F. Use and abuse of Government processes - 1. Selective law enforcement-- 2. Interference with judicial process.. 3. Candidates and political appointees__. 5. Inspection__ B. Outside the Bureau: 1956–71. C. Outside the Bureau: Post-1971. VI. Epilogue___ COINTELPRO: THE FBI'S COVERT ACTION PROGRAMS AGAINST AMERICAN CITIZENS I. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY COINTELPRO is the FBI acronym for a series of covert action programs directed against domestic groups. In these programs, the Bureau went beyond the collection of intelligence to secret action designed to "disrupt" and "neutralize" target groups and individuals. The techniques were adopted wholesale from wartime counterintelligence, and ranged from the trivial (mailing reprints of Reader's Digest articles to college administrators) to the degrading (sending anonymous poison-pen letters intended to break up marriages) and the dangerous (encouraging gang warfare and falsely labeling members of a violent group as police informers). This report is based on a staff study of more than 20,000 pages of Bureau documents, depositions of many of the Bureau agents involved in the programs, and interviews of several COINTELPRO targets. The examples selected for discussion necessarily represent a small percentage of the more than 2,000 approved COINTELPRO actions. Nevertheless, the cases demonstrate the consequences of a Government agency's decision to take the law into its own hands for the "greater good" of the country. COINTELPRO began in 1956, in part because of frustration with Supreme Court rulings limiting the Government's power to proceed overtly against dissident groups; it ended in 1971 with the threat of public exposure.' In the intervening 15 years, the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.2 Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that. The unexpressed major premise of the programs was that a law enforcement agency has the duty to do whatever is necessary to combat perceived threats to the existing social and political order. 'On March 8, 1971, the FBI resident agency in Media, Pennslyvania, was broken into. Documents stolen in the break-in were widely circulated and published by the press. Since some documents carried a "COINTELPRO" caption-a word unknown outside the Bureau-Carl Stern, a reporter for NBC, commenced a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to compel the Bureau to produce other documents relating to the programs. The Bureau decided because of "security reasons" to terminate them on April 27, 1971. (Memorandum from C. D. Brennan to W. C. Sullivan, 4/27/71; Letter from FBI headquarters to all SAC's, 4/28/71.) The Bureau's direct attacks on speaking, teaching, writing, and meeting are discussed at pp. 28-33, attempts to prevent the growth of groups are set forth at pp. 34-40. 2 A. "Counterintelligence Program": A Misnomer for Domestic Covert Action COINTELPRO is an acronym for "counterintelligence program." Counterintelligence is defined as those actions by an intelligence agency intended to protect its own security and to undermine hostile intelligence operations. Under COINTELPRO certain techniques the Bureau had used against hostile foreign agents were adopted for use against perceived domestic threats to the established political and social order. The formal programs which incorporated these techniques were, therefore, also called "counterintelligence." za "Covert action" is, however, a more accurate term for the Bureau's programs directed against American citizens. "Covert action" is the label applied to clandestine activities intended to influence political choices and social values.3 B. Who Were the Targets? 1. The Five Targeted Groups The Bureau's covert action programs were aimed at five perceived threats to domestic tranquility: the "Communist Party, USA" program (1956-71); the "Socialist Workers Party" program (1961-69); the "White Hate Group" program (1964-71); the "Black NationalistHate Group" program (1967-71); and the "New Left" program (1968-71). 2. Labels Without Meaning The Bureau's titles for its programs should not be accepted uncritically. They imply a precision of definition and of targeting which did not exist. Even the names of the later programs had no clear definition. The Black Nationalist program, according to its supervisor, included "a great number of organizations that you might not today characterize as black nationalist but which were in fact primarily black." sa Indeed, the nonviolent Southern Christian Leadership Conference was labeled as a Black Nationalist "Hate Group." Nor could anyone at the Bureau even define "New Left," except as "more or less an attitude." 5 Furthermore, the actual targets were chosen from a far broader group than the names of the programs would imply. The CPUSA program targeted not only Party members but also sponsors of the 2 For a discussion of U.S. intelligence activities against hostle foreign intelligence operations, see Report on Counterintelligence. 3 See Senate Select Committee Report, "Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders" and Staff Report: "Covert Action in Chile.” За 4 Black Nationalist Supervisor deposition, 10/17/75, p. 12. * Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to all SAC's, 8/25/67, p. 2. New Left Supervisor's deposition, 10/28/75, p. 8. The closest any Bureau document comes to a definition is found in an investigative directive: "The term 'New Left' does not refer to a definite organization, but to a movement which is providing ideologies or platforms alternate to those of existing communist and other basic revolutionary organizations, the so-called 'Old Left.' The New Left movement is a loosely-bound, free-wheeling, college-oriented movement spearheaded by the Students for a Demorcatic Society and includes the more extreme and militant anti-Vietnam war and anti-draft protest organizations." (Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to all SAC's, 10/28/68; Hearings, Vol. 6, Exhibit 61, p. 669.) Although this characterization is longer than that of the New Left Supervisor, it does not appear to be substantively different. 6 8 7 National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee and civil rights leaders allegedly under Communist influence or simply not "anti-Communist." The Socialist Workers Party program included non-SWP sponsors of antiwar demonstrations which were cosponsored by the SWP or the Young Socialist Alliance, its youth group. The Black Nationalist program targeted a range of organizations from the Panthers to SNCC to the peaceful Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and included most black student groups. 10 New Left targets ranged from the SDS " to the Interuniversity Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy,12 from all of Antioch College ("vanguard of the New Left") 13 to the New Mexico Free University 14 and other "alternate" schools,15 and from underground newspapers 16 to students protesting university censorship of a student publication by carrying signs with four-letter words on them.17 C. What Were the Purposes of COINTELPRO? 11 The breadth of targeting and lack of substantive content in the descriptive titles of the programs reflect the range of motivations for COINTELPRO activity: protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order by "disrupting" and "neutralizing" groups and individuals perceived as threats. 1. Protecting National Security The first COINTELPRO, against the CPUSA, was instituted to counter what the Bureau believed to be a threat to the national security. As the chief of the COINTELPRO unit explained it: We were trying first to develop intelligence so we would know Had the Bureau stopped there, perhaps the term "counterintelligence" would have been an accurate label for the program. The ex G Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to Cleveland Field Office, 11/6/64. 7 One civil rights leader, the subject of at least three separate counterintelligence actions under the CPUSA caption, was targeted because there was no "direct evidence" that he was a communist, "neither is there any substantial evidence that he is anti-communist." One of the actions utilized information gained from a wiretap; the other two involved dissemination of personal life information. (Memorandum from J.A. Sizoo to W.C. Sullivan, 2/4/64; Memorandum from New York Field Office to FBI Headquarters, 2/12/64; Memoranda from FBI Headquarters to New York Field Office, 3/26/64 and 4/10/64; Memorandum to New York Field Office from FBI Headquarters, 4/21/64; Memorandum from FBI Headquaters to Baltimore Field Office, 10/6/65. ) 8 Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to Cleveland Field Office, 11/29/68. FBI Headquarters memorandum, 8/25/67, p. 2. 9 10 1-2. Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to Jackson Field Office, 2/8/71, pp. "Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to San Antonio Field Office, 10/31/68. 12 Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to Detroit Field Office, 10/26/66. 13 Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to Cincinnati Field Office, 6/18/68. 14 Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to Albuquerque Field Office, 3/14/69. 15 Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to San Antonio Field Office. 7/23/69. Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to Pittsburgh Field Office, 11/14/69. Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to Minneapolis Field Office, 11/4/68. 178 COINTELPRO Unit Chief deposition, 10/16/75, p. 14. 16 17 pansion of the CPUSA program to non-Communists, however, and the addition of subsequent programs, make it clear that other purposes were also at work. 2. Preventing Violence One of these purposes was the prevention of violence. Every Bureau witness deposed stated that the purpose of the particular program or programs with which he was associated was to deter violent acts by the target groups, although the witnesses differed in their assessment of how successful the programs were in achieving that goal. The preventive function was not, however, intended to be a product of specific proposals directed at specific criminal acts. Rather, the programs were aimed at groups which the Bureau believed to be violent or to have the potential for violence. The programs were to prevent violence by deterring membership in the target groups, even if neither the particular member nor the group was violent at the time. As the supervisor of the Black Nationalist COINTELPRO put it, "Obviously you are going to prevent violence or a greater amount of violence if you have smaller groups.” (Black Nationalist supervisor deposition, 10/17/75, p. 24.) The COIN TELPRO unit chief agreed: "We also made an effort to deter or counteract the propaganda . . . and to deter recruitment where we could. This was done with the view that if we could curb the organization, we could curb the action or the violence within the organization." 17 In short, the programs were to prevent violence indirectly, rather than directly, by preventing possibly violent citizens from joining or continuing to associate with possibly violent groups." ... The prevention of violence is clearly not, in itself, an improper purpose; preventing violence is the ultimate goal of most law enforcement. Prosecution and sentencing are intended to deter future criminal behavior, not only of the subject but also of others who might break the law. In that sense, law enforcement legitimately attempts the indirect prevention of possible violence and, if the methods used are proper, raises no constitutional issues. When the government goes beyond traditional law enforcement methods, however, and attacks group membership and advocacy, it treads on ground forbidden to it by the Constitution. In Brandenberg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), the Supreme Court held that the government is not permitted to "forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or law violation except where such advocacy is directed toward inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." In the absence of such clear and present danger, the government cannot act against speech nor, presumably, against association. 3. Maintaining the Existing Social and Political Order Protecting national security and preventing violence are the purposes advanced by the Bureau for COINTELPRO. There is another purpose for COINTELPRO which is not explicit but which offers 17b Unit Chief deposition, 10/16/75, p. 54. 18 "Possibly violent" did not necessarily mean likely to be violent. Concededly non-violent groups were targeted because they might someday change; Martin Luther King, Jr. was targeted because (among other things) he might "abandon his supposed 'obedience' to 'white, liberal doctrines' (non-violence) and embrace black nationalism." (Memorandum from FBI Headquarters to all SAC's, 3/4/68, p. 3.) |