TRANSCRIPT
MILTEER - SOMERSETT
NOVEMBER 9, 1963
Information received by electronic device
on Nov 9, 1963 by the Intelligence Unit of the Miami Police Dept, Miami,
Fla.
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[INFORMANT IS WILLIAM
SOMERSETT. SUBJECT IS JOSEPH MILTEER]
[handwritten note:] "Interrogation by Sgt. Everett Kay"
Informant: Now we are going to, you are going to have to take, Kenney, what
do you call his last name?
Subject: Kenneth Adams
Informant: Yeah, you are going to take him in, he is suppose to be one of
the hard core of the underground, are you going to invite him into that,
too? What about Brown, now are you going to invite Brown in?
You are going to have Brown in it?
Subject: Yeah.
Informant: Now, I will tell you between me and you, because we are talking,
we aren't going to talk to everybody like we are talking here. Now,
you know this, I like Brown, he is a good fellow, you know him, now here
is something, when we was in his house, now, he knows me and you, but he
didn't know Lee McCloud, well I think he done too much talking in front of
a man he didn't know. Brown trusts a lot of people, he figures everybody
is good.
Subject: Yeah.
Informant: And you know when he was telling or him (not legible) her about
blowing up all those churches and, you know, I don't think he should have
said all that in front of McCloud.
Subject: That is exactly the way I feel about it, too. And I didn't
talk about it any more after we left there.
Informant: No, I see you didn't you see, these things come to my mind, I
don't know McCloud well, and Brown never seen him before in his life, that
I know of, now you seen this boy, Jackie, didn't open his mouth, he just
sit there and listened. Jack Caulk (phonetic) he is a very quiet boy,
Brown it just seems, well, he, I guess he has gotten by with so much he just
don't care. He come out with all that about going over to Atlanta carrying
that stuff, and showing them how to operate, I didn't want to say anything
to him, but I don't think it is a good idea for people to discuss things
like that in front of strangers. What do you think about it?
Subject: No, I he should operate that, the same as he does the rest of it.
Informant: That's right, damn right that is right. Now you take like
the Birmingham....(Subject breaks in)
Subject: Any conclusion they come up with, that's them, not him.
Informant: That is true.
Subject: He didn't give them anything.
Informant: Well, he didn't give them nothing.
Subject: Just like me at home there folks want to know, "Joe, where do you
get all of your information? "Well, I get it, that is all you are interested
in", and that is as far as it goes, see. And the same guy will turn
around and give me some information, but he doesn't know where I am getting
my information. The same guy who asks me where I get my information,
will turn around and give me information.
Informant: We, sure, of course, I realize that.
Subject: That is the way you have got to operate.
Informant: Well, that is what I say, if you are going to take Brown in, and
Brown is going to be one of the head men, the man behind you, then you have
got to talk to Brown a little bit, and tell him, you know, "You have got
to be a little more conscientious, especially on these bombings, and killings",
after all he comes right out with it.
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PAGE 2
Subject: We have got to let him understand, that, that is his operation,
and not ours.
Informant: Yeah, that is true. We don't care, if he wants to go to
Birmingham and blow up a church, let him.
Subject: If he wants to blow up the National Capital, that is alright with
me. I will go with him, but not as a party though, as an individual.
Informant: Well, if you want to go with him and help him blow it up, that
is not the party, it is an individual, you are going to have to make him
understand that.
Subject: There is a party movement, and there is also an individual movement.
Informant: Yeah, that is right.
Subject: And they are distinct and separate.
Informant: Well, you are going to have to make him understand that, right
there, he didn't exactly admit it, but Jesus Christ, he intimated, he indicated
right there, he backed the bombings of killing the Negroes in Birmingham,
well, you know damn well we don't want anybody talking like that.
Subject: Can't afford it.
Informant: Well, you know damn well that is bad talk especially to somebody
he don't know. He could have said that to me, and you would have been
alright, it would have been between you and me then, /it
Subject: That is true.
Informant: But to go ahead and say it in front of Lee McCloud, what that
hell (Subject breaks in)
Subject: Well, I think he thought that he would not have been with us, if
he had not have been alright. But that is still not enough.
Informant: No, hell no, that is no good, at least before he made all those
statements, he should have called you outside, or consulted about this man
a little b it.
Subject: you have to have reservations, you know.
Informant: That is right. Hell, he didn't say these things in any way
to try to get us in trouble, because the only one who could be in trouble
would be him, he was confessing on his damn self, he wasn't confessing on
us, because we hadn't done a damn thing.
Subject: You and I would not get up there on the stand and say that he told
us a cotton picking thing either.
Informant: Well, he knows that, but how about the other man.
Subject: Well, that is what I say.
Informant: Yeah, hell yes. I tell you something, you take Kenneth Adams
over there, he is a mean damn man, like Brown was saying, the guy he was
sending him to, well Kenneth is real mean, and the way Brown indicated they
(not legible) the Negroes, well, we don't care anything about that.
I would rather he wouldn't tell us those stories.
Subject: You sure can't repeat them.
Informant: Yeah. That is the set-up we are in now, I mean, we have
to work with them, but let them operate their grollings (phonetic), like
you say, if you want to go with them, that is your opinion, you go with him
up to Washington and blow with him, if you want to go (Subject breaks in)
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PAGE 3
Subject: I have a man who is the head of his underground of his own up there
in Delaware, and since I worked on the Supreme Court, he wanted me to give
him the lay-out there so they could go over there and do some things there,
you know. But he called it off, I don't know why, I didn't even ask
him why. That was his affair, but he called it off. But it was
ready to go with him. I gave him the damn information he wanted.
Informant: You worked on the Supreme Court.
Subject: Yeah, three and a half years.
Informant: Well, that is why he wanted you to go, then, well, them things
have got to be done, but outside the Party, we have got to be mighty careful
who the hell we let know anything. Now, here is one thing you have
got to realize, transporting dynamite across the state line is a Federal
Offense, well you better let them know that.
Subject: Well, there is a way to beat that, you know. All you have
to do is pull up to the state line, unload it there, slide it across the
line, get in the care and load it again, and they can't accuse you of transporting
it then, because you didn't do it. I have done the same thing with
a woman. I had one, then I had a woman frame me on it. I got
to the state line, and I said, "Listen, foots, this is the state line, get
out, and I will meet you over there" she got out walked across the line,
got in my car in the other state, I didn't transport her, there wasn't a
fucking thing she could do about it, I had her ass for a long time.
Informant: I was talking to a boy yesterday, and he was in Athens, Georgia,
and he told me, that they had two colored people working in that drug store,
and that them, uh, they went into the basement, and tapped them small pipes,
I guess that they are copper together, and let that thing accumulate, and
blowed that drug store up. He told me that yesterday, do you think
that is right?
Subject: It could have happened that way.
Informant: Well, that is what he told me, and he is in town right now.
Subject: Does he now who did it? Do they think these Negroes dit it?
Informant: Oh, no, they killed the Negroes, because they had two Negroes
working in the place, that is what he told me. He is in town now, he
is from Chattanooga. He knows Brown, he knows all of them, his uncle
is in the Klan there. He is a young boy, he has been in the Marines,
and he really knows hi business. He went there, he went down and looked,
and he told me that is what happened. So he has been involved in quite
a little but of stuff, according to his story about Nashville, Chattanooga,
and Georgia. I have no reason not to believe him, because he told me
too much about Brown's operation, that is the reason I (not legible)
Subject: Yeah. You take this boy, Connor McGintis (phonetic) boy up
there in Union, N.J., of curse he doesn't go to anything like that, but he
is on our side, he is the one that puts out that Common Sense. He is
an ex-Marine. He is all man, too.
Informant: Now, you see, we will talk to these other people, you have made
up your mind that you are going to use the Constitutional Party as a front.
Subject: Yeah, Constitutional Party States Rights.
Informant: Yeah, and it will strictly secret, and nobody will be exposed
except you.
Subject: Yeah.
Informant: Because when we talk to them today, you want to know exactly what
to tell them, how it operates.
Subject: Yeah, and we have got to set up a little fund there to get it operating.
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PAGE 4
Informant: Oh, yeah, sure.
Subject: And I am going to devote my time to it, I don't have any idea of
getting elected to that City Commission, but I am just making it cost them
bastards, it cost them as it is, it cost them between $1,500 and $2,000 to
beat me before, so I want to make it cost them another couple of thousand
dollars. If they want to get rid of me, they can buy me fucking property,
and I will get out of the damn town. In other words, they will save
money. I am going to put that out in one of the damn bulletins there,
see. We put, the way I operate, put out these little bulletins, like
a typewriter page, eight and a half by eleven, and brother don't you think
they ain't waiting for them, when I don't put them out, "Joe, where is the
bulleting?" Bill, that could go all over the country the same way.
That was just a trial proposition, if it will work in a little stinking town
like that, it will work anywhere.
Informant: I don't know, I think Kennedy is coming here on the 18th, or something
like that to make some kind of speech, I don't know what it is, but I imagine
it will be on the T.V., and you can be on the look for that, I think it is
the 18th that he is suppose to be here. I don't know what it is suppose
to be about.
Subject: You can bet your bottom dollar he is going to have a lot to say
about the Cubans, there are so many of them here.
Informant: Yeah, well he will have a thousand bodyguards don't worry about
that.
Subject: The more bodyguards he has, the easier it is to get him.
Informant: What?
Subject: The more bodyguards he has the more easier it is to get him.
Informant: Well how in the hell do you figure would be the best way to get
him?
Subject: From an office building with a high powered rifle, how many people
(room noise tape not legible) does he have going around who look just like
him? Do you know about that?
Informant: No, I never heard that he had anybody.
Subject: He has got them.
Informant: He has?
Subject: He has about fifteen. Whenever he goes any place they (not
legible) he knows he is a marked man.
Informant: You think he knows he is a marked man?
Subject: Sure he does.
Informant: They are really going to try to kill him?
Subject: Oh, yeah, it is in the working. Brown himself, Brown is just
as likely to get him as anybody. He hasn't said so, but he tried to
get Martin Luther King.
Informant: He did.
Subject: Oh yes, he followed him for miles and miles, and couldn't get close
enough to him.
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PAGE 5
Informant: You know exactly where it is in Atlanta don't you?
Subject: Martin Luther King, yeah.
Informant: Bustus Street(phonetic)
Subject: Yeah 530.
Informant: Oh Brown tried to get him huh?
Subject: Yeah.
Informant: Well, he will damn sure do it, I will tell you that. Well,
that is why, look, you see, well, that is why we have to be so careful, you
know that Brown is operating strong.
Subject: He ain't going for play you know.
Informant: That is right.
Subject: He is going for broke.
Informant: I never asked Brown about his business or anything, you know just
what he told me, told us, you know. But after the conversation, and
the way he talked to us, there is no question in my mind about who knocked
the church off in Birminham, you can believe that, that is the way I figured
it.
Subject: That is right, it is about the only way you can figure it.
Informant: That is right.
Subject: Not being there, not knowing anything.
Informant: But just from his conversation, as you and me know him, but if
they did it is their business, like you say (Subject breaks in)
Subject: It is up to the individual.
Informant: That is right. They are individual operators, we don't want
that within the party. Hitting this Kennedy is going to be a hard proposition,
I tell you, I believe, you may have figured out a way to get him, you may
have figured out the office building, and all that I don't know how them
Secret Service Agents cover all them office buildings, or anywhere he is
doing, do you know whether they do that or not?
Subject: Well, if they have any suspicion they do that of course. But
without suspicion chances are that they wouldn't. You take t here in
Washington, of course it is the wrong time of the years, but you take pleasant
weather, he comes out on the veranda, and somebody could be in a hotel room
across the way there, and pick him off just like (fades out).
Informant: Is that right?
Subject: Sure disassemble a gun, you don't have to take a gun up there, you
can take it up in pieces, all those guns come knock down, you can take them
apart.
Informant: They have got damn, this boy was telling me yesterday about, they
have got an explosive that you get out of the army, it is suppose to be like
putty or something, you stick it up, induse a small fuse, you just stick
it like that, he told me, and I think that is what happened in the church
in Birmingham, they stuck this stuff somebody stuck it under the stens with
a short fuse, and went on home.
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PAGE 6
Informant: This boy is pretty smart, demolition is that what you call it?
Subject: Demolition, that is right.
Informant: I am going to talk with thim some more.
Subject: Yeah I would.
Informant: I am going to talk with hom some more, and find out a lot more
about his operation, because he knows a hell of a lot.
Subject: You need a guy like that around, too. Where we can put our
finger on him, when we want him.
Informant: Yeah. Well, you have got somebody up there in that country
now, if you need him.
Subject: Well, we are going to have to get nasty first (not legible)
Informant: Yeah, get nasty.
Subject: We have got to be ready, we have got to be sitting on go, too.
Informant: Yeah, that is right.
Subject: There ain't any count down to it, we have just got to be sitting
on go. Count down is alright for a slow prepared operation, but in
an emergency operation, you have got to be sitting on go.
Informant: Boy, if that Kennedy gets shot, we have to know where we are at.
Because you know that will be a real shake, if they do that.
Subject: They wouldn't leave any stone unturned there no way. They
will pick up somebody within hours afterwards, if anything like that would
happen just to throw the public off.
Informant: Oh, somebody is going to have to go to jail, if he gets killed.
Subject: Just like that Bruno Hauptman in the Lindberg case you know.
(Dials telephone)
Informant: "Hello, is Jim there?" "Has he gone to the office?' "Un
hun, well, is he coming back home?" "Alright, I will do that, thank
you." He has gone out to one of his apartment houses, and he will be
back later. We will go see whatamacalit, he closes at 1:00 o'clock.
We will go up and see Andres, and we will double back to Jim's (room noise)
Subject: Actually the only man we are interested in up at that place (room
noise - not legible - door closes)
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