In response to Donald Trump's order to release documents related to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, on Friday the government made public an FBI file on Martin Luther King from March 1968, four-and-a-half years after Kennedy was shot. The document doesn't paint a flattering portrait of the civil rights leader, the Washington Post reports. It accuses him of being a “whole-hearted Marxist who has studied it (Marxism), believes in it and agrees with it, but because of his being a minister of religion, does not dare to espouse it publicly.” Though the language is harsh, it's not entirely surprising. It's long been known that the FBI, led by King nemesis J. Edgar Hoover, conducted surveillance on King in an attempt to prove his ties to the Communist Party and tarnish his reputation.
The document also includes insinuations about King's personal life, in particular extramarital affairs, and the accusation that King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference was a "tax dodge," CNN reports. The report also casts doubt on whether King should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The 20-document was one of 676 files released by the National Archive on Friday. Other documents released in response to the Trump order last month have included information about Lee Harvey Oswald and the Watergate burglars. It's not clear why the King file was hidden in government documents related to the Kennedy assassination. (More Martin Luther King Jr. stories.)
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