Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings/Conspiracy Theories Book II

COINTELPRO

COINTELPRO (syllabicabbreviation derived from COunter INTELligence PROgram)(1956–present) is a series of covert and illegal projects conductedby the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed atsurveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting Americanpolitical organizations. FBI records show COINTELPRO resourcestargeted groups and individuals the FBI deemed subversive, includingfeminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti–Vietnam Warorganizers, activists of the civil rights movement or Black Powermovement (e.g. Martin Luther King Jr., the Nation of Islam, and theBlack Panther Party), environmentalist and animal rightsorganizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), independencemovements (such as Puerto Rican independence groups like the YoungLords), and a variety of organizations that were part of the broaderNew Left and unrelated groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1971 in San Diego, the FBI financed,armed, and controlled an extreme right-wing group of former membersof the Minutemen anti-communist para-military organization,transforming it into a group called the Secret Army Organization thattargeted groups, activists, and leaders involved in the Anti-WarMovement, using both intimidation and violent acts.

The FBI has used covert operationsagainst domestic political groups since its inception; however,covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took placebetween 1956 and 1971. COINTELPRO tactics are still used to this dayand have been alleged to include discrediting targets throughpsychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forgeddocuments and by planting false reports in the media; harassment;wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination. According to a senate report, the FBI's motivation was "protectingnational security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existingsocial and political order".

Beginning in 1969, leaders of the BlackPanther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and "neutralized"by being assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falselycharged with crimes. Some of the Black Panthers affected includedFred Hampton, Mark Clark, Zayd Shakur, Geronimo Pratt, MumiaAbu-Jamal, and Marshall Conway. Common tactics used by COINTELPROwere perjury, witness harassment, witness intimidation, andwithholding of evidence.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issueddirectives governing COINTELPRO, ordering FBI agents to "expose,disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" theactivities of these movements and especially their leaders. UnderHoover, the agent in charge of COINTELPRO was William C. Sullivan. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy personally authorized some of theprograms. Although Kennedy only gave written approval for limitedwiretapping of Martin Luther King's phones "on a trial basis,for a month or so", Hoover extended the clearance so his menwere "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areasof King's life they deemed worthy.

History

Centralized operations under COINTELPROofficially began in August 1956 with a program designed to "increasefactionalism, cause disruption and win defections" insidethe Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Tactics included anonymous phonecalls, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audits, and the creation ofdocuments that would divide the American communist organizationinternally. An October 1956 memo from Hoover reclassified the FBI'songoing surveillance of black leaders, including it withinCOINTELPRO, with the justification that the movement was infiltratedby communists. In 1956, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. T.R. M. Howard, a civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthyentrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction insolving recent murders of George W. Lee, Emmett Till, and otherAfrican Americans in the South. When the Southern ChristianLeadership Conference (SCLC), an African-American civil rightsorganization, was founded in 1957, the FBI began to monitor andtarget the group almost immediately, focusing particularly on BayardRustin, Stanley Levison, and eventually Martin Luther King Jr.