'FBI tapes claim Martin Luther King Jr had 45 affairs'

Details of the FBI's smear campaign against Martin Luther King Jr have been found on secret tapes, it is claimed. It is alleged the agency accused the civil rights campaigner of having up to 45 affairs.
As the US Baptist minister rose to prominence in the 1950s and 60s, he was subjected to years of wiretaps and eavesdropping by intelligence chief J Edgar Hoover, who believed King had Communist Party ties. Details of the covert tapes have been revealed by biographer David Garrow, who says he has unearthed files not scheduled for release until 2027.
The author claims King, who was only 39 when he was killed on April 4, 1968, spent 12 years - almost a third of his life - under the FBI's watch.
The surveillance was designed to undermine the civil rights activist, as Hoover feared his popular movement could destabilise the country. Agents homed in on King's philandering and claimed he fathered a child - claims which Garrow argues could lead to a "painful historical reckoning". Although the tapes, recorded by bugs in two lamps in hotel rooms booked by King in January 1964, are still kept in a vault at the US National Archives, the author has unearthed the FBI summaries of the various incidents.
Recordings show, he claims, that King had extramarital affairs with up to 45 women and, even "looked on and laughed" as pastor friend Logan Kearse raped a parishioner. The recording from the Willard Hotel, near the White House, shows how King was accompanied by Kearse, who died in 1991, along with several women parishioners.
In his room, the files claim, they "discussed which women among the parishioners would be suitable for natural and unnatural sex acts". The FBI document says, "when one of the women protested that she did not approve, the Baptist minister immediately and forcefully raped her" as King watched. He is alleged to have "looked on, laughed and offered advice". FBI agents were in the nest room but, didn't intervene.
FBI officials allegedly later sent a copy of the incriminating tape to King. Historian and civil rights activist Edith Lee Payne said she was disgusted at the claims.