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| created | updated | title | aliases | tags | category | summary | born | died | location | ||||||||
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| 2026-05-15 | 2026-10-09 | Stanley Levison |
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Activists & Advocates | New York attorney and businessman, one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s closest advisors, whose Communist Party USA ties in the early 1950s were the FBI's stated basis for wiretapping King and the SCLC from 1962. | 1912-05-02 | 1979-09-12 | New York, New York |
Stanley David Levison (May 2, 1912 - September 12, 1979) was a New York attorney, businessman, and civil rights fundraiser who became one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s closest advisors and friends, and whose past association with the Communist Party USA became the Federal Bureau of Investigation's primary legal justification for placing wiretaps on King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference beginning in 1962. The FBI under Director J. Edgar Hoover used the Levison connection to frame King as susceptible to communist influence, even as the FBI's own intelligence indicated that Levison had severed his Communist Party ties before he became significantly associated with the civil rights movement.1
Background
Levison was born in New York City and built a successful business career in New York real estate and other ventures. In the late 1940s and early 1950s he was involved with the Communist Party USA, providing financial support and serving in administrative roles. The precise nature and extent of his party involvement was documented by FBI informants; the FBI characterized him at the time as a significant financial figure within the party's organizational structure.
By the mid-1950s, as he became more deeply involved in civil rights fundraising and the nascent movement King was leading, the documentary record of active Communist Party involvement ended. The FBI's own files showed no significant party activity after this period, though the agency continued to treat him as a suspected communist influence on King.1
Relationship with King
Levison became involved with the SCLC from its founding period, contributing fundraising expertise and organizational advice. He became one of King's most trusted friends and advisors, helping draft King's speeches and correspondence, advising on organizational strategy, and providing the kind of frank counsel that King valued. The two men spoke regularly by telephone.
When the FBI informed Attorney General Robert Kennedy of the Levison connection in 1962, Kennedy - concerned that the Levison association could be used to discredit King and the civil rights legislation the Kennedy administration was pursuing - urged King to sever direct contact with Levison. King did so in 1963, communicating with Levison through intermediaries, but the two men maintained the relationship indirectly.
The FBI's wiretap authorization, granted by Robert Kennedy in October 1963, covered both King's phones and Levison's on the basis that Levison remained a communist influence on King. This authorization was the legal basis for the most extensive FBI surveillance of a private American citizen in the agency's history up to that point.2
Church Committee Findings
The Church Committee investigated the FBI's surveillance of King and found that the Levison justification was inadequate to support the scope of surveillance actually conducted. The committee found that the FBI had information undermining the claim that Levison remained an active communist by the time the surveillance was authorized, and that the surveillance had extended far beyond any legitimate counterintelligence purpose into pure political harassment and disruption under COINTELPRO.
William Sullivan, head of the FBI's Domestic Intelligence Division, testified to the committee on November 1, 1975 that he did not recall ever having seen the anonymous letter to King that the FBI gave the committee, which he said it was "possible" he had something to do with and which he suggested might have been "planted" in his files.3 The case study's account of the surveillance of King's "Adviser A" records a microphone in Adviser A's office on March 16, 1962, a wiretap on his office telephone on March 20, 1962 and a wiretap on his home telephone authorized by the Attorney General in November 1962, and states that the information from the continued coverage "appears to have related solely to his advice to Dr. King concerning the civil rights movement and not at all to the alleged Communist Party origins of that advice."4
Later Life
After King's assassination in April 1968, Levison remained active in civil rights and labor causes in New York. He helped found the A. Philip Randolph Institute, a labor-civil rights organization, and continued charitable work until his death. He died in New York on September 12, 1979.1
Footnotes
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Garrow, David. The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. Norton, 1981. Levison's FBI file, released under the Freedom of Information Act, documents the surveillance history. ↩︎
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Church Committee (U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities). Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. Book III, "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Case Study," pp. 81 to 184, Senate Report No. 94-755, 1976. Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963. Simon & Schuster, 1988. ↩︎
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Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report, Book III, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976, "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Case Study," pp. 158 to 161 (Sullivan, November 1, 1975). ↩︎
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Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Final Report, Book III, S. Rept. 94-755, April 26, 1976, "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Case Study," pp. 81 to 184, at pp. 88 to 89 (Adviser A surveillance). ↩︎