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THE CIVIL LIBERTIES ELECTRONIC FORUM
Networking the National Lawyers Guild
     Civil Liberties Committee
          617-221-5815
 
COINTELPRO Revisited - Spying & Disruption
 
By Brian Glick
(author of War at Home, South End Press)
 
INTRODUCTION
 
Activists across the country report increasing government harassment and
disruption of their work:
 
-In the Southwest, paid informers infiltrate the church services, Bible
classes and support networks of clergy and lay workers giving sanctuary
to refugees from El Salvador and Guatamala.
 
-In Alabama, elderly Black people attempting for the first time to
exercise their right to vote are interrogated by FBI agents and hauled
before federal grand juries hundreds of miles from their homes.
 
-In New England, a former CIA case officer cites examples from his own
past work to warn college students of efforts by undercover operatives
to misdirect and discredit protests against South African and US racism.
 
-In the San Francisco Bay Area, activists planning anti-nuclear civil
disobedience learn that their meetings have been infiltrated by the US
Navy.
 
-In Detroit, Seattle, and Philadelphia, in Cambridge, MA, Berkeley,CA.,
Phoenix, AR., and Washington, DC., churches and organizations opposing
US policies in Central America report obviously political break-ins in
which important papers are stolen or damaged, while money and valuables
are left untouched.  License plates on a car spotted fleeing one such
office have been traced to the US National Security Agency.
 
-In Puerto Rico, Texas and Massachusetts, labor leaders, community
organizers, writers and editors who advocate Puerto Rican independence
are branded by the FBI as "terrorists," brutally rounded-up in the
middle of the night, held incommunicado for days and then jailed under
new preventive detention laws.
 
-The FBI puts the same "terrorist" label on opponents of US intervention
in El Salvador, but refuses to investigate the possibility of a
political conspiracy behind nation-wide bombings of abortion clinics.
 
-Throughout the country, people attempting to see Nicaragua for
themselves find their trips disrupted, their private papers confiscated,
and their homes and offices plagued by FBI agents who demand detailed
personal and political information.
 
These kinds of government tactics violate our fundamental constitutional
rights.  They make it enormously difficult to sustain grass-roots
organizing.  They create an atmosphere of fear and distrust which
undermines any effort to challenge official policy.
 
Similar measures were used in the 1960s as part of a secret FBI program
known as "COINTELPRO."  COINTELPRO was later exposed and officially
ended.  But the evidence shows that it actually persisted and that
clandestine operations to discredit and disrupt opposition movements
have become an institutional feature of national and local government in
the US.  This pamphlet is designed to help current and future activists
learn from the history of COINTELPRO, so that our movements can better
withstand such attack.
 
The first section gives a brief overview of what we know the FBI did in
the 60s.  It explains why we can expect similar government intervention
in the 80s and beyond, and offers general guidelines for effective
response.
 
The main body of the pamphlet describes the specific methods which have
previously been used to undermine domestic dissent and suggests steps we
can take to limit or deflect their impact.
 
A final chapter explores ways to mobilize broad public protest against
this kind of repression.
 
Further readings and groups that can help are listed in back.  The
pamphlet's historical analysis is based on confidential internal
documents prepared by the FBI and police during the 60s.
 
It also draws on the post-60s confessions of disaffected government
agents, and on the testimony of public officials before Congress and the
courts.  Though the information from these sources is incomplete, and
much of what was done remains secret, we now know enough to draw useful
lessons for future organizing.
 
The suggestions included in the pamphlet are based on the author's 20
years experience as an activist and lawyer, and on talks with long-time
organizers in a broad range of movements.  They are meant to provide
starting points for discussion, so we can get ready before the pressure
intensifies.  Most are a matter of common sense once the methodology of
covert action is understood.  Please take these issues seriously.
Discuss the recommendations with other activists.  Adapt them to the
conditions you face.  Point out problems and suggest other approaches.
 
It is important that we begin now to protect our movements and
ourselves.
 
 
A HISTORY TO LEARN FROM
 
WHAT WAS COINTELPRO?
 
"COINTELPRO" was the FBI's secret program to undermine the popular
upsurge which swept the country during the 1960s.  Though the name
stands for "Counterintelligence Program," the targets were not enemy
spies.  The FBI set out to eliminate "radical" political opposition
inside the US.  When traditional modes of repression (exposure, blatant
harassment, and prosecution for political crimes) failed to counter the
growing insurgency, and even helped to fuel it, the Bureau took the law
into its own hands and secretly used fraud and force to sabotage
constitutionally- protected political activity.  Its methods ranged far
beyond surveillance, and amounted to a domestic version of the covert
action for which the CIA has become infamous throughout the world.
 
 
HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT IT?
 
COINTELPRO was discovered in March, 1971, when secret files were removed
from an FBI office and released to news media.  Freedom of Information
requests, lawsuits, and former agents' public confessions deepened the
exposure until a major scandal loomed.  To control the damage and
re-establish government legitimacy in the wake of Vietnam and Watergate,
Congress and the courts compelled the FBI to reveal part of what it had
done and to promise it would not do it again.  Much of what has been
learned, and copies of some of the actual documents, can be found in the
readings listed at the back of this pamphlet.
 
 
HOW DID IT WORK?
 
The FBI secretly instructed its field offices to propose schemes to
"misdirect, discredit, disrupt and otherwise neutralize "specific
individuals and groups.  Close coordination with local police and
prosecutors was encouraged.  Final authority rested with top FBI
officials in Washington, who demanded assurance that "there is no
possibility of embarrassment to the Bureau."  More than 2000 individual
actions were officially approved.  The documents reveal three types of
methods:
 
1. Infiltration:  Agents and informers did not merely spy on political
activists.  Their main function was to discredit and disrupt.  Various
means to this end are analyzed below.
 
2. Other forms of deception:  The FBI and police also waged
psychological warfare from the outside--through bogus publications,
forged correspondence, anonymous letters and telephone calls, and
similar forms of deceit.
 
3. Harassment, intimidation and violence:  Eviction, job loss,
break-ins, vandalism, grand jury subpoenas, false arrests, frame- ups,
and physical violence were threatened, instigated or directly employed,
in an effort to frighten activists and disrupt their movements.
Government agents either concealed their involvement or fabricated a
legal pretext.  In the case of the Black and Native American movements,
these assaults--including outright political assassinations--were so
extensive and vicious that they amounted to terrorism on the part of the
government.
 
 
WHO WERE THE MAIN TARGETS?
 
The most intense operations were directed against the Black movement,
particularly the Black Panther Party.  This resulted from FBI and police
racism, the Black community's lack of material resources for fighting
back, and the tendency of the media--and whites in general--to ignore or
tolerate attacks on Black groups.  It also reflected government and
corporate fear of the Black movement because of its militance, its broad
domestic base and international support, and its historic role in
galvanizing the entire Sixties' upsurge.  Many other activists who
organized against US intervention abroad or for racial, gender or class
justice at home also came under covert attack.  The targets were in no
way limited to those who used physical force or took up arms.  Martin
Luther King, David Dellinger, Phillip Berrigan and other leading
pacifists were high on the list, as were projects directly protected by
the Bill of Rights, such as alternative newspapers.
 
The Black Panthers came under attack at a time when their work featured
free food and health care and community control of schools and police,
and when they carried guns only for deterrent and symbolic purposes.  It
was the terrorism of the FBI and police that eventually provoked the
Panthers to retaliate with the armed actions that later were cited to
justify their repression.
 
Ultimately the FBI disclosed six official counterintelligence programs:
Communist Party-USA (1956-71); "Groups Seeking Independence for Puerto
Rico" (1960-71); Socialist Workers Party (1961-71); "White Hate Groups"
(1964-71); "Black Nationalist Hate Groups" (1967-71); and "New Left"
(1968- 71).The latter operations hit anti-war, student, and feminist
groups.  The "Black Nationalist" caption actually encompassed Martin
Luther King and most of the civil rights and Black Power movements.  The
"white hate" program functioned mainly as a cover for covert aid to the
KKK and similar right-wing vigilantes, who were given funds and
information, so long as they confined their attacks to COINTELPRO
targets.  FBI documents also reveal covert action against Native
American, Chicano, Phillipine, Arab- American, and other activists,
apparently without formal Counterintelligence programs.
 
 
WHAT EFFECT DID IT HAVE?
 
COINTELPRO's impact is difficult to fully assess since we do not know
the entire scope of what was done (especially against such pivotal
targets as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, SNCC and SDS),and we have no
generally accepted analysis of the Sixties.  It is clear,however, that:
 
-COINTELPRO distorted the public's view of radical groups in a way that
helped to isolate them and to legitimize open political repression.
 
-It reinforced and exacerbated the weaknesses of these groups, making it
very difficult for the inexperienced activists of the Sixties to learn
from their mistakes and build solid, durable organizations.
 
-Its violent assaults and covert manipulation eventually helped to push
some of the most committed and experienced groups to withdraw from
grass-roots organizing and to substitute armed actions which isolated
them and deprived the movement of much of its leadership.
 
-COINTELPRO often convinced its victims to blame themselves and each
other for the problems it created, leaving a legacy of cynicism and
despair that persists today.
 
-By operating covertly, the FBI and police were able to severely weaken
domestic political opposition without shaking the conviction of most US
people that they live in a democracy, with free speech and the rule of
law.
 
 
THE DANGER WE FACE
 
 
DID COINTELPRO EVER REALLY END?
 
Public exposure of COINTELPRO in the early 1970s elicited a flurry of
reform.  Congress, the courts and the mass media condemned government
"intelligence abuses."  Municipal police forces officially disbanded
their red squads.  A new Attorney General notified past victims of
COINTELPRO and issued Guidelines to limit future operations.  Top FBI
officials were indicted (albeit for relatively minor offenses), two were
convicted, and several others retired or resigned.  J. Edgar Hoover--the
egomaniacal, crudely racist and sexist founder of the FBI--died, and a
well-known federal judge, William Webster, eventually was appointed to
clean house and build a "new FBI."
 
Behind this public hoopla, however, was little real improvement in
government treatment of radical activists.  Domestic covert operations
were briefly scaled down a bit, after the 60s' upsurge had largely
subsided, due inpart to the success of COINTELPRO.  But they did not
stop.  In April, 1971, soon after files had been taken from one of its
offices, the FBI instructed its agents that "future COINTELPRO actions
will be considered on a highly selective, individual basis with tight
procedures to insure absolute security."  The results are apparent in
the record of the subsequent years:
 
-A virtual war on the American Indian Movement, ranging from forgery of
documents, infiltration of legal defense committees, diversion of funds,
intimidation of witnesses and falsification of evidence, to the
para-military invasion of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota,
and the murder of Anna Mae Aquash, Joe Stuntz and countless others;
 
-Sabotage of efforts to organize protest demonstrations at the 1972
Republican and Democratic Party conventions.  The attempted
assassination of San Diego Univ.  Prof.  Peter Bohmer, by a "Secret Army
Organization" of ex-Minutemen formed, subsidized, armed, and protected
by the FBI, was a part of these operations;
 
-Concealment of the fact that the witness whose testimony led to the
1972 robbery-murder conviction of Black Panther leader Elmer "Geronimo"
Pratt was a paid informer who had worked in the BPP under the direction
of the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department;
 
-Infiltration and disruption of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War,
and prosecution of its national leaders on false charges (Florida,
1971-74);
 
-Formation and operation of sham political groups such as "Red Star
Cadre," in Tampa, Fla., and the New Orleans "Red Collective" (1972-76);
 
-Mass interrogation of lesbian and feminist activists, threats of
subpoenas, jailing of those who refused to cooperate, and disruption of
women's health collectives and other projects (Lexington, KY., Hartford
and New Haven,Conn., 1975);
 
-Harassment of the Hispanic Commission of the Episcopal Church and
numerous other Puerto Rican and Chicano religious activists and
community organizers (Chicago, New York City, Puerto Rico, Colorado and
New Mexico, 1977);
 
-Entrapment and frame-up of militant union leaders (NASCO shipyards,San
Diego, 1979); and
 
-Complicity in the murder of socialist labor and community organizers
(Greensboro, N.C., 1980).
 
 
IS IT A THREAT TODAY?
 
All this, and maybe more, occured in an era of reform.  The use of
similar measures in today's very different times cannot be itemized in
such detail, since most are still secret.  The gravity of the current
danger is evident, however, from the major steps recently taken to
legitimize and strengthen political repression, and from the many
incidents which are coming to light despite stepped-up security.
 
The ground-work for public acceptance of repression has been laid by
President Reagan's speeches reviving the old red-scare tale of worldwide
"communist take-overs" and adding a new bogeyman in the form of domestic
and international "terrorism."  The President has taken advantage of the
resulting political climate to denounce the Bill of Rights and to
red-bait critics of US intervention in Central America.  He has pardoned
the FBI officials convicted of COINTELPRO crimes, praised their work,
and spoken favorably of the political witchhunts he took part in during
the 1950s.
 
For the first time in US history, government infiltration to "influence"
domestic political activity has received official sanction.  On the
pretext of meeting the supposed terrorist threat, Presidential Executive
Order 12333 (Dec. 4, 1981) extends such authority not only to the FBI,
but also to the military and, in some cases, the CIA.  History shows
that these agencies treat legal restriction as a kind of speed limit
which they feel free to exceed, but only by a certain margin.  Thus,
Reagan's Executive Order not only encourages reliance on methods once
deemed abhorent, it also implicitly licenses even greater, more damaging
intrusion.  Government capacity to make effective use of such measures
has also been substantially enhanced in recent years:
 
-Judge Webster's highly-touted reforms have served mainly to modernize
the FBI and make it more dangerous.  Instead of the back- biting
competition which impeded coordination of domestic counter- insurgency
in the 60s, the Bureau now promotes inter-agency cooperation.  As an
equal opportunity employer, it can use Third World and female agents to
penetrate political targets more thoroughly than before.  By cultivating
a low-visibility corporate image and discreetly avoiding public attack
on prominent liberals, the FBI has regained respectability and won over
a number of former critics.
 
-Municipal police forces have similarly revamped their image while
upgrading their repressive capabilities.  The police "red squads" that
infiltrated and harassed the 60s' movements have been revived under
other names and augmented by para-military SWAT teams and tactical
squads as well as highly-politicized community relations and "beat rep"
programs, in which Black, Hispanic and female officers are often
conspicuous.  Local operations are linked by FBI-led regional
anti-terrorist task forces and the national Law Enforcement Intelligence
Unit (LEIU).
 
-Increased military and CIA involvement has added political
sophistication and advanced technology.  Army Special Forces and other
elite military units are now trained and equipped for counter-insurgency
(known as"low-intensity warfare").  Their manuals teach the essential
methodology of COINTELPRO, stressing earlier intervention to neutralize
potential opposition before it can take hold.
 
The CIA's expanded role is especially ominous.  In the 60s, while
legally banned from "internal security functions," the CIA managed to
infiltrate the Black, student and antiwar movements.  It also made
secret use of university professors, journalists, labor leaders,
publishing houses, cultural organizations and philanthropic fronts to
mold US public opinion.  But it apparently felt compelled to hold
back--within the country--from the kinds of systematic political
destabilization, torture, and murder which have become the hallmark of
its operations abroad.  Now, the full force of the CIA has been
unleashed at home.
 
-All of the agencies involved in covert operations have had time to
learn from the 60s and to institute the "tight procedures to insure
absolute security" that FBI officials demanded after COINTELPRO was
exposed in 1971.  Restoration of secrecy has been made easier by the
Administration's steps to shield covert operations from public scrutiny.
Under Reagan, key FBI and CIA files have been re-classified "top
secret."  The Freedom of Information Act has been quietly narrowed
through administrative reinterpretation.  Funds for covert operations
are allocated behind closed doors and hidden in CIA and defense
appropriations.
 
Government employees now face censorship even after they retire, and new
laws make it a federal crime to publicize information which might tend
to reveal an agent's identity.  Despite this stepped-up security,
incidents frighteningly reminiscent of 60s' COINTELPRO have begun to
emerge.
 
The extent of the infiltration, burglary and other clandestine
government intervention that has already come to light is alarming.
Since the vast majority of such operations stay hidden until after the
damage has been done, those we are now aware of undoubtedly represent
only the tip of the iceberg.  Far more is sure to lie beneath the
surface.
 
Considering the current political climate, the legalization of
COINTELPRO, the rehabilitation of the FBI and police, and the expanded
role of the CIA and military, the recent revelations leave us only one
safe assumption:  that extensive government covert operations are
already underway to neutralize today's opposition movements before they
can reach the massive level of the 60s.
 
 
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
 
Domestic covert action has now persisted in some form through at least
the last seven presidencies.  It grew from one program to six under
Kennedy and Johnson.  It flourished when an outspoken liberal, Ramsey
Clark, was Attorney General (1966-68).  It is an integral part of the
established mode of operation of powerful, entrenched agencies on every
level of government.  It enables policy-makers to maintain social
control without detracting from their own public image or the perceived
legitimacy oftheir method of government.  It has become as institutional
in the US as the race, gender, class and imperial domination it serves
to uphold.
 
Under these circumstances, there is no reason to think we can eliminate
COINTELPRO simply by electing better public officials.  Only through
sustained public education and mobilization, by a broad coalition of
political, religious and civil libertarian activists, can we expect to
limit it effectively.
 
In most parts of the country, however, and certainly on a national
level, we lack the political power to end covert government
intervention, or even to curb it substantially.  We therefore need to
learn how to cope more effectively with this form of repression.
 
The next part of this pamphlet examines the methods that were used to
discredit and disrupt the movements ofthe 60s and suggests steps we can
take to deflect or reduce their impact in the 80s.
 
 
A CHECK-LIST OF ESSENTIAL PRECAUTIONS:
 
-Check out the authenticity of any disturbing letter, rumor, phone call
or other communication before acting on it.
 
-Document incidents which appear to reflect covert intervention, and
report them to the Movement Support Network Hotline:  212/477- 5562.
 
-Deal openly and honestly with the differences within our movements
(race, gender, class, age, religion, national origin, sexual
orientation, personality, experience, physical and intellectual
capacities, etc.) before the FBI and police exploit them to tear us
apart.
 
-Don't rush to expose a suspected agent.  Instead, directly criticize
what the suspect says and does.  Intra-movement witchhunts only help the
government create distrust and paranoia.
 
-Support whoever comes under government attack.  Don't be put off by
political slander, such as recent attempts to smear radical activists as
"terrorists."  Organize public opposition to FBI investigations, grand
juries, show trials and other forms of political harassment.
 
-Above all, do not let them divert us from our main work.  Our most
powerful weapon against political repression is effective organizing
around the needs and issues which directly affect people's lives.
 
 
WHAT THEY DO & HOW WE CAN PROTECT OURSELVES
 
INFILTRATION BY AGENTS OR INFORMERS
 
Agents are law enforcement officers disguised as activists.
 
Informers are non-agents who provide information to a law enforcement or
intelligence agency.  They may be recruited from within a group or sent
in by an agency, or they may be disaffected former members or
supporters.
 
Infiltrators are agents or informers who work in a group or community
under the direction of a law enforcement or intelligence agency.  During
the 60s the FBI had to rely on informers (who are less well trained and
harder to control) because it had very few black, Hispanic or female
agents, and its strict dress and grooming code left white male agents
unable to look like activists.  As a modern equal opportunity employer,
today's FBI has fewer such limitations.
 
What They Do:  Some informers and infiltrators quietly provide
information while keeping a low profile and doing whatever is expected
of group members.  Others attempt to discredit a target and disrupt its
work.  They may spread false rumors and make unfounded accusations to
provoke or exacerbate tensions and splits.  They may urge divisive
proposals, sabotage important activities and resources, or operate as
"provocateurs" who lead zealous activists into unnecessary danger.  In a
demonstration or other confrontation with police, such an agent may
break discipline and call for actions which would undermine unity and
detract from tactical focus.
 
Infiltration As a Source of Distrust and Paranoia:  While individual
agents and informers aid the government in a variety of specific ways,
the general use of infiltrators serves a very special and powerful
strategic function.  The fear that a group may be infiltrated often
intimidates people from getting more involved.  It can give rise to a
paranoia which makes it difficult to build the mutual trust which
political groups depend on.  This use of infiltrators, enhanced by
covertly-initiated rumors that exaggerate the extent to which a
particular movement or group has been penetrated, is recommended by the
manuals used to teach counter-insurgency in the U.S. and Western Europe.
 
Covert Manipulation to Make A Legitimate Activist Appear to be an Agent:
An actual agent will often point the finger at a genuine,
non-collaborating and highly-valued group member, claiming that he or
she is the infiltrator.  The same effect, known as a "snitch jacket,"
has been achieved by planting forged documents which appear to be
communications between an activist and the FBI, or by releasing for no
other apparent reason one of a group of activists who were arrested
together.  Another method used under COINTELPRO was to arrange for some
activists, arrested under one pretext or another, to hear over the
police radio a phony broadcast which appeared to set up a secret meeting
between the police and someone from their group.
 
 
GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH INFILTRATION:
 
l. Establish a process through which anyone who suspects an informer (or
other form of covert intervention) can express his or her fears without
scaring others.  Experienced people assigned this responsibility can do
a great deal to help a group maintain its morale and focus while, at the
same time, centrally consolidating information and deciding how to use
it.  This plan works best when accompanied by group discussion of the
danger of paranoia, so that everyone understands and follows the
established procedure.
 
2. To reduce vulnerability to paranoia and "snitch jackets", and to
minimize diversion from your main work, it generally is best if you do
not attempt to expose a suspected agent or informer unless you are
certain of their role.  (For instance, they surface to make an arrest,
testify as a government witness or in some other way admit their
identity).  Under most circumstances, an attempted exposure will do more
harm than the infiltrator's continued presence.  This is especially true
if you can discreetly limit the suspect's access to funds, financial
records, mailing lists, discussions of possible lawviolations, meetings
that plan criminal defense strategy, and similar opportunities.
 
3. Deal openly and directly with the form and content of what anyone
says and does, whether the person is a suspected agent, has emotional
problems, or is simply a sincere, but naive or confused person new to
the work.
 
4. Once an agent or informer has been definitely identified, alert other
groups and communities by means of photographs, a description of their
methods of operation, etc.  In the 60s, some agents managed even after
their exposure in one community to move on and repeat their performance
in a numberof others.
 
5. Be careful to avoid pushing a new or hesitant member to take risks
beyond what that person is ready to handle, particularly in situations
which could result in arrest and prosecution.  People in this position
have proved vulnerable to recruitment as informers.
 
 
OTHER FORMS OF DECEPTION
 
Bogus leaflets, pamphlets, etc.:  COINTELPRO documents show that the FBI
routinely put out phony leaflets, posters, pamphlets, etc. to discredit
its targets.  In one instance, agents revised a children's coloring book
which the Black Panther Party had rejected as anti-white and
gratuitously violent, and then distributed a cruder version to backers
of the Party's program of free breakfasts for children, telling them the
book was being used in the program.
 
False media stories:  The FBI's documents expose collusion by reporters
and news media that knowingly published false and distorted material
prepared by Bureau agents.  One such story had Jean Seberg, a noticeably
pregnant white film star active in anti-racist causes, carrying the
child of a prominent Black leader.  Seberg's white husband, the actual
father, has sued the FBI as responsible for her resulting still-birth,
breakdown, and suicide.
 
Forged correspondence:  Former employees have confirmed that the FBI and
CIA have the capacity to produce "state of the art" forgery.  The U.S.
Senate's investigation of COINTELPRO uncovered a series of letters
forged in the name of an intermediary between the Black Panther Party's
national office and Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver, in exile in
Algeria.  The letters proved instrumental in inflaming intra-party
rivalries that erupted into the bitter public split that shattered the
Party in the winter of 1971.
 
Anonymous letters and telephone calls:  During the 60s, activists
received a steady flow of anonymous letters and phone calls which turn
out to have been from government agents.  Some threatened violence.
Others promoted racial divisions and fears.  Still others charged
various leaders with collaboration, corruption, sexual affairs with
other activists' mates, etc.  As in the Seberg incident, inter-racial
sex was a persistent theme.  The husband of one white woman involved in
a bi-racial civil rights group received the following anonymous letter
authored by the FBI:
 
--Look, man, I guess your old lady doesn't get enough at home or she
wouldn't be shucking and jiving with our Black Men in ACTION, you dig?
Like all she wants to integrate is the bedroom and us Black Sisters
ain't gonna take no second best from our men.  So lay it on her man--or
get her the hell off [name].  A Soul Sister
 
 
False rumors:  Using infiltrators, journalists and other contacts, the
Bureau circulated slanderous, disruptive rumors through political
movements and the communities in which they worked.
 
Other misinformation:  A favorite FBI tactic uncovered by Senate
investigators was to misinform people that a political meeting or event
had been cancelled.  Another was to offer non- existent housing at phony
addresses, stranding out-of-town conference attendees who naturally
blamed those who had organized the event.  FBI agents also arranged to
transport demonstrators in the name of a bogus bus company which pulled
out at the last minute.  Such "dirty tricks" interfered with political
events and turned activists against each other.
 
SEPARATE BOX:
 
Fronts for the FBI:  COINTELPRO documents reveal that a number of
Sixties' political groups and projects were actually set up and operated
by the FBI.
 
One, "Grupo pro-Uso Voto," was used to disrupt the fragile unity
developing in l967 among groups seeking Puerto Rico's independence from
the US.  The genuine proponents of independence had joined together to
boycott a US-administered referendum on the island's status.  They
argued that voting under conditions of colonial domination could serve
only to legitimize US rule, and that no vote could be fair while the US
controlled the island's economy, media, schools, and police.  The bogus
group, pretending to support independence, broke ranks and urged
independistas to take advantage of the opportunity to register their
opinion at the polls.
 
Since FBI front groups are basically a means for penetrating and
disrupting political movements, it is best to deal with them on the
basis of the Guidelines for Coping with Infiltration (below).
 
Confront what a suspect group says and does, but avoid public
accusations unless you have definite proof.  If you do have such proof,
share it with everyone affected.
 
 
GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH OTHER FORMS OF DECEPTION:
 
1. Don't add unnecessarily to the pool of information that government
agents use to divide political groups and turn activists against each
other.  They thrive on gossip about personal tensions, rivalries and
disagreements.  The more these are aired in public, or via a telephone
which can be tapped or mail which can be opened, the easier it is to
exploit a groups' problems and subvert its work.  (Note that the CIA has
the technology to read mail without opening it, and that the telephone
network can now be programmed to record any conversation in which
specified political terms are used.)
 
2. The best way to reduce tensions and hostilities, and the urge to
gossip about them, is to make time for open, honest discussion and
resolution of "personal" as well as "political" issues.
 
3. Don't accept everything you hear or read.  Check with the supposed
source of the information before you act on it.  Personal communication
among estranged activists, however difficult or painful, could have
countered many FBI operations which proved effective in the Sixties.
 
4. When you hear a negative, confusing or potentially harmful rumor,
don't pass it on.  Instead, discuss it with a trusted friend or with the
people in your group who are responsibile for dealing with covert
intervention.
 
5. Verify and double-check all arrangements for housing, transportation,
meeting rooms, and so forth.
 
6. When you discover bogus materials, false media stories, etc.,
publicly disavow them and expose the true source, insofar as you can.
 
HARASSMENT, INTIMIDATION & VIOLENCE:
 
Pressure through employers, landlords, etc.:  COINTELPRO documents
reveal frequent overt contacts and covert manipulation (false rumors,
anonymous letters and telephone calls) to generate pressure on activists
from their parents, landlords, employers, college administrators, church
superiors, welfare agencies, credit bureaus, licensing authorities, and
the like.
 
Agents' reports indicate that such intervention denied Sixties'
activists any number of foundation grants and public speaking
engagements.  It also cost underground newspapers most of their
advertising revenues, when major record companies were persuaded to take
their business elsewhere.  It may underlie recent steps by insurance
companies to cancel policies held by churches giving sanctuary to
refugees from El Salvador and Guatamala.
 
Burglary:  Former operatives have confessed to thousands of "black bag
jobs" in which FBI agents broke into movement offices to steal, copy or
destroy valuable papers, wreck equipment, or plant drugs.
 
Vandalism:  FBI infiltrators have admitted countless other acts of
vandalism, including the fire which destroyed the Watts Writers
Workshop's multi-million dollar ghetto cultural center in 1973.  Late
60s' FBI and police raids laid waste to movement offices across the
country, destroying precious printing presses, typewriters, layout
equipment, research files, financial records, and mailing lists.
 
Other direct interference:  To further disrupt opposition movements,
frighten activists, and get people upset with each other, the FBI
tampered with organizational mail, so it came late or not at all.  It
also resorted to bomb threats and similar "dirty tricks".
 
Conspicuous surveillance:  The FBI and police blatantly watch activists'
homes, follow their cars, tap phones, open mail and attend political
events.  The object is not to collect information (which is done
surreptiously), but to harass and intimidate.
 
Attempted interviews:  Agents have extracted damaging information from
activists who don't know they have a legal right to refuse to talk, or
who think they can outsmart the FBI.  COINTELPRO directives recommend
attempts at interviews throughout political movements to "enhance the
paranoia endemic in these circles" and "get the point across that there
is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
 
Grand juries:  Unlike the FBI, the Grand Jury has legal power to make
you answer its questions.  Those who refuse, and are required to accept
immunity from use of their testimony against them, can be jailed for
contempt of court.  (Such "use immunity" enables prosecutors to get
around the constitutional protection against self-incrimination.)
 
The FBI and the US Dept. of Justice have manipulated this process to
turn the grand jury into an instrument of political repression.
Frustrated by jurors' consistent refusal to convict activists of overtly
political crimes, they convened over 100 grand juries between l970 and
1973 and subpoenaed more than 1000 activists from the Black, Puerto
Rican, student, women's and anti-war movements.  Supposed pursuit of
fugitives and "terrorists" was the usual pretext.  Many targets were so
terrified that they dropped out of political activity.  Others were
jailed without any criminal charge or trial, in what amounts to a U.S.
version of the political internment procedures employed in South Africa
and Northern Ireland.
 
False arrest and prosecution:  COINTELPRO directives cite the
Philadelphia FBI's success in having local militants "arrested on every
possible charge until they could no longer make bail" and "spent most of
the summer in jail."  Though the bulk of the activists arrested in this
manner were eventually released, some were convicted of serious charges
on the basis of perjured testimony by FBI agents, or by co-workers who
the Bureau had threatened or bribed.
 
The object was not only to remove experienced organizers from their
communities and to divert scarce resources into legal defense, but even
more to discredit entire movements by portraying their leaders as
vicious criminals.  Two victims of such frame-ups, Native American
activist Leonard Peltier and 1960s' Black Panther official Elmer
"Geronimo" Pratt, have finally gained court hearings on new trial
motions.
 
Others currently struggling to re-open COINTELPRO convictions include
Richard Marshall of the American Indian Movement and jailed Black
Panthers Herman Bell, Anthony Bottom, Albert Washington (the "NY3"), and
Richard "Dhoruba" Moore.
 
Intimidation:  One COINTELPRO communique urged that "The Negro youths
and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to
revolutionary teaching, they will be dead revolutionaries."
 
Others reported use of threats (anonymous and overt) to terrorize
activists, driving some to abandon promising projects and others to
leave the country.  During raids on movement offices, the FBI and police
routinely roughed up activists and threatened further violence.  In
August, 1970, they forced the entire staff of the Black Panther office
in Philadelphia to march through the streets naked.
 
Instigation of violence:  The FBI's infiltrators and anonymous notes and
phone calls incited violent rivals to attack Malcolm X, the Black
Panthers, and other targets.  Bureau records also reveal maneuvers to
get the Mafia to move against such activists as black comedian Dick
Gregory.
 
A COINTELPRO memo reported that "shootings, beatings and a high degree
of unrest continue to prevail in the ghetto area of southeast San
Diego...it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest is directly
attributable to this program."
 
Covert aid to right-wing vigilantes:  In the guise of a COINTELPRO
against "white hate groups," the FBI subsidized, armed, directed and
protected the Klu Klux Klan and other right-wing groups, including a
"Secret Army Organization" of California ex-Minutemen who beat up
Chicano activists, tore apart the offices of the San Diego Street
Journal and the Movement for a Democratic Military, and tried to kill a
prominent anti-war organizer.  Puerto Rican activists suffered similar
terrorist assaults from anti-Castro Cuban groups organized and funded by
the CIA.
 
Defectors from a band of Chicago-based vigilantes known as the "Legion
of Justice" disclosed that the funds and arms they used to destroy book
stores, film studios and other centers of opposition had secretly been
supplied by members of the Army's 113th Military Intelligence Group.
 
Assassination:  The FBI and police were implicated directly in murders
of Black and Native American leaders.  In Chicago, police assassinated
Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, using a floor plan supplied
by an FBI informer who apparently also had drugged Hampton's food to
make him unconscious during the raid.
 
FBI records show that this accomplice received a substantial bonus for
his services.  Despite an elaborate cover-up, a blue-ribbon commision
and a U.S Court of Appeals found the deaths to be the result not of a
shootout, as claimed by police, but of a carefully orchestrated,
Vietnam-style "search and destroy mission".
 
 
GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH HARASSMENT, INTIMIDATION & VIOLENCE:
 
1. Establish security procedures appropriate to your group's level of
activity and discuss them thoroughly with everyone involved.  Control
access to keys, files, letterhead, funds, financial records, mailing
lists, etc.  Keep duplicates of valuable documents.  Safeguard address
books, and do not carry them when arrest is likely.
 
2. Careful records of break-ins, thefts, bomb threats, raids, arrests,
strange phone noises (not always taps or bugs), harassment, etc. will
help you to discern patterns and to prepare reports and testimony.
 
3. Don't talk to the FBI.  Don't let them in without a warrant.  Tell
others that they came.  Have a lawyer demand an explanation and instruct
them to leave you alone.
 
4. If an activist does talk, or makes some other honest error, explain
the harm that could result.  But do not attempt to ostracize a sincere
person who slips up.  Isolation only weakens a person's ability to
resist.  It can drive someone out of the movement and even into the arms
of the police.
 
5. If the FBI starts to harass people in your area, alert everyone to
refuse to cooperate (see box).  Call the Movement Support Network's
Hotline:(2l2) 614-6422.  Set up community meetings with speakers who
have resisted similar harassment elsewhere.  Get literature, films, etc.
through the organizations listed in the back of this pamphlet.  Consider
"Wanted" posters with photos of the agents, or guerilla theater which
follows them through the city streets.
 
6. Make a major public issue of crude harassment, such as tampering with
your mail.  Contact your congressperson.  Call the media.  Demonstrate
at your local FBI office.  Turn the attack into an opportunity for
explaining how covert intervention threatens fundamental human rights.
 
7. Many people find it easier to tell an FBI agent to contact their
lawyer than to refuse to talk.  Once a lawyer is involved, the Bureau
generally pulls back, since it has lost its power to intimidate.  If
possible, make arrangements with a local lawyer and let everyone know
that agents who visit them can be referred to that lawyer.  If your
group engages in civil disobedience or finds itself under intense police
pressure, start a bail fund, train some members to deal with the legal
system, and develop an ongoing relationship with a sympathetic local
lawyer.
 
8. Organizations listed in the back of this pamphlet can also help
resist grand jury harassment.  Community education is important, along
with legal, financial, child care, and other support for those who
protect a movement by refusing to divulge information about it.  If a
respected activist is subpoenaed for obviously political reasons,
consider trying to arrange for sanctuary in a local church or synagogue.
 
9. While the FBI and police are entirely capable of fabricating criminal
charges, any law violations make it easier for them to set you up.  The
point is not to get so up-tight and paranoid that you can't function,
but to make a realistic assessment based on your visibility and other
pertinent circumstances.
 
10.  Upon hearing of Fred Hampton's murder, the Black Panthers in Los
Angeles fortified their offices and organized a communications network
to alert the community and news media in the event of a raid.  When the
police did attempt an armed assault four days later, the Panthers were
able to hold off the attack until a large community and media presence
enabled them to leave the office without casualties.  Similar
preparation can help other groups that have reason to expect right-wing
or police assaults.
 
11.  Make sure your group designates and prepares other members to step
in if leaders are jailed or otherwise incapacitated.  The more each
particpant is able to think for herself or himself and take
responsibility, the better will be the group's capacity to cope with
crises.
 
 
ORGANIZING PUBLIC OPPOSITION TO COVERT INTERVENTION
 
 
A BROAD-BASED STRATEGY:  No one existing political organization or
movement is strong enough, by itself, to mobilize the public pressure
required to signficantly limit the ability of the FBI, CIA and police to
subvert our work.  Some activists oppose covert intervention because it
violates fundamental constitutional rights.  Others stress how it
weakens and interferes with the work of a particular group or movement.
Still others see covert action as part of a political and economic
system which is fundamentally flawed.  Our only hope is to bring these
diverse forces together in a single, powerful alliance.
 
Such a broad coalition cannot hold together unless it operates with
clearly-defined principles.  The coalition as a whole will have to
oppose covert intervention on certain basic grounds--such as the threat
to democracy, civil liberties and social justice, leaving its members
free to put forward other objections and analyses in their own names.
Participants will need to refrain from insisting that only their views
are "politically correct" and that everyone else has "sold out."
 
Above all, we will have to resist the government's manuevers to divide
us by moving against certain groups, while subtly suggesting that it
will go easy on the others, if only they dissociate themselves from
those under attack.  This strategy is evident in the recent Executive
Order and Guidelines, which single out for infiltration and disruption
people who support liberation movements and governments that defy U.S.
hegemony or who entertain the view that it may at times be necessary to
break the law in order to effectuate social change.
 
DIVERSE TACTICS:  For maximum impact, local and national coalitions will
need a multi-faceted approach which effectively combines a diversity of
tactics, including:
 
l. Investigative research to stay on top of, and document, just what the
FBI, CIA and police are up to.
 
2. Public education through forums, rallies, radio and TV, literature,
film, high school and college curricula, wallposters, guerilla theater,
and whatever else proves interesting and effective.
 
3. Legislative lobbying against administration proposals to strengthen
covert work, cut back public access to information, punish government
"whistle-blowers", etc.  Coalitions in some cities and states have won
legislative restrictions on surveillance and covert action.  The value
of such victories will depend our ability to mobilize continuing,
vigilant public pressure for effective enforcement.
 
4. Support for the victims of covert intervention can reduce somewhat
the harm done by the FBI, CIA and police.  Organizing on behalf of grand
jury resisters, political prisoners, and defendants in political trials
offers a natural forum for public education about domestic covert
action.
 
5. Lawsuits may win financial compensation for some of the people harmed
by covert intervention.  Class action suits, which seek a court order
(injunction) limiting surveillance and covert action in a particular
city or judicial district, have proved a valuable source of information
and publicity.  They are enormously expensive, however, in terms of time
and energy as well as money.  Out-of-court settlements in some of these
cases have given rise to bitter disputes which split coalitions apart,
and any agreement is subject to reinterpretation or modification by
increasingly conservative, administration-oriented federal judges.
 
The US Court of Appeals in Chicago has ruled that the consent decree
against the FBI there affects only operations based "solely on the
political views of a group or an individual," for which the Bureau can
conjure no pretext of a "genuine concern for law enforcement."
 
6. Direct action, in the form of citizens' arrests, mock trials,
picketlines, and civil disobedience, has recently greeted CIA recruiters
on a number of college campuses.  Although the main focus has been on
the Agency's international crimes, its domestic activities have also
received attention.  Similar actions might be organized to protest
recruitment by the FBI and police, in conjunction with teach-ins and
other education about domestic covertaction.  Demonstrations against
Reagan's attempts to bolster covert intervention, or against particular
FBI, CIA or police operations, could also raise public consciousness and
focus activists' outrage.
 
PROSPECTS:  Previous attempts to mobilize public opposition, especially
on a local level, indicate that a broad coalition, employing a
multi-faceted approach, may be able to impose some limits on the
government's ability to discredit and disrupt our work.  It is clear,
however, that we currently lack the power to eliminate such
intervention.  While fighting hard to end domestic covert action, we
need also to study the forms it takes and prepare ourselves to cope with
it as effectively as we can.
 
Above all, it is essential that we resist the temptation to so preoccupy
ourselves with repression that we neglect our main work.  Our ability to
resist the government's attacks depends ultimately on the strength of
our movements.  So long as we continue to advocate and organize
effectively, no manner of intervention can stop us.

------------------------------------------------
(This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the
Patriot FTP site by S.P.I.R.A.L., the Society for the Protection of
Individual Rights and Liberties. E-mail alex@spiral.org)

