investi- jaunt to Las Vegas was splashed all over The F.B.I., for its part, has called gation, it was a catch-22 situation: "You Alabama newspapers, he shifted his atten- Rowe a publicity seeker. (Columbia Pic- had to know what to ask for before you tions to the commodities market. In 1975, tures has just completed a TV movie for could get it, but you couldn't know what he allegedly made $60,000 speculating in NBC called The Freedom Riders. Based to ask for without first seeing the files." sugar. The next year, he reportedly lost on Rowe's book, My Undercover Years Baxley is smack in the middle of cam- $113,000 to $120,000 on coffee, a sizable with the Ku Klux Klan, it features former paigning for governor, and according to loss for a public official who only makes football star Don Meredith in the lead.) long-time observers of Alabama's $33,000 a year.