COINTELPRO

COINTELPRO is an acronym ('COunter INTELligence PROgram') for a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO operations of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against organizations that were (at the time) considered to have politically radical elements, ranging from those whose stated goal was the violent overthrow of the US government (such as the Weathermen) to Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and racist and segregationist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The document that launched the COINTELPRO operations against Black groups directed FBI agents to "track, expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities" of these dissident movements and their leaders.

Further Reading

Books

• Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wall. The Cointelpro Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States. 467 pages. South End Press; 2nd edition (July 1, 2002). ISBN 0896086488.
• Churchill, Ward, and Jim Vander Wall. Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. 509 pages. South End Press; 2nd edition (July 1, 2002). ISBN 0896086461.
• Carson, Clayborne and David Gallen, editors. Malcolm X: The FBI File. 514 pages. Carroll & Graf Publishers. November 1, 1991. ISBN 0881847585.
• Cunningham, David. There?s Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence. 382 pages. University of California Press (March 10, 2004). ISBN 0520239970.
• Cointelpro, ed. by Cathy Perkus. 190 pages. New York: Vintage, 1976
• Davis, James Kirkpatrick. Assault on the Left, chapters 1 and 8. 240 pages. Praeger Trade (April 30, 1997). ISBN 0275954552.
• Garrow, David. The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.. Viking Pr; Reprint edition. 320 pages. February 1, 1983. ISBN 0140064869420. Yale University Press, Revised & Expanded edition. 420 pages. August 1, 2006. ISBN 0300087314.
• Glick, Brian. War at Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It. Boston: South End Press, 1989. 92 pages. South End Press; 1st ed edition (March 1, 1989). ISBN 0896083497.
• Halperin, Morton; Berman, Jerry; Borosage Robert; Marwick, Christine. The Lawless State: The Crimes Of The U.S. Intelligence Agencies (279 pages, copyright 1976). ISBN 0140043861.

U.S. Government reports

• U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Internal Security. Hearings on Domestic Intelligence Operations for Internal Security Purposes. 93rd Cong., 2d sess, 1974.
• U.S. Congress. House. Select Committee on Intelligence. Hearings on Domestic Intelligence Programs. 94th Cong., 1st sess, 1975.
• U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Hearings on Riots, Civil and Criminal Disorders. 90th Cong., 1st sess. - 91st Cong. , 2d sess, 1967-1970.
• U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Hearings — The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights. Vol. 6. 94th Cong., 1st sess, 1975.
• U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Hearings — Federal Bureau of Investigation. Vol. 6. 94th Cong., 1st sess, 1975.
• U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Final Report — Book II, Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. 94th Cong., 2d sess, 1976.
• U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. Final Report — Book III , Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans. 94th Cong., 2d sess, 1976.