confidently asked Malcolm X to arrange for me the needed introduction to Clay, Malcolm X
hesitantly said, "I think you had better ask somebody else to do that." I was highly surprised at the
reply, but I had learned never to press him for information. And then, very soon after, I received a
letter. "Dear Alex Haley: A quick note. Would you prepare a properly worded letter that would
enable me to change the reading of the contract so that all remaining proceeds now would go to
the Muslim Mosque, Inc., or in the case of my death then to go directly to my wife, Mrs. Betty X
Little? The sooner this letter or contract is changed, the more easily I will rest." Under the
signature of Malcolm X, therewas a P.S.: "How is it possible to write one's autobiography in a
world so fast-changing as this?"
Soon I read in the various newspapers that rumors were being heard of threats on Malcolm X's
life. Then there was an article in the Amsterdam News: The caption was "Malcolm X Tells Of
Death Threat," and the story reported that he had said that former close associates of his in the
New York mosque had sent out "a special squad" to "try to kill me in cold blood. Thanks to Allah, I
learned of the plot from the very same brothers who had been sent out to murder me. These
brothers had heard me represent and defend Mr. Muhammad for too long for them to swallow the
lies about me without first asking me some questions for their own clarification."
I telephoned Malcolm X, and expressed my personal concern for him. His voice sounded weary.
He said that his "uppermost interest" was that any money which might come due him in the future
would go directly to his new organization, or to his wife, as the letter he had signed and mailed
had specified. He told me, "I know I've got to get a will made for myself, I never did because I
never have had anything to will to anybody, but if I don't have one and something happened to
me, there could be a mess." I expressed concern for him, and he told me that he had a loaded
rifle in his home, and "I can take care of myself."
The "Muslim Mosque, Inc." to which Malcolm X had referred was a new organization which he
had formed, which at that time consisted of perhaps forty or fifty Muslims who had left the
leadership of Elijah Muhammad.
Through a close associate of Cassius Clay, whom Malcolm X had finally suggested to me, my
interview appointment was arranged with the heavyweight champion, and I flew down to New
York City to do the interview for Playboy. Malcolm X was "away briefly," Sister Betty said on the
phone-and shespoke brusquely. I talked with one Black Muslim lady whom I had known before
she had joined, and who had been an admirer of Malcolm X. She had elected to remain in the
original fold, "but I'll tell you, brother, what a lot in the mosque are saying, you know, it's like if you
divorced your husband, you'd still like to see him once in a while." During my interviews with
Cassius Clay in his three-room suite at Harlem's Theresa Hotel, inevitably the questions got
around to Clay's Muslim membership, then to a query about what had happened to his formerly
very close relationship with Malcolm X. Evenly, Clay said, "You just don't buck Mr. Muhammad
and get away with it. I don't want to talk about him no more."
Elijah Muhammad at his headquarters in Chicago grew "emotionally affected" whenever the
name of Malcolm X had to be raised in his presence, one of the Muslims in Clay's entourage told
me. Mr. Muhammad reportedly had said, "Brother Malcolm got to be a big man. I made him
big. I was about to make him a great man." The faithful Black Muslims predicted that soon
Malcolm X would be turned upon by the defectors from Mosque Number 7 who had joined him:
"They will feel betrayed." Said others, "A great chastisement of Allah will fall upon a hypocrite."
Mr. Muhammad reportedly had said at another time, "Malcolm is destroying himself," and that he
had no wish whatever to see Malcolm X die, that he "would rather see him live and suffer his
treachery."
The general feeling among Harlemites, non-Muslims, with whom I talked was that Malcolm X had
been powerful and influential enough a minister that eventually he would split the mosque
membership into two hostile camps, and that in New York City at least, Elijah Muhammad's
unquestioned rule would be ended.