interview - james o ingram · james o. ingram january 12, 2005 page 2 2 ar: yeah. prior to going...

© Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc.

Interview of Former Special Agent of the FBI 2005

James O. Ingram (1957 – 1982) Avery Rollins, Interviewer

January 12, 2005

Edited for spelling, repetitions, etc. by Sandra Robinette on October 22, 2005. Edited for Mr. Ingram’s corrections by Sandra Robinette on December 17, 2005.

Avery Rollins (AR):

I’m interviewing James O. Ingram for the Society of Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Program. Today is January 12, 2005. This interview is taking place at Mr. Ingram’s home in Madison, Mississippi. Jim, could you give me a little bit of your background? When and where you were born?

James Ingram (JI):

I was born in Henryetta, Oklahoma, January 22, 1932. Henryetta, Oklahoma is a small little cow town, which is, was also the home of Troy Aikman, Dallas Cowboys, and Jim Shoulders, world champion bull rider. So, the little town has its famous heroes.

AR: How many members in your family? JI: My father was one of thirteen and, of course, they were farmers. I had two brothers, one

sister, and they’ve all gone now. I’m the last of the bunch. AR: And how old are you now? JI: I am seventy-three years of age. AR: Okay. What was your education before you entered the FBI? JI: I went to school at Oklahoma and then transferred on a football scholarship to George

Washington University, Washington, D.C. I was certainly not good enough to play at Oklahoma University, but I enjoyed my stay at G W, and that’s how I became interested in the FBI. Having lived in the D.C. area and everything seemed to surround the FBI at that time and that got my interest.

AR: Okay. How soon after you graduated from college did you join the FBI? JI: Immediately. After I got out of school I immediately went into the FBI and it’s been a

tremendous career. In fact, as you well know, all our friends that we have, our close friends, are FBI Agents and their families scattered from the west coast to the east coast.

James O. Ingram January 12, 2005

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AR: Yeah. Prior to going into the FBI did you ever have occasion to meet any of the notables in the FBI?

JI: Not really. Not prior to going in. AR: Okay. JI: I did not. AR: Tell us a little bit about your training in New Agents Training, what that was like. JI: You know that was in nineteen-fifty-seven. I went in June 17, 1957. Of course all those

dates are etched in all Agents mind, and it was the old Quantico, it was, again, a most enjoyable time with the camaraderie of the Agents, and many of them are still good friends from the old Quantico days. And I must say it was grueling then, but the finest training that the world has ever seen. And I’ve known that now because of my career traveling all over the world for the FBI. I realized then that we were the premier law enforcement agency and, in my opinion, we still are.

AR: Mm hmm. Okay. What was your first office? JI: Indianapolis, Indiana. And I well remember because G. Gordon Liddy was also his

office and I met some very interesting people in Indianapolis. And G. Gordon Liddy was a most unusual fellow. And I still have pictures hanging on my wall today with G. Gordon and his wife and others.

But then I was assigned to a Resident Agency in Terre Haute, Indiana. And was assigned the Federal Penitentiary. And I’ll tell you, that was a rude awakening for a young FBI Agent because you had the mobsters from Chicago and other places confined at Terre Haute, and I didn’t realize the brutality then within the walls of the penitentiaries, and it was constant as far as assaults and investigations and, of course, it gave me the background as one heck of an interviewer and you had to listen.

AR: Right, right. JI: I enjoyed my stay in Indianapolis. Then I was transferred to New York City. And that

was my second office and when I look back it was probably one of the most rewarding because many of my friends today are still friends that I made in the FBI in New York.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And worked every type of case then. I was on the Cuban Squad when the assassination

of President John F. Kennedy, in 1963.


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JI: Of course New York became a focal point of investigations of the assassination of the President, because you had the Cuban angle, the Mexican angle, the Russian angle. New Orleans, you had allegations from there, and then, of course, everything arising out of Dallas. But I worked on that squad for quite some time and then, after everything had resolved itself on the killing of the President, several of us were transferred to Jackson, Mississippi. And I came in 1964, the latter part of ‘64, to Jackson, Mississippi, because Mr. Hoover, had opened an FBI Office in Jackson, Mississippi.

He had visited the state of Mississippi at the instructions of President Lyndon Baines Johnson and, Mr. Hoover, and President Johnson were on the same page of what to do with the Klan, how to fight the Klan. Of course, all of this came out of the missing three civil rights workers, Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney.

AR: Okay. We will use your experience here in Mississippi as the main focal point of this

interview. What I’d like to do is go on and review the rest of your career, beginning with after you left Mississippi. We’ll come back and cover the civil rights era. So when were you transferred out of Mississippi?

JI: Things had slowed in Mississippi and I was transferred kicking and screaming because I

did not want to leave Mississippi. But I was transferred in May of ‘1970. Roy K. Moore was the SAC, who I dearly loved, almost as a father. In fact, he’s still living today, age ninety, in a nursing home here in Jackson, Mississippi. But I was transferred and I asked him, please, let me stay. He said, “No.” It’s a quote, “The FBI needs leaders and you’re going to Washington.”

So, I went to Washington, and then went on the Inspection Staff in ‘72. And then from there went to New York, ASAC, SAC New York, came back as the Deputy Assistant Director in Washington under the leadership of Clarence Kelley, and William H. Webster, who I dearly love. And from there, after serving several years in D.C., I asked Judge Webster, “Can I go back to Mississippi?” He said, “No.” He said, “I know you want out, Jim, but you can either go to New York, L.A., or Chicago.”

AR: (Laughs) JI: …I said oh, my goodness. So he was kind enough to transfer me to Chicago. Where I

stayed and retired in January, 1982, and then I returned to Mississippi. AR: Mm hmm. And if I remember correctly, when Roy Moore retired he became Director of

Security for one of the large banks here, and then when you retired, you took his job. Is that not correct?


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JI: That is correct. In between an SAC had passed away in Jackson, and I was retired and, I had an appointment with Deposit Guarantee Bank, the largest bank in Mississippi. But, when the SAC, the current SAC in Mississippi, had passed away, Judge Webster offered the position to me if I wanted to come back in the FBI.

And that was very kind of him, and I thought about it and then I declined. But I’ve always cherished that moment with Judge Webster. But then I stayed with Deposit Guarantee Bank until I became the Commissioner of Public Safety for the State of Mississippi, which actually supervised all of the eight law enforcement state agencies, from the Mississippi Highway Patrol, Bureau of Narcotics, the Law Enforcement Training Academy, and I stayed there until my retirement in 2000. And that’s the second longest tenure of leading the Mississippi Highway Patrol. And, of course, I had many new friends in, in law enforcement and out, so it’s very unusual to have a person who worked in the 1960s for the FBI to later come…

AR: (Laughs)… JI: …and lead the Highway Patrol. But that was, again, one of the most enjoyable parts of

my career. AR: Well, let’s go back to your time as an Agent here in Mississippi; your experiences there.

You said that Roy Moore had just opened the office here in Mississippi. How many Agents were assigned here during that time?

JI: Off and on it was amazing. Neil Welch was the ASAC. Roy Moore was the SAC.

Inspector Joe Sullivan was sent here by Director Hoover to head up the investigation of the missing three civil rights workers. So we had a large contingent. You would have on between a hundred to a hundred-fifty at times in this state working civil rights matters.

And it was amazing. And everything had to do with the Klan, and of course you had the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that had been enacted. There was one thing about it, Mr. Hoover knew that it was important. He gave Inspector Joe Sullivan and Roy Moore a mandate. And he said, “You will do whatever it takes to defeat the Klan, and you will do whatever it takes to bring law and order back to Mississippi. We want to cooperate with the local law enforcement.” And we knew that. We knew that getting the sheriffs with us, and all the chiefs, all on the same page with us, that was the main thing we had to do. But we also knew that we had to infiltrate the Klan with good informants. And I could well remember at different rallies when I know then Attorney General, and I saw the communication, then Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, had called the President. And he said, “President Johnson, we need help. We’ve got Martin Luther King going into Greenwood, Mississippi, and at the march we need the FBI to protect him.” And LBJ said, “Well, why haven’t you called Mr. Hoover?” He said, “Well, Mr. Hoover does not talk to me anymore.” (laughs)


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JI: I well remember that. In fact, that’s in some of the books, and the historians have written that because Bobby Kennedy said, “No, Mr. Hoover does not talk to me anymore.”

AR: (Laughs) JI: So Lyndon Johnson did pass that on to Mr. Hoover and Mr. Hoover politely told even the

President that we were not guardians, we were investigators of Federal crimes. But those were very hectic days.

AR: Mm hmm…. JI: Roy Moore was one of the great leaders of that time, and he expected people to work six

and a half days a week. He would give all the Agents and the employees off Sunday morning to go to church but, everything else, if you traveled, and many of us traveled all over the state of Mississippi, and a large contingent, as I say, came in from New York. And they were outstanding, when you look at John Proctor and others that came through here, that really did an outstanding job.

AR: Mm hmm. You said that your average work week was six and a half days. I would

assume that your average work day was anywhere from ten to twelve hours long? JI: Oh, it was. Of course, at that time, as long as you had work, they expected you to work

and that’s why, why we solved so many crimes. AR: Mm hmm… JI: That’s why we defeated the Klan. And I must say, the Agents that were sent to

Mississippi, and many of them came in on Special, some stayed two or three days and said, “This is not for me.”

AR: Mm hmm. JI: Some quit. I was rather shocked at that. But there was never a defeatist attitude because

we were all on the same schedule. And everyone knew that we had to work. And the main thing we had to do was get the Mississippi Highway Patrol on our side.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: Which they did. And we had also the sheriffs. Of course we had the big investigation in

Neshoba County. And isn’t it amazing that we’re talking here today in January 2005 and now we’re getting ready to go back to trial in Neshoba County. The District Attorney in Neshoba County, and it’s Chief Investigator, a long conversation with them just yesterday on a phone call, and I’m going to help them. The FBI has asked me to help again.


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AR: Mm hmm. JI: So the SAC here in Jackson, today has also got permission from Headquarters for me to

help them. And that pleases me. AR: I understand you’re under contract to the Bureau to do this? JI: You know I never heard of that until (laughs) Bob mentioned that to me, and I thought oh

my goodness. Isn’t that interesting… AR: Yeah. How long do you expect to be involved? JI: I asked the DA yesterday, and they’re not too sure. AR: Mm hmm. JI: We’ve only had one person indicted, and that was Edgar Ray Killen. We had a hung jury

before in the trial of October of 1967. But I do not think that they’ll rush, they’re waiting to get, maybe, additional information, and also to interview certain individuals. I’ll work with the SAC here in Jackson on that.

AR: Certainly the, the attitudes of most Mississippians have changed in the forty years since

those murders took place. But during Killen’s appearance in court here, a few days ago, you saw the reaction of his brother, and the reaction of some other family members. Does that bring back old memories of the attitude of some people?

JI: Yes, it does. And I’ve traveled in Neshoba County through the years. I was there when

Martin Luther King conducted a march, and I remember, and I think that was probably ’65. But I remember Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King said he traveled all over the world and today was the day that I feared for my life in Philadelphia, Mississippi. As the crowd rushed, and I was there, along with Jim Awe, another FBI Agent, who did all the filming, for years on the Klan. Jim Awe is a spectacular Agent, one of the best I’ve ever seen. But anyway, Jim Awe and I were there, and when Martin Luther King said that was the first time that he’s truly feared for his life and looking in the crowd’s eyes in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Now, I think it’s changed a lot.

I think the attitude because since then we’ve convicted Sam Bowers, 1998, and in which Jim Awe, myself, and Loren Brooks, testified in that case. And he was the head, he was the Imperial Wizard for the Knights of the Klu Klux Klan. Sam Bowers who was the ringleader of all of this. Since then we’ve convicted a guy by the name of Avants, who killed Ben Chester White in 1996. An old sharecropper in Natchez, Mississippi.


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JI: And Avants and another man, there was no reason for them to kill him but they did. But we convicted, meaning the FBI and the Justice Department, did a tremendous job, 2003, convicting Avants.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And then Sam Bowers, he was convicted for his part in state court in Hattiesburg,

Mississippi, for killing Dahmer, Vernon Dahmer, NAACP leader. AR: Mm hmm. JI: And so a lot of things have changed. When you get a jury, and when you look at how the

juries have changed. After presenting evidence after forty years and they bring a conviction, then you know times have changed.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And Avery, I do not have to tell you, since we both lived in Mississippi, it’s different. The races live together with no problems, none whatsoever. AR: That’s true, that’s true. JI: But we had an element, the Klan, that wanted a different way of life here. They wanted it

continued and times have changed. And the public has changed. That’s the good part. I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished.

AR: Well, my thoughts on it, when you see the number of Klan rallies that have occur around

the south, we don’t have them here in Mississippi any longer. I mean, you know, the FBI broke the back of the Klan in Mississippi. And eradicated it, in my experience.

JI: Avery, you’re right. When you serve the FBI here in Mississippi, you saw yourself, that

it was decimated, gone, didn’t exist. And when I came back to law enforcement as the Chief of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, the Commissioner, that’s the first thing I wanted to look into to see, and found out quickly there was no Klan elements. There was no Klan elements whatsoever…

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And I knew that the FBI was telling me this, but I thought well, I wanted to see what we

had in the Highway Patrol districts around the state, and I must say I was very pleased. There were just no remnants of the Klan. It didn’t exist.


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JI: And I know, and not jumping back to things, but just like Edgar Ray Killen, who has been indicted and will stand trial in 2005. There was one lone juror, a female, who is now deceased, that held out and would not convict him. And of course it was reported that she just looked into his eyes, and he was honest and he was a preacher, she couldn’t do it.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: But she has since passed on and I think the jurors will look at that because history will

show that, at least the FBI investigation showed that Edgar Ray Killen was the mastermind of much of that. And I’m sorry that after all of these years that we have to go back through this because we had one lone juror, when it’s eleven to one for conviction, but that too will pass.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: But I must say that so many other cases of note. We have to look back. Thomas Albert

Tarrants. Thomas Albert Tarrants came here from Mobile, Alabama, and he loved Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard. Sam Bowers induced him to continue his terrorist ways. And Thomas Albert Tarrants, and a young lady by the name of Kathy Ainsworth…

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And I see, Avery, that you’re nodding your head because… AR: (Laughs)… JI: …Ainsworth means, she was young, young, very beautiful, school teacher at Wing-

Duling Elementary School here in Jackson, Mississippi. And she hooked up, she was married, but she hooked up with Thomas Albert Tarrants and she was a sympathizer of Sam Bowers. She ended up being killed in a shoot out with Meridian Police and the FBI Agents in Meridian, Mississippi, when they tried to dynamite the home of Meyer Davidson, a Jewish business leader.

And we had so many. Frank Watts, an Agent who is now deceased, Jack Rucker, who lives over in Alabama. They were all there, involved in this shootout, and just absolutely tremendous. And Thomas Albert Tarrants lived. He was shot up, but he survived.

Kathy Ainsworth was dead and this was headlines around here for months. How could this young school teacher get caught up as a Klan sympathizer and hate. Of course, Thomas Albert Tarrants was always the main person that the FBI reportedly felt that bombed the Jewish synagogue…

AR: Mm hmm…


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JI: …here in Jackson, Mississippi, here in 1967. What the Klan wanted to do, and Sam Bowers, before they started the trial in Meridian on the three civil rights workers, they wanted to show that the Klan was so strong, that they would come into Jackson, Mississippi, a northeast section of Jackson, an affluent section, and totally destroy it almost. B’nai B’rith, a synagogue.

And why did they do that? Because the rabbi had been helping and working with other leaders in Jackson to calm the racial element. We had some problems then, and the rabbi was very active in holding classes at the synagogue, and so they wanted to show that anyone who was a sympathizer would be hurt. And, at the same time, the Jackson Jewish business people had long supported the FBI, by money and their efforts to help us. They made available money to the FBI for informants.

AR: Any idea how much money? JI: Oh my goodness. AR: Any estimate? JI: Al Binder, who is now deceased, and was quite a man in his own right. He was the

leader of the group here that decided that we’re not going to take it anymore. And we met the Jewish leaders. Roy Moore and myself, since I was his Supervisor for civil rights violations, and a hundred thousand dollars was nothing to them, to make available to us. And that’s really what happened in the Meyer Davidson business, the Jewish business leader, we bought information that gave us the opportunity to set up at Meyer Davidson’s house and wait for the Klan to come in. That’s when Thomas Albert Tarrants and Kathy Ainsworth arrived and that’s when the shootout occurred.

AR: Okay. Tell me about any threats that you felt, or any threats that occurred against the

Agents here in Mississippi while you were doing the investigations on the civil rights matters.

JI: First, the word was out from the Klan that you did not have to submit to interviews by the

“Federal Bureau of Integration,” as they called it. And Jim Awe and I would go and attend most of the rallies then at night. And anytime you went into that environment in Natchez, Mississippi, or Neshoba County, you were going to have all types of insults hurled at you and threats. But the Klan put out the word that you had the right to whip any FBI Agent that arrived on your property. So one Klan businessman in Philadelphia, Mississippi, said, “I’ll whip any FBI Agent that walks into my store.” John Proctor, who was the SRA in Meridian, and John and I worked very closely together, John took this threat and he went into the store…

AR: Mm hmm…


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JI: And, with the store filled with customers, said, “Mr. So and So, I understand that you’re going to whip any FBI Agent that walks into your store. I’m not armed, but I wanted to let you know if you would like to whip me, let’s get started.” (laughs) And the man grumbled and said, “Look, that was a misunderstanding. I didn’t say it.” He said, “Well, the word is out.” So Proctor said, “You put the word out that you didn’t mean it. You also put the word out that I’ve been instructed by Jim Ingram, my supervisor, and Roy Moore, my Agent in Charge, that any other Klansman that’s interested in whipping an FBI Agent, just let us know.”

AR: (Laughs)… JI: And he said, “I’ve been instructed to make sure that FBI Agent appears at their

doorstep.” But that type, the threat was there, but no FBI Agent ever suffered any injury. Jim Awe and I were sent by Roy Moore to interview a Klansman and he was supposed to be the toughest Klansman in Jones County. Jim Awe and I went to the house because we wanted to verify where he was the night an NAACP leader had been murdered, and we were investigating. So Awe and I, as we walked into the yard, he yelled get out of my yard. “I’m gonna shoot both of you.” Well, Awe and I looked up and here was this guy with his shotgun.

And his wife and three kids were over at the other side of the house looking at this incident about to occur. Well, I immediately yelled. I said, “Look, there’s two of us, we’re not going to turn our backs on you, we’re not going to give you a chance to shoot us in the back. You may shoot one of us, but one of us will have to kill you.” And he said, “I said get off my property.” I said, “Well, we’re leaving, but we’re not backing down.” So about that time Jim Awe moved, of course, this has been in movies and been in a couple of books, this same incident. And as Jim Awe moved over to the left, I moved over to the right. He could see that no way could he get both of us.

We said, “We’re not leaving until you put the shotgun down. Of course he had never raised the shotgun at us. I said, “If you raise the shotgun, then we have no other way to handle this thing but to kill you. And that’s what we’ll do. That’s what we’re taught.”


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JI: So about that time, another man arrives upon the scene and it’s his brother. And he says, “What’s going on here?” And we told him. He said, “Let me talk to my brother.” So he talks to his brother, he takes the shotgun. I said, “We’re going to interview him. He’s either going to have to get an attorney to tell us that he refuses to be interviewed, but we’re going to find out, some way, where he was last night. If his wife will tell us he was here, and then we can check if he was working, we’re going to find out exactly. We’re either gonna make him be a suspect or delete him as a suspect.”

So the brother said, “I will make him available for an interview.” Then he said, “You know, my brother is the meanest SOB in Jones County. Everyone in the Klan respects him but,” he said, “I appreciate what you did. You could have killed him and gotten away with it. And, for those three kids to have witnessed this.” So it worked out very well. But we also had in those days, as you know, Avery, the olds cars you had to latch the hood latch on the outside. So Agents would always watch. They’d look underneath their car to make sure we did not have any dynamite strapped underneath the car. Then you’d open your hood and make sure that everything was clear there. We had snakes placed in mailboxes. We had threats. In fact, there was one threat to assassinate Roy K. Moore. And we sat on his house for about a week at night and during the day. But that too passed. So we did have our threats. But everything worked out well, I must say. And Joe Sullivan, Inspector Joe was probably one of sharpest individuals ever to come down the pike. And when he investigated the civil rights killings, Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney, it was handled correctly. I really admired him. Very much.

AR: Of course, the way you got inside the Klan activities was through the informants that you

were able to develop. Tell us a little bit about your experience in developing informants. JI: We found out one thing. It was generally thought that the only way you could get inside

the Klan was to have these old southern FBI Agents. Well, that was not always the case. Once a Bureau Agent is a Bureau Agent. We had Agents that came in here from New York, Chicago, they had that accent, but for some reason I can think of so many of these guys that came here on specials, that handled themselves so well, that ingratiated himself with some of these Klansmen.

And ended up making informants out of these Klansman. And they were not these old, southern boys. And, you well know it, it doesn’t make any difference if you go to New York, you can still infiltrate certain whether it’s the mob or anything else. But I always look back on the Agents that came here from all over the country, and many of them that worked in Jackson, Mississippi, ended up becoming Assistant Directors and everything else.


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JI: But they always looked back upon their experience here and said, “Hey, we really did the job.” And I was so pleased. Also, you gotta remember, Mississippi Burning, the movie, when I first saw that movie in 1989, I think it was, I thought oh my goodness, this is pure Hollywood. But, at the same time, in that movie, you had a big element about the deputy sheriff’s wife…

AR: Mm hmm… JI: Which is not true. But, that was pure Hollywood fiction.

But we did, we did make sure that the Klan, they had no morals, many of them, you know, if you’d go out and beat a poor black sharecropper. If you would go and you burned the churches, that’s what started in Neshoba County in June 16, 1964, when they burned Zion Church. Went out there and the Klan, the same Klan we later convicted many of ‘em, that beat four old people comin’ out of that church.

AR: Mm hmm… JI: They had no morals, no standards. But, also, they had all their meetings at night. And

they, many of them were, they had different women. So I don’t want to use the word prey, but we did contact the wives and we would use these subtle little statements. “Where is your husband?” “Well, he’s away, uh-uh, he’s working.” “No, he’s not. We know where he is. We’ve got people lookin’ at him right now. He’s not there. He’s with someone else.” And it usually worked. We didn’t have to make up stories. We never had to tell a falsehood because it was true.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: Then all of a sudden you had some of these ladies that would help you. They would tell

you. And especially the ex-wives. AR: Mm hmm. JI: They would volunteer information and give you information that was unbelievable. But

we infiltrated the Klan in many ways. We had female informants. We had informants that told us so many things that helped us. And that’s, of course when you look at XXXXXX XXXXX was an informant for the FBI. A preacher for many years. He testified in the first trial. And we had police officers that were informants for us. And it’s very interesting.

AR: Did any female Klansman besides, you know, you mentioned Kathy Ainsworth, were any

others actually directly involved in the violence in particular?


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JI: We had a Women’s Corp for the Klan and what really would upset you when Jim Awe and I would go to these Klan rallies at the instruction of the SAC and we had other Agents that we took license plates, it’s just like a meeting of the mob. We’re going to try to identify everyone there. But you would see these four and five and six year old kids wearin’ Klan sheets and hoods over their, their heads, but you had a Women’s Corp and they were defiant, many of them. But, they did not want their husbands to go to jail, many of them.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: But you did not have, that person like Ainsworth, that would go out and kill. They were

not going to kill for the Klan. And it made a difference. AR: Yeah, yeah. How successful were you in, you mentioned XXXXX XXXX, how

successful was the FBI in recruiting religious leaders amongst the Klan? JI: This was a sad era for Mississippi. And I go back to this area because I supervised all the

civil rights violations. And we had, of course, the Rabbi Nussbaum, Rabbi Perry Nussbaum. His home was bombed here in Mississippi in Jackson. And I’m tryin’ to recall the date, but it was probably in 1966 or ’67. And I immediately received a phone call and arrived at the scene. And Nussbaum was irate. He was livid because he had been targeted by the Klan. And he started yelling at some of the other church leaders who had arrived to console him.

And some of the largest denominations, the church leaders who arrived at his house in northeast Jackson to tell him, “We’re with you.” He said, “No, you’re not. If you were with me this wouldn’t have happened. You’re not helping us at all.” And that was quite a scene. I was there and he was shouting at these other ministers. And Rabbi Nussbaum left Mississippi about a month later.

AR: Mm hmm, mm hmm. JI: And went to California. He feared for his life. AR: Okay, we are continuing with the interview of Jim Ingram. And we are now going to

look at some photographs. Jim, if you would, just go ahead and refer to the photographs, show them on the video and describe them for the audio tape what we’re looking at.


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JI: This particular, this is Jim Awe, Ellie Dahmer. The daughter of Vernon Dahmer, the NAACP leader who was shot and killed on January 10, 1966, when his home was firebombed. This was the group, Loren Brooks, former Agent who testified in the Dahmer trial, Jim Ingram, who testified, Jim Awe, who testified. And, of course, Ellie Dahmer, who was a young lady then, in 1966, who was damaged. She was injured. And these are two of the Dahmer brothers, who were also. But this was a little victory party we were having after we convicted Sam Bowers.

And this is Jim Awe back in 1965 and ‘66, when we used to cover some areas in Mississippi by the air. Here again this is Loren Brooks. Loren, a former Agent who now lives in Bountiful, Utah, with about twenty-six grandkids.

AR: (Chuckles) JI: And Jim Ingram and, again, this is Chuck Killian from the Firearms Lab. He testified, by

the way, this was 1998, when we got a murder conviction of Sam Bowers, head of the Klan, on a case that dated back to January 10, 1966. And, of course, this is Roy Moore. A young picture of Roy Moore when he was the Agent in Charge of the Jackson Office.

AR: Okay. JI: This again has to do with a lot of the Klan rallies. Jim Awe, there’s Awe and Ingram.

Awe did all of these. He was quite a man in that regard. All of these pictures by Jim Awe, really that’s the history. That’s the history goin’ back forty years here and he caught all the Klan rallies on tape. And we interviewed so many Klan people, but, you know, it was amazing. You had to be friendly and that’s when the, I know many of the black citizens could not understand how they could see us stopping and talk, talking to a Klan member on the streets of Natchez, or in Jones County and laughing and cutting up with some of these guys. But you had to be friendly because at the same time we were serious but you had to have that quality to be able to say, hey, I can be your friend if you want to.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And many times we would meet these same individuals later on in a secluded spot and

that’s how we got our Klan informants. AR: Mm hmm. JI: And I must say I am so pleased with the FBI, the current FBI today. Director Mueller

and others in the Justice Department have agreed to assist the Neshoba County District Attorney, and SAC Bob Garrity, here in Jackson. He’s goin’ all out to make sure that the FBI handles their duties in getting the proper data.


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AR: One of the questions I had for you which I think has been very clearly answered but I’ll ask it again. What do you feel was the greatest accomplishment by the FBI in Mississippi?

JI: When I look back, and we had instructions from President Lyndon Baines Johnson, from

the White House to Director Hoover to stop the violence in Mississippi, stop the violence in Alabama, stop the violence in Louisiana and Tennessee. Anywhere in the south. That the FBI had a mandate from the highest office in this country. And when the President of the United States talks to his good friend, quote Edgar unquote, each day wanting a report. And you go back and you look at what we accomplished in all the southern states to defeat the Klan. And it was the same in Alabama and other places.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: We had our problems but FBI Agents stood tall. Oh my goodness, did they stand tall. AR: Mm hmm. JI: And working night and day. When you look back the FBI can be proud that they stopped

the violence. We had the convictions. We did what we had to do from Selma, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi. To Atlanta, Georgia.

And when you stop and look at all the Agents that worked these cases, and the camaraderie that exists to today, that’s, that’s an accomplishment.

AR: Certainly the Agents that were here during that time have left a legacy which is proudly carried on by the younger Bureau members today. I mean that, you established quite a history here in this state.

JI: Well Avery, a couple of years ago the SAC here in Jackson invited me to address all the

employees and what I told them then, that hey, you have a legacy. You have something to be proud of. Not only from New York to L.A., but when you look at what we accomplished and hard work and ethics, you have, you have to have ethics in this operation. And those of us who have been from New York, Chicago, to L.A., and every, and all over the world, and you stop and say hey, that was, that was something.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: I could look back. I was the SAC in New York when all of the sudden the negotiations

were underway, to bring Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther Party, he was sick and tired of Algiers and he wanted to negotiate to return to the United States. I was selected to go over to Paris and meet with the Secretary of the Embassy there, and others. I traveled and I brought Eldridge Cleaver back.


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AR: Mm hmm. JI: And I cherish that because at the time it was amazing. When we got aboard and we did

not handcuff . I took a black Agent with me from New York. And we did not handcuff Cleaver. We said, “Look, you are coming willingly, but we will have to, in view of the fact you’re a wanted fugitive when we land in New York, for your own safety, we will have to handcuff you after we get off the plane. But we’re going to do our best to treat you as the gentleman that you have become.”

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And President Gerald Ford had just attended a summit outside of Paris and when I got

over there I didn’t know that we would be coming back on a flight loaded with newspaper people. Bob Schaefer, CBS. Others. And there was Cleaver. They all wanted to interview Cleaver. But you know, he was a gentleman. And he said, “No, I’m in custody of the FBI.”

AR: (Laughs)… JI: “I’m not willing to speak.” And of course they hovered around me. I said, “No, you

heard the man.” AR: Mm hmm.. JI: He is not interested at this time. But anyway, I ended up getting little notes and

Christmas cards from Eldridge Cleaver for years until his death because we exchanged little notes, because he said, “You know, you treated me as a gentleman.”

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And when we arrived in New York, of course, you had a hoard of newspaper people, but they could never see that he was handcuffed. Because we came out, we had coats and everything. And I held my coat in front of me and he held his coat in front of him, you could not see. But I said, “Look, we’re going to have to do this. This is standard operating procedure.” AR: Mm hmm. JI: But it’s the little things. People want to be treated as you would want to be treated.

That’s what I think the Agents did here in Mississippi and Alabama and other places that we fought violence and we could see it but we worked around the clock. And it helped us.

AR: Mm hmm.


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JI: It really helped. AR: What, in looking back on your time here in Mississippi, can you identify what you would

say is your most memorable experience? The one incident that stands out in your memory. Anything that might have happened?

JI: I would say that when the verdict was returned in the Neshoba County civil rights trial

that we prepared, worked so hard for in October, 1967. You have to remember here, Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were killed in June of 1964. We didn’t go to trial till 1967.

And Judge, Federal Judge Harold Cox, who everyone said was a racist. Judge Harold Cox stood tall and it just stands out in my memory so well that he decided that he would control that courtroom and he did. And when the ruling came down, he made it clear that he wanted FBI Agents to ring the court. In other words, there would be no violence, because we had one particular individual who was indicted, was in that courtroom, had said we’re going to give a strong dynamite back to some of these people. We’re gonna show them who still runs this state. And of course Judge Harold Cox brought that out that day in the courtroom. And that so clear to everyone who was in charge.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And, I well remember Miss Arnesen, she was the lone holdout on Killen, who’s now

deceased. But I remember that all the jurors, and this is etched in my memory too, Avery. All these jurors that brought a guilty verdict and served on that jury, they were so concerned for their life that U.S. Marshals took all of them home. Some of ‘em lived on the coast. See, we drew from the panel all over the state.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: So U.S. Marshals took them home, sat on their houses, for quite some time. All the

jurors had my name, my telephone number. Other Agents names, their home phone numbers, to immediately call and that was always etched in my memory that even though it was 1967. We brought, a verdict was brought back guilty to Sam Bowers, Cecil Price, the Deputy Sheriff, and others, that during that same year we tried. The Klan had tried to kill a juror’s business, a man in Meridian. They blew up a synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi. They attempted to kill a rabbi, Perry Nussbaum in Jackson. It was just one little thing after another.

AR: Mm hmm.


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JI: And, of course, besides the violence, Vernon Dahmer in ‘66 being killed and Chester White being killed. So this, in ’66, just sticks out in my memory. Judge Harold Cox, Federal Judge Harold Cox, he and I became very good friends through the years and dined many times together.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: I always felt that he made a difference in that courtroom. AR: Hmm. JI: I think John Doar, who prosecuted the case, would echo that sentiment very much. John

Doar, the U.S. Justice Department. He’s another one who stood very tall. AR: I notice you have here Jack Nelson’s book, Terror in the Night. This, of course, is a book

on the civil rights activities and all the violence that took place. Do you consider this a good book on it? Or can you think of any other books, any other writings?

JI: This is the Klan’s campaign against the Jews as it says here. And of course all these

labels, this book is replete with, in fact, I see for Jim, great guy, great guest, love Larry King. I appeared on Larry King Live back in ‘93, I think it was. And we discussed the Klan. And discussed aspects of this book. And I think Jack Nelson lays it out very well the violence that occurred in, in Mississippi during that period, and its violence, there’s a history…

AR: Would you say it’s probably one of the better histories, or could you recommend any

others? JI: I would say that this is one of the better books. There have been so many. I’ve been

interviewed, Avery, by so many people over the years that particularly play on the History Channel, the Discovery Channel and A&E. But people are still interested.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: In the history of this nature. And it’s amazing that here again we’ve gone full circle over

forty years, but this is one of the great achievements by the FBI by sure. We, yourself, we all had aspects of fighting the mob, the FALN in New York, the terrorist activities, et cetera, but when you stop and think we brought down one of the biggest terrorist that existed during the time. And they got away with it for years.

AR: Mm hmm.


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JI: It was something that by standards, they always looked the other way. And I think of some of the politicians that have, should, they should have been stronger. But they were not.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: Roy Moore, I remember the time when he met with the Governor of Mississippi, John

Bell Williams. He told him that we’ve got Klan members in law enforcement. Scattered all throughout this state. And he said, “In fact, we even have some Highway Patrolmen. John Bell said get me their names. I’ll take care of that.” And we assembled, we wanted to make sure we were correct, we assembled a little report naming certain individuals throughout the state in law enforcement and took those to the Governor and he took some action. I’ll have to, I’ll have to say that.

AR: Hmm… JI: And then when we worked all these killings and murders, the Highway Patrol assigned an

Investigator. You had an FBI Agent and a Highway Patrol Investigator working together. And it made all the difference in the world.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: That made a difference with these sheriffs that hey, the Highway Patrol is serious also.

And, when I look back upon that, that’s another accomplishment. That we were able to bring law enforcement in with us. Which had not been the case.

AR: And I understand that Hoover made sure that Mississippi was able to send additional

officers to the National Academy above what the normal state average was. JI: Avery, you’re absolutely correct and I’m glad you mentioned that because that was one

of the requests of the Governor of the State of Mississippi. He said, “Well what can we do? How can we improve?” That’s when we said we can send more people to the National Academy and they did. We sent some outstanding people from this state to the National Academy and that made the difference. And many of those individuals came back here in leadership positions. And after they spent those three grueling months (laughing) back at Quantico at the National Academy they realized hey, there’s another world here.

And they became the leaders for today, tomorrow, and that’s still one of the best programs the FBI has today. The National Academy.

AR: That’s good. Okay, if you would go ahead.


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JI: I, James O. Ingram, convey the rights to the intellectual content of our interview on January 12, 2005, to the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI. This transfer is in exchange for the Society’s efforts to preserve the historical legacy of the FBI and its members. We understand that portions of the interview may be deleted for security purposes. Unless otherwise, otherwise restricted we agree that acceptable sections can be published on the world wide web and recordings transferred to an established repository for preservation and research. And I, Jim Ingram, or James O. Ingram, signed it today on January 12, 2005.

AR: And I am Avery Rollins and I also agree to the paragraph that Jim just read.

One thing we needed to correct in the earlier portion of the interview, Jim, I think you misstated and said Joe Sylvester when you should have said…

JI: Joe Sullivan. AR: Which all of us know who Joe Sullivan was. JI: Yes. AR: Okay, we are continuing in the interview this afternoon to flesh out and recall some

events that occurred in Jim’s service with the FBI here in Mississippi, back in the sixties. And Jim, why don’t you take it from there?

JI: We all know, those of us who worked on the investigation of the assassination of

President John F. Kennedy, that was certainly one of our finest hours. But also, those of us in the South, we had to reflect back to probably one of our great achievements, and this will certainly be covered by other Agents, was the investigation of the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968, in Memphis. And the FBI launched a world-wide investigation and, of course, James Earl Ray was eventually brought back to this country and stood trial and was convicted for the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King. I say that because if in the event the FBI had not arrested and brought this man to justice for prosecution, there would have been a deep hole with the community throughout the world that the assassin for Reverend Martin Luther King had Always gone undetected, or not caught.

And the reason I want to say this, on April 4th, 1968, and it’s etched in my memory, we knew that Reverend Martin Luther King was in Memphis. Of course the FBI offices all over the south had been alerted and Memphis being just a few miles from the state line of Mississippi, we were to alert all our informants and make sure that if we had any evidence that there would be violence and marches, because there had been violence, at the rallies and marches all that week, that we should immediately give that to the Bureau in Memphis.


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JI: We had Agents all throughout Mississippi checking on informants. I mean through our informants and doing physical surveillance of Klan members. We were out that particular night, for some reason we decided to do that. Well, J.B. Stoner, J.B. Stoner of the, I think it was, the National States Rights Party, or something, out of Tennessee, he was in Meridian, Mississippi, making a speech and meeting with several Klan members and sympathizers in Meridian, Mississippi, Lauderdale County.

Well, Frank Watts and Jack Rucker, two of the best Agents that I’ve ever worked with. I supervised their work here in the Jackson Office, and I must say they were outstanding. They were surveilling J.B. Stoner. And all of the sudden this crowd came out in Meridian and started dancing in the streets. And they couldn’t understand. They said, “Martin Luther King has been killed.” Martin Luther, well the Agents were unaware because they were holed up in a dark alley trying to surveill what was goin’ on. So they spotted J.B. Stoner and that’s what we wanted to do. And J.B. Stoner later on became one of James Earl Ray’s attorneys.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And, but it was interesting, I got a call while I was in the office, received a call from

Memphis, that King had been assassinated, murdered. We did not have any other information, but whatever you do start looking for your Klan members that might be involved, or anyone. So I told, in fact, right after that got a call from the Bureau. And I called Roy Moore at home and I said, “Hey, here’s what’s happening, here’s what we’ve gotta do, but, we’re way ahead of the game because we have Agents all over the state.” That was just, only because J.B. Stoner was coming into our state that night, did we have others, but we did have people checking these people all over the state because of the violence that had been on the streets of Memphis with King there.

So, that was again, that was one of our shining hours to find James Earl Ray.

AR: Yeah. Absolutely. JI: I would, Avery, like to mention one other thing that I thought, mentioning Jack Rucker

and Frank Watts. Frank is now deceased. They were both Agents assigned to the Meridian Resident Agency. And they brought Chief Roy Gunn, who was the Chief of Police in Meridian, along so well that Gunn liked these two. And he liked John Proctor and the other Agents there too, but for some reason he really liked Rucker and Watts. They worked well together. And we had convicted Alton Wayne Roberts of the Roberts brothers. There was two of ‘em, Raymond Roberts and Alton Wayne. Alton Wayne Roberts got ten years in the Neshoba County Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney trial, on civil rights violations. But he was still out on bond and they were, they knew that the Roberts brothers were probably the two meanest guys over their area. And they started working on them to bring them along as informants.


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AR: Hmm. JI: And they did. Amazing how they did it, but they worked and worked, and I’ve never

seen two people that were so good. In fact, Thomas Albert Tarrants who later was shot-up by the FBI and the police over in Meridian when they tried to kill Meyer Davidson, the Jewish business leader. Frank brought Thomas Albert Tarrants around when he was in prison. Tarrants, the last I knew, was a preacher in Virginia. It’s absolutely phenomenal what these guys did.

But I bring that to our attention and one other thing. I want to compliment the Department of Justice. As you well know, in the mid-seventies the FBI, everything turned around. With counter-intelligence programs, the Church committee, everyone else, the CIA, the FBI, were all under attack for their investigations. For the Weather Underground, whatever it might be. But the ACLU went after Agents to bring them into court and sue them individually. To try to put a moratorium on what the Agents would do. That the Agents would not really carry out their assignments if they felt they were going to be sued every time they turned around, and their houses and their property taken. The ACLU in a counter-intelligence program in Mississippi, we had a good one on the Klan and also the black militants.

A black militant, who is now deceased, he got his law degree back east and he brought suit through the ACLU, against Roy Moore, Tom Fitzpatrick and me. Tom lives in the Virginia area and Tom was the greatest Agent I’d ever been around. Tom could be the CEO of any company.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: He was in the military, a Captain in the military, when he came into the Bureau and he

was just outstanding. But they went after Tom, meaning the ACLU, and me. We ended up in court in a trial that took a week, here in Jackson, to decide. A jury came back and found we were innocent. But they had sued us, individually, for everything we had.

But the Department of Justice defended us. They helped us through almost fifteen years

of this. While I was back in Washington, the ACLU seemed like about every other month wanted to interview me on this particular case. But, again, that was another period, in fact, the Grapevine in the nineties carried a heck of an article on the fact that we had been exonerated in Federal Court.


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JI: But again, that was part of history. The only other thing I would like to mention was the fact that the FBI in Jones County, that was one of the hot beds of the Klan. That was the home of Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard. Bowers and Deavours Nix, his top lieutenant, were summoned to Washington by subpoena in the mid, I think it was about 1965, to appear before a sub-committee on the Klan and violence. And Sam Bowers, who was a very smart man, and he’s in jail today for his conviction in 1998 on an old civil rights case. But Sam Bowers thought that he did very well before the committee. But when he came back, the Bureau asked the Jackson Office to interview Sam Bowers and Deavours Nix. Well Jim Awe and I were assigned to Deavours Nix, to go to Laurel, Mississippi, and interview him. Well, as soon as we walked onto his property to speak with him, he immediately called the police and claimed that we were harassing him, tried to push him, tried to shove him, which was all false. But the police arrived and he filed a complaint with the police.

AR: Mm hmm. JI: And that received state-wide recognition because Deavours Nix and Sam Bowers then

held a press conference stating what these Agents tried to do. But, again, it was harassment.

But Sam Bowers and Deavours Nix of course were later indicted and stood trial. AR: Mm hmm mm hmm, okay. (Clears throat) When you first transferred in here to

Mississippi, was it as a Supervisor or as an Investigator? JI: No, I came here as a street Agent, a young street Agent and I really truly enjoyed all the

traveling around the state and handling the Klan marches Klan investigations and any other type. And then Roy Moore then wanted to make me a Supervisor which I did.

AR: So how long were you an Investigator before you became Supervisor? JI: I think I took over the desk in the latter part of 1966 because we were very involved in so

many other investigations. Then we prepared the FBI’s case to go to trial on the civil rights, Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney, we had it prepared to go to trial on October 9, 1967. And that took a lot of my time.

John Doar actually prosecuted that one. With the U.S. Department of Justice. And Bob Owen. Bob Owen is now deceased. And Robert Hallberg, the United States Attorney, who is now deceased. But they were a great team.

AR: Mm, okay, okay. Have you at any point reduced your history to any form of memoirs or

anything like that? Or an autobiography or anything like that?


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JI: No, I have been interviewed so many times by people who have written books. And I have, again, we’ve had the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the A & E, they’ve all covered. Just like this week, at Neshoba County and Philadelphia, during January 2005, you’ve had the London Times, the Paris Match, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the L.A. Times, and then all of your television media, all in Philadelphia. They’re recording all of this again.

But, to answer you, I’ve had people say Ingram, when are you going to write a book? I will not.

AR: Mm hmm (laughs) okay. JI: I’ve got it all in here. But it’s just the fact that I think others have recorded it well. AR: Okay, fine. Well at that point we’re going to end this portion of the interview. And we

may come back and revisit some of these topics later on. JI: Avery, I hope we do, particularly after some of these trials are over. AR: Okay, good. JI: That’s tremendous.

interview - james o ingram · james o. ingram january 12, 2005 page 2 2 ar: yeah. prior to going...

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