[News] A History of Repression - review of Cointelpro 101 - Ron Jacobs

[Anti-Imperialist News]

Cointelpro 101

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs10072010.html


A History of Repression

By RON JACOBS

In recent weeks, articles have appeared in various media outlets 
detailing recent surveillance activities of the FBI and other law 
enforcement agencies.  According to these reports. much of this 
surveillance was focused on antiwar and peace groups.  Then, on 
September 24, 2010 several homes and offices in Minneapolis/St. Paul, 
Chicago and North Carolina were raided by the FBI.  Subpoenas to 
appear at a grand jury investigation were issued to several 
activists.  The reason provided for the raids was that some 
individuals were suspected of providing "material support to 
terrorists."  These raids and recent revelations have been met with 
protest and, in some quarters, shock-as if the United States 
government were somehow above such police state intimidation and practices.

On <http://www.freedomarchives.org/Cointelpro.html>October 10, 2010 
at the Mission Cultural Center of Latino Studies in San Francisco, 
the Freedom Archives will premier its latest documentary.   Titled 
Cointelpro 101, this hour-long film makes it quite clear that the US 
government is certainly not above such practices and that, 
furthermore, it has a long history of them.  For those who don't 
know, Cointelpro was the abbreviated name for the intelligence and 
counterinsurgency operation waged against a multitude of 
organizations and individuals deemed threats to national security 
during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s by the FBI and other US law 
enforcement and intelligence agencies.  Short for 
counterintelligence, Cointelpro involved the use of a multitude of 
methods up to and including murder in its crusade to neutralize any 
and all left opposition to the status quo in the United States. From 
Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Weather Underground Organization, any 
one considered an enemy of the US national security state because of 
their opposition to the US war in Vietnam or their support for the 
self-determination of people of color in the United States was a 
potential target of the Cointelpro program.

Cointelpro 101 opens with the April 1971 break-in by antiwar 
activists at the federal offices in Media, Pennsylvania.  The 
activists were searching for Selective service files to destroy when 
they came upon files labeled Cointelpro.  After a quick perusal of 
the file's contents, they removed as many as they could find from the 
office, made copies and released them to the press.   The program was 
unknown to the broader public at the time and the files proved a 
revelation to the country.  Many politicians were offended and, after 
the 1972 discovery of the Plumbers unit run by G. Gordon Liddy under 
the direction of the Nixon White House and the subsequent months of 
Congressional hearings around Watergate, Senator Frank Church called 
for hearings to investigate the Cointelpro program.

As the history related in the film makes clear, Cointelpro's stretch 
was broad.  Beginning in the 1950s with a focus on the Puerto Rican 
independence movement and continuing through the 1960s and into the 
1970s when much of its focus had shifted to the black liberation, 
Chicano liberation and American Indian movement, the program racked 
up a number of assassinations, false imprisonments and ruined 
lives.  No government official was ever punished for actions taken 
under the program's auspices.  The film details this history through 
the artful use of still photos and moving images of the period 
covered.  Films of police attacks and protests; still photos of 
revolutionary leaders and police murders graphically remind the 
viewer of Washington's willingness to do whatever it takes to 
maintain its control.  Organizers who began their political activity 
during the time of Cointelpro discuss the effect the program had on 
them and the organizations and individuals they worked with.  Indeed, 
several of the interviewees were themselves targets and spent years 
in prison (some that were false, as in the case of Geronimo ji-Jaga 
Pratt) or on the run.  One of the interviewees, Wesley Swearingen, is 
a former FBI agent who was involved in Cointelpro operations in Los 
Angeles and elsewhere and later published a book exposing his 
knowledge.  His recollections reveal the nature of the war the FBI 
was fighting.

Former Black Panther member Kathleen Cleaver states toward the end of 
the film that Cointelpro represented the efforts of a political 
police force making the decision as to what is allowed politically 
and what is not.  Anything outside the parameters set by this force 
was fair game.  Nothing that was done by government officials or 
private groups and individuals acting on the government's behalf was 
perceived as wrong or illegal.  As Attorney Bob Boyle makes clear in 
his final statement in the film, Cointelpro is alive and well.  The 
only difference now is that most of what was illegal for the 
government to do during Cointelpro's official existence is now 
legal.  The PATRIOT Act and other laws associated with the creation 
of the Department of Homeland Security have insured this.  The 
September 24, 2010 raids mentioned above are but the most recent proof of it.

Cointelpro 101 is a well made and appealing primer on the history of 
the US police state.  Produced, written and directed by individuals 
who have themselves been the target of tactics documented in the 
film, it has an authenticity and immediacy that pulls the viewer 
in.  Although too short to cover the history in as full detail as 
some may desire, the film's intelligence and conscientious 
presentation of the historical narrative makes it a film that the 
student, the citizen and the activist can all appreciate.

Ron Jacobs is author of 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859841678/counterpunchmaga>The 
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is 
just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is 
featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, 
<http://www.easycarts.net/ecarts/CounterPunch/CP_Books.html>Serpents 
in the Garden. His first novel, 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0977459098/counterpunchmaga>Short 
Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: 
<mailto:rjacobs3625 at charter.net>rjacobs3625 at charter.net




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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