Malcolm X's FBI Encounter Recording

The FBI paid a visit to Malcolm's home in Queens and made some

fascinating overtures. Now, it just so happens that

Malcolm had installed a hidden microphone in his living room

and had taped the conversation, and fortuitously,

I acquired that recording.

This is a clip from Gil Noble's 1983 Like It Is

special report, The Covert War Against Malcolm X.

What you're about to hear is a recording Malcolm X made himself,

a hidden

microphone he had installed under his own couch in his Queens living

room. His aide Earl Grant rigged it up

specifically because

Malcolm knew he'd get visitors he needed on record.

This particular tape was made during Malcolm's 90-day

suspension from

the Nation of Islam in early 1964, right after

his chickens coming home to roost comment about JFK's

assassination. While he was silenced and isolated from Elijah Muhammad's

organization, two FBI agents showed up at his front

door and tried to recruit him as an informant.

We would be, I'm sure you know, interested in having you help us out.

Help you out do what?

Well, what we're interested in are the people who belong,

the names, the members,

and, uh, the teachings, uh, plans, the programs.

Uh, what we really want is, are the names of all those who belong,

the names,

who they are, the identification.

Why do you even know them?

Uh, you have... Do you keep no records?

I'm not... That's not my job. I'm just the preacher.

Yeah, but somebody out there keeps the records.

I don't know who. I don't have any knowledge of those kind

of things.

With all these other responsibilities I've had, it'd, it'd be difficult for me to

worry about names. Plus-

Yeah

... you would insult my intelligence. You, you...

In fact, no, you, you would insult your own because, uh,

it would mean that your own intelligence isn't heavy enough to

weigh

me and know in advance what I'm gonna say when you ask that question.

Well, without getting into an argument on

semantics there, you don't know until you

ask.

That's not semantics. Uh, that again goes into your psychology.

We've had people at, on, not this group in particular,

other groups-

Oh, yes

... who have been just as vociferous against

whatwe're, whatever we're

investigating, the communists, make that, make a good case out of it.

Um, sometimes, uh, money brings out,

uh, the information.

Uh, I have no

inte- intent to insult you here.

According to Dillon, what's his name, the secretary of treasury?

No.

This, the money, this government's money

is in such trouble, until-

You can still spend it, huh?

Still, according to-

Uh

... your government economists, the dollar i- itself

is in such trouble, a person would be a fool to sell his soul

for one

of these decreasing dollars.

Oh, yeah, I'm-

Uh-

But this has nothing to do with selling your soul.

I mean, if-

Depends on-

... you look at it that way, okay, but-

Yeah, depends on how you look at it.

Sure.

You insult my intelligence when they...

Not only they insult me, period, if they think I would tell them

anything.

There's no government agency that can ever expect any

information out of me that's in any way

detrimental to any religious group or

Black group, for that matter, in this country.