Anyone else old enough to remember when COINTELPRO was murdering citizens by the dozen?
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/cointelpro.htmlCOINTELPRO Again?
From John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts to the Cold War and Joseph McCarthy, civil liberties and national security have had a delicate and troubled relationship in American history. Notorious among these is the case of the domestic surveillance program run by the FBI between 1956 and 1971 (after the censure of Joseph McCarthy by the Senate) under the name COINTELPRO (counterintelligence program). COINTELPRO was a secret FBI program designed to monitor and "neutralize" domestic groups deemed by the FBI to be a danger to national security. Such groups included anti-war groups and civil rights groups and individuals like Martin Luther King, Jr. and even Eleanor Roosevelt.
Some fear that something like COINTELPRO may again be at hand. There are undercover agents infiltrating peaceful protests in America. Pretending to be political activists, local law enforcement officials are monitoring the activities of advocacy and protest groups based on what one judge calls those organizations’ "political philosophies and conduct protected under the First Amendment." The tactic has come about as a result of the relaxation of guidelines first put into place after the COINTELPRO scandal investigation. Learn more about the history and the new guidelines below.
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I am old enough to remember this like it was yesterday. I don't remember the media getting their noses all bent out of shape over it either. They acted like it was no big deal when it was happening. Like it was completely normal back then. No outrage. They were scared of black men with guns. So they had no complaints. This precedent was set decades ago.
Anyone else remember that?
= new reply since forum marked as read
A rabid right-wing racist who was tape-recorded by FBI detailing the assassination of JFK "with a high-powered rifle from a high-rise office building," then a couple of weeks later appears in photographs in Dealey Plaza should make the front page and lead every broadcast, but it doesn't, for some reason.
George Herbert Walker Bush was in Dallas that day, according to what he told the FBI.
Here's a transcript of the text:
TO: SAC, HOUSTON DATE: 11-22-63
FROM: SA GRAHAM W. KITCHEL
SUBJECT: UNKNOWN SUBJECT;
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT
JOHN F. KENNEDY
At 1:45 p.m. Mr. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, President of the Zapata Off-Shore Drilling Company, Houston, Texas, residence 5525 Briar, Houston, telephonically furnished the following information to writer by long distance telephone call from Tyler, Texas.
BUSH stated that he wanted to be kept confidential but wanted to furnish hearsay that he recalled hearing in recent weeks, the day and source unknown. He stated that one JAMES PARROTT has been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston.
BUSH stated that PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in political matters in this area. He stated that he felt Mrs. FAWLEY, telephone number SU 2-5239, or ARLINE SMITH, telephone number JA 9-9194 of the Harris County Republican Party Headquarters would be able to furnish additional information regarding the identity of PARROTT.
BUSH stated that he was proceeding to Dallas, Texas, would remain in the Sheraton-Dallas Hotel and return to his residence on 11-23-63. His office telephone number is CA 2-0395.
Which, of course, makes me wonder about this memo, from a week later:
Here's a transcript of the above:
Date: November 29, 1963
To: Director
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Department of State
From: John Edgar Hoover, Director
Subject: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
NOVEMBER 22, 1963
Our Miami, Florida, Office on November 23, 1963, advised that the Office of Coordinator of Cuban Affairs in Miami advised that the Department of State feels some misguided anti-Castro group might capitalize on the present situation and undertake an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a change in U. S. policy, which is not true.
Our sources and informants familiar with Cuban matters in the Miami area advise that the general feeling in the anti-Castro Cuban community is one of stunned disbelief and, even among those who did not entirely agree with the President's policy concerning Cuba, the feeling is that the President's death represents a great loss not only to the U. S. but to all of Latin America. These sources know of no plans for unauthorized action against Cuba.
An informant who has furnished reliable information in the past and who is close to a small pro-Castro group in Miami has advised that these individuals are afraid that the assassination of the President may result in strong repressive measures being taken against them and, although pro-Castro in their feelings, regret the assassination.
The substance of the foregoing information was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. W. T. Forsyth of this Bureau.
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Professor Donald E. Wilkes, Jr. has more on Milteer:
"Everything ran true to form. I guess you thought I was kidding you when I said he (Kennedy) would be killed from a window with a high-powered rifle."
http://www.law.uga.edu/dwilkes_more/jfk_4did.html
I was a young adult with a mountain of responsibility sitting on my shoulders when all this was going on and was not really plugged into anything but myself and my children. Then came 1984. Literally. I knew something was definitely akilt when I heard what was coming out of Reagan's mouth. Went to the library and started studying history. I went all the way back to the beginning and came forward in time. I see that I need to go back to cointelpro and brush up. Thank you for straightening my thinking out. Is there a definitive source you can recommend to get me started? One replete with full index and bibliography? Thanks a bunch for replying to my confusing question. 
Last edited Mon Feb 11, 2013, 11:01 AM - Edit history (6)
Not the first time I had received similar treatment.
In college, I studied with Howard Zinn for several years. One of my class assignments was to organize a peaceful demonstration at Reagan's First Inauguration. I must have talked to every liberal left trouble-maker on the East Coast from Congresswoman Bella Abzug to the NYC Yippies. We ended up part of a larger coalition that filled several dozen protest buses with students from schools in Boston and New England.
I learned several things from that experience. A rather dismissive Nov. 1, 1980 Harvard Crimson article is still on-line about a press conference I put together. Twenty people showed up, which isn't bad for such events. But, the reporter harped on how we had expected a better turnout. http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1980/11/4/coalition-for-peace-ptwenty-people-attended/ That told me a lot about the attitude of some elitist media and institutions. They don't like agitators, particularly outside agitators (I went to another university on the "wrong side" of the Charles River -- the one with Howard Zinn on the faculty -- but dared to also organize students at Harvard and MIT where Howard's buddy, Noam Chomsky, taught).
It also taught me that gatekeepers of mainstream organizations discourage grassroots organizing. It taught me that the media isn't really so "liberal," even at the collegiate level. The people who are worth following and keeping in one's heart are often the least concerned about protocol and pecking orders, and I learned why Noam Chomsky seems to hate The New York Times so much.
Affirmation of that insight also came after my own college newspaper declined to publish an article I wrote about the lessons of nonviolent civil resistance at the Seabrook nuclear plant occupation on October 6, 1979. After the school editor told me, "we've already covered that event enough," I took it elsewhere. The Boston Globe published it on the Op-ed page. 
Howard gave me an A. That was most gratifying.
During that time, I had an interesting encounter with the Boston FBI while I was involved with the Clamshell Alliance organizing anti-nuclear protests. A strange, little homeless man showed up at a meeting and attached himself to me. He was very persistent, but friendly. One afternoon, we were alone together in a side room at the Clamshell offices and he spotted a pile of computer print-outs with names and addresses, what seemed to be the org's mailing list. He suggested that we should take them. I asked why I would to do such a thing, and he said we could sell them or I could use the list for my own organizing. I didn't take him up on either suggestion, and said we should leave. As we walked down a Back Bay side street, I turned around and spotted a man following about 100 feet behind us - he suddenly stopped and looked in a store window for no apparent reason. A bit further down the street, I looked over my shoulder, and the figure darted away down an alley. I didn't see the little homeless man again after that.
I can only speculate about how my life would have changed if I had followed the man's suggestion. Classic agent provocateur - classic attempt at recruitment by entrapment.
Perceiving that you're being followed doesn't necessarily mean the FBI is on your tail. But, it soon became perfectly clear that's exactly who I was dealing with. Shortly thereafter my step-father received a telephone call at home. My step-father was at the time a mucky-muck Supergrade federal executive. A man who identified himself as a Special Agent with the Boston FBI Office said he wanted to discuss my activities. Whether it was an attempt at intimidation or just a courtesy call between two federal employees, it didn't work - I didn't care much for my step-father or his politics or job, and he divorced my mother shortly thereafter. Not entirely because of me.
But, those incidents taught me something about the FBI. They really are the national political police, and have been for a long time. I also learned a thing or two about the way the FBI deals with dissent - there are many ways to try to put a cork in it. Some more forceful than others. I got the easy treatment, and the Inaugural protest in 1981 was peaceful. Everyone was cheerful -- it was a beautiful, unseasonably warm day in Washington. Everyone seemed to be in a Springtime mood, except Vice President George H.W. Bush, who popped up out the sunroof of his armored limo as it passed the demonstrators standing in the designated protest area in the shadow of the J. Edgar Hoover Bldg a series of sharp, sideways jabbing thumb gestures. I still remember his smirk - his son inherited that same expression of masked hostility and adolescent Tom Foolery. What a classy family.
Professor Zinn taught non-violent resistance with a genuine smile. 
But, then again, just about everybody else is over the age of 12, these days. Total Information, Groundbreaker, and all that. 
let me think:
Ahhh. Yep, yepper.:
Nobody likes to talk about that. 
