KING'S SON BELIEVES RAY NOT GUILTY.

Byline: Kevin Sack The New York Times

In an extraordinary face-to-face meeting in a prison conference room, James Earl Ray told the youngest son of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Thursday that he did not assassinate his father, and the son, Dexter Scott King, told Ray that the King family was convinced of his innocence.

As Ray seeks to clear his name before dying of liver disease, Dexter King's assertion reflects a remarkable evolution by the family of the slain civil rights leader.

For most of the nearly three decades since King was shot in Memphis on April 4, 1968, the King family has maintained a studied silence about the guilt of Ray, who confessed to the crime, then recanted after being sentenced to a 99-year prison term. But in the past two months, with Ray's health deteriorating rapidly, the King family has become his outspoken ally: first by telling reporters that there were legitimate evidentiary questions to explore, then by testifying in support of a new trial for Ray, and finally by declaring Thursday that Ray was innocent.

``I just want to ask you, for the record, did you kill my father?'' King, 36, asked Ray as the two men sat facing each other, a yard apart, in wooden armchairs.

``No, no, I didn't, no. But like I say, sometimes these questions are difficult to answer, and you have to make a personal evaluation,'' responded Ray, 69.

``Well, as awkward as this may seem,'' King said, ``I want you to know that I believe you and my family believes you, and we are going to do everything in our power to try and make sure that justice will prevail. And while it's at the 11th hour, I've always been a spiritual person and I believe in providence.''

Aides to King said he had been trying to arrange the meeting with Ray - the first between Ray and a member of the King family - for several months. As president of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, King has served in recent years as the principal spokesman for his mother, Coretta Scott King, and his three siblings.

Accompanied by William Pepper, Ray's lawyer, King arrived 15 minutes late for the meeting at the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility, a boxy state prison in Nashville for sick and disabled inmates. Shortly after King was ushered into the concrete-block conference room, Ray was guided into the room in a wheelchair.

The frail Ray, dressed in prison blues and cloth slippers, rose to greet the robust King, who wore a navy suit, a bold red tie and shiny black shoes. As they shook hands, King, who bears a striking resemblance to his father, said, ``Glad to meet you. Thank you for letting me come and impose on your time.''

Like heads of state at a White House photo opportunity, the two men sat in facing chairs with their hands folded over their laps and with tiny microphones clipped to their jackets. After about 25 minutes, the few reporters allowed to witness the scene were dismissed, and King and Ray spoke privately for 20 minutes.

During the public portion of the meeting, King did most of the talking. The conversation was awkward and stilted, with King filling the silences left by Ray and with Ray rambling far from the topic of his role in Rev. King's killing. His face etched with creases, Ray has been severely weakened by cirrhosis, and he complained to Dexter King that his stomach was distended.

``My stomach is kind of falling out, and I need minor surgery, but other than that we're just, you know, taking things day for day, I guess you could say,'' he told King. ``And of course, you've got your problems, too. You've had them for a long time now.''

It took King nearly 15 minutes to pose the question he had come here to ask. He first told Ray that he considered their meeting ``a spiritual experience.''

``I guess in some strange way, our destinies, that of my father and yourself, somehow got tied up together, and we still don't feel as a family that we have all of the questions answered,'' he told Ray. Later he added, ``In a strange sort of way, we're both victims.''

At one point, Ray volunteered, ``I ain't had nothing to do with shooting your father.''

Since Rev. King's assassination on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, most official inquiries, including a congressional examination, have concluded that Ray probably fired the fatal shot.

A bank robber who had escaped from a Missouri prison at the time of the shooting, Ray had rented a room in a boarding house across the street from the motel. His fingerprints were found on a rifle that was dropped outside the house. After the shooting, he fled to Atlanta, Canada, Portugal and England before being arrested. He pleaded guilty in 1969.

But after his sentencing, Ray said he had pleaded guilty under pressure from his lawyers to avoid the death penalty. He has said since then that he had been framed ``as a patsy'' by a shadowy figure named Raoul. And Pepper, his lawyer for the last 19 years, has suggested a number of conspiracies that he outlined two years ago in a book.

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PHOTO (color) Dexter Scott King, left, son of Martin Luther King Jr., shakes hands Thursday with James Earl Ray in Nashville, Tenn.

Associated Press