J. Edgar Hoover and the F.B.I.’s COINTELPRO Counterintelligence Program

The Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s experienced many significant uncanny events: misinformation was often fabricated and released to the press, letters were forged and mailed between various allies, and an anti-Semitic comic book was sent to leaders of the Jewish under a Black Panther Party imprint. On April 6, 1976, just 40 years ago, the suspicions of many in America became a reality: the emergence of the F.B.I.’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO) and its operations. Authorized and lead by F.B.I. Director Edgar Hoover, their mission was to discredit, expose, misdirect, and eliminate the activities of Black nationalists and supporters as described in a 1967 memo.

Since the early 1900’s and the Marcus Garvey era, the F.B.I.’s focus and attention has always been focused on the black freedom movement, and investigated many black leaders and respective organizations by using a systemic pattern of manipulation. As F.B.I. director from 1924 until just before his death in 1972, Hoover had been given unusual latitude during the “Red Scare” years.