Bestselling author, James Earl Ray's defense attorney, and, later, lawyer for the King family William Pepper reveals who actually killed MLK. William Pepper was James Earl Ray's lawyer in the trial for the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., and even after Ray's conviction and death, Pepper continues to adamantly argue Ray's innocence. This myth-shattering expose is a revised, updated, and heavily expanded volume of Pepper's original bestselling and critically acclaimed book Orders to Kill, with twenty-six years of additional research included. The result reveals dramatic new details of the night of the murder, the trial, and why Ray was chosen to take the fall for an evil conspiracy-a government-sanctioned assassination of our nation's greatest leader. The plan, according to Pepper, was for a team of United States Army Special Forces snipers to kill King, but just as they were taking aim, a backup civilian assassin pulled the trigger. The table of contents include: Chapter 1: The Road to Memphis Chapter 2: Deathly Support Chapter 3: The Patsy Ritual Chapter 4: Questions Abound Chapter 5: The Prison Interview Chapter 6: The Deepening Plot Chapter 7: Showtime-Investigative Hearings Chapter 8: The Unscripted Television Trial Chapter 9: Doors Begin to Open Chapter 10: Roots of the Civil Trial Chapter 11: Discovery Chapter 12: A Darker, Deeper Scene Emerges Chapter 13: A Patsy's Death Chapter 14: A Key Player Begins to Talk Chapter 15: The Civil Trial Chapter 16: Raul Coelho ("Raul") Chapter 17: The Verdict and the Media Silence Chapter 18: A Courageous Witness Comes Forward Chapter 19: The Meeting Chapter 20: More Flesh on the Bones Chapter 21: The Ultimate Assassin In The Plot to Kill King, Pepper shares the evidence and testimonies that prove that Ray was a fall guy chosen by those who viewed King as a dangerous revolutionary. His findings make the book one of the most important of our time-the uncensored story of the murder of an American hero that contains disturbing revelations about the obscure inner-workings of our government and how it continues, even today, to obscure the truth.

On April 4 1968, Martin Luther King was in Memphis supporting a workers' strike. By nightfall, army snipers were in position, military officers were on a nearby roof with cameras, and Lloyd Jowers had been paid to remove the gun after the fatal shot was fired. When the dust had settled, King had been hit and a clean-up operation was set in motion-James Earl Ray was framed, the crime scene was destroyed, and witnesses were killed. William Pepper, attorney and friend of King, has conducted a thirty-year investigation into his assassination. In 1999, Loyd Jowers and other co-conspirators were brought to trial in a civil action suit on behalf of the King family. Seventy witnesses set out the details of a conspiracy that involved J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Richard Helms and the CIA, the military, Memphis police, and organized crime. The jury took an hour to find for the King family. In An Act of State, you finally have the truth before you-how the US government shut down a movement for social change by stopping its leader dead in his tracks.

Martin Luther King Jr was the most powerful and eloquent champion of the poor and oppressed in US history, and at the height of his fame in the mid-sixties seemed to offer the real possibility of a new and radical beginning for liberal politics in the USA. In 1968, he was assassinated; the movement for social and economic change has never recovered.The conviction of James Earl Ray for his murder has never looked even remotely safe, and when William Pepper began to investigate the case it was the start of a twenty-five year campaign for justice. At a civil trial in 1999, supported by the King family, seventy witnesses under oath set out the details of the conspiracy Pepper had unearthed: the jury took just one hour to find that Ray was not responsible for the assassination, that a wide-ranging conspiracy existed, and that government agents were involved.An Act of State lays out the extraordinary facts of the King story - of the huge groundswell of optimism engendered by his charismatic radicalism, of how plans for his execution were laid at the very heart of government and the military, of the disinformation and media cover-ups that followed every attempt to search out the truth. As shocking as it is tragic, An Act of State remains the most compelling and authoritative account of how King's challenge to the US establishment led inexorably to his murder.