Malcolm X: FBI - CIA - New York Police Department Files - Download

Malcolm X: FBI - CIA - New York Police Department Files

9,660 pages of FBI, CIA, and New York Police Department files covering Malcolm X. Malcolm X was a Minister of the Nation of Islam until March 1964, when he left and formed the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Malcolm X was assassinated on February 21, 1965, while delivering a speech in New York City. Norman Butler, Thomas Johnson, and Talmage Hayer were convicted of his murder and sentenced to life in prison.

 
FBI FILES

9,303 pages of files covering Malcolm X, first identified in the files as Malcolm K. Little, his birth name.  Malcolm X was released from prison in August 1952 and by February 1953 the FBI had a file open on him. The files give FBI accounts of intercepted personal correspondences, eavesdropped phone conversations, information from informants, newspaper articles, radio and television interviews, sermons and speeches.

 The files show the changing association between Malcolm X’s and Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, and the Nation of Islam. Files show that the New York Police Department believed reports of threats on the life of Malcolm X was a publicity stunt.

 
CIA FILES

71 pages, 30 documents, approximately 10 pages of duplicates, of CIA files the Agency identified as related to Malcolm X. Much of the material is cursory concerning basic biographical information, his funding by the government of Egypt and his meeting with Fidel Castro in 1960.

One set of documents of interest are 8 pages, 3 memos from November and December 1964, detailing conversations between Malcolm X and an individual whose identity is redacted. The memos were sent from the CIA's Director of Plans to S.J. Papich, the FBI's liaison to the CIA.  At the time the Director of Plans was Richard Helms who would later become Director of the CIA.. The memos convey information from the informant about views expressed by Malcom X in their conversations. The informant reports on Malcolm X talking about his plans for the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU), an organization started by Malcom X after leaving the Nation of Islam. In a memo dated July 2, 1964, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described the OAAU as a threat to the national security of the United States.

Malcolm X also mentions his views about the NAACP,  civil rights movement,  the late President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, his hope that Barry Goldwater would be elected president because he believed this would cause chaos, pleasure of learning that China detonated an atomic bomb, the status and future of African Americans, his admiration for the Mau Mau in Kenya, his belief about Islam and its relationship with Africans and people of African descent, and among other things his beliefs about the use of violence.

 
NEW YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT
 
287 pages of New York Police Department files. Consisting mostly of reports regarding Malcolm X's assassination on February 21, 196 as he was preparing to address the OAAU in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom. Mostly witness statements and short form reports on investigative activity of NYPD detectives assigned to the assassination.