Editing COINTELPRO (section)

==History==
The FBI initiated COINTELPRO, an abbreviation for Counterintelligence Program, in 1956 with the aim of undermining the operations of the Communist Party of the United States. In the 1960s, the scope of the organization was broadened to encompass various additional domestic factions, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panther Party. The cessation of all COINTELPRO operations occurred in 1971. Despite its relatively small scale (constituting approximately 0.2% of the FBI's overall workload during a 15-year timeframe), COINTELPRO was subsequently subject to criticism from both Congress and the American public for infringing upon first amendment rights and other grounds.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro|title=FBI Records: The Vault — COINTELPRO|accessdate=19 February 2024}}</ref>

Tactics included anonymous phone calls, [[Internal Revenue Service]] (IRS) audits, and the creation of documents that would divide the American communist organization internally.<ref name="Weiner 2012 195"/> An October 1956 memo from Hoover reclassified the FBI's ongoing surveillance of black leaders, including it within COINTELPRO, with the justification that the movement was infiltrated by [[communists]].<ref>{{harvnb|Weiner|2012|p=198|ps=: "On October 2, 1956, Hoover stepped up the FBI's long-standing surveillance of black civil rights activists. He sent a COINTELPRO memo to the field, warning that the Communist Party was seeking to infiltrate the movement." }}</ref> In 1956, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. [[T. R. M. Howard]], a [[civil rights]] leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in [[Mississippi]] who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of [[George W. Lee]], [[Emmett Till]], and other African Americans in the South.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power |last1=Beito |first1=David T. |last2=Beito |first2=Linda Royster |date=2009 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-03420-6 |location=Urbana |pages=148, 154–159 |oclc=690465801}}</ref> When the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC), an African-American civil rights organization, was founded in 1957, the FBI began to monitor and target the group almost immediately, focusing particularly on [[Bayard Rustin]], [[Stanley Levison]], and eventually [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]<ref>{{harvnb|Weiner|2012|p=200}}.</ref>
[[File:Mlk-uncovered-letter.png|thumb|Part of the 1964 "[[FBI–King letter|suicide letter]]"<ref name="fbi letter">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html |title=What an Uncensored Letter to M. L. K. Reveals |last=Gage |first=Beverly |date=2014-11-11 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2015-01-09 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150107190622/http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html |archive-date=2015-01-07}}</ref> that the FBI mailed anonymously to [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]. King interpreted the letter as an effort to persuade him to commit [[suicide]].<ref name="fbi letter" /> More portions of the letter would be released in 2014.<ref name="fbi letter" />]]
After the 1963 [[March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom]], Hoover singled out King as a major target for COINTELPRO. Under pressure from Hoover to focus on King, Sullivan wrote:<ref>{{harvnb|Weiner|2012|p=235}}.</ref>

{{Blockquote|In the light of King's powerful demagogic speech ... We must mark him now if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security.}}

Soon after, the FBI was systematically bugging King's home and his hotel rooms, as they were now aware that King was growing in stature daily as the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement.<ref>{{harvnb|Weiner|2012|p=236|ps=: "The bugs got quick results. When King traveled, as he did constantly in the ensuing weeks, to Washington, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, and Honolulu, the Bureau planted hidden microphones in his hotel rooms. The FBI placed a total of eight wiretaps and sixteen bugs on King." }}.</ref>

In the mid-1960s, King began to publicly criticize the Bureau for giving insufficient attention to the use of [[terrorism]] by white supremacists. Hoover responded by publicly calling King the most "notorious liar" in the United States.<ref name="Branch_1999">{{Cite book |url={{google books|CUI6tY9RJUYC|plainurl=yes}} |title=Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–1965 |last=Branch |first=Taylor |date=1999 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-1-4165-5870-5 |pages=524–529 |oclc=933467815 |author-link=Taylor Branch |via=Google Books}}</ref> In his 1991 memoir, ''[[The Washington Post|Washington Post]]'' journalist [[Carl Rowan]] asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/breakingbarriers00rowa/page/260 |title=Breaking Barriers: A Memoir |last=Rowan |first=Carl T. |date=1991 |publisher=Little, Brown |isbn=978-0-316-75977-9 |edition=1st |location=Boston |page=[https://archive.org/details/breakingbarriers00rowa/page/260 260] |oclc=22110131 |author-link=Carl Rowan }}</ref> Historian [[Taylor Branch]] documents an anonymous "[[FBI–King letter|suicide package]]" sent by the FBI on November 21, 1964, that contained audio recordings obtained through tapping King's phone and placing bugs throughout various hotel rooms over the previous two years,<ref name="Churchill_2002">{{Cite book |title=The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States |title-link=The COINTELPRO Papers |last1=Churchill |first1=Ward |last2=Vander Wall |first2=Jim |date=2002 |publisher=[[South End Press]] |isbn=978-0-89608-648-7 |author-link=Ward Churchill |orig-year=1990}}</ref> and that was created two days after the announcement of King's impending [[Nobel Peace Prize]].<ref name="Churchill_2002" /> The tape, which was prepared by FBI audio technician John Matter,<ref name="Churchill_2002" /> documented a series of sexual indiscretions by King combined with a letter telling him: "There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation".<ref name="Branch_1999-527_9">{{harvnb|Branch|1999|pp=527–529}}.</ref> King believed that he was subsequently informed that the audio would be released to the media if he did not acquiesce and commit suicide prior to accepting his Nobel Peace Prize.<ref name="Churchill_2002" /> When King refused to satisfy their coercion tactics, FBI Associate Director, Cartha D. DeLoach, commenced a media campaign offering the surveillance transcript to various news organizations, including ''[[Newsweek]]'' and ''[[Newsday]]''.<ref name="Churchill_2002" /> By 1969—one year after King’s assassination—FBI efforts to “expose” him continued unabated. According to Church Committee findings, the Bureau “furnished ammunition to opponents that enabled attacks on King's memory and ... tried to block efforts to honor the slain leader."<ref name="Branch_1999-527_9"/> However, more portions of the FBI letter to King were made public in 2014 which suggested that the FBI's intent was to push King out of leadership and have "older leaders" like [[Roy Wilkins]] lead the civil right movement.<ref name="fbi letter" /> The claim that the FBI's intent was to remove King from SCLC leadership was also previously backed in 1976 by the findings of the [[Church Committee]].<ref>{{citation|last=Church|first= Frank|author-link= Frank Church|title= Church Committee Book III| work =Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Case Study| publisher= [[Church Committee]]| date=April 23, 1976}}</ref>

During the same period the program also targeted [[Malcolm X]]. While an FBI spokesman has denied that the FBI was "directly" involved in Malcolm's murder in 1965, it is documented that the Bureau worked to "widen the rift" between Malcolm and [[Elijah Muhammad]] through infiltration and the "sparking of acrimonious debates within the organization", rumor-mongering, and other tactics designed to foster internal disputes, which ultimately led to Malcolm's assassination.<ref>{{harvnb|Branch|1999|p=243}}.</ref><ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/2000/05/14/fbi-should-acknowledge-complicity-in-the-assassination-of-malcolm-x/ |title=FBI should acknowledge complicity in the assassination of Malcolm X |last=Kane |first=Gregory |date=14 May 2000 |work=Baltimore Sun |access-date=26 May 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150524001225/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2000-05-14/news/0005140182_1_malcolm-x-kill-malcolm-muhammad |archive-date=24 May 2015 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> The FBI heavily infiltrated Malcolm's [[Organization of Afro-American Unity]] in the final months of his life. [[Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention|Manning Marable]]'s Pulitzer Prize-winning [[Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention|biography of Malcolm X]]  asserts that most of the men who plotted Malcolm's assassination were never apprehended and that the full extent of the FBI's involvement in his death cannot be known.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/books/review/book-review-malcolm-x-by-manning-marable.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 |title=Malcolm X: Criminal, Minister, Humanist, Martyr |last=Touré |date=17 June 2011 |work=The New York Times |access-date=26 February 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170829123552/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/books/review/book-review-malcolm-x-by-manning-marable.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 |archive-date=29 August 2017 |department=Sunday Book Review |page=BR18 |df=dmy-all}}</ref><ref>{{Cite conference |last=Douglass |first=James W. |date=29 March 2006 |title=The Converging Martyrdom of Malcolm and Martin |url=http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Unspeakable/ConvMartyrdom.html#fn3 |conference=Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture |location=Princeton Theological Seminary |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150125055454/http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Unspeakable/ConvMartyrdom.html#fn3 |archive-date=25 January 2015 |access-date=17 October 2014 |url-status=live |df=dmy-all}}</ref>

Amidst the urban unrest of July–August 1967, the FBI began "COINTELPRO–BLACK HATE", which focused on King and the SCLC, as well as the [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCC), the [[Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM)]], the [[Deacons for Defense and Justice]], [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE), and the [[Nation of Islam]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://cisupa.proquest.com/ksc_assets/catalog/101095_FBIBlackExtrOrgsPt1COINTELPRO.pdf |title=Guide to the Microfilm Edition of FBI Surveillance Files: Black Extremist Organizations, Part 1 |website=Lexis-Nexis |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130603094342/http://cisupa.proquest.com/ksc_assets/catalog/101095_FBIBlackExtrOrgsPt1COINTELPRO.pdf |archive-date=2013-06-03 |access-date=2014-10-07}}</ref> BLACK HATE established the [[Ghetto Informant Program]] and instructed 23 FBI offices to "disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate type organizations".<ref>{{harvnb|Weiner|2012|p=271}}.</ref>

A March 1968 memo stated the program's goal was to "prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups"; to "Prevent the RISE OF A '[[messiah|MESSIAH]]' who could unify&nbsp;... the militant black nationalist movement"; "to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence [against authorities]"; to "Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining RESPECTABILITY, by discrediting them to&nbsp;... both the responsible community and to liberals who have vestiges of sympathy"; and to "prevent the long-range GROWTH of militant black organizations, especially among youth". Dr. King was said to have potential to be the "messiah" figure, should he abandon nonviolence and integrationism,<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/814 |title=The FBI Sets Goals for COINTELPRO |last=Hoover |first=J. Edgar |website=HERB: Resources for Teachers |publisher=City University of New York |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141012143108/http://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/814 |archive-date=2014-10-12 |access-date=2014-10-07}}</ref> and [[Stokely Carmichael]] was noted to have "the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way" as he was portrayed as someone who espoused a much more militant vision of "[[black power]]".<ref>{{Cite news |url=http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/F%20Disk/FBI/FBI%20Hampton%20Case%20ONeil%20William%20Jr/Item%2005.pdf |title=Hoover Rated Carmichael As 'Black Messiah' |last=Warden |first=Rob |date=February 10, 1976 |work=Chicago Daily News |access-date=October 8, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304043005/http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/F%20Disk/FBI/FBI%20Hampton%20Case%20ONeil%20William%20Jr/Item%2005.pdf |archive-date=March 4, 2016 |via=Harold Weisberg Archive, Hood College |df=mdy-all}}</ref> While the FBI was particularly concerned with leaders and organizers, they did not limit their scope of target to the heads of organizations. Individuals, e.g. writers, were also listed among the targets of operations.<ref name="Churchill_1990">{{Cite book |title=The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Domestic Dissent |last1=Churchill |first1=Ward |last2=Vander Wall |first2=Jim |date=1990 |publisher=South End Press |isbn=978-0896083608 |location=Boston |oclc=21908953 |author-link=Ward Churchill}}</ref>

This program coincided with a broader federal effort to prepare military responses for [[urban riots]] and began increased collaboration between the FBI, [[Central Intelligence Agency]], [[National Security Agency]], and the [[United States Department of Defense|Department of Defense]]. The CIA launched its own domestic espionage project in 1967 called [[Operation CHAOS]].<ref>{{harvnb|Weiner|2012|p=272|ps=: "Some 1,500 army intelligence officers in civilian clothing undertook the surveillance of some 100,000 American citizens. Army intelligence shared all their reports over the next three years. The CIA tracked antiwar leaders and black militants who traveled overseas, and it reported back to the FBI. The FBI, in turn, shared thousands of selected files on Americans with army intelligence and the CIA. All three intelligence services sent the names of Americans to the National Security Agency for inclusion on a global watch list; the NSA relayed back to the FBI hundreds of transcripts of intercepted telephone calls to and from suspect Americans."}}</ref> A particular target was the [[Poor People's Campaign]], a national effort organized by King and the SCLC to occupy Washington, DC. The FBI monitored and disrupted the campaign on a national level, while using targeted smear tactics locally to undermine support for the march.<ref>{{harvnb|McKnight|1998|pp=26–28|ps=: "By March the Hoover Bureau's campaign against King was virtually on a total war footing. In a March 21 'urgent' teletype, Hoover urged all field offices involved in the POCAM project to exploit every tactic in the bureau's arsenal of covert political warfare to bring down King and the SCLC."}}</ref> The [[Black Panther Party]] was another targeted organization, wherein the FBI collaborated to destroy the party from the inside out.<ref name="Churchill_1990" />

Overall, COINTELPRO encompassed disruption and sabotage of the [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] (1961), the [[Ku Klux Klan]] (1964), the [[Nation of Islam]], the [[Black Panther Party]] (1967), and the entire [[New Left]] social/political movement, which included antiwar, community, and religious groups (1968). A later investigation by the Senate's [[Church Committee]] (see below) stated that "COINTELPRO began in 1956, in part because of frustration with Supreme Court rulings limiting the Government's power to proceed overtly against dissident groups."<ref name="cfr3a">{{Cite web |url=https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/dec/08/fbi-kkk/ |title=FBI leadership claimed Bureau was 'almost powerless' against KKK, despite making up one-fifth of its membership |date=December 8, 2017 |publisher=Muckrock |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190124203613/https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2017/dec/08/fbi-kkk/ |archive-date=2019-01-24 |access-date=2018-12-08}}</ref> Official congressional committees and several court cases<ref>See, for example, ''[http://www.leagle.com/decision/1984738737F2d1_1738/HOBSON%20v.%20WILSON Hobson v. Wilson]'', {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170410213857/http://www.leagle.com/decision/1984738737F2d1_1738/HOBSON%20v.%20WILSON |date=2017-04-10 }}, 737&nbsp;F.2d 1 (1984); ''[https://www.leagle.com/decision/2001791257F3d534_1744/RUGIERO%20v.%20U.S.%20DEPT.%20OF%20JUSTICE Rugiero v. U.S. Department of Justice]'', {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170410213803/https://www.leagle.com/decision/2001791257F3d534_1744/RUGIERO%20v.%20U.S.%20DEPT.%20OF%20JUSTICE |date=2017-04-10 }}, 257&nbsp;F.3d 534, 546 (2001).</ref> have concluded that COINTELPRO operations against communist and socialist groups exceeded statutory limits on FBI activity and violated constitutional guarantees of [[freedom of speech]] and [[Freedom of association|association]].<ref name="church-final-report" />

===Uncovering===
{{main|Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI|Church Committee}}
[[File:One Vets Sq Media Delco PA.JPG|thumb|upright=1.1|The building broken into by the Citizen's Commission to Investigate the FBI, at One Veterans Square, Media, [[Pennsylvania]]]]
The program was secret until March 8, 1971, when the [[Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI]] burgled an FBI field office in [[Media, Pennsylvania]], took several dossiers, and exposed the program by passing this material to news agencies.<ref name="church-final-report" /><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/1971/ |title=1971: Citizens Who Exposed COINTELPRO |last=Hamilton |first=Johanna |date=18 May 2015 |website=PBS: Independent Lens |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924131425/http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/1971/ |archive-date=24 September 2015 |access-date=25 August 2017 |df=dmy-all}}</ref> The boxing match known as the [[Fight of the Century]] between [[Muhammad Ali]] and [[Joe Frazier]] in March 1971 provided cover for the activist group to successfully pull off the burglary. Muhammad Ali was a COINTELPRO target because he had joined the Nation of Islam and the anti-war movement.<ref name="Intercept">{{Cite web |url=https://theintercept.com/2016/06/06/in-1971-muhammad-ali-helped-undermine-the-fbis-illegal-spying-on-americans/ |title=In 1971, Muhammad Ali Helped Undermine the FBI's Illegal Spying on Americans |last=Medsger |first=Betty|author-link= Betty Medsger|date=June 6, 2016 |website=[[The Intercept]] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170427235216/https://theintercept.com/2016/06/06/in-1971-muhammad-ali-helped-undermine-the-fbis-illegal-spying-on-americans/ |archive-date=April 27, 2017 |access-date=April 17, 2017 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

Many news organizations initially refused to immediately publish the information, with the notable exception of ''[[The Washington Post]]''. After affirming the reliability of the documents, it published them on the front page (in defiance of the Attorney General's request), prompting other organizations to follow suit. Within the year, Director J. Edgar Hoover declared that the centralized COINTELPRO was over, and that all future [[counterintelligence]] operations would be handled case by case.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.albionmonitor.net/9905a/jbcointelpro.html |title=A Short History of FBI COINTELPRO |last1=Cassidy |first1=Mike |last2=Miller |first2=Will |date=May 26, 1999 |website=Albion Monitor |publisher=Wayward Press |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928104133/http://www.albionmonitor.net/9905a/jbcointelpro.html |archive-date=September 28, 2007 |access-date=July 13, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Weiner|2012|p=293}}.</ref>

Additional documents were revealed in the course of separate lawsuits filed against the FBI by [[NBC]] correspondent Carl Stern, the [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]], and a number of other groups. In 1976 the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate, commonly referred to as the "[[Church Committee]]" after its chairman, Senator [[Frank Church]] (D-[[Idaho]]), launched a major investigation of the FBI and COINTELPRO. Many released documents have been partly or entirely [[Sanitization (classified information)|redacted]].

The Final Report of the Select Committee castigated the conduct of the intelligence community in its domestic operations (including COINTELPRO) in no uncertain terms:

{{blockquote|The Committee finds that the domestic activities of the intelligence community at times violated specific statutory prohibitions and infringed the constitutional rights of American citizens. The legal questions involved in intelligence programs were often not considered. On other occasions, they were intentionally disregarded in the belief that because the programs served the "national security" the law did not apply. While intelligence officers on occasion failed to disclose to their superiors programs which were illegal or of questionable legality, the Committee finds that the most serious breaches of duty were those of senior officials, who were responsible for controlling intelligence activities and generally failed to assure compliance with the law.<ref name="church-final-report" />

Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that ... the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of [[First Amendment]] rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.<ref name=cfr3a/>}}

The Church Committee documented a history of the FBI (initially called BOI until 1936) exercising political repression as far back as World War I, and through the 1920s, when agents were charged with rounding up "anarchists, communists, socialists, reformists and revolutionaries" for deportation. From 1936 through 1976, the domestic operations were increased against political and anti-war groups.