Said USIA Director Rowan, "Mind you, here was a Negro who preached segregation and race
hatred, killed by another Negro, presumably from another organization that preaches segregation
and race hatred, and neither of them representative of more than a tiny minority of the Negro
population of America-" Rowan held up some foreign newspapers. "All this about an ex-convict,
ex-dope peddler who became a racial fanatic," continued Rowan. "I can only conclude that we
Americans know less about what goes on in the minds of other peoples than we thought, or the
need to inform is even greater than we in USIA thought it to be."
The Daily Times of Lagos, in Nigeria, had said: "Like all mortals, Malcolm X was not without his
faults... but that he was a dedicated and consistent disciple of the movement for the
emancipation of his brethren, no one can doubt... Malcolm X has fought and died for what he
believed to be right. He will have a place in the palace of martyrs." The Ghanaian Times, Accra,
called Malcolm X "the militant and most popular of Afro-American anti-segregationist leaders" and
it added his name to "a host of Africans and Americans" ranging from John Brown to Patrice
Lumumba "who were martyred in freedom's cause." Also in Accra, the Daily Graphic: "The
assassination of Malcolm X will go down in history as the greatest blow the American
integrationist movement has suffered since the shocking assassinations of Medgar Evers and
John F. Kennedy."
The Pakistan Hurriyet of Karachi said: "A great Negro leader"; the Pakistan Times said, "His
death is a definite setback to the Negro movement for emancipation." The Peking, China
People's Daily said the killing happened "because Malcolm X... fought for the emancipation
of the 23,000,000 American Negroes." According to correspondents' reports, the first Algerian
headline said "the Ku Klux Klan" assassinated Malcolm X; the pro-Communist Alger
Republican's editorial on the slaying accused "American Fascism," and the Times' Algerian
correspondent said Algerians showed "signs" of raising Malcolm X to martyrdom. The U.S.
Consulate in Georgetown, British Guiana, was marched on by pickets accusing "American
imperialists." Another Peking, China paper, Jenmin Jihpao, said that the death showed that "in
dealing with imperialist oppressors, violence must be met with violence." Pravda in Moscow
carried only brief stories and no editorial comment, the New York Times Moscow
correspondent said, and another in Poland said there was no noticeable reaction of any kind, and
that "few Poles had heard of Malcolm or were interested in the racial issue." Reportedly, the
murder was only routinely reported with little special interest by the press in Cairo, Beirut, New
Delhi, and Saigon. In Paris and Western Europe, the story was "essentially a one-day sensation,"
with the West German press handling it "as if it were in the Chicago gangster tradition." The
New York Times said: ' The London newspapers have probably played the story harder and
longer than most, giving continuing emphasis to the police work on the murder. The London
Times and the London Daily Telegraph both carried editorial comments, but neither treated
Malcolm X as a major figure." Also reported by the New York Times London correspondent was
that "a London group calling itself the Council of African Organizations had violently attacked the
United States over the murder. This group is made up of students and other unofficial African
representatives here. A press release described Malcolm as a 'leader in the struggle against
American imperialism, oppression and racialism.' It said, 'the butchers ofPatrice Lumumba are the
very same monsters who have murdered Malcolm X in cold blood.'"
Friday morning New York City press headlines concerning Malcolm X's slaying were devoted to
the police department's apprehension of a second slaying suspect. He was a stocky, round-faced,
twenty-six-year-old karate expert named Norman 3X Butler, allegedly a Black Muslim, and a week
later, this was followed by the arrest of Thomas 15X Johnson, also allegedly a Black Muslim. Both
men had been earlier indicted in the January, 1965, shooting of Benjamin Brown, a New York City
Correction Officer and a Black Muslim defector. Both men were indicted, along with Haver, for the
murder of Malcolm X on March 10.
With the news announcement of Butler's arrest, and his at least tentative identification as a
member of Elijah Muhammad's organization, tension reached a new high among all who had any
role in the feud. The Black Muslim National Convention was scheduled to begin that Friday in