WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: COINTELPRO 2 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:05.480 Happy Saturday. This is the second part of our two 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:09.040 part episode on co Intel pro. Part one, which ran 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.440 last Saturday, includes lots of background on the FBI and 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:17.280 its counterintelligence programs. Today's installment is focused on co intel 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.880 pros that targeted civil rights groups and the vaguely defined 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.959 New Left, as well as the raid on the FBI 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:27.520 office in Media, Pennsylvania that brought these programs to light. 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.840 At the end of this episode, we mentioned that some 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:33.120 of the people who were part of that raid were 0:00:33.120 --> 0:00:36.640 also suspected as being part of the Camden twenty eight, 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.080 who broke into the Camden, New Jersey, Draft Board office 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.800 and destroyed draft records there in nineteen seventy one. 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:45.720 We talked about. 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.920 The Camden twenty eight and other Vietnam War era draft 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.800 board raids in a two parter that ran on April 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:56.320 seventh and ninth, twenty twenty five. This episode originally came 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:02.760 out July twenty second, twenty twenty Welcome to Stuff You 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:12.959 Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:16.120 welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:20.040 Holly Frye. Today we are wrapping up our two parter 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:24.200 on co Intel Pro, including its targeting of so called 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:29.240 black nationalist slash hate groups and a targeting of a 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.560 very vaguely defined movement known as the New Left. To 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:37.040 briefly recap from part one, which is highly recommended before 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.920 listening to this because it includes a lot of context 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.880 and overview, but just as a quick recap, we're going 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:46.120 to quote from the Church Report, which followed more than 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.400 a year of Senate Committee hearings into all this quote. 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.400 The origins of co Intel pro demonstrate that the Bureau 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:57.560 adopted extra legal methods to counter perceived threats to national 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:01.720 security and public order because the ordinary legal processes were 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:05.400 believed to be insufficient to do the job. In essence, 0:02:05.480 --> 0:02:08.800 the Bureau took the law into its own hands, conducting 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:15.120 a sophisticated vigilante operation against domestic enemies. Whether those targets 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:18.280 were really enemies, though, that is a different question. The 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.440 report went on to say, quote, the choice of individuals 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:25.840 and organizations to be neutralized and disrupted ranged from the 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.800 violent elements of the Black Panther Party to Martin Luther 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:32.639 King Junior, who the Bureau concedes was an advocate of nonviolence. 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:36.200 From the Communist Party to the ku Klux Klan, from 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.800 the advocates of violent revolutions such as the Weathermen, to 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:43.480 the supporters of peaceful social change, including the Southern Christian 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:47.360 Leadership Conference and the Inter University Committee for Debate on 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.520 Foreign Policy. Just a heads up in this episode, there 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.000 are going to be some discussions of suicide and also 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:57.160 police violence. In nineteen sixty seven, the FBI started co 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.240 Intel pro Black Nationalist hate Groups. For the most part, 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:03.959 targeting of civil rights groups that had been carried out 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.720 under Cointel pro CPUSA, which we talked about last time, 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:12.560 rolled up under this newly established program. In the words 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.240 of the program supervisor, the targeted groups were selected because 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:18.480 they were believed to be violent or because of their 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:23.959 quote radical or revolutionary rhetoric and actions. On March fourth, 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.560 nineteen sixty eight, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.520 memo to be routed through forty one FBI field offices. 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:36.360 This memo was called Counterintelligence Program Black Nationalist Hate Group's 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.680 Racial Intelligence. And this is a little bit long, but 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.560 it's so illustrative of what the FBI was doing here 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.320 and more generally, what Hoover's mindset was across the other 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.760 co intel pros. We're going to read a chunk of it. 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:54.440 So it began quote goals for maximum effectiveness of the 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.960 counterintelligence program and to prevent wasted effort. Long range goals 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:03.640 are being set. Number one, prevent the coalition of militant 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.960 black nationalist groups. In unity, there is strength, a truism 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:11.160 that is no less valid for all its triteness. An 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.560 effective coalition of black nationalist groups might be the first 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.000 step toward a real mau Mau in America, the beginning 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.560 of a true Black revolution. So, for context, mau Mau 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.120 is a reference to the Mau Mau movement and uprising 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:28.799 in Kenya, which advocated a violent overthrow of British colonial rule. 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.159 This went on too prevent the rise of a messiah 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:37.200 who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement. 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.520 Malcolm X might have been such a messiah. He is 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:45.120 the martyr of the movement today. Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:49.440 and Elijah Mohammed all aspire to this position. Elijah Mohammed 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.040 is less of a threat because of his age. King 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.000 could be a very real contender for this position, should 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:59.360 he abandon his supposed quote obedience to quote white liberal 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:05.320 doctrines in parentheses nonviolence, and embrace black nationalism. Carmichael has 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:08.360 the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way. 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:13.520 Number three prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups. 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.880 This is of primary importance and is of course a 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.320 goal of our investigative activity. It should also be a 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.680 goal of the counterintelligence program to pinpoint potential troublemakers and 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:30.360 neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence. Number 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:34.359 four prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:40.040 respectability by discrediting them to three separate segments of the community. 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:44.280 The goal of discrediting black nationalists must be handled tactically 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:48.120 in three ways. You must discredit those groups and individuals 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:52.280 to first, the responsible Negro community. Second, they must be 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:56.000 discredited to the white community, both the responsible community and 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:59.640 to liberals who have vestiges of sympathy for militant Black 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.119 national list simply because they are negroes. Third, these groups 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.560 must be discredited in the eyes of Negro radicals, the 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:12.280 followers of the movement. This last area requires entirely different 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.880 tactics from the first two. Publicity about violent tendencies and 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.800 radical statements merely enhances black nationalists to the last group. 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:25.200 It adds respectability in a different way. Number five. A 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.320 final goal should be to prevent the long range growth 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:33.599 of militant black organizations, especially among youth. Specific tactics to 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.240 prevent these groups from converting young people must be developed. 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:38.720 This memo went on. 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.520 To outline the primary targets of this co intel, pro 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.000 that everything we just read was going to apply to. 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.960 These were the organizations that Hoover described as the quote 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:56.080 most violent and radical. It included the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:01.080 the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Revolutionary Action Movement, and the 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:02.159 Nation of Islam. 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:03.240 This is an. 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:04.839 Incredibly weird list. 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.040 Snick has nonviolent write it in the name, like the 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.960 Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Martin Luther King Junior helped found 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:19.880 this represents the whole spectrum of from nonviolent direct action 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:25.200 to revolutionary black nationalism, and the FBI even noted that 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.000 in its view, some individual members of the Nation of 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.920 Islam had been involved in violence, but the organization itself 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.040 was not violent. It was being targeted because of its separatism. 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:39.360 Basically, the FBI grouped a lot of different organizations with 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.720 a wide range of objectives and ideologies and tactics under 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.840 this co intel Pro that was supposedly about black nationalism 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:52.400 and hate groups. Some, as Tracey just mentioned, were strictly pacifist, 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:58.040 Some advocated gun ownership or violent self defense, Some spoke 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.160 in very theoretical terms about the need for a revolution, 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.000 and some of them called for an actual armed uprising 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.680 or other violence. All very different ideologies, but still under 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:12.200 this one umbrella. The FBI classed them all together as 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.400 violent and radical, viewing virtually any organization calling for equal 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:20.720 rights for black people as potentially violent and as a consequence, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.440 as needing to be disrupted. Yeah, Like, the thing that 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.400 these all had in common was like black people equality, 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:33.000 equality please, or like demanding equality with very aggressive rhetoric 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.440 and sometimes violence. Like that's what it all had in common. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.360 The FBI put intense effort into discrediting and disrupting all 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.760 these organizations and other organizations that were not specifically named, 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:45.360 using all the methods that we talked about in Part one. 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.160 But about a year after this co intel pro was established, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.800 another different organization rose to national prominence, and that was 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.079 the Black Panther Party, and this co intel Pro then 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.800 pivoted to shift almost exclusively on that. The Black Panther 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:03.400 part originally called the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:07.040 was founded in Oakland, California in nineteen sixty six by 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.439 Huey Newton and Bobby Seal. A lot of the Black 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:14.720 Panthers rhetoric was radical and revolutionary, arguing that the only 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.480 way black people could be truly free is if they 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.400 were able to govern their own affairs. When they were 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.280 establishing the party, Newton and Seal crafted a ten point 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:28.240 program which began, we want freedom, We want power to 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.880 determine the destiny of our black community. This ten point 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.240 program went on to call for full employment, an end 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:39.120 to quote the robbery by the capitalists of our black community, 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:44.000 decent housing, education, exemption from military service for black men, 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.880 an end to police brutality, freedom for black men who 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.840 were held in prisons in jails, and it ended, quote 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:55.800 we want land, bred, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace. 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.600 The ten point Plan elaborated on each of these points. 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.319 The exemption from military service stemmed from the United States 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.600 involvement in Vietnam and the idea that black people should 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.080 not be forced to serve in the military of a 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.480 nation that did not protect them. The idea behind the 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.040 release of incarcerated black men was that they had not 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.359 been given a fair and impartial trial, so their convictions 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.520 were not valid. As part of their work, the Black 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:25.400 Panthers started more than thirty community service programs known as 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.960 survival programs. These included things like free breakfast programs for 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:34.840 school children, a tuberculosis screening and treatment program, medical clinics, 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.440 ambulance services, legal aid, and education programs. The Black Panthers 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.560 also created a screening program for sickle cell disease that 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.040 later served as a template for the federal government's own 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.800 screening programs. Over time, a lot of these services were 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:54.120 expanded to include anyone who was oppressed, including poor white people. 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.720 The Black Panthers also showed up to support other marginalized 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.320 groups in their own activism. They are mentioned two different 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.640 times in our Six Impossible episodes from sip Ins to 0:11:04.720 --> 0:11:09.600 fish Ins, which focused on direct action demonstrations and similar protests. 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.079 In that episode, we talked about the Black Panther support 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:16.079 of the fish In movement in the Pacific Northwest, and 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.280 they're providing meals to disabled activists who took over the 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.960 Department of Health Education and Welfare Office in San Francisco 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:26.840 during the Section five oh four protests. But today, the 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:29.360 first thing a lot of people, especially a lot of 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.760 white people, think of when someone says the Black Panthers 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:37.200 is guns and violence. The Black Panthers organized armed patrols 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.480 of black neighborhoods to protect residents from police brutality and 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.920 from gang violence. At one point, they staged an armed 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.240 takeover of the California State Legislature that was in response 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:51.160 to gun control legislation. As other examples outside of the 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.800 party's organized activities, Huey Newton was involved in a shootout 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.480 with police in nineteen sixty seven in which an officer 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:01.199 was killed. Bobby Seal was charmed urge but not convicted, 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:04.199 with conspiracy to incite riots at the nineteen sixty eight 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.600 Democratic National Convention, and of the murder of a nineteen 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:09.800 year old Black Panther who was suspected of being a 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.760 police informant. In a memo back to headquarters, a California 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.120 field office described the Black Panthers as quote the most 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:21.319 violence prone organization of all the extremist groups now operating 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.520 in the United States, and that alleged that they were 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.240 performing quote not only verbal attacks, but also physical attacks 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.160 on police. Later, J Edgar Hoover called the Black Panthers 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.720 quote one of the greatest threats to the nation's internal security. 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:40.200 On November twenty fifth, nineteen sixty eight, several FBI field 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:44.640 offices received a memo ordering them to submit quote imaginative 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:49.960 and hard hitting counter intelligence measures aimed at crippling the BPPS, 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.920 of course, the Black Panther Party. This directive was expanded 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.600 to additional field offices in January of nineteen sixty nine. 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.280 Collen's hel pro black nationalist hat Green soon focused almost 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:04.720 entirely on the Black Panthers, rather than on that collection 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.520 of groups that we outlined earlier in that nineteen sixty 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.920 eight memo. Of this co intel pros two hundred and 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:14.480 ninety five documented actions, two hundred and thirty three of 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.560 them were against the Black Panthers. Using all those various 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.120 techniques that we described in Part one as examples, the 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:26.440 FBI intentionally undermined the Black Panthers public service programs, for example, 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:31.040 by sending fake, inflammatory membership materials to food pantries and 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.760 other organizations that were donating food for the breakfast programs. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.840 The Bureau used disinformation to try to spark violent conflicts 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.800 between the Panthers and area street gangs, and to spark 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.480 violent conflicts between the Panthers and police to reinforce the 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.480 idea that the Black Panthers were just inherently violent. In 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.600 nineteen sixty nine, the FBI became aware of a Black 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.040 Panther coloring book. The origins of this book are a 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:02.040 little bit murky, but Akinsanya Cambone, who was then known 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:05.880 as Mark Temer, has taken credit for its creation. In 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.560 a twenty sixteen interview, he describes it as a history book. 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:15.000 It depicts slave owners, greedy store owners, and police all 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:20.320 as obese pigs with exaggerated lower tusks. While Cambone has 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.240 stressed that these pigs can be any color, which is 0:14:23.240 --> 0:14:26.400 why it is a coloring book, they are generally interpreted 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:30.280 as representations of white people, and this book is full 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.560 of images of black people, adults and children, men and 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:38.320 women stabbing and shooting the pigs. Black Panther leadership felt 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.680 that the coloring book was inappropriate and ordered Cambone to 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.840 destroy it, but someone made copies, and after the FBI 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.440 obtained one, it made more copies and distributed them, as 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:52.640 though the Black Panther Party had officially created this book 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.640 with the intent of distributing it to children. The FBI's 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.960 harassment of the Black Panthers also went beyond the organized 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.440 membership and its programs. Dean Seberg was an actress who 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.760 donated to the Black Panthers in support of their breakfast programs. 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:12.040 During her pregnancy, the FBI sent false tips to news 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.640 organizations alleging that the father of her baby was a 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.880 Black Panther. This, of course, was a huge scandal. Seberg 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.320 tried to take her own life. As a result, she 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.960 went into labor prematurely and her baby died. According to 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.680 family members, she tried to take her own life every 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:30.880 year around the time of the baby's death, and then 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.040 she died in nineteen seventy nine. Her death was ruled 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.280 a suicide, although some of her families had suspicions that 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:41.400 there was foul play involved. And perhaps most notoriously, on 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.680 December fourth, nineteen sixty nine, the FBI orchestrated a raid 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:48.680 that was carried out by Chicago police, who fired between 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:52.000 eighty two and ninety nine gun shots into an apartment 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.960 where several members of the Black Panther Party were sleeping. 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:59.520 Among other involvement, an FBI informant had provided police with 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:03.520 a floor plan of the apartment. Chicago Black Panther leaders 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.600 Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed and four other 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:10.480 people in the apartment were seriously injured. Police claimed that 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.440 this was a violent gunfight, with the Black Panthers being 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.040 the first to open fire, but an investigation revealed that 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.400 only one shot had been fired from inside the apartment, 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:24.440 most likely by Mark Clark after he had already been 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:29.000 fatally shot by police. According to Hampton's fiance, Deborah Johnson, 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.960 who was in bed asleep with him when the shooting started, 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.000 an officer who came into the apartment after the shooting 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.080 stopped asked if Hampton was still alive. Another officer fired 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.600 two shots and said he's good and dead now. The 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.680 Black Panther Party dissolved in nineteen eighty two, with co 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.760 intel pro being one of the many factors that contributed 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:52.240 to its end. Former members say it is unrelated to 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.000 the New Black Panther Party, which was founded in nineteen 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.840 eighty nine and is classified as a hate group by 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:01.040 the United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Southern 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:15.000 Poverty Law Center. Let's take a break. The last formal 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.800 cointel pro that was described in the Senate investigation reports 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:20.679 we're going to talk about in a little bit was 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.280 co intel Pro New Left, and that started in nineteen 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:27.280 sixty eight. And of all the formally named co intel pros, 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.120 this was the most loosely focused. And I mean, as 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:34.560 we've discussed, most of them were loosely focused. As we 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:37.320 mentioned in part one, the FBI didn't really even have 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:42.520 a definition for what new Left meant. The New Left supervisor, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:46.119 who was quoted in the Church Committee report, said quote, 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.639 I cannot recall any document that was written defining New 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.040 Left as such. It is my impression that the characterization 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.240 of New Left groups, rather than being defined at any 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.080 specific time by document, it more or less grew. It 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.359 has never been strictly defined, as far as I know. 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.400 It is more or less an attitude. I would think 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.640 that makes it sound almost like an advertiser sound bite 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:13.280 New Left. It's an attitude. The incident that prompted the 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.320 FBI to create this co intel pro was a student 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.480 uprising at Columbia University in nineteen sixty eight. There was 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.240 a lot involved in this protest, but its most direct 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:26.919 precursor was the university's decision to build a new gym 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.920 in Morningside Park. Even though the gym was being planned 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.960 for public land, its facilities would mostly be for use 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.320 only by the university and not by the public. To 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.280 add to that frustration, this was part of an ongoing 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:44.119 pattern of the university's expansion into Harlem, which was pushing 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.520 the neighborhood's predominantly black residents out of their homes in 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.240 order to build facilities that they were not going to 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.280 be allowed to access. So the resulting protest was complicated, 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:58.080 like we cannot get all into all of the nuances here, 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:02.560 but generally the university. These student Afro American Society or 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.919 SAS started voicing their own and the community's objections to 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.000 this gym, and then the school's chapter of the Students 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:13.840 for a Democratic Society or SDS, which was predominantly white, 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:17.639 saw this as an opportunity for a larger protest that 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.600 would also focus on the university's involvement with the Vietnam War. 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:24.879 Members of the SAS felt like they were being talked 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.560 over and that the SDS was taking the protests in 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.879 an entirely different direction. And the end, the Student Afro 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.720 American Society took over Hamilton Hall, and the Students for 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.919 a Democratic Society took over other buildings on campus and 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.520 took the Dean hostage. There were more than a thousand 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:46.800 demonstrators who took part in the campus shutdown that lasted 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:50.160 for a week. At the university's request, the New York 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:54.040 Police Department began clearing the demonstrators. On April thirtieth, nineteen 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:58.080 sixty eight. Black demonstrators who had taken over Hamilton Hall 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.880 left peacefully. More more than one thousand police moved into 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:05.480 the other buildings. Some of the other demonstrators verbally and 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:10.760 physically resisted, including by throwing things like shoes, bathroom tiles, 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:15.480 and books at officers. Police forcibly removed people, beating some 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:20.200 of the resisting students and in some cases bystanders with nightsticks. 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.840 Others were trampled. In the end, one hundred thirty two students, 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:29.159 four faculty members, and twelve police officers were injured. So 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.639 Coinzel pro New Left was motivated by the FBI's frustrations 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:37.080 that the university had not brought in police earlier, and 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.679 also by a sense that these types of protests should 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.320 not be permitted to happen in the first place. The 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.919 directives for coinsal pro New Left were distributed by a 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:49.800 memo in May of nineteen sixty eight, and as described 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.280 in the Church Report, agents were to gather information on 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:57.719 this is all quote. One false allegations of police brutality 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:01.119 to quote counter the widespread charges of police brutality that 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:07.359 invariably arise following student police encounters. To immorality depicting the 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:11.960 quote scurrilous and depraved nature of many of the characters, activities, habits, 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.760 and living conditions representative of New Left adherents. And three 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:20.440 action by college administrators to quote to show the value 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:24.440 of college administrators and school officials taking a firm stand 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:28.320 and pointing out quote whether and to what extent faculty 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:32.840 members rendered aid and encouragement. Point two sounds like a 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.280 lot of the other counterintelligence efforts we've talked about in 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:41.240 cointel pros, but otherwise, in the FBI's view, the use 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:45.120 of force against demonstrators was warranted, and if demonstrators were 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.040 injured in the process, they deserved it. In nineteen sixty eight, 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:52.119 both the FBI and the NYPD viewed the amount of 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:56.440 force used at Columbia as appropriate and restrained. No tear 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.280 gas was used, no one was shot, and the injury 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:03.040 sustained students and faculty were minor enough that those who 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:05.600 had to go to the hospital were treated and released. 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:10.000 It's just such a weird bar to such a weird 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:12.760 bar of whether the use was appropriate. The use of 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.639 forces appropriate was like, well, okay, nobody like died. Was 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:20.479 kind of the right tone of it. However, the FBI 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.560 also had a similar interpretation in cases of police brutality 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.520 that were far more clearly egregious. For example, after riots 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:31.399 broke out during the nineteen sixty eight Democratic National Convention 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:35.680 in Chicago, a memo from FBI headquarters to the Chicago 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:39.520 Field Office read quote, once again, the liberal press and 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:42.040 the bleeding hearts and the forces on the left are 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:45.520 taking advantage of the situation in Chicago surrounding the Democratic 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:49.959 National Convention to attack the police and organize law enforcement agencies. 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:52.920 We should be mindful of this situation and develop all 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.560 possible evidence to expose this activity and to refute these 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:01.200 false allegations. Conversely, the walker of which was prepared for 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:04.320 the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of violence 0:23:04.760 --> 0:23:08.600 concluded that there really was police wrongdoing a portion of 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:12.480 it read quote. Demonstrators attacked two and they posed difficult 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:16.080 problems for police as they persisted in marching through the streets, 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.800 blocking traffic and intersections. But it was the police who 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.360 forced them out of the park and into the neighborhood. 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:24.600 And on the part of the police, there was enough 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:29.159 wild club swinging, enough cries of hatred, enough gratuitous beating 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:33.879 to make the conclusion inescapable that individual policemen, and lots 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:37.000 of them, committed violent acts far in excess of the 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:42.200 requisite force for crowd dispersal or arrests. To read dispassionately 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:46.080 the hundreds of statements describing at first hand the events 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:49.199 of Sunday and Monday nights is to become convinced of 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:52.200 the presence of what can only be called a police riot. 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:56.600 So while coenfelpro knew left was ostensibly about targeting this 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:00.680 very vaguely defined collection of left wing demonstrators as being 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:03.840 a threat to national security, it was also paired up 0:24:03.880 --> 0:24:08.000 with this sense of a much needed law enforcement crackdown 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:12.400 that was justified and necessary, and the need to protect 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:16.560 police and other law enforcement from false accusations of brutality. 0:24:17.000 --> 0:24:19.600 Aside from that, it is difficult to talk about co 0:24:19.680 --> 0:24:24.400 intel Pro New Left in a cohesive way. The counterintelligence 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:27.840 program wound up targeting virtually every anti war group in 0:24:27.880 --> 0:24:31.400 the US, as well as student demonstrators who were demonstrating 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:34.439 for just about any reason. In the words of the 0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:38.640 Church Report quote, none of the bureau witnesses deposed believes 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:42.040 the New Left co intel Pro was generally effective, in 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:46.919 part because of the imprecise targeting. Also, the tone of 0:24:46.960 --> 0:24:49.879 a lot of the FBI memos regarding the New lefts 0:24:49.880 --> 0:24:53.879 sound almost baffled. Agents really did not get these young people, 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:56.280 most of them white and affluent, a lot of them 0:24:56.320 --> 0:25:01.440 looking like stereotypical hippies agitating against the like police brutality 0:25:01.480 --> 0:25:05.440 and the Vietnam War. Memos include kind of perplexed sounding 0:25:05.560 --> 0:25:11.240 references to things like yoga and drugs. Participants in the 0:25:11.320 --> 0:25:15.119 organizations targeted under cointel Pro New Left also tended to 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:19.639