There's Something Happening Here: The New Left, the Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence

379 Pages·2004·12.436 MB·English

by  David Cunningham

http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
Praise for David Cunningham’s There’s Something Happening Here
“Cunningham reveals the programs and priorities of the FBI’s domestic
surveillance in the 1960s with extensive new research and an eye for
the telling detail. This is the most important book in some time on
how the FBI shapes its agenda and its actions in relation to targeted
groups. At a time when the FBI is being called on to deal with new
public threats, we need the insights of this work.”
——Jack A. Goldstone, Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University
“Cunningham’s landmark study of the FBI’s response to sixties protest
couldn’t be more timely. We gain fresh and disturbing insight into the
culture and dynamics of the agency at a time when once again it has
been empowered to monitor political dissidence. We need this history
so as to avoid repeating it.”
——Richard Flacks, author of Making History: The American Left and the American Mind
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
THERE’S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE

http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
THERE’S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE

The New Left, the Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence
David Cunningham
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Berkeley • Los Angeles • London
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 2004 by the Regents of the University of California
“For What It’s Worth,” by Stephen Stills
© 1966 (Renewed) Cotillion Music Inc., Ten East
Music, Springalo Toones and Richie Furay Music
All Rights administered by Warner-Tamerlane Pub-
lishing Corp. All Rights Reserved Used by Pemission
Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cunningham, David, 1970–.
There’s something happening here : the New
Left, the Klan, and FBI counterintelligence / David
Cunningham.
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-520-23997-0
1. United States—Federal Bureau of Investigation.
2. Intelligence service—United States. 3. New Left—
Government policy—United States. 4. Hate groups—
Government policy—United States. I. Title.
hv8144.f43c85 2004
363.25'931'097309046—dc21 2003050705
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 09 08 07 06 05 04
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992(R 1997)
(Permanence of Paper). ∞
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
To my parents, William James Cunningham and Ninette Gionfriddo Cunningham

http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
Contents
Tables and Figures / ix

Preface and Acknowledgments / xi

Introduction / 1

1. Counterintelligence Activities and the FBI / 15

2. The Movements / 42

3. The Organization of the FBI: Constructing White Hate and New Left Threats / 79

4. Acting against the White Hate and New Left Threats / 109

5. Wing Tips in Their Midst: The Impact of COINTELPRO / 146

6. Beyond COINTELPRO / 181

7. The Future Is Now: Counter/Intelligence Activities in the Age of Global Terrorism / 217

Appendix A. A Typology of COINTELPRO Actions / 233

Appendix B. Organizational Processes and COINTELPRO Outcomes / 252

Appendix C. COINTELPRO Targets / 273

Notes / 285

References / 343

Index / 357

http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
Tables and Figures
TABLES
1. Initial Target Population in COINTELPRO–White Hate Groups / 90
2. Summary Reports of Major New Left Targets / 96
3. Successful Results of COINTELPRO Actions / 154
A.1. COINTELPRO Memo Types / 234
A.2. Typology of COINTELPRO Actions against the New Left / 236
A.3. Examples of COINTELPRO Actions against the New Left / 238
A.4. Typology of COINTELPRO Actions against White Hate Groups / 243
A.5. Examples of COINTELPRO Actions against White Hate Groups / 245
B.1. Coefficients for Logistic Regression of Repression on Protest Group
Characteristics and Endogenous Organizational Indicator / 257
B.2. Summary of Field Office Activity and Interaction with Directorate / 263
B.3. Innovative Actions: COINTELPRO–New Left / 270
C.1. Full Target Population in COINTELPRO–White Hate Groups (1964–1971) / 273
C.2. Initial Target Population in COINTELPRO–New Left / 277
C.3. Additional Groups Targeted by COINTELPRO–New Left / 279
FIGURES
1. Cartoon disseminated by Birmingham field office / 11
2. Map of FBI field offices during the COINTELPRO Era / 84
A.1. Distribution of Actions in COINTELPRO–New Left / 237
A.2. Distribution of Actions in COINTELPRO–White Hate Groups / 244
A.3. Total Distribution of COINTELPRO Actions / 251
B.1. Cross-tabulation of National Target Presence and Activity / 261
B.2. The Emergence of Innovation / 265
B.3. Distribution of Functions by Time Period: COINTELPRO–New Left / 267
B.4. Distribution of Rejected Proposals: COINTELPRO–New Left / 269
ix
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
Preface and Acknowledgments

To some observers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s actions dur-
ing the 1960s—most prominently its counterintelligence programs (CO-
INTELPROs) against suspected Communists, civil rights and black
power advocates, Klan adherents, and antiwar activists—were an aber-
ration, justified by the exceptional political and cultural volatility of the
era. The nation was fortunate to have escaped such a period relatively
unscathed, and now the FBI should once again be entrusted to use its
powers to protect and preserve our national security. To other analysts,
COINTELPRO was but one instance in the FBI’s century-long history
of trampling on citizens’ civil liberties ostensibly to ensure a nation free
of subversive elements. Rather than a response to a unique crisis or even
a product of the idiosyncratic FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a leader
who for decades had masterfully evaded accountability for the Bureau’s
actions, COINTELPRO reflected the actions of an organization whose
appetite for intrusion in citizens’ lives was—in the words of one recent
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) report—“insatiable.”1
The primary goal of this book is not to advance either of these posi-
tions, though I hold that the reality is closer to the second. More impor-
tant in my view is understanding the origins, functions, and inner
workings of the COINTEL programs themselves. What has become
exceedingly clear in the months following September 11, 2001, is that
we cannot afford to treat FBI intelligence and counterintelligence activ-
ities—and COINTELPRO in particular—as purely historical artifacts,
products of a period that holds little relevance to our current situation.
Indeed, COINTELPRO provides an exceptionally clear window into
the internal processes and motivations of the FBI, and it is now more
xi
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield
xii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
important than ever to heed the lessons of its era. To appreciate the
gravity of the almost total lifting of restrictions on FBI intelligence activ-
ities with the passage of the USA PATRIOT and Homeland Security
Acts requires an understanding of why these restrictions were first put
in place a quarter century ago. While Attorney General John Ashcroft
and others in the Bush administration largely succeeded in their
attempts to expand the powers of the intelligence establishment, there
has been no shortage of commentators—in the Nation, the New York
and Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, and other publica-
tions—who have pointed to the FBI’s “bad old days” as a cautionary
tale. Rarely commented upon, however, is the fact that almost no one
outside the Bureau has any sense of how COINTELPRO was organized
and how, with mixed success, it was able to carry out its strongly politi-
cized mission. Understanding the processes through which these pro-
grams were developed and carried out, as well as the inner workings of
the Bureau itself, is key to comprehending the FBI’s fragile orientation
to civil liberties generally.
In the chapters that follow, I examine COINTELPRO in detail
to show how particular aspects of the FBI’s organizational structure
enabled and constrained its intelligence and counterintelligence mis-
sions. By situating this particular program within the long history of the
FBI and focusing on the flow of information between the Bureau’s elite
(housed at national headquarters in Washington, DC) and the thousands
of agents placed throughout the country (constituting “the field”), we
can more clearly understand how targets were selected, tactics devel-
oped, and repressive activities carried out. This perspective allows us to
clearly assess the impact and enduring significance of COINTELPRO
and also provides a base from which we can understand and evaluate
the implications of ongoing counterterrorism activities initiated by the
FBI and other members of the intelligence community.
This book is rooted in the tumultuous political activities of the 1960s,
but unlike most accounts of that era, mine is not a result of any direct
connection to the period. To the contrary, I was born in 1970, which
meant that I was just learning to walk when, in the spring of 1971, the
American public was first made aware of the FBI’s massive counterin-
telligence programs. Growing up in the suburbs of central Connecticut,
I managed to come of age in Reagan-era America totally unaware of
COINTELPRO, Students for a Democratic Society, or the New Left
generally. I was somewhat more familiar with J. Edgar Hoover, though
http://avaxhome.ws/blogs/ChrisRedfield