Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Today we
Speaker 1: are wrapping up our two parter on Cohen's Hell Pro
Speaker 1: including it's targeting of so called black nationalist slash hate
Speaker 1: groups UM and a targeting of a very vaguely defined
Speaker 1: movement known as the New Left. To briefly recap from
Speaker 1: part one, which is highly recommended before listening to this
Speaker 1: because it includes a lot of context and overview, But
Speaker 1: just as a quick recap, we're gonna quote from the
Speaker 1: Church Report, which followed more than a year of Senate
Speaker 1: Committee hearings into all this quote, the origins of Cohen's
Speaker 1: Hell pro demonstrate that the Bureau adopted extra legal methods
Speaker 1: to counter perceived threats to national security and public order
Speaker 1: because the ordinary legal processes were believed to be insufficient
Speaker 1: to do the job. In essence, the Bureau took the
Speaker 1: law into its own hands, conducting a sophisticated vigilante operation
Speaker 1: against domestic enemies. Whether those targets were really enemies, though,
Speaker 1: that is a different question. The report went on to say,
Speaker 1: quote the choice of individuals and organizations to be neutralized
Speaker 1: and disrupted ranged from the violent elements of the Black
Speaker 1: Panther Party to Martin Luther King Jr. Who the Bureau
Speaker 1: concedes was an advocate of non violence, from the Communist
Speaker 1: Party to the Ku Klux Klan, from the advocates of
Speaker 1: violent revolutions such as the Weatherman, to the supporters of
Speaker 1: peaceful social change, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and
Speaker 1: the Inter University Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy. Just
Speaker 1: a heads up in this episode, there are going to
Speaker 1: be some discussions of suicide and also police violence. In
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, the FBI started co Intel pro Black
Speaker 1: Nationalist hate groups. For the most part, targeting of civil
Speaker 1: rights groups that had been carried out under co Intel
Speaker 1: pro CPUSA, which we talked about last time, rolled up
Speaker 1: under this newly established program. In the words of the
Speaker 1: program supervisor, the targeted groups were selected because they were
Speaker 1: believed to be violent or because of their quote radical
Speaker 1: or revolutionary rhetoric and actions. On March four, FBI Director
Speaker 1: j Edgar Hoover sent a memo to be routed through
Speaker 1: forty one FBI field offices. This memo was called counterintelligence program,
Speaker 1: black nationalist hate groups, racial intelligence. And this is a
Speaker 1: little bit long, but it's so illustrative of what the
Speaker 1: FBI was doing here and more generally, what Hoover's mindset
Speaker 1: was across the other co intel pros. We're going to
Speaker 1: read a chunk of it. So it began quote goals
Speaker 1: for maximum effectiveness of the counterintelligence program and to prevent
Speaker 1: wasted effort. Long range goals are being set. Number one,
Speaker 1: prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups. In unity,
Speaker 1: there is strength, a truism that is no less valid
Speaker 1: for all its triteness. An effective coalition of black nationalist
Speaker 1: groups might be the first step toward a real mau
Speaker 1: Mau in America, the beginning of a true Black revolution. So,
Speaker 1: for context, mau Mau is a reference to the Mau
Speaker 1: Mao movement and uprising in Kenya, which advocated a violent
Speaker 1: overthrow of British colonial rule. This went on to prevent
Speaker 1: the rise of a messiah who could unify and electrify
Speaker 1: the militant black nationalist movement. Malcolm X might have been
Speaker 1: such a messiah. He is the martyr of the movement today.
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King stokely. Carmichael and Elijah Mohammed all aspire
Speaker 1: to this position. Elijah Mohammed is less of a threat
Speaker 1: because of his age, King could be a very real
Speaker 1: contender for this position should he abandon his supposed quote
Speaker 1: obedience to quote white liberal doctrines and at sees nonviolence
Speaker 1: and embrace Black nationalism. Carmichael has the necessary charisma to
Speaker 1: be a real threat in this way. Number three prevent
Speaker 1: violence on the part of black nationalist groups. This is
Speaker 1: of primary importance and is of course a goal of
Speaker 1: our investigative activity. It should also be a goal of
Speaker 1: the counter intelligence program to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize
Speaker 1: them before they exercise their potential for violence. Number four
Speaker 1: prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability
Speaker 1: by discrediting them to three separate segments of the community.
Speaker 1: The goal of discrediting black nationalists must be handled tactically
Speaker 1: in three ways. You must discredit those groups and individuals
Speaker 1: to first, the responsible Negro community. Second, they must be
Speaker 1: discredited to the white community. Both the responsible community and
Speaker 1: to liberals who have vestiges of sympathy for militant black
Speaker 1: nationalist Simply because they are negroes. Third, these groups must
Speaker 1: be discredited in the eyes of Negro radicals the followers
Speaker 1: of the movement. This last area requires entirely different tactics
Speaker 1: from the first two. Publicity about violent tendencies and radical
Speaker 1: statements merely enhances black nationalists to the last group. It
Speaker 1: adds respectability in a different way. Number five. A final
Speaker 1: goal should be to prevent the long range growth of
Speaker 1: militant black organizations, especially among youths. Specific tactics to prevent
Speaker 1: these groups from converting young people must be developed. This
Speaker 1: memo went on to outline the primary targets of this
Speaker 1: Cohen's help pro that everything we just read was going
Speaker 1: to apply to These were the organizations that Hoover described
Speaker 1: as the quote most violent and radical. It included the
Speaker 1: Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
Speaker 1: Revolutionary Action Movement, and the Nation of Islam. This is
Speaker 1: an incredibly weird list. Snake has non violent right into
Speaker 1: the name, like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King Jr. Helped found this represents the whole spectrum of
Speaker 1: from non violent direct action to revolutionary Black nationalism, and
Speaker 1: the FBI even noted that in its view, some individual
Speaker 1: members of the Nation of Islam had been involved in violence,
Speaker 1: but the organization itself was not violent. It was being
Speaker 1: targeted because of its separatism. Basically, the FBI grouped a
Speaker 1: lot of different organizations with a wide range of objectives
Speaker 1: and ideologies and tactics under this co intel pro that
Speaker 1: was supposedly about black nationalism and hate groups. Some, as
Speaker 1: Tracy just mentioned, were strictly pacifist, Some advocated gun ownership
Speaker 1: or violent self defense, Some spoke in very theoretical terms
Speaker 1: about the need for a revolution, and some of them
Speaker 1: called for an actual armed uprising or other violence. All
Speaker 1: very different ideologies, but still under this one umbrella. The
Speaker 1: FBI classed them all together as violent and radical, viewing
Speaker 1: virtually any organization calling for equal rights for black people
Speaker 1: as potentially violent and as a consequence, as needing to
Speaker 1: be disrupted. Yeah. Like, the thing that that these all
Speaker 1: had in common was like black people say quality equality please,
Speaker 1: or like demanding equality with very aggressive rhetoric and sometimes violence. Like,
Speaker 1: that's what it all had in common. The FBI put
Speaker 1: intense effort into discrediting and disrupting all these organizations and
Speaker 1: other organizations that were not specifically named using all the
Speaker 1: methods that we talked about in Part one. But about
Speaker 1: a year after this Coin's Hell Pro was established, another
Speaker 1: different organization rose to national prominence, and that was the
Speaker 1: Black Panther Party, and this Coin's Hell Pro then pivoted
Speaker 1: to shift almost exclusively on that. The Black Panther Party,
Speaker 1: originally called the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, was
Speaker 1: founded in Oakland, California, in nineteen sixty six by Huey
Speaker 1: Newton and Bobby Seal. A lot of the Black Panthers
Speaker 1: rhetoric was radical and revolutionary, arguing that the only way
Speaker 1: black people could be truly free is if they were
Speaker 1: able to govern their own affairs. When they were establishing
Speaker 1: the party, Newton and Seal crafted a ten point program
Speaker 1: which began, we want freedom, We want power to determine
Speaker 1: the destiny of our black community. This ten point program
Speaker 1: went on to call for full employment, an end to
Speaker 1: quote the robbery by the capitalists of our black community,
Speaker 1: decent housing, education, exemption from military service for black men,
Speaker 1: an end to police brutality, freedom for black men who
Speaker 1: were held in prisons and jails, and it ended quote
Speaker 1: we want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace.
Speaker 1: The Ten Point Plan elaborated on each of these points.
Speaker 1: The eemption from military service stemmed from the United States
Speaker 1: involvement in Vietnam and the idea that black people should
Speaker 1: not be forced to serve in the military of a
Speaker 1: nation that did not protect them. The idea behind the
Speaker 1: release of incarcerated black men was that they had not
Speaker 1: been given a fair and impartial trial, so their convictions
Speaker 1: were not valid. As part of their work, the Black
Speaker 1: Panthers started more than thirty community service programs known as
Speaker 1: survival programs. These included things like free breakfast programs for
Speaker 1: school children, a tuberculosis screening and treatment program, medical clinics,
Speaker 1: ambulance services, legal aid, and education programs. The Black Panthers
Speaker 1: also created a screening program for sickle cell disease that
Speaker 1: later served as a template for the federal government's own
Speaker 1: screening programs. Over time, a lot of these services were
Speaker 1: expanded to include anyone who was oppressed, including poor white people.
Speaker 1: The Black Panthers also showed up to support other marginalized
Speaker 1: groups in their own activism. They are meant in two
Speaker 1: different times in our Six Impossible episodes, from Sippins to
Speaker 1: fish Ins, which focused on direct action demonstrations and similar protests.
Speaker 1: In that episode, we talked about the Black Panthers support
Speaker 1: of the fish In movement in the Pacific Northwest, and
Speaker 1: they're providing meals to disabled activists who took over the
Speaker 1: Department of Health, Education and Welfare office in San Francisco
Speaker 1: during the Section five oh four protests. But today, the
Speaker 1: first thing a lot of people, especially a lot of
Speaker 1: white people, think of when someone says the Black Panthers
Speaker 1: is guns and violence. The Black Panthers organized armed patrols
Speaker 1: of black neighborhoods to protect residents from police brutality and
Speaker 1: from gang violence. At one point, they staged an armed
Speaker 1: takeover of the California State Legislature that was in response
Speaker 1: to gun control legislation. As other examples outside of the
Speaker 1: party's organized activities, Huie Newton was involved in a shootout
Speaker 1: with police in nineteen sixty seven in which an officer
Speaker 1: was killed. Bobby Seal was charged but not convicted, with
Speaker 1: conspiracy to incite riots at the nineteen sixty eight Democratic
Speaker 1: National Convention and of the murder of a nineteen year
Speaker 1: old Black Panther who was suspected of being a police
Speaker 1: informant in a memo back to headquarters. A California field
Speaker 1: office described the Black Panthers as quote the most violence
Speaker 1: prone organization of all the extremist groups now operating in
Speaker 1: the United States, and that alleged that they were performing
Speaker 1: quote not only verbal attacks but also physical attacks on police. Later,
Speaker 1: j Edgar Hoover called the Black Panthers quote one of
Speaker 1: the greatest threats to the nation's internal security. On November night,
Speaker 1: several FBI field offices received a memo ordering them to
Speaker 1: submit quote imaginative and hard hitting counter intelligence measures aimed
Speaker 1: at crippling the BPP, of course, the Black Panther Party.
Speaker 1: This directive was expanded to additional field offices in January
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty nine. Kellen's held pro black nationalist hate
Speaker 1: groups soon focused almost entirely on the Black Panthers, rather
Speaker 1: than on that collection of groups that we outlined earlier
Speaker 1: in that nine eight memo of this co intell prose,
Speaker 1: two documented actions, two hundred thirty three of them were
Speaker 1: against the Black Panthers, using all those various techniques that
Speaker 1: we described in Part one as examples, the FBI intentionally
Speaker 1: undermined the Black Panthers public service programs, for example, by
Speaker 1: sending fake, inflammatory membership materials to food pantries and other
Speaker 1: organizations that were donating food for the breakfast programs. The
Speaker 1: Bureau used disinformation to try to spark violent conflicts between
Speaker 1: the Panthers an area street gangs, and to spark violent
Speaker 1: conflicts between the Panthers and police to reinforce the idea
Speaker 1: that the Black Panthers were just inherently violent. In nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, the FBI became aware of a Black Panther
Speaker 1: coloring book. The origins of this book are a little
Speaker 1: bit marky, but I can find a Cambone, who was
Speaker 1: then known as Mark Teamer, has taken credit for its creation,
Speaker 1: and in interview he describes it as a history book.
Speaker 1: It depicts slave owners, greedy store owners, and police all
Speaker 1: as obese pigs with exaggerated lower tusks. While Cambone has
Speaker 1: stressed that these pigs can be any color, which is
Speaker 1: why it is a coloring book, they are generally interpreted
Speaker 1: as representations of white people, and this book is full
Speaker 1: of images of black people, adults and children, men and
Speaker 1: women stabbing and shooting the pigs. Black Panther leadership felt
Speaker 1: that the coloring book was inappropriate and ordered Cambone to
Speaker 1: destroy it, but someone made copies, and after the FBI
Speaker 1: obtained one, it made more copies and distributed them as
Speaker 1: though the Black Panther Party had officially created this book
Speaker 1: with the intent of distributing it to children. The FBI
Speaker 1: has harassment of the Black Panthers also went beyond the
Speaker 1: organization's membership and its programs. Jean Seeberg was an actress
Speaker 1: who donated to the Black Panthers and support of their
Speaker 1: breakfast programs. During her pregnancy, the FBI sent false tips
Speaker 1: to news organizations alleging that the father of her baby
Speaker 1: was a Black Panther. This, of course, was a huge scandal.
Speaker 1: Seeberg tried to take her own life. As a result,
Speaker 1: she went into labor prematurely and her baby died. According
Speaker 1: to family members, she tried to take her own life
Speaker 1: every year around the time of the baby's death, and
Speaker 1: then she died in nineteen seventy nine. Her death was
Speaker 1: ruled a suicide, although some of her families had suspicions
Speaker 1: that there was foul play involved, and, perhaps most notoriously,
Speaker 1: on December fourth, nineteen sixty nine, the FBI orchestrated a
Speaker 1: raid that was carried out by Chicago police, who fired
Speaker 1: between eighty two and ninety nine gunshots into an apartment
Speaker 1: where several members of the Black Panther Party were sleeping.
Speaker 1: Among other involvement, and FBI informant had provided police with
Speaker 1: a floor plan of the apartment. Chicago Black Panther leaders
Speaker 1: Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed and four other
Speaker 1: people in the apartment were seriously injured. Police claimed that
Speaker 1: this was a violent gunfight, with the Black Panthers being
Speaker 1: the first to open fire, but an investigation revealed that
Speaker 1: only one shot had been fired from inside the apartment,
Speaker 1: most likely by Mark Clark after he had already been
Speaker 1: fatally shot by police. According to Hampton's fiance, Debra Johnson,
Speaker 1: who was in bed asleep with him when the shooting started,
Speaker 1: an officer who came into the apartment after the shooting
Speaker 1: stopped asked if Hampton was still alive. Another officer fired
Speaker 1: two shots and said he's good and dead now. The
Speaker 1: Black Panther Party dissolved in nineteen eight two, with co
Speaker 1: intel probe being one of the many factors that contributed
Speaker 1: to its end. Former members say it is unrelated to
Speaker 1: the New Black Panther Party, which was founded in ninety
Speaker 1: nine and is classified as a hate group by the
Speaker 1: United States Commission on Civil Rights in the Southern Poverty
Speaker 1: Law Center. Let's take a break. The last formal coincal
Speaker 1: pro that was described in the Senate investigation reports we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about in a little bit was coincal
Speaker 1: pro New Left, and that started in and of all
Speaker 1: the formally named coincal pros, this was the most loosely focused.
Speaker 1: And I mean, as we've discussed, most of them were
Speaker 1: loosely focused. As we mentioned in part one, the FBI
Speaker 1: didn't really even have a definition for what new Left meant.
Speaker 1: The New Left supervisor, who was quoted in the Church
Speaker 1: Committee report said quote, I cannot recall any document that
Speaker 1: was written defining new Left is such. It is my
Speaker 1: impression that the characterization of new Left groups, rather than
Speaker 1: being defined at any specific time by document, it more
Speaker 1: or less grew. It has never been strictly defined as
Speaker 1: far as I know. It is more or less an attitude.
Speaker 1: I would think that makes it sound almost like an
Speaker 1: advertiser sound bite new Left. It's an attitude. Uh. The
Speaker 1: incident that prompted the FBI to create this co Intel.
Speaker 1: Pro was a student uprising at Columbia University in ninety
Speaker 1: There was a lot involved in this protest, but its
Speaker 1: most direct precursor was the university's decision to build a
Speaker 1: new gym in Morningside Park. Even though the gym was
Speaker 1: being planned for public land, its facilities would mostly be
Speaker 1: for use only by the university and not by the public.
Speaker 1: To add to that frustration, this was part of an
Speaker 1: ongoing pattern of the university's expansion into Harlem, which was
Speaker 1: pushing the neighborhoods predominantly black residents out of their homes
Speaker 1: in order to build facilities that they were not going
Speaker 1: to be allowed to access. So the resulting protest was complicated,
Speaker 1: Like we cannot get all into all of the nuances here,
Speaker 1: but generally, the university's Student Afro American Society or s
Speaker 1: a S started voicing their own and the community's objections
Speaker 1: to this gym, and then the school's chapter of the
Speaker 1: Students for a Democratic Society or SDS, which was predominantly white,
Speaker 1: saw this as an opportunity for a larger protest that
Speaker 1: would also focus on the university's involvement with the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: Members of the s a S felt like they were
Speaker 1: being talked over and that the SDS was taking the
Speaker 1: protests in an entirely different direction. And the end, the
Speaker 1: Student Afro American Society took over Hamilton's Hall and the
Speaker 1: Students for a Democratic Society took over other buildings on
Speaker 1: campus and took the Dean hostage. There were more than
Speaker 1: a thousand demonstrators who took part in this campus shutdown
Speaker 1: that lasted for a week. At the university's request, the
Speaker 1: New York Police Department began clearing the demonstrators on April nine.
Speaker 1: Black demonstrators who had taken over Hamilton's Hall left peacefully,
Speaker 1: but as more than one thousand police moved into the
Speaker 1: other building, some of the other demonstrators verbally and physically resisted,
Speaker 1: including by throwing things like shoes, bathroom tiles, and books
Speaker 1: at officers. Police forcibly removed people, beating some of the
Speaker 1: resisting students and in some cases bystanders with night sticks.
Speaker 1: Others were trampled. In the end, one hundred thirty two students,
Speaker 1: four faculty members, and twelve police officers were injured. So
Speaker 1: co incal pro New Left was motivated by the FBI's
Speaker 1: frustrations that the university had not brought in police earlier,
Speaker 1: and also by a sense that these types of protests
Speaker 1: should not be permitted to happen in the first place.
Speaker 1: The directives for coincal pro New Left were distributed by
Speaker 1: a memo in May of nineteen eight, and as described
Speaker 1: in the Church Report, agents were to gather information on
Speaker 1: this is all a quote. One false allegations of police
Speaker 1: brutality to quote, counter the widespread charges of police brutality
Speaker 1: that invariably arise following student police encounters. Two immorality depicting
Speaker 1: the quote scurless and depraved nature of many of the characters, activities, habits,
Speaker 1: and living conditions representative of New Left adherents. And three
Speaker 1: action by college administrators to quote to show the value
Speaker 1: of college administrators and school officials taking a firm stand
Speaker 1: and pointing out quote whether and to what extent faculty
Speaker 1: members rendered aid and encouragement. Point to sounds like a
Speaker 1: lot of the other counterintelligence efforts we've talked about in
Speaker 1: co intel pros, but otherwise in the FBI's view, the
Speaker 1: use of force against demonstrators was warranted and if demonstrators
Speaker 1: were injured in the process, they deserved it. In night,
Speaker 1: both the FBI and the NYPD viewed the amount of
Speaker 1: force used at Columbia as appropriate and restrained. No tear
Speaker 1: gas was used, no one was shot, and the injuries
Speaker 1: sustained by students and faculty were minor enough that the
Speaker 1: who had to go to the hospital were treated and released.
Speaker 1: That's just such such a weird bar, to such a
Speaker 1: weird bar of whether their use was appropriate. The use
Speaker 1: of forces appropriate was like, well, okay, nobody like died,
Speaker 1: was kind of the tone of it. However, the FBI
Speaker 1: also had a similar interpretation in cases of police brutality
Speaker 1: that we're far more clearly egregious. For example, after riots
Speaker 1: broke out during the nine Democratic National Convention in Chicago,
Speaker 1: a memo from FBI headquarters to the Chicago Field Office
Speaker 1: read quote, once again, the liberal press and the bleeding
Speaker 1: hearts and the forces on the left are taking advantage
Speaker 1: of the situation in Chicago surrounding the Democratic National Convention
Speaker 1: to attack the police and organized law enforcement agencies. We
Speaker 1: should be mindful of this situation and develop all possible
Speaker 1: evidence to expose this activity and to refute these false allegations. Conversely,
Speaker 1: the Walker Report, which was prepared for the National Commission
Speaker 1: on the Call Is in Prevention of Violence, concluded that
Speaker 1: there really was police wrongdoing a portion of it read quote.
Speaker 1: Demonstrators attacked too, and they posed difficult problems for police
Speaker 1: as they persisted in marching through the streets, blocking traffic
Speaker 1: and intersections. But it was the police who forced them
Speaker 1: out of the park and into the neighborhood. And on
Speaker 1: the part of the police, there was enough wild club swinging,
Speaker 1: enough cries of hatred, enough gratuitous beating to make the
Speaker 1: conclusion inescapable that individual policemen, and lots of them, committed
Speaker 1: violent acts far in excess of the requisite force for
Speaker 1: crowd dispersal or arrests. To read dispassionately the hundreds of
Speaker 1: statements describing at firsthand the events of Sunday and Monday
Speaker 1: nights is to become convinced of the presence of what
Speaker 1: can only be called a police riot. So while coen
Speaker 1: falpro New Left was ostensibly about targeting this very vaguely
Speaker 1: defined collection of left wing demonstrators as being a threat
Speaker 1: to national security, it also paired up with this sense
Speaker 1: of a much needed law enforcement crackdown that was justified
Speaker 1: and necessary, and the need to protect police and other
Speaker 1: law enforcement from false accusations of brutality. Aside from that,
Speaker 1: it is difficult to talk about co intel Pro New
Speaker 1: Left in a cohesive way. The counter intelligence program wound
Speaker 1: up targeting virtually every anti war group in the US,
Speaker 1: as well as student demonstrators who were demonstrating for just
Speaker 1: about any reason. In the words of the Church Report quote,
Speaker 1: none of the Bureau witnesses deposed believes the New Left
Speaker 1: co intel Pro was generally effective, in part because of
Speaker 1: the imprecise targeting. Also, the tone of a lot of
Speaker 1: the FBI memos regarding the New Left sound almost baffled.
Speaker 1: Agents really did not get these young people, most of
Speaker 1: them white and affluent, a lot of them looking like
Speaker 1: stereotypical hippies agitating against things like police brutality in the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. Memos include kind of perplexed sounding references to
Speaker 1: things like yoga and drugs. Participants in the organization's targeted
Speaker 1: under co intel Pro. New Left also tended to be
Speaker 1: simultaneously idealistic and cynical, so the Bureau had a harder
Speaker 1: time finding informants or infiltrating organizations. For example, the main
Speaker 1: phone at the national headquarters of Students for a Democratic
Speaker 1: Society had a sign taped to it for more than
Speaker 1: a year that said, in capital letters, this phone is tapped. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That is not to suggest that the other targeted organizations
Speaker 1: were clueless, like they were just particularly cynical about the
Speaker 1: Bureau by this point. The people who ultimately got the
Speaker 1: ball rolling on exposing Cointel pro were members of anti
Speaker 1: war and other activist movements that had been targeted during
Speaker 1: these programs history, and we'll talk more about that after
Speaker 1: a SPONSI break. Counterintelligence is still part of the FBI's work,
Speaker 1: but in terms of these formally named Cohen cell prose,
Speaker 1: those came to an end thanks to the work of
Speaker 1: some regular people who pulled off a heist. When we
Speaker 1: say regular people, they included a cab driver, a daycare
Speaker 1: center director, a social worker, and a professor. It sounds
Speaker 1: like one of those walk into a bar jokes. I know.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite part of these episodes for the number
Speaker 1: of reasons, one of them being it's the most straightforward. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also it being just kind of a David and Goliath story,
Speaker 1: so it have become clear to many of these groups
Speaker 1: that the FBI was targeting them. Left wing activists viewed
Speaker 1: the FBI with increasing suspicion, but nobody had evidence of
Speaker 1: what they thought was happening. In nineteen seventy, a group
Speaker 1: of anti war activists in the Philadelphia area decided to
Speaker 1: do something about it. Anti war activists and college professor
Speaker 1: or William C. David On came up with the idea.
Speaker 1: John and Bonnie Raines, a married couple with small children,
Speaker 1: were also involved. John had also been a freedom writer.
Speaker 1: Others included Keith Forsyth, Robert Williamson, Judy Finegold, and two
Speaker 1: people known by pseudonyms. One of those is Susan Smith
Speaker 1: and the other is Ron Durst. A ninth participant dropped
Speaker 1: out before the burglary actually took place. There was no
Speaker 1: way they could break into the Philadelphia FBI office, which
Speaker 1: had tight security, so they looked for other FBI field offices,
Speaker 1: finding one nearby in Media, Pennsylvania. This office was housed
Speaker 1: in an apartment building with a shared lobby space, which
Speaker 1: was adjacent to the county courthouse. They cased this area.
Speaker 1: Bonnie rains posed as a student from Swarthmore College and
Speaker 1: arranged a meeting under the guise of researching career opportunities
Speaker 1: for women at the Bureau. They scheduled their burglary for
Speaker 1: March eighth, n d one, the night of the Fight
Speaker 1: of the Century between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frasier, reasoning
Speaker 1: that most people would be watching the fight. After breaking in,
Speaker 1: they removed thousands of files which were being stored in
Speaker 1: regular file cabinets. After sorting through what they had stolen,
Speaker 1: they mailed selections to newspapers and members of Congress, anonymously
Speaker 1: calling themselves the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI. Most
Speaker 1: of the newspapers returned these documents to the Bureau, but
Speaker 1: the Washington Post confirmed their authenticity and ran a front
Speaker 1: page story on March ninete. It was titled Stolen Documents
Speaker 1: described FBI surveillance activities. The article described surveillance of black
Speaker 1: activist organizations and efforts to enhance existing paranoia. To quote
Speaker 1: further served to get the point across that there is
Speaker 1: an FBI agent behind every mailbox. More mail documents and
Speaker 1: more articles followed. J Edgar Hoover officially canceled co Intel
Speaker 1: pro on April seven, nineteen seventy one, citing security reasons,
Speaker 1: although some co intel pro activities continued just without a
Speaker 1: specific name attached, but it wasn't yet clear to anyone
Speaker 1: outside the bureau what the term co intel pro meant
Speaker 1: or what its scope was. J Edgar Hoover died on
Speaker 1: May second, nineteen seventy two. He had been the director
Speaker 1: of the FBI for forty eight years. In nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three and nineteen seventy four, NBC journalist Carl Stern filed
Speaker 1: a series of requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
Speaker 1: Those requests were repeatedly turned down until the documents were
Speaker 1: finally released under a court order, and that is when
Speaker 1: people finally started to get a sense of what co
Speaker 1: intel pro meant and just how huge it was. In
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four, Seymour Hirsch wrote a front page article
Speaker 1: for The New York Times titled huge CIA operation reported
Speaker 1: and US against anti war forces. This article reported that
Speaker 1: the CIA was engaged in very Cohen's hell Pro like
Speaker 1: operations against peace activists in the US, but the CIA
Speaker 1: was not supposed to be operating domestically at all. These
Speaker 1: news reports sparked outrage within the government and among the
Speaker 1: general public. President Gerald Ford appointed the Rockefeller Commission to
Speaker 1: investigate the CIA. The House established the Pike Committee to
Speaker 1: investigate illegal activities by the CIA, the FBI, and the
Speaker 1: n s A. The Pike Committee's report was never published.
Speaker 1: On January one, nineteen seventy five, a resolution was introduced
Speaker 1: in the Senate to create a committee to investigate federal
Speaker 1: intelligence operations and determined quote the extent, if any, to
Speaker 1: which illegal, improper, or unethical activities were engaged in by
Speaker 1: any agency of the federal government. Congressional hearings went on
Speaker 1: through five in nineteen seventy six. Senate committee was dubbed
Speaker 1: the Church Committee, was headed by Senator Frank Church, a
Speaker 1: Democrat from Ohio. The other committee members were selected to
Speaker 1: represent a range of viewpoints and experience levels, with the
Speaker 1: final group including six Democrats and five Republicans. A staff
Speaker 1: of a hundred and fifty people went through the thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of pages of documents that were involved in
Speaker 1: all this. We should take a moment to talk about
Speaker 1: the FBI documentation. The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover was
Speaker 1: intensely bureaucratic, with a relentless focus on documenting everything. Also,
Speaker 1: most of co Intel pros existence took place before the
Speaker 1: Freedom of Information Act was passed in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: All of it took place before the Privacy Act amendments
Speaker 1: were added in nineteen seventy four, which gave citizens the
Speaker 1: right to see the FBI's files about themselves. In other words,
Speaker 1: the FBI was writing everything down, and it was not
Speaker 1: doing so with the thought that anyone might ever read
Speaker 1: any of this outside of the bureau. Whether the information
Speaker 1: flow was going out to field offices and agents or
Speaker 1: back into headquarters, nobody was disguising their meeting or intent.
Speaker 1: Everyone was saying the quiet part loud and doing it
Speaker 1: in writing. Also, FBI documents from the co intel pro
Speaker 1: era are full of racist slurs and offensive stereotypes of
Speaker 1: black people. After the FBI formally started co intel pro
Speaker 1: black nationalist slash hate groups, agents talked candidly about how
Speaker 1: if they didn't do a good enough job, the Bureau
Speaker 1: was going to be forced to hire black agents. This
Speaker 1: idea even came with its own slogan that mimicked the
Speaker 1: accent of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a rhyming couplet
Speaker 1: that ended with the N word, and also as a
Speaker 1: continuation of that note. There were only five black FBI
Speaker 1: agents during most of the co Intel pro era. They
Speaker 1: had been hired as personal assistants or drivers for j.
Speaker 1: Edgar Hoover. Then they had been given the title special
Speaker 1: agent during World War Two so that they would not
Speaker 1: be drafted. So back to the investigations. Most of the
Speaker 1: hearings were behind closed doors, both to try to prevent
Speaker 1: them from turning into a TV spectacle and also to
Speaker 1: protect information about the US methods for conducting intelligence work.
Speaker 1: Even so, the hearings were criticized for threatening US intelligence efforts,
Speaker 1: and Senator Church was accused of using it to bolster
Speaker 1: a presidential bid. While the Church Committee wanted to protect
Speaker 1: legitimate US intelligence efforts, it also wanted the public to
Speaker 1: have a chance to learn about what was going on,
Speaker 1: and to that end, the committee held public hearings in
Speaker 1: September and October of nine. These hearings were focused on
Speaker 1: specific areas of misconduct. Has included information about a biological
Speaker 1: agents program run by the CIA, a domestic surveillance program
Speaker 1: from the White House, and the FBI's programs to disrupt
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement and the anti Vietnam War movement.
Speaker 1: After one hundred twenty six full committee meetings, forty subcommittee meetings,
Speaker 1: more than eight hundred witness interviews, and a review of
Speaker 1: more than one hundred ten thousand documents, the Church Committee
Speaker 1: issued a report that described quote a pattern of reckless
Speaker 1: disregard of activities that threatened our constitutional system. And this
Speaker 1: was not just unique to the FBI, but the FBI
Speaker 1: is our focus here. The report went on to say, quote.
Speaker 1: The abusive techniques used by the FBI and Cointel pro
Speaker 1: from nineteen fifty six to nineteen seventy one included violations
Speaker 1: of both federal and state statutes prohibiting mail fraud, wire fraud,
Speaker 1: incitements of violence, sending obscene material through the mail, and extortion.
Speaker 1: More fundamentally, the harassment of innocent citizens engaged in lawful
Speaker 1: forms of political expression did serious injury to the First
Speaker 1: Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech and the right of
Speaker 1: the people to assemble peaceably and to position the government
Speaker 1: for redress of grievances. The report also made it clear
Speaker 1: that the national security and violence prevention concerns were not
Speaker 1: the FBI's only motivation. Quote. The unexpressed major premise of
Speaker 1: the programs was that a law enforcement agency has the
Speaker 1: duty to do whatever is necessary to combat perceived threats
Speaker 1: to the existing social and political order. Eight percent of
Speaker 1: the approved co intel pro proposals targeted speakers, teachers, writers,
Speaker 1: or publications, meetings, and peaceful demonstrations, all of which were
Speaker 1: just exercising a constitutional right to free speech. Operations tried
Speaker 1: to stop lawful speakers from speaking, teachers from teaching, writers
Speaker 1: from writing, and demonstrators from demonstrating. The Senate Committee made
Speaker 1: nineties six recommendations to quote place intelligence activities within the
Speaker 1: Constitutional Scheme for controlling government power. This included changes to
Speaker 1: how the FBI was that included a ten year term
Speaker 1: limit for the Director of the Bureau. It also included
Speaker 1: recommendations for additional oversight within the bureau. Every counter intelligence
Speaker 1: proposal had to be approved by headquarters, but outside the
Speaker 1: Bureau the programs were almost completely unknown. Specific elements of
Speaker 1: co intel pro CPUSA and White Hate were both known
Speaker 1: to various Attorneys General, presidential advisers, and Cabinet and committee members.
Speaker 1: For example, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy authorized the bureau's
Speaker 1: wire taps of Martin Luther King Jr. The Bureau also
Speaker 1: notified multiple Attorneys General of various accomplishments and progress. Those
Speaker 1: are their words against the Ku Klux Klan, without describing
Speaker 1: the breadth of what had led to that progress. Even
Speaker 1: with these two programs, though the full scope wasn't known
Speaker 1: outside the bureau, and it appears that the other co
Speaker 1: intel pros weren't known to anyone outside the FBI at all.
Speaker 1: Efforts to bring in more over site of the bureau's
Speaker 1: activities included the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: The exposure of Cointelpro and the hearings that followed drastically
Speaker 1: affected mainstream American perceptions of the FBI. According to Gallup polls,
Speaker 1: the proportion of Americans with a highly favorable view of
Speaker 1: the FBI dropped from eighty four percent in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: five to thirty seven in nineteen seventy five. At the
Speaker 1: same time, no criminal convictions followed the investigations and the
Speaker 1: Church report, even though that report detailed numerous instances of
Speaker 1: criminal activity. As we said, the FBI is still engaged
Speaker 1: in counter intelligence. In the years just after Cointel Pro
Speaker 1: was disbanded, the FBI did extensive counter intelligence work against
Speaker 1: the American Indian Movement and the Committee in Solidarity with
Speaker 1: the People of El Salvador. This included a disinformation campaign
Speaker 1: during the nineteen seventies three occupation of Wounded Knee, both
Speaker 1: to discredit the American Indian Movement to the general public
Speaker 1: and to try to create division within that occupation. Co
Speaker 1: Intel pro has also made headlines at numerous points since
Speaker 1: the mid seventies, comparing it to policies and programs that
Speaker 1: have been introduced during multiple presidential administrations. This includes comparisons
Speaker 1: to various aspects of the Patriot Act and the n
Speaker 1: says warrantless surveillance programs in the two thousands. The general
Speaker 1: focus on black liberation as somehow inherently threatening and violent
Speaker 1: has also continued to be part of the FBI's rhetoric.
Speaker 1: In eighteen, leaked documents revealed that the FBI had targeted
Speaker 1: Black identity extremists as a major threat, with really similar
Speaker 1: language about potential violence to what was used during co
Speaker 1: Intel pro Quote. The FBI assesses it is very likely
Speaker 1: black identity extremist b i E Perceptions of police brutality
Speaker 1: against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated retaliatory lethal
Speaker 1: violence against law enforcement and will very likely serve as
Speaker 1: justification for such violence. This was paired with criticisms that
Speaker 1: the FBI and other federal agencies were ignoring credible threats
Speaker 1: of white nationalist violence. Yeah, this is basically a very
Speaker 1: similar protests to what has been going on in the
Speaker 1: last few months. As we're recording this, which is on
Speaker 1: July seven, with demonstrators basically saying please stop shooting unarmed
Speaker 1: black people, and the FBI creating this this uh category
Speaker 1: of black identity extremists led people to go that's not
Speaker 1: a thing though. Made that up To circle back around
Speaker 1: to the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, none of
Speaker 1: them were ever prosecuted in connection with this break in
Speaker 1: and media Pennsylvania. It is possible that law enforcement believe
Speaker 1: that the culprits went on to be involved with a
Speaker 1: different group of anti Vietnam War activists who were known
Speaker 1: as the Camden This group broke into the Camden, New
Speaker 1: Jersey Draft Board office and they destroyed draft records there.
Speaker 1: The Camden twenty eight were acquitted. Two of the Citizens
Speaker 1: Commission to Investigate the FBI actually were involved in that.
Speaker 1: So there's some speculation that law enforcement was like, well,
Speaker 1: they've already been tried and acquitted of this other thing.
Speaker 1: We probably have no chance. Regardless, though several members of
Speaker 1: the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI came forward in
Speaker 1: their story is told in the book The Burglary The
Speaker 1: Discovery of Jed your Hoover's Secret FBI by Betty Medsker,
Speaker 1: who also wrote that front page Washington Post story that
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier on. I have not read that book,
Speaker 1: but I have watched the documentary N One, which also
Speaker 1: tells that story's cotel pro I know it was a lot.
Speaker 1: Uh D have listener mail to take us out, hopefully
Speaker 1: on a peppyard No man. It kind of is um.
Speaker 1: This is an email from Allison, I wrote back to Alison,
Speaker 1: but I thought other people might also find it helpful.
Speaker 1: Allison was writing about the behind the scenes where Holly
Speaker 1: and I talked about encountering racism out in the world
Speaker 1: and whether we were prepared to counter it, and so
Speaker 1: Allison wrote high on today is behind the scenes, Mini Tracy.
Speaker 1: I heard you say you have a response at the
Speaker 1: ready for when you hear someone say something racist. I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear what you would say, or at least
Speaker 1: in generalization, because I'm terrible with on the spot responses
Speaker 1: and terribly regret and think back on my lack of
Speaker 1: response or retort. I'd love to hear your at the
Speaker 1: ready so I might be able to have it in
Speaker 1: mind and practice, so I can be ready if or
Speaker 1: when that should arise in the future. I hope and
Speaker 1: wish it would never happen and I'd never have to
Speaker 1: hear anything as such. It's just horrible. I love what
Speaker 1: you both do and never miss an episode. Thanks very much, Allison.
Speaker 1: So a thing that I am prepared to say, Like,
Speaker 1: let's say I'm at the grocery store and the line
Speaker 1: is moving really slowly, which it probably is right now,
Speaker 1: and somebody behind me implies that it's because the person
Speaker 1: running the cash register is incompetent because of their race.
Speaker 1: I might say, I hope you're not saying that to
Speaker 1: me because you think I agree with you. I first
Speaker 1: heard that on a podcast. I'm pretty sure it was
Speaker 1: on an episode of Politically Reactive towards the end of
Speaker 1: its run, but I'm not actually sure. And like that
Speaker 1: is when I want to make it clear to that
Speaker 1: person that that's not acceptable the thing that they just said.
Speaker 1: But I'm also like not wanting to start a fight
Speaker 1: with that person that's a stranger in public. UM. If
Speaker 1: I'm talking to a family member and the family member
Speaker 1: says something that is is racist on some level, I
Speaker 1: might say, I don't understand what you mean by that?
Speaker 1: Could you explain it to me? Um? And then a
Speaker 1: lot of times that, like, as a person is talking,
Speaker 1: they will hear the words they are saying. UM. A
Speaker 1: good resource I I have found is if you google
Speaker 1: responding to Everyday Bigotry, the first or second result should
Speaker 1: be a pamphlet that was published by the Southern Poverty
Speaker 1: Law Center that combines a lot of like real world,
Speaker 1: anonymous examples of when people have encountered bigotry in their
Speaker 1: everyday lives and like practical responses to that. UM. I
Speaker 1: like that it's a publication that's been around for a while,
Speaker 1: it doesn't cover every conceivable thing, and it is based
Speaker 1: on people's personal experiences. UM. But if you're like I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know what I should say when something happens,
Speaker 1: like that can be a good starting point for folks. UM.
Speaker 1: So you're so much more thoughtful because I can read
Speaker 1: all of that, but in the moment, what I say
Speaker 1: is you're a racist expletive, as probably evidenced by my
Speaker 1: story about where I wanted to punch a stranger in public.
Speaker 1: So um yeah, uh yeah, I And and that that
Speaker 1: applies to family members as well. Somebody tweeted at us
Speaker 1: about that story that you had told about being in
Speaker 1: the cab and and basically that person, who I think
Speaker 1: was was from Ireland, um basically said that that should
Speaker 1: have been your response. Um So anyway, I mean, even
Speaker 1: even as we talked about in that behind the scenes episode,
Speaker 1: like you can be prepared and still freeze up in
Speaker 1: the moment. It happens sometimes. Um, but I the first
Speaker 1: time I read that particular publication, I was like, I
Speaker 1: feel like I am more prepared now to talk about things.
Speaker 1: So if you'd like to write to us about this
Speaker 1: or any other podcast, write History Podcast at iHeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. We're also all over social media at miss
Speaker 1: in History, and if you want to subscribe to our show,
Speaker 1: we're on the iHeart radio app and Apple podcasts and
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