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

by David Cunningham

Using over twelve thousand previously classified documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act, David Cunningham uncovers the riveting inside story of the FBI's attempts to neutralize political targets on both the Right and the Left during the 1960s. Examining the FBI's infamous counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) against suspected communists, civil rights and black power advocates, Klan adherents, and antiwar activists, he questions whether such actions were aberrations or are evidence of the bureau's ongoing mission to restrict citizens' right to engage in legal forms of political dissent. At a time of heightened concerns about domestic security, with the FBI's license to spy on U.S. citizens expanded to a historic degree, the question becomes an urgent one. This book supplies readers with insights and information vital to a meaningful assessment of the current situation.

There's Something Happening Here looks inside the FBI's COINTELPROs against white hate groups and the New Left to explore how agents dealt with the hundreds of individuals and organizations labeled as subversive threats. Rather than reducing these activities to a product of the idiosyncratic concerns of longtime director J. Edgar Hoover, Cunningham focuses on the complex organizational dynamics that generated literally thousands of COINTELPRO actions. His account shows how--and why--the inner workings of the programs led to outcomes that often seemed to lack any overriding logic; it also examines the impact the bureau's massive campaign of repression had on its targets. The lessons of this era have considerable relevance today, and Cunningham extends his analysis to the FBI's often controversial recent actions to map the influence of the COINTELPRO legacy on contemporary debates over national security and civil liberties.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Race, Politics, American, American History, United States

384 pages, Paperback

First published March 10, 2004

About the author

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Reviews

[Adrienna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was selected by the book group, as the other one is reading All our Trials (Women policing, women in prison, and such during the 70s). I opened to read the intro and part of chapter one--already see it is a scholarly, textbook style of writing, which can be dry and not so easy to read. I spoke with one of the members who want to read this, he admits that he had to pull out his dictionary on terms and take his time--set the time to digest the material. I tried to skim through, but he may be right that you have to find that quiet space and make the time to read it. Not your normal read. I will see how others are taking this material once it is passed out this week with their reading schedule. We may take longer than 4 weeks to read, give them up to 6-8 weeks possibly.

[Nate Hendrix · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like it and did not finish it. I'm not surprised I didn't like the other book he wrote. The subject matter sounds cool, but very textbookish.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the FBI's structure and activities against the New Left and the racist right in the 1960s. He makes some interesting contrasts between the tactics used against the two and attempts to explain why more resources were geared toward "anti-communist" leftist groups, rather than the KKK. Namely: Hoover's attitude and a racist culture within the FBI. I hadn't known a lot of the specifics in detail, and this book gives you that.

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the book makes an excellent compilation of declassified documents that prove how the US government manipulated information, planted evidence and used spies in communist organizations, Cunningham has a peculiar way of equating the KKK with student and socialist movements when in reality the FBI had (and has) an ideological alignment-sympathy with the extreme right wing ideology and practices.

Despite this, the historical research is incredible.

[Caroline Carlisle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a disturbing detailed account of just how a-moral slash immoral slash racist our federal bureau of intelligence is. It's written in an unbiassed, cold, factual way, like a text-book: making it even more terrifying to read. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 Also gave me lots of white American guilt.