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COINTELPRO is an acronym ('COunter INTELligence PROgram') for a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating, monitoring and countering violent dissident political organizations within the United States. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO's of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against organizations that were (at the time) considered politically radical or potentially violent or actually violent, such as the Black Panthers and the Weathermen, groups committing (at least rhetorically) to the violent overthrow of the United States Government. The Bureau when led by J. Edgar Hoover also authorized investigations and counter intelligence of groups committed to non-violent change, such as various groups associated with Martin Luther King Jr..

Background

The origins of COINTELPRO were rooted in the Bureau's operations against hostile foreign intelligence services. Counterintelligence, of course, goes beyond investigation; it refers to actions taken to neutralize enemy agents. "Counterintelligence" was a misnomer for the FBI programs, since the targets were American political dissidents perceived to be violent or potentially violent, not foreign spies. In the atmosphere of the Cold War, the American Communist Party was seen as a serious threat to national security and may well have been if left unchecked.

The FBI addressed the threats from the violentNew Left as it had those from Communists in the 1950s and the violent Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s. It used both traditional investigative techniques and counterintelligence programs (Cointelpro) to counteract domestic terrorism and conduct investigations of individuals and organizations who threatened terroristic violence. Wiretapping and other intrusive techniques were discouraged by J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director in the mid-1960s, and eventually were forbidden completely unless they conformed to the Omnibus Crime Control Act. Director Hoover formally terminated all "Cointelpro" operations on April 28, 1971.

History

The program was initially targeted at the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA). After its initial success, it was expanded to include many other organizations. Some of the largest COINTELPROs targeted the Socialist Worker's Party, the "New Left" (including several anti-war groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Black Liberation groups (such as the Black Panthers and the Republic of New Africa), Puerto Rican independence groups, the American Indian Movement and the Weather Underground. There were also attacks against other organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan (with whom the FBI sometimes collaborated in other COINTELPROs).

The program was secret until 1971, when an FBI field office was burglarized by a group of radicals calling themselves the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI. Several dossiers of files were taken and the information passed to news agencies. Within the year, Director Hoover declared that the centralized COINTELPRO was over, and that all future counterintelligence operations would be handled on a case-by-case basis. He did not promise that the FBI would stop using COINTELPRO tactics.

Further documents were revealed in the course of separate lawsuits filed against the FBI by NBC correspondent Carl Stern and by the SWP, and in 1976 by the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate, commonly referred to as the "Church Committee" for its chairman, Senator Frank Church of Idaho. However, millions of pages of documents remain unreleased, and many released documents are entirely censored.

The Church Committee documented a history of the FBI being used for purposes of political repression as far back as World War I, through the 1920s, when they were charged with rounding up "anarchists and revolutionaries" for deportation, and then building from 1936 through 1976.

The FBI claims that it no longer undertakes COINTELPRO or COINTELPRO-like operations. However, critics claim that agency programs in the spirit of COINTELPRO target groups like the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador and the Anti-Globalization Movement.

Methods

The COINTELPROs and many of the violent extreme left and right groups used a broad array of methods, including:

• Infiltration: Both by informants and agents provocateurs, who would waste time, sabotage campaigns, suggest or carry out dangerous, illegal, or divisive activities, or seduce and blackmail leaders;

• Intimidation: Sending threatening letters and packages, breaking and entering into houses and offices, etc;

• Propaganda: Feeding damaging information to friendly journalists, writing anonymous leaflets against organizations, or writing damaging leaflets or letters claiming to be from the organization;

• Framing: Framing activists for crimes which the FBI committed, prosecuting them for genuine crimes they didn't commit, or "bad-jacketing," planting falsified documents or other "evidence" which made it appear that they were FBI informants; and

• Lawsuit harassment: Tying up organizations or individuals in court with frivolous prosecution of every possible offense, real or imagined.

References

• Assault on the Left by James Kirkpatrick Davis (1997), chapters 1 and 8
• The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States by Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall
• Cointelpro, ed. by Cathy Perkus (New York: Vintage, 1976)

See also

• Fred Hampton

External links

• Paul Wolf's COINTELPRO website, a detailed reference site
• COINTELPRO STILL LIVES by Sista Shiriki Unganisha
• COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story - presented to U.N. World Conference Against Racism 2001 by the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus
• The Judi Bari case, COINTELPRO in the 1990s

• Propaganda
• Political repression