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Helms' principal argument was an ugly echo of the McCarthy era. "There is no evidence that Martin Luther King was a member of the Communist Party," said Helms, but his associations "strongly suggest that King harbored a strong sympathy for the Communist Party and its goals." Helms recalled that Robert Kennedy, during the Administration of his older brother, had authorized FBI wiretaps on King, and Helms told Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts that the Senator's "argument is with his dead brother who was President and his dead brother who was Attorney General."
Face red with fury, Kennedy shouted: "I am appalled at this attempt to misappropriate the memory of my brother[s] . . . If Robert Kennedy were alive today, he would be the first person to say that Hoover's reckless campaign against Martin Luther King was a shame and a blot on American history."
New York Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan theatrically slammed to the floor a packet of materials assembled by Helms, proclaiming it "filth." New Jersey Democrat Bill Bradley voiced openly a common suspicion that Helms was trying to inflame racial antagonism in order to win white votes in his re-election campaign next year. Helms, said the normally mild-mannered Bradley, "is playing up to old Jim Crow and all of us know it."
But Reagan, asked at his news conference if he agreed that King had Communist sympathies, replied with inexcusable flippancy (and mathematical inaccuracy):
"We'll know in about 35 years, won't we?"
He added that "I don't fault Senator Helms' sincerity with regard to wanting the records opened up." And while he praised King's "accomplishments" in combatting "a discrimination that was pretty foreign to what is normal with us," he said he would have preferred a day of remembrance to the holiday.
Reagan later telephoned King's widow Coretta to apologize for remarks that he said had been a "mistake." At the same time, however, the White House confirmed an exchange of letters between Reagan and former Republican Governor Meldrim Thomson of New Hampshire. Thomson said a holiday for King would honor a man "of immoral character whose frequent associations with leading agents of Communism is well established." Reagan wrote back that "I have the same reservations you have, but here the perception of too many people is based on image, not reality."
The best possible interpretation — and it is not very good — is that Reagan was trying simultaneously to mollify his right-wing supporters and reassure black and white proponents of equal rights that he is sympathetic to their concerns.
If so, he blew it badly with both. He wound up with a stand that the far right found mushy and blacks considered offensive .
— By George J. Church. Reported by Neil MacNeil/Washington
* The existing nine are New Year's Day, Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.