Former Klan Leader Miles Loses Bid For Freedom

Former Klan Leader Miles Loses Bid For Freedom

FROM LOCAL AND WIRE DISPATCHER

LAPEER — The former leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Michigan has failed in his bid for parole from a federal petientiary where he is serving time for conspiring to bomb Pontiac school buses and for violating the civil rights of a local school official.

Robert E. Miles, 52, of Cohoctah in Northern Livingston County, had applied for parole from a federal prison in Marion, Ill.

He was sentenced to five years for conspiring to bomb 10 Pontiac school buses which were blown up Aug. 30, 1971.

He received three additional concurrent sentences of four years each for a tar and feather incident in April, 1971, involving Wiley Brownlee, recently appointed deputy superintendent of the Ann Arbor Public Schools.

BROWNLEE, then principal of Willow Run High School, recalls he was on the way home from a school board meeting when he saw a car blocking the road in front of him. As he slowed down he said a white hooded man with a shotgun jumped from the car and demanded that he stop, turn out his lights and get out of his car.

At that point, Brownlee said, another car pulled up behind him and a second hooded man with a pistol got out.

Brownlee said the second man hit him on the head with the pistol butt. As he lay stunned on the side of the road, Brownlee said about four to six men poured to a cold, soupy road tar on him and then broke open a pillow and shook it over him.

Brownlee said the incident followed a spate of anonymous phone calls and hate letters from persons unhappy with his attempts to bring racial harmony to the troubled high school.

MILES’ trial, Brownlee said testimony revealed that klansmen had planned to kill him, but decided the tar and feathering would bring them more publicity and attract new members to their cause.

Miles claimed no responsibility in the incident, saying "local drunks" attacked Brownlee.

The former Grand Dragon of the Michigan chapter of the United Klans of America was committed to Leavenworth prison Dec. 12, 1973 and transferred to Marion in October 1974.

Miles told the Gail News Service of Lapeer that despite a good report on his behavior, his case manager, R. G. Thompson, recommended he not be released because of the nature of his offense,

The same stance was taken by the commissioners who considered the request for parole submitted by Miles, he said.

“After review of all relevant factors and information presented, it is found that your release at this time would depreciate the seriousness of your offense behavior and thus is incompatible with the welfare of society,” commissioners advised Miles in writing.

FOUR co-defendants in the bus-bombing conspiracy case were freed in July 1976. The bombings followed a school integration order.

Aleit.J. Distel Jr., of Clarkston, and Raymond J. Quick, of Lake Orion, received paroles after one year of their two-year sentences. Wallace E. Fruit and Dennis C. Ramsey, both of Drayton Plains, were given four-year sentences.

Miles, in a letter to Gail News, also said he is no longer interested in the busing problems in Michigan.

“The people get what their hand calls for,” he wrote. “When a war is lost, the fighting is over.”'

Before his convictions. Miles dropped out of the Klan leadership and became pastor of the Mountain Church of Christ, conducting services at his farm in Cohoctah.