Greene County Democrat

Tag: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

  • Newswire :US Justice Department releases files on the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

    By: Blackmansstreettoday.com


    The U.S. Justice Department recently released on July 21 files regarding the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., despite some members of the King family opposing the release, though one family member supports it.
    The release contains 230,000 pages of documents and comes following President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 14176, said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi.
    Dr. King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, while staying at the Lorraine Motel. 
    He was shot by James Earl Ray, a petty criminal. Ray was arrested in London, but not everyone is convinced that he was the assassin.
    Before he died of prostate cancer, Dexter Scott King, Dr. King’s youngest son, met with Ray in prison, shook his hand, and concluded that Ray did not kill his father. Dexter King died on January 22. He was 62 years old,
    J. Edgar Hoover hated Dr. King, believing that he would become a Black messiah. Organized crime figures also may have had a hand in his assassination. There are also suggestions that Carlos Marcello, the mob boss of New Orleans, was involved in the killing of Dr. King because he was challenging the way things had been done in the past.
    The FBI tapped Dr. King’s phone calls and even had people working for Dr. King who reported to the FBI. The FBI showed photographs to President Lyndon B. Johnson and other government officials of Dr. King having sex with other women, not his wife, Coretta Scott King.
    The release by the Trump administration is controversial. It comes after AG Bondi refused to release the Epstein files. Some observers feel this document release is part of efforts to divert public attention from the Epstein files.
    “We recognize that the release of documents concerning the assassination of our father, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has long been a subject of interest, captivating public curiosity for decades,” the family said in a statement. But “the release of these files must be viewed within their full historical context. During our father’s lifetime, he was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
    The recent disclosure is the product of months of collaboration between the Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). DOJ attorneys spent hundreds of hours preparing and digitizing these documents for release.
    “The American people deserve answers decades after the horrific assassination of one of our nation’s great leaders,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “The Department of Justice is proud to partner with Director Gabbard and the ODNI at President Trump’s direction for this latest disclosure.”

  • First Black crew member to join International Space Station

    By Shantella Y. Sherman (AFRO/NNPA Member)

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    Astronaut Jeanette Epps prepares to go into space
    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has selected astronaut Jeanette Epps to join the crew of the International Space Station in 2018. Epps will become the first Black crewmember to represent the U.S. on the station. The journey will mark the first time Epps has traveled to orbit, allowing her to follow in the footsteps of the women who, she said, inspired her to become an astronaut.
    While other Black astronauts have flown to the Space Station for brief stays during the outpost’s construction, Epps will be the first Black crewmember to live and work on the station for an extended period of time. Her journey aboard the Soyuz spacecraft and stay at the station places her as the only American and female among a crew made up of mostly Russians and men.
    “I’m a person just like they are. I do the same work as they do,” Epps told a group of STEM students at her Syracuse alma mater, Danforth Middle School. “If something breaks, anyone of us will have to be able to go out the door. We have to be jacks of all trades. It’s not a job that’s like any other.”
    While working on her doctorate, Epps was a NASA graduate student Researchers Project fellow, authoring several journal and conference articles about her research. After completing her graduate studies, Epps worked in a research lab for more than two years, co-authoring multiple patents, before being recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). She was a CIA technical intelligence officer for about seven years before being selected as a member of the 2009 astronaut class.
    “Anything you don’t know is going to be hard at first,” Epps said in a video statement about the launch. “But if you stay the course, put the time and effort in, it will become seamless eventually.”
    Epps, in the NASA video interview, shared when she was first introduced to the idea that she could be an astronaut. “It was about 1980, I was nine years old. My brother came home and he looked at my grades and my twin sisters’ grades and he said, ‘You know, you guys can probably become aerospace engineers or even astronauts,’” Epps said. “And this was at the time that Sally Ride [the first American woman to fly in space] and a group of women were selected to become astronauts — the first time in history. So, he made that comment and I said, ‘Wow, that would be so cool.’”
    Epps will join veteran NASA astronaut Andrew Feustel at the Space Station. On Feustel’s first long-duration mission, he served as a flight engineer on Expedition 55, and later as commander of Expedition 56.
    “Each space station crew brings something different to the table, and Drew and Jeanette both have a lot to offer,” said Chris Cassidy, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, in a statement. “The space station will benefit from having them on board.”