Who Killed Malcolm X ? Thirteen Years Later Questions Linger and the Case Is About to Be Reopened

NATIONAL NEVVS (First of Two Parts) Who Killed Malcolm X ? Thirteen Years Later Questions Linger and the Case Is About to be Reopened BY ALAN BERGER Yet, in the last few days of his life, Malcolm told people close to him that The assassination of Malcolm X thir- recent events had "led him to believe that teen years ago left in its wake a trail of the plotters of his death were much bigger unanswered questions. Some of these than the Muslims." Malcolm had what he were legal questions and some were considered sound reasons for this belief. larger, political questions. The standing The previous summer he had been legal verdict on the assassination holds poisoned in the main dining room of the that three men, forming a conspiracy, Cairo Hilton Hotel in Egypt. Malcolm were guilty of the act. And since two of was certain this was not the work of the the three were well-known Black Muslim Black Muslims; he had grounds for "enforcers," the public has accepted the attributing this attempt on his life to the obvious implication—that the murder was C.I.A. Less than two weeks before his ordered, planned, and carried out solely death, he was denied entry into France by the Black Muslims as the culmination forever as an "undesirable person," pos- of that group's vendetta against the apos- sibly because French officials feared he tate, Malcolm X. would be assassinated on French soil. Malcolm assumed that these signs of Alan Berger writes frequently for Seven danger were the inevitable consequence of Days. Portions of this article originally his political effort to "internationalize" appeared in Boston's Real Paper. John Lamle/Black Star Malcolm's trip to Egypt "concerned" the State Department. John Launoia /Black Star Seven Days 21 NATIONAL NEWS the situation of black people in America and then returned the day before, on both publicly that Black Muslims, under orders by taking their case to the United Nations. occasions making careful preparations for from Elijah Muhammad, were out to kill The assassination itself and the trial their escape. him. Malcolm had heard rumors, he had that followed almost a year later pro- The new deposition even describes the seen signs, he had received letters. But duced a myriad of disturbing indications get-away car including where it was just before he went on stage he had told that two innocent men were convicted and parked and where it headed. his assistants waiting with him in the that undercover agents of the New York A preliminary reading of F.B.I. files— anteroom offstage that he was going to Police Force and the F.B.I. may have just opened under the Freedom of Infor- tell the audience that he had been hasty in played an instrumental role in the case. mation Act—indicates early eyewitness accusing the Black Muslims of bombing Attorney William Kunstler has recently reports, though not all uniform, do sup- his home. "Things have happened since submitted affliavits to a New York court port Hagan's statement that more than that are bigger than what they can do," intended to show that new evidence three men participated in the killing. Malcolm said. "I know what they can do. unearthed since the final appeal in the Attorney Kunstler has submitted Things. have gone beyond that." case constitutes grounds for obtaining a Hagan's affidavit along with another that As Malcom stood beside the rostrum new trial. includes the transcript of testimony given preparing to begin his talk, a scuffle One of the three men originally con- by police undercover agent Gene Roberts, broke out toward the back of the hall. victed, Thomas Hagan, has now agreed to who admitted during a 1971 conspiracy There was an angry shout: "Nigger, get name four other men who acted with him trial of twenty-one Black Panthers in New your hands out of my pocket!" All heads in the murder. Hagan says that Thomas York City tbat he had been a bodyguard turned to see what was happening—and Johnson and Norman Butler, the two men to Malcolm X and possessed crucial to see who had spoken this unforgivable convicted with him, are innocent. knowledge about Malcolm's murder word. Malcolm's bodyguards moved A first affidavit by Hagan was ruled which had been withheld at the time of the down from the stage toward the distur- not sufficiently specific by Judge Roph- original trial. bance. Malcolm himself stepped out from wax, the judge sitting at the hearing. But A little after three o'clock on Sunday behind the podium and toward the front Hagan has written a longer, more-detailed afternoon, February 21, 1965, Malcolm X of the stage. "Hold it! Hold it! Don't get confession, Seven Days has learned, walked out onto the stage of the Audubon excited," Malcolm said. "Let's cool it, which gives the last names of two of his Ballroom on Broadway and 166th Street brothers." four accomplices and the names by which in Manhattan, across the street from the Then there was a muffled explosion at he knew the others. He also names the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. the rear of the hall and smoke from an incendiary device rose into the air. A woman screamed. A man in one of the front rows held up a sawed-off shotgun and fired into Malcolm's chest. As Malcolm keeled over, two or three men were seen standing in the front row, "like a firing squad," pumping bullets into him. After he had fallen the gunmen emptied their revolvers into the inert body. One of the killers, Talmadge Hayer (whom police and court records refer to as Thomas Hagan), was knocked down by a chair thrown at him by one of Malcolm's bodyguards. Hagan shot at the bodyguard and a bullet left a hole near the bottom of the bodyguard's jacket. The bodyguard was called "Brother. Gene"; he would admit five years later that he was an undercover agent for the New York Bu- reau of Special Services, an elite subver- sion unit of the Police Department, which Thomas Hagan: The link to a conspiracy? UPI was sometimes called the "Red Squad." Another bodyguard, Reuben Francis, contact man who gave the orders as well He came up behind the rostrum and gave fired three shots at Hagan. The second as the person to whom this contact re- the crowd of about 400 people the Islamic shot hit Hagan's leg, slowing him down so ported. greeting As-salaam alaikum. To those that the crowd was able to catch him as he The new deposition—which is sealed to who knew him, Malcolm appeared tense tumbled down the stairs in front of the protect the principles—describes a pre- and tired. He was showing the strain of Audubon. vious effort to kill Malcolm at home, an the past few weeks, a time during which Hagan was rescued from a severe beat- effort not carried out because at the time his house had been fire-bombed with his ing by patrolman Thomas Hoy, 22, who Malcolm was too well guarded. There is wife and four children in it and he had had been the only uniformed police of- also a precise description of how the received several warnings of an imminent ficer stationed at the door that day. Hoy killers went to a dance at the Audubon attempt to assassinate him. For some time wrestled the crowd for his suspect until ballroom a few days before the murder he and his friends had assumed and said two more officers, Angelos and Araonoff, 22 March 24, 1978 arrived to help. Haley also describes Malcolm being should arraign the United States before Together they got Hagan away from followed and threatened 'during the last the General Assembly of the United the crowd and into a squad car. three weeks of his life by Muslims he Nations for American violations of the In the confusion following the event, recognized, not only in New York, but human rights provision of the U.N. the New York newspapers reported that also in Los Angeles and Chicago. charter. Hoy had arrested one suspect and that Thus there was ample reason for Earlier that year he had told a press Angelos and Araonoff had arrested Malcolm to think that he was marked for conference in Ghana: "All of Africa another. But F.B.I. files show no evidence death, and to believe that the killers unites in opposition to South Africa's of a second arrest, and a widely printed would be acting as agents of the Nation of apartheid, and to the oppression in the photo shows all three cops grappling with Islam. But to understand the main thrust Portuguese territories. But you waste Hagan. The second suspect now appears, of the motions for a retrial that William your time if you don't realize that in the light of Hagan's confession, to be a Kunstler will be arguing in the courts, it is Verwoerd and Salazar, and Britain and product of journalistic haste. first necessary to understand why Mal- France, never could last a day if it were In the aftermath of the assassination, colm intended to tell his audience in the not for United States support. So until the press gave much coverage to the feud Audubon Ballroom that he "had been you expose the man in Washington, D.C., between Malcolm X and his former hasty to accuse the Black Muslims," and you haven't accomplished anything." spiritual leader, the honorable Elijah why he said, "things have happened since On July 23, 1964, the day before he was Muhammad.

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