WEBVTT - 7. The 'Do Not File' File 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:04.680 Previously on snafu. 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:08.320 The FBI arrested twenty persons in Camden, New Jersey, early 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:09.800 today and charge them. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.440 With trying to steal draft records from the federal building there. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.400 What we wanted was to persuade the jury that the 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.160 war was wrong and that it had to be stopped, 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:23.639 and that our action was an attempt to find a 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:27.200 jury who would set us free and end the war. 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:33.199 Why should these lives be cut down for ten rubber 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.440 and oil? 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.720 And the judge says to the four person, do you 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:42.159 have any other verdicts on any of the other defendants 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.760 that are different on any of these counts? And the 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:47.080 foreman said, no, your honor. 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:51.480 And Senator Dole, the Republican chairman to accuse the Democrats 0:00:51.479 --> 0:01:05.080 of trying to make the FBI look like an American gestapo. 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.520 I'm the defin chairman of the City of Illinois Black 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:08.160 campin party. 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:08.720 Free Hampton. 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:10.160 We said, we work with. 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.960 Anybody from police, with anybody that has revolutions. 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:14.240 On their nine. 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:17.479 In the late nineteen sixties, a lot of people had 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.959 revolution on their minds, So when Fred Hampton spoke, they listened. 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:25.640 He really was a great organizer and can relate to 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.920 people quite well and had that charism where people were followed. 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.760 That's Omar Barbour who joined the Black Panther Party in 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:34.960 nineteen sixty seven. 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:37.120 And you have to have integrity and people have to 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.920 feel you have integrity. And you can fill that with 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.720 Fred that he had integrity because understand that racism is 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.160 an excuse you of capitalism, and we know that racism 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:50.160 is just is a bad product capitalism. 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:54.720 Hampton opposed to the War in Vietnam as another byproduct 0:01:54.720 --> 0:01:58.720 of capitalism. He empathized with the people of Vietnam. In 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.080 his view, they're suffering at the hands of the US 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:05.120 military was inextricably linked to the oppression that Americans of 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:06.240 color faced at home. 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:08.840 In response to that oppression. 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.760 And the poverty around them, Hampton and the Black Panthers 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:17.120 offered simple, effective solutions, free breakfast programs for kids, free 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:23.320 healthcare clinics, the kinds of things the US government wasn't providing. Yes, 0:02:23.440 --> 0:02:27.400 people say, people, if you are fight of. 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:28.880 You a fight, it'll feel. 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:35.080 Hampton mobilized real working Americans, particularly people of color, which 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:39.160 made him a threat to the wealthy white establishment. Hampton 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:41.519 knew he was on Jay Edgar Hoover's radar. 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:43.639 We know they have half, we. 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.080 Know they're looking for us, we know they have had us. 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:51.040 And then he simmits fourth nineteen sixty nine data. We 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:52.959 all wrote out wield and testaments. 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:56.600 Police arrived at Fred Hampton's West Side apartment the four 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:59.160 forty five this morning. They had a search war and 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:02.079 authorizing them to look for illegal weapons. 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:05.400 That morning, America woke up to the news that Hampton 0:03:05.480 --> 0:03:08.640 had been killed, ostensibly in a shootout with police. 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.079 Stints Attorney's office says that Hampton and another man were 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.400 killed in the fifteen minute gun battle which followed. 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.880 The official story was the police were investigating a tip 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:22.240 about an illegal weapons stash at Hampton's home. When the 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:25.359 cops arrived, the story went the panthers unleashed a hail 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.160 of gunfire on the police, setting off a shootout that 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:32.880 killed Hampton. But that story did not hold up to scrutiny. 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:35.960 Looking at the crime scene, it was immediately apparent that 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.000 there hadn't been a shootout at all. At least one 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.160 hundred shots had been fired, but the bullet holes clearly 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:47.040 showed that ninety nine of them had come from police guns. Outside. 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.440 Hampton didn't pick up a gun. He hadn't even gotten 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.480 out of bed. The police had murdered him in cold blood. 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.080 When we found out that of all the shots that 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:59.480 were fired in the apartment, only one was fired out 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.040 and everything is fire in then it became much more 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:05.560 clearer than there was a shooting. And now the shootout never. 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:06.080 Said a word. 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:07.040 You never got. 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:07.520 About the bed. 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.840 Akua and Jerry was Fred Hampton's girlfriend at the time 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.039 of the shooting. She was eight months pregnant. In this interview, 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:17.800 she's holding their new infant son. 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.600 The person was in the room. They kept going out, 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.840 stop shooting, stop shooting. We have a pregnant woman or 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:25.920 pregnant sister in here. 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:28.400 Piggs kept on shooting. 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.279 Heard Pigs say he's barely alive, he'll barely make it. 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:38.400 As soon they were talking about shevving fled. Then they 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:42.800 started shooting Pig. They started shooting up, shooting again. I 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:48.479 heard the screen. They stopped shooting. Pig said he was 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:49.120 good and dead. 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:54.920 Now the whole thing was fabricated and was disproved, And 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.680 that really got to understand that there was definitely much 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.760 more involved than just them coming to Servi a Warren 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:02.520 or whatever. The justification was. 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.039 In nineteen seventy one, the Illinois States Attorney who ordered 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.559 the raid was charged with obstructing justice. In the Hampton case, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.200 the illusion that Hampton died in a gunfight with police evaporated, 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.600 leaving the public to wonder who wanted him dead and 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:24.120 why they thought they could murder him with impunity. The 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.040 answers took years to come out, but when they finally did, 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:32.320 America would learn the truth behind Hampton's murder and the 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:41.120 truth about Jaedgar Hoover's secret FBI. I'm Ed Helms and 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.440 This is Snaffo, a show about history's greatest screw ups. 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:50.320 On season two, medburg the story of a daring heist 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:57.320 that exposed Jaedgar Hoover's epic FBI snaffo. The Citizens Commission 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.760 to Investigate the FBI had pulled off an incredibly risky heist. 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.560 They'd leaked the stolen documents to the press and successfully 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:10.599 evaded j Edgar Hoover's dragnet. As you might recall, buried 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:14.640 within those documents was a single word, a code name 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.279 co intel pro. To the burglars. At the time, it 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:24.320 meant nothing, just some bureau jargon. Soon an even splashier scandal, 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.520 Watergate was dominating the headlines the media. Burglary could have 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.560 become a historical footnote, but it. 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:32.400 Wasn't over yet. 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:56.159 I had gone to the Senate Judiciary Committee to pick 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:01.279 up a very mundane item, and people were using the 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.360 photo copy of the machine, and I had to wait 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:06.080 to get a copy of this report. 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.160 Carl Stern was a young reporter covering the Justice Department 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:13.560 for NBC. One day in nineteen seventy two, he was 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.400 in a government office, just waiting for a copy machine 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.160 when an offhand comment piqued his interest. 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:23.240 While I was waiting, my friend said, here, ever seen 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.920 these papers? And he had a couple of dozen pages 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:31.520 that had been provided courtesy of the Citizens Commission to 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:36.160 Investigate the FBI. While you're wasting time here, why don't 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.600 you take a look. And flipping through the pages, I 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:44.760 noticed one It said Cohen telpro new Left. 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:52.000 The FBI file contained an article from Baron's magazine criticizing 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:56.280 left wing student activism at Columbia. The file also contained 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.760 a memo to agents of the media FBI office instructing 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:03.920 them to anonymously mail this article to local college administrators. 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:08.000 It was you know, a little handwriting below the notice 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.760 to the field office that said Tom or for the 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.640 agent in charge there, Tom Lewis, Tom, can you handle 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:20.640 swarththor Haverford and Villanova. I mean, they had this thing 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:25.160 really quite explicitly described. 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.600 That's what caught my eye. 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.680 The implication was clear the FBI was covertly trying to 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.559 sway colleges into cracking down on anti war students. Co 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:40.600 Intel pro New Left appeared to be the name of 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:44.600 this operation. But what the hell kind of operation was this? 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:54.400 Mailed anonymously? Do FBI agents mail andi leftwik literature anonymously? 0:08:54.679 --> 0:08:56.240 Is that what FBI agents do? 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:58.600 And that's what bothered me. 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.600 Carl asked his usual government sources. 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.319 A series of Justice Department and FBI employees. 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.720 When I raised the you know, we can't talk. 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.800 About that, which is FED speak for keep your nose 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:18.160 out of this, Carl. 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.719 Well, nothing is going to get a reporter's interest more 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.040 quickly than SAGA can't talk about it. 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.520 So Carl turned to FOYA, the Good Old Freedom of 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.000 Information Act, although at this time it was actually the 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.199 Good New Freedom of Information Act. It had only passed 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.360 a few years earlier in nineteen sixty eight, Of course, 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:43.240 the FBI denied his initial request, citing national security concerns, 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:48.880 but Carl was a dog with a co intel pro bone, 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.319 so he sued the government. Now, a judge would read 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.679 a batch of documents explaining co intel pro and rule 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.200 on whether or not they could be released to Carl, 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:00.520 but he. 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.000 Didn't want to read all those pages, so. 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:04.880 He gave it to his clerk, one of his clerks, 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.040 to read over the weekend. The clerk lived in one 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:13.079 of these housing to elements over in Virginia. It was summertime, 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.439 quite hot. He went to the swimming pool to take 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.560 a tip and took a handful of the documents with 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:21.599 him to read at the pool. 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.719 Northern Virginia, where even the pool side reading is highly classified. 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:30.960 Okay, well, unfortunately, after his swimming went back to his apartment, 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:34.520 the doorbell rang and it was some sweet young thing 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:38.160 holding the documents, saying, sir, you left me. He's under 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:44.880 your chair, your lounge. So here were these highly important 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:48.600 documents which were in court litigating the sea, and they 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.040 were under his chair at the swimming pool. 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.280 There's probably an alternate universe in which the aforementioned sweet 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:00.840 young thing was a Soviet spy who picked up these documents, 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.079 leaked them all and brought down the US government. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:08.960 But instead that sweet young thing who found retrieved these 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:16.200 documents save the Republic as she became the Clerk's wife. 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:18.360 Yep, it was. 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:20.720 The first meet cute in the history of the Freedom 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:24.880 of Information Act. A victory for love and soon maybe 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:29.320 a victory for Carl. But just as Carl started digging 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:34.160 for its deepest, darkest secrets, the Bureau suffered the greatest 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.560 loss of its sixty four year history. I'll let Walter 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:40.160 Cronkite break the news to you. 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:44.600 Good evening. Jay Edgar Hoover has died at the age 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.680 of seventy seven. For almost every living American generation, Hoover, 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.800 the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, stood as 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:56.040 a symbol of incorruptible law enforcement and untouchable who liked 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.200 to boast that his men could not be bought. 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.840 In May second, nineteen seventy two, j Edgar Hoover died 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.240 suddenly at his home in Washington, DC. The official cause 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.160 of death cardiovascular disease. 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.240 We like to think that maybe we hastened that a 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:11.760 little bit. 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.200 Okay, so Bonnie Rains and the other burglars might not 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:19.000 have been too upset, but mainstream America was in mourning. 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.319 President Nixon ordered flags flown at half staff. Hoover's body 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.600 lay in state at the Capitol Rotunda, the first unelected 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:31.040 civil servant given that honor. After thousands of people streamed 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.240 through the Capitol to pay their respects, the only director 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.400 the FBI had ever known was laid to rest at 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:43.000 Congressional Cemetery. It is eulogy for Hoover. President Nixon didn't 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.240 just praise the late FBI director. He also lashed out 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:47.560 at the FBI's haters. 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:52.960 The FBI will carry on in the future true to 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:57.520 its finest traditions in the past, because, regardless of what 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:01.559 the snipers and detractors would have us believe, the fact 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:09.040 is a director Hoover built the bureau totally on principle. 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:18.160 Hoover died a hero to mainstream America, having blackmailed, imprisoned, buried, 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:24.880 or otherwise outlasted generations of enemies and detractors. I'll be honest, 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.920 I wish Hoover had lived just a little bit longer, 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.560 because the following year, the judge in Carl Stearn's Secret 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:35.800 Document case ruled in his favor and ordered the release 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:40.640 of a few crucial documents explaining that mysterious phrase co 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:41.560 intel pro. 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.880 What I got was four pages of paper. 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.200 Okay, so not a lot of pages, but turns out 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.400 a lot of revelations even then. 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:59.199 The first of the four pages reference eighth co and 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:05.720 tailpro programs dealing with things as the Black Extreamist Socialist 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:10.640 Workers Party, disruption of white hate crubs, they got New Left, 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:11.880 of course, so on and on. 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.120 It had been more than two and a half years 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.240 since the Burglars first uncovered that word co intel pro. 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:23.240 Now finally the world would know what it meant. This 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.520 was the umbrella term for no fewer than eight FBI programs, 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:34.800 all using patently unconstitutional counterintelligence tactics against American citizens, and, 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:39.040 according to Carl sources, all happening without the knowledge of 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:45.400 any Attorneys general. It was an explosive story. On December sixth, 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.840 nineteen seventy three, a dapper and confident young Carl Stern 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:52.960 appeared on the NBC Nightly News and introduced America to 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.760 the dark sides of j Edgar Hoover and the FBI. 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.960 The documents proved for the first time with the FBI 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.240 undertook a program to harris and destroy new Left political 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:09.200 organizations whose views the federal police agency disagreed with. Wrote 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.440 FBI Director Hoover, the purpose of the program would be 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.400 to expose and disrupt the new Left. We must frustrate 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.600 every effort of these groups and individuals to consolidate their 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:22.760 forces or to recruit new or youthful adherents. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:27.000 Carl's referencing memos from nineteen sixty eight here, But to 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.080 be clear, Cointel pro began all the way back in 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.000 nineteen fifty six. The FBI had kept it a secret 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.520 for the better part of two decades, but now Carl 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.600 was reading the bureau's secrets out loud on national television. 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:45.440 One former agent who participated in the program has described 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.520 how burglaries, forged blackmail letters, and threats of violence were 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:52.960 used to try to stop anti war marches. Many of 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.720 the techniques were clearly illegal, but justified in the interest 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:01.200 of national security. Today, the Justice Departments said no Attorney 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:05.040 General authorized or knew of the program. 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.560 Almost immediately the calls for congressional hearings began, but in 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:14.160 classic Congress fashion, Congress dragged its feet. It took several 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.640 more shocking revelations, including the news that Hoover had illegally 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.800 spied on members of Congress, for the legislative branch to 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:25.520 officially establish a committee to start looking into all this shit. 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.280 Leading that committee was Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho. 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.240 He once said to me and others that he would 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.680 be the last Democrat ever elected to the Senate from Idaho, 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:40.640 and in fact, that's exactly what happened. 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:42.400 That's Locke Johnson. 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.160 He was special assistant to Frank Church during what came 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:48.280 to be known as the Church Committee hearings. Locke and 0:16:48.320 --> 0:16:52.200 his team of investigators conducted an exhaustive review of intelligence 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:56.600 practices at the FBI, CIA, NSSAY, and a bunch of 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.720 other spooky acronyms. By the way, for more on that, 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:03.960 I hope you'll check out our bonus interview with Locke. Anyway, 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.600 it took more than a year before the committee was 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:08.200 ready to make its findings public. 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:14.119 We were slow rolled and stonewalled, and we used a 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:17.280 couple of Washington expressions. We had to fight them tooth 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:17.720 and nail. 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:23.679 Despite the slow rolling and stonewalling, Church's team eventually pried 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.480 mountains of co intel pro documents away from the FBI, 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:31.159 they conducted interviews with agents and with victims of the 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:36.520 bureau's misbehavior. On November eighteenth, nineteen seventy five, Frank Church 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.560 sat in a crowded, high columned chamber in the Russell 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.840 Senate Office building and called to order a momentous hearing. 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.400 There has never been a full public accounting of FBI 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:56.560 domestic intelligence operations. Therefore this committee has undertaken such an investigation. 0:17:57.840 --> 0:18:01.159 It was packed with people. Very ornate took place and 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:03.520 in the front of the people there are five hundred 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.560 people or so, citizens and tourists in many cases, and 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.160 no doubt some KGB people, and they're trying to learn 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.879 about American intelligence. In the front row television cameras and 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:18.160 reporters senators all the eleven senators, and behind the senators 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.360 were we staffer is sitting to help them if they 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:20.880 needed help. 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:25.280 You can actually see a young Lock Johnson just behind 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.240 Frank Church in the old C span footage of the hearings. 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.000 The proceedings began with a thank you. 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.680 Frank Church voiced his appreciation for the anonymous burglars whose 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:40.800 courageous actions had precipitated these hearings. From there, the focus 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:45.040 turned to two government lawyers, Fritz Schwartz and Curtis Smothers. 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:47.880 They were there to lay out the facts of Hoover's 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:53.760 secret FBI. Here's Schwartz now turning to Cohen Tailpro coen. 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:59.159 Telpro is a abbreviation of the words counter intelligence program. 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:04.800 Telpro is the name for the effort by the Bureau 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.199 to destroy people and to destroy organizations, or, as they 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.800 used the words disrupt, to neutralize. 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.880 All the horrible operations by the intelligence agency is, particularly 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:23.280 the FBI against American citizens, had their origins in this 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.040 false belief that communism was going to destroy US. 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:34.480 Counterintelligence activities are by definition conducted to counter the activities 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.720 of foreign intelligence agents, but for years the FBI had 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.720 operated under the assumption that anyone speaking out against the 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.360 government could be a foreign agent, or at least could 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.119 be investigated as if they were. 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:48.840 Here's Curtis Smothers. 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:51.760 Part of the problem as they attempted to translate the 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:56.000 tactics used first against the Communist Party against virtually every 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.199 perceived enemy. As the Bureau looked across the landscape and 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:03.840 decided whose be neutralized, discredited, or destroyed, take. 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.520 For example, the Socialist Workers Party. They had been the 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.880 target of what the FBI called quote black bag jobs, 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:14.480 acute euphemism for when the FBI just straight up committed burglary. 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:20.120 Between nineteen sixty and sixty six, FBI agents broke into 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.640 the party's New York City offices no fewer than ninety 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:26.960 two times. You know what they say, If at first 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.160 you don't succeed in finding evidence of Soviet espionage, try 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:37.240 try again ninety one more times. More than four hundred 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.280 black bag jobs would eventually come to light. Many of 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.160 them involved photographing private homes and offices and or leaving 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:48.760 behind listening devices to gather information on their targets. This 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:50.920 kind of thing is legal if you have a warrant, 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:55.040 but the FBI never bothered with that pesky formality, which 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.400 meant none of what they learned from these break ins 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:00.480 would be admissible in court. Hoover and his men were 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:03.800 well aware of this. They didn't intend to build criminal 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.760 cases against co intel pros targets. Rather, the goal of 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.240 these operations was simply to gather information that could be 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:12.480 used against. 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:16.520 Them, all information on activities in connection with demonstrations aimed 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.080 at social reform, whatever that may be. 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.440 Basically, if your politics didn't meet with the FBI's approval, 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:27.600 the bureau felt entitled to gather information on every aspect 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:28.400 of your life. 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:33.560 Information which extended to their personal lives and died down 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:35.280 to when including sex activities. 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:38.840 Hoover kept these black bag jobs under wraps with an 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:43.760 almost unbelievably simplistic bureaucratic trick. Any files related to the 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:47.159 break ins went into a specially designated file called I 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:51.240 swear I'm not making this up, the do not file file. 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:54.760 Presumably Hoover kept that file locked in his this is 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.480 not a filing cabinet filing cabinet and whatever he needed 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:02.520 to threaten, embarrass, or just confuse his targets, he knew 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.399 exactly where to look that do not file file. 0:22:06.240 --> 0:22:10.240 Bureau agents were told to attack the new Left by 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:13.040 disinformation and misinformation, and I. 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:13.439 Will give you. 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.639 Schwartz recounted a story from the first inauguration of Richard Nixon. 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:19.040 He told the committee how a protest group called the 0:22:19.119 --> 0:22:23.040 National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam had cooperated 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:26.560 with police and their efforts to keep demonstrations calm and organized, 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:30.920 but the FBI didn't want an orderly protest, they wanted chaos, 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:33.760 so they resorted to counterintelligence tactics. 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:37.760 Now what did the FBI do. They found out what 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:41.600 Citizen Band was being used for walkie talkies, and they 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:45.560 used that Citizen Band to supply the marshals with misinformation 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:48.919 and pretending to be a unit of the National Mobilization 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:53.600 to end the war in Vietnam, countermanded the orders issued 0:22:53.680 --> 0:22:55.200 by the movement. 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.480 The bureau had targeted a lot of people that went 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:04.560 way beyond even spying. These documents made it clear that 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:10.800 the FBI was attacking these individuals, attempting to destroy their reputations. 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:17.440 As it turned out, investigating actual criminals took a back 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:21.320 seat to petty, vindictive harassment, like trying to get people fired. 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:25.160 They'd even contacted a bank in Wisconsin and urged them 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:27.520 not to give a home loan to a cub Scout 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:29.399 leader with Communist sympathies. 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:34.600 And I'll never forget going to visit Anatole Rappaport. He 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:39.000 wrote some of the pioneer work in game theory, so 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:42.200 he was one of America's finest intellectuals. 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:46.359 Rapaport was a Russian immigrant US Air Force veteran and 0:23:46.480 --> 0:23:49.679 professor at the University of Michigan. He'd been at the 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:52.720 forefront of the teaching movement, inviting students to drop what 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:55.280 they were doing and join open discussions of what was 0:23:55.320 --> 0:23:56.440 going on in Vietnam. 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:01.080 Jego Hoover went after him like you wouldn't leave, through 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:05.200 anonymous letter, writing in particular, why well, First of all, 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:09.960 Rappaport had been born in Russia. Ooh, scary. So the 0:24:10.080 --> 0:24:13.960 FBI began to send out these anonymous letters claiming that 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:17.800 Rappaport was a communist, that he was in control of 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:21.879 Moscow and KGB. The letters went to legislators in the 0:24:21.880 --> 0:24:26.119 state of Michigan, went to university administrators, and to the 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:29.960 great shame of all of them involved, they believed these 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:34.840 stories and finally hounded Rappaport out of the University of Michigan. 0:24:36.160 --> 0:24:38.600 By the time Locke learned that Rapaport had been a 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:43.720 target of co intel pro, Rapaport was living in Canada, and. 0:24:43.720 --> 0:24:46.240 He sat down and leafed through these documents. As I 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:50.080 sat there, and he would shake his head and he 0:24:50.200 --> 0:24:55.720 just couldn't believe that his own government, the Federal Bureau 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:58.960 of Investigation, had been the one behind all of these 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:02.320 attacks against him. And at the end of going a 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:04.879 couple of hours through these documents, he began to weep 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:08.680 so very sad spectacle. And that's just, you know, one 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:14.840 of probably two thousand ors so cases like throughout the country. 0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:20.720 This was one of co intel Pro's favorite tactics, the 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:26.560 poison pen letter, usually sent anonymously or forged to employers, colleagues, 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:30.399