About the Author

Reginald Beal is a retired university professor, author of several published scholarly articles, former successful entrepreneur, amateur astrologer, sports and fitness enthusiast, husband, father of three adult children, grandfather of three cherubs and an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction.

He was born in St. Louis, MO, raised in St. Louis County, and earned a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Missouri-St.Louis, an MBA from Washington University, and a Ph.D. in Management Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Note to Readers

The writing of Zeus: The Avenger began in the spring of 1980 and expresses the agony, sorrow, and anger that billowed inside me since April 4, 1968 — the day the life of an extraordinary man dedicated to the uplifting of his people was quashed. Like many, I do not believe James Earl Ray was the assassin or the brains behind the crime. I believe that conspiracy is at the heart of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am deeply grateful to the late Dr. Carroll Quigley, Carl Oglesby, and James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease for revealing in Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate, and The Assassinations, respectively, the prevalence of conspiracies in the American body politic. Most insightfully, Oglesby and DiEugenio and Pease disclose that the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., John Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy are “intrinsically linked conspiracies” that stigmatized our nation and undoubtedly altered world history.

It is not commonly known that in 1999, after the U.S. government refused to honor the King family’s request that an independent “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” be established to conduct a comprehensive investigation of Dr. King’s assassination, the family filed a civil lawsuit against one of the suspected perpetrators. A jury of 12 Americans found that a conspiracy to murder the globally-revered civil-rights leader had been hatched and executed by national security and law enforcement agencies of the Federal government and the Memphis, Tennessee police department.

While I believe conspiracy is at the heart of Dr. King’s assassination, it is by no means confined to this dastardly deed. Conspiracies and counter-conspiracies permeate virtually every aspect of daily and professional life, subverting the democratic processes upon which the United States and other democracies are founded. Witness, as one of many examples, the anti-competition activities of major multinational corporations such as Microsoft, WalMart, and Intel to monopolize consumer and commercial industries. Witness the suppression of human rights by the governments of China, Russia, and South Africa during apartheid — to name a few. And witness the overt and surreptitious racism designed and practiced by white Americans to undermine and prevent substantive minority economic and business development.

Zeus: The Avenger is not an academic treatise on these issues. Rather, it is an artistic expression of one perspective for viewing these issues. I have sought to tell a story that may enlighten you, inspire you to look at significant historic events differently, and most of all entertain you. I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Reginald M. Beal, MBA, Ph.D.
October 2007