Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defends his family's role in allowing government surveillance of Martin Luther King, Jr..
In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, Kennedy said that his father, Robert F. Kennedy, who authorized the wiretapping of King as attorney general, and President John F. Kennedy permitted the eavesdropping because they were "making big bets on King, particularly in organizing the March on Washington."
He said the Kennedy administration had a legitimate reason to go along with Hoover's determination to surveil King. The FBI director saw King as a dangerous radical with Communists in his inner circle.
Kennedy also said his father and uncle would have been fully aware of Hoover's hostility to civil rights organizations.
He claimed had his uncle not been assassinated in 1963; he would have fired Hoover in a second term.
Kennedy also said he believed President Kennedy told King about the eavesdropping in a private conversation.
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