At first glance, the photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his entourage outside New York’s City Hall suggest nothing other than a joyous public celebration. Taken on December 17, 1964, just one week after the civil rights leader had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway, Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. is seen formally receiving King as though he were a visiting head of state. Later that day, Wagner awarded the city’s Medallion of Honor to King, praising him as “a great American who has returned home after a great triumph abroad.”

But a few details about the photographs — published here for the first time — make clear that the person behind the camera harbored a far less flattering impression of King. That’s because the prints are held in the New York City Municipal Archives files of the Bureau of Special Services and Investigations, the New York Police Department’s former political intelligence unit, where I found them while researching for my new book, “Police Against the Movement.”

On their face, the images are mundane. King emerges from a car, greeted by two men in suits. In another, King stands with family and confidants, including his wife, the activist Coretta Scott King; his mother, Alberta Williams King; and his friend and adviser Bayard Rustin, organizer of the March on Washington. In a third shot, Coretta shakes hands with Wagner.

One thing unites the images: None of the 14 individuals who appear at close range betray the slightest hint of recognition that their picture is being taken; no one looks directly at the camera. Their lack of acknowledgment suggests that they may not have realized they were being photographed — certainly not by police. But their placement in the Bureau of Special Services “Red Squad” files make the NYPD’s sentiments clear. (These files were first discovered by city archivists in a Queens warehouse in 2016, more than three decades after the landmark Handschu federal court settlement mandated they be made available to the activist subjects of NYPD surveillance, and two years after a lawsuit by historian Johanna Fernandez called for their release. Today, the NYPD “Red Squad” files represent the most significant collection of publicly accessible police intelligence records in the United States.)

For the NYPD, Wagner’s public flattery of King mattered much less than the unfavorable comments made just one month earlier by the nation’s premier law enforcement official, FBI Director........

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