| | Ralph N. | Butler | NY - New York; PR - San Juan; AL - Birmingham; MO - St. Louis | 1941 - 1977 | 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, Viola Liuzzo case | SUTECH, Communist Party, World War II, Mafia, Organized Crime, SGE, Security Government Employees Investigations, Ku Klux Klan, Civil Rights, Southern Airways, Hijacking | For the FBI Oral History Heritage Project sponsored by the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc., which holds the copyright to the material.
Special Agent Ralph N. Butler served in the FBI from 1941 to 1977. This interview took place on July 11, 2008. Interviewed by E. Avery Rollins.
SA Butler starts his interview discussing his time in the New York Field Office, covering hijacking, Kennedy Airport, and working as a surveillance technician (SUTECH). He explains SUTECH operations, especially in regard to wiretaps, etc., on the Communist party.
He then speaks of his early life in Alabama and coming to Birmingham, where he applied for a clerical position with the FBI. He was accepted and sent to WFO, where he worked until 1942 when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He tells of his military adventures. When the war ended, he reapplied to the FBI and returned as a clerk. At the same time, he was pursuing a college and law degree. In 1955, after graduating college, he entered on duty as a Special Agent with the FBI. He reminisces about a few experiences between his employments with the FBI.
SA Butler’s first field assignment was with the St. Louis Field Office. He describes one night when he and his partner met a Mafia contact and were offered more than information. Another adventure was about an interview with a prisoner and roaches. His next assignment was at the New York Field Office. He expanded on the brief summary mentioned above in relation to his SUTECH work, including what a “survey” is.
SA Butler was transferred to the Birmingham Field Office and worked the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing case. He describes the crime, the investigation, and his work. The four suspects (Robert E. Chambliss, Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Frank Cash, and Thomas E. Blanton Jr.) were known Klansmen. Cash died (in 1994) and Chambliss was convicted by the State of Alabama for murder. The other two (Cherry and Blanton) became subject to surveillance managed by SA Butler. He tells in detail about putting a microphone in suspect Blanton’s apartment. The case was finally tried in the early-2000s under the Civil Rights Act and both Cherry and Blanton were convicted. He notes how careful you had to be because local law enforcement was often sympathetic to the Klan and/or the States Rights Party.
Although based in the Birmingham Field Office, SA Butler worked specials in Tampa, Knoxville, etc. He tells of the plane hijacking and local bank robberies. Another high-profile case that he worked was the Viola Liuzzo murder during the sixties. An interesting aside was the timing of the arrest so that President Lyndon B. Johnson and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover could release the news. He tells of his work on the case and how he was called to testify after his retirement in a civil case brought by the Liuzzo family.
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