Spying on America: The FBI's Domestic Counterintelligence Program

by James Kirkpatrick Davis (Editor)

COINTELPRO. An acronym for Counterintelligence Program, this is the code name the FBI gave to the secret operations aimed at five major social and political protest groups--the Communist party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Ku Klux Klan, black nationalist hate groups, and the New Left movement. Spying on America , the first book to chronicle all five of the operations, tells the story of how the FBI, from 1956 until COINTELPRO's exposure in 1971, expanded its domestic surveillance programs and increasingly employed questionable, even unlawful, methods in an effort to disrupt what amounts to virtually our entire social and political protest movement. Violations of citizens' constitutional rights were rampant, and the secret operations actually resulted in a number of deaths. At the time, neither the public nor the news media knew anything about COINTELPRO. In vivid detail, Spying on America demonstrates that the system of checks and balances designed to prevent such occurrences was simply not functioning--until an illegal act uncovered the secret activities.

The book opens with the daring raid of a Media, Pennsylvania FBI office by a group that adeptly used its booty--about 1,000 classified documents--to make COINTELPRO operations public. The burglars, who called themselves the Citizen's Commission to Investigate the FBI, used sophisticated methods (the FBI never caught up with them), releasing copies of incriminating documents to the media at carefully timed intervals. Spying on America draws on newspaper and magazine articles, interviews with many of the people involved, and FBI memos to trace the historical beginnings and operating methods of COINTELPRO efforts against each of the five targeted groups. In vivid detail, the author re-creates the reactions of the bureau--including the subsequent policy changes--as well as the response of the news media and the resulting shift in public attitudes toward the FBI. Finally, Davis looks at the possibility of similar operations in the future. In the context of our current, heightened state of socio-political awareness, it is difficult to comprehend how so many unlawful deeds could have been committed without the public's knowledge. Spying on America makes us aware of how easily such activities can occur--and in doing so, helps us prevent them from happening again.

Genres: History

208 pages, Hardcover

First published February 24, 1992

Reviews

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Publishers Weekly

Although light on interpretation and analysis, this is nonetheless an informative account of the FBI's domestic surveillance activities. Dubbed COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program) by J. Edgar Hoover, this type of snooping began in 1956 and continued until 1971, when it was terminated after the seizure and public release by the Citizens' Committee to Investigate the FBI of classified documents from the bureau's Media, Penn., office.

The author summarizes in individual chapters five COINTELPRO operations, giving clear pictures since five of them of the crude but apparently effective techniques used against the American Communist Party, the Socialist Workers' Party, white hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, radical African American organizations like the Black Panther Party, and the New Left movement, comprised primarily of antiwar activists.

The book concludes with an outline of the Church Committee's 1975 investigation into FBI domestic-surveillance practices and the reforms subsequently carried out by Hoover's successor, Clarence Kelley, whose autobiography (Kelley: The Story of an FBI Director) Davis coauthored.


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Kirkus Reviews

Davis - coauthor of Kelley (1987), the autobiography of former FBI director Clarence M. Kelley, delves into the FBI's secret counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO), which from 1956 to 1971 aimed to stifle dissent among domestic radical groups.

J. Edgar Hoover, Davis explains, obtained a vast charter for the FBI to monitor domestic intelligence when FDR signed a special directive just prior to WWII, and managed to get the National Security Council to expand the FBI's portfolio in this arena in 1956.

The author documents the Bureau's war against extremist groups of both the left and the right, such as the Communist Party U.S.A., the Socialist Workers Party, the KKK, and the Black Panthers, and shows how Hoover also employed extensive surveillance against New Left organizations like SDS.

He pays particular attention to the FBI's virtually obsessive campaign to destroy the reputation of Martin Luther King. The lid was blown on these activities when, in 1971, an illegal break-in occurred at the FBI's Media, Pennsylvania, office. The perpetrators, believed to be anti- Vietnam War activists, proceeded to release to the press stolen classified documents that revealed the FBI's secret operation.

To research his text, Davis interviewed FBI agents, former agents, and people who were subject to illegal surveillance or harassment. He recognizes the need for an organization like the FBI, but argues that the Bureau got out of control with COINTELPRO and severely damaged American civil liberties in the process.

And Davis notes that, although congressional committees investigated the FBI in the mid-1970's, the Bureau was still committing abuses in the 1980's, particularly against groups opposed to US policy in Central America. A fair-minded and balanced report, backed by extensive research.

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