0:03

Previously on snafu.

0:05

The FBI arrested twenty persons in

0:07

Camden, New Jersey, early today and charge

0:09

them.

0:09

With trying to steal draft records from the federal

0:11

building there.

0:12

What we wanted was to persuade

0:15

the jury that the war was wrong

0:17

and that it had to be stopped, and

0:19

that our action was an attempt

0:22

to find a jury who would

0:25

set us free and end the war.

0:28

Why should these lives be cut down

0:31

for ten rubber and oil?

0:35

And the judge says to the four

0:37

person, do you have any other verdicts

0:40

on any of the other defendants that

0:42

are different on any of these counts?

0:45

And the foreman said, no, your honor.

0:47

And Senator Dole, the Republican chairman

0:50

to accuse the Democrats of trying to make

0:52

the FBI look like an American gestapo.

1:05

I'm the defin chairman of the City of Illinois Black

1:07

campin party.

1:08

Free Hampton.

1:09

We said, we work with.

1:10

Anybody from police, with anybody that

1:12

has revolutions.

1:13

On their nine.

1:15

In the late nineteen sixties, a lot of people

1:17

had revolution on their minds, So

1:19

when Fred Hampton spoke, they listened.

1:22

He really was a great organizer

1:24

and can relate to people quite well and

1:28

had that charism where people were followed.

1:30

That's Omar Barbour who joined

1:32

the Black Panther Party in nineteen sixty

1:34

seven.

1:35

And you have to have integrity and people have to feel

1:37

you have integrity. And you can fill

1:39

that with Fred that he had integrity

1:42

because understand that racism

1:44

is an excuse you of capitalism,

1:47

and we know that racism is just is a bad

1:49

product capitalism.

1:51

Hampton opposed to the War in Vietnam as

1:53

another byproduct of capitalism. He

1:56

empathized with the people of Vietnam. In

1:58

his view, they're suffering at the hands of the

2:00

US military was inextricably

2:03

linked to the oppression that Americans

2:05

of color faced at home.

2:06

In response to that oppression.

2:08

And the poverty around them, Hampton

2:10

and the Black Panthers offered simple, effective

2:13

solutions, free breakfast

2:15

programs for kids, free healthcare

2:17

clinics, the kinds of things the US

2:19

government wasn't providing. Yes,

2:23

people say, people,

2:26

if you are fight of.

2:28

You a fight, it'll feel.

2:30

Hampton mobilized real working Americans,

2:33

particularly people of color, which made

2:35

him a threat to the wealthy white establishment.

2:38

Hampton knew he was on Jay Edgar Hoover's

2:41

radar.

2:42

We know they have half, we.

2:43

Know they're looking for us, we know they have had us.

2:46

And then he simmits

2:49

fourth nineteen sixty nine data. We all

2:51

wrote out wield and testaments.

2:53

Police arrived at Fred Hampton's West Side

2:55

apartment the four forty five this morning.

2:58

They had a search war and authorizing them to look

3:00

for illegal weapons.

3:02

That morning, America woke up to the

3:04

news that Hampton had been killed, ostensibly

3:07

in a shootout with police.

3:09

Stints Attorney's office says that Hampton and another

3:11

man were killed in the fifteen minute gun battle

3:13

which followed.

3:15

The official story was the police were

3:17

investigating a tip about an illegal weapons

3:20

stash at Hampton's home. When the

3:22

cops arrived, the story went the panthers

3:24

unleashed a hail of gunfire on the police,

3:27

setting off a shootout that killed Hampton. But

3:29

that story did not hold up to scrutiny.

3:32

Looking at the crime scene, it was immediately

3:35

apparent that there hadn't been a shootout

3:37

at all. At least one hundred shots

3:39

had been fired, but the bullet holes clearly

3:42

showed that ninety nine of them had come

3:44

from police guns. Outside.

3:47

Hampton didn't pick up a gun. He

3:49

hadn't even gotten out of bed. The

3:52

police had murdered him in cold

3:54

blood.

3:55

When we found out that of all the shots that

3:57

were fired in the apartment, only one was fired

3:59

out and everything is fire in then it

4:01

became much more clearer than there was a shooting.

4:03

And now the shootout never.

4:05

Said a word.

4:06

You never got.

4:06

About the bed.

4:09

Akua and Jerry was Fred Hampton's girlfriend

4:12

at the time of the shooting. She was eight months

4:14

pregnant. In this interview, she's holding

4:16

their new infant son.

4:19

The person was in the room. They kept

4:21

going out, stop shooting, stop shooting.

4:23

We have a pregnant woman or pregnant sister in

4:25

here.

4:27

Piggs kept on shooting.

4:29

Heard Pigs say he's barely

4:31

alive, he'll barely make it. As

4:34

soon they were talking about shevving fled. Then

4:38

they started shooting Pig. They started shooting

4:40

up, shooting again. I

4:42

heard the screen. They

4:45

stopped shooting. Pig said

4:48

he was good and dead.

4:49

Now the

4:51

whole thing was fabricated and was

4:53

disproved, And that really got to

4:55

understand that there was definitely much more involved

4:58

than just them coming to Servi a Warren or

5:00

whatever. The justification was.

5:04

In nineteen seventy one, the Illinois States

5:06

Attorney who ordered the raid was charged

5:08

with obstructing justice. In the Hampton case,

5:11

the illusion that Hampton died in a gunfight

5:13

with police evaporated, leaving

5:16

the public to wonder who wanted

5:18

him dead and why they thought

5:20

they could murder him with impunity.

5:24

The answers took years to come out, but when

5:26

they finally did, America

5:28

would learn the truth behind Hampton's murder

5:32

and the truth about Jaedgar Hoover's

5:34

secret FBI. I'm

5:40

Ed Helms and This is Snaffo, a

5:42

show about history's greatest screw

5:45

ups. On season two, medburg

5:48

the story of a daring heist that exposed

5:51

Jaedgar Hoover's epic FBI

5:54

snaffo. The

5:56

Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI

5:58

had pulled off an incredibly risky

6:01

heist. They'd leaked the stolen documents

6:03

to the press and successfully evaded

6:06

j Edgar Hoover's dragnet. As

6:09

you might recall, buried within those documents

6:12

was a single word, a code name

6:15

co intel pro. To

6:17

the burglars. At the time, it meant

6:19

nothing, just some bureau jargon. Soon

6:22

an even splashier scandal, Watergate

6:25

was dominating the headlines the media.

6:27

Burglary could have become a historical footnote,

6:31

but it.

6:31

Wasn't over yet.

6:53

I had gone to the Senate Judiciary Committee

6:55

to pick up a very mundane

6:58

item, and people

7:00

were using the photo copy of the machine,

7:02

and I had to wait to get

7:04

a copy of this report.

7:07

Carl Stern was a young reporter covering

7:09

the Justice Department for NBC. One

7:11

day in nineteen seventy two, he was in a

7:13

government office, just waiting for a copy

7:15

machine when an offhand comment piqued

7:18

his interest.

7:19

While I was waiting, my friend said,

7:21

here, ever seen these papers?

7:24

And he had a couple of dozen

7:26

pages that had been provided

7:29

courtesy of the Citizens Commission

7:31

to Investigate the FBI. While

7:34

you're wasting time here, why don't you take

7:36

a look. And flipping through

7:38

the pages, I noticed one It

7:42

said Cohen telpro new

7:44

Left.

7:47

The FBI file contained an article from

7:50

Baron's magazine criticizing left

7:52

wing student activism at Columbia.

7:54

The file also contained a memo to agents

7:57

of the media FBI office instructing

7:59

them to anonymously mail this article

8:02

to local college administrators.

8:04

It was you know, a little handwriting below

8:07

the notice to the field office

8:09

that said Tom or for the

8:11

agent in charge there, Tom Lewis, Tom,

8:14

can you handle swarththor Haverford

8:17

and Villanova. I mean, they had

8:20

this thing really quite

8:22

explicitly described.

8:25

That's what caught my eye.

8:30

The implication was clear the FBI

8:32

was covertly trying to sway colleges

8:34

into cracking down on anti war students.

8:37

Co Intel pro New Left appeared

8:39

to be the name of this operation. But

8:42

what the hell kind of operation was

8:44

this?

8:47

Mailed anonymously? Do

8:50

FBI agents mail andi

8:52

leftwik literature anonymously? Is

8:54

that what FBI agents do?

8:57

And that's what bothered me.

9:00

Carl asked his usual government sources.

9:03

A series of Justice Department

9:05

and FBI employees.

9:07

When I raised the you

9:11

know, we can't talk.

9:12

About that, which is FED

9:15

speak for keep your nose out

9:17

of this, Carl.

9:18

Well, nothing is going to get a reporter's interest

9:21

more quickly than SAGA can't talk about

9:23

it.

9:25

So Carl turned to FOYA, the

9:28

Good Old Freedom of Information Act, although

9:31

at this time it was actually the Good New

9:33

Freedom of Information Act. It had

9:35

only passed a few years earlier in nineteen sixty

9:37

eight, Of course, the FBI denied

9:40

his initial request, citing national security

9:42

concerns, but Carl was a

9:44

dog with a co intel pro bone,

9:49

so he sued the government. Now,

9:52

a judge would read a batch of documents explaining

9:54

co intel pro and rule on

9:57

whether or not they could be released to Carl,

10:00

but he.

10:00

Didn't want to read all those pages, so.

10:02

He gave it to his clerk, one of his clerks, to

10:05

read over the weekend. The clerk

10:07

lived in one of these housing to

10:10

elements over in Virginia. It

10:12

was summertime, quite hot. He went to the swimming

10:14

pool to take a tip and took

10:18

a handful of the documents with him

10:20

to read at the pool.

10:21

Northern Virginia, where even the pool side

10:24

reading is highly classified.

10:26

Okay, well, unfortunately,

10:29

after his swimming went back to his apartment, the

10:31

doorbell rang and it was some sweet

10:33

young thing holding the documents,

10:36

saying, sir, you left me. He's under your

10:39

chair, your lounge. So

10:42

here were these highly important

10:44

documents which were in court litigating

10:47

the sea, and they were under his chair

10:49

at the swimming pool.

10:53

There's probably an alternate universe in which

10:55

the aforementioned sweet young thing

10:58

was a Soviet spy who picked up

11:00

these documents, leaked them all and brought down the

11:02

US government.

11:03

But instead that sweet

11:05

young thing who found

11:08

retrieved these documents save the

11:10

Republic as she became

11:13

the Clerk's wife.

11:17

Yep, it was.

11:18

The first meet cute in the history of the

11:20

Freedom of Information Act. A victory

11:22

for love and soon maybe

11:24

a victory for Carl. But

11:27

just as Carl started digging for its deepest,

11:30

darkest secrets, the

11:32

Bureau suffered the greatest loss

11:34

of its sixty four year history. I'll

11:38

let Walter Cronkite break the news to you.

11:41

Good evening. Jay Edgar Hoover has

11:43

died at the age of seventy seven. For

11:46

almost every living American generation,

11:48

Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,

11:51

stood as a symbol of incorruptible

11:53

law enforcement and untouchable

11:55

who liked to boast that his men could not be

11:57

bought.

12:00

In May second, nineteen seventy two, j Edgar

12:02

Hoover died suddenly at his home in Washington,

12:04

DC. The official cause of death

12:06

cardiovascular disease.

12:09

We like to think that maybe we hastened that a

12:11

little bit.

12:12

Okay, so Bonnie Rains and the other burglars

12:14

might not have been too upset, but

12:17

mainstream America was in mourning. President

12:20

Nixon ordered flags flown at half staff.

12:22

Hoover's body lay in state at the Capitol Rotunda,

12:25

the first unelected civil servant given

12:27

that honor. After thousands

12:30

of people streamed through the Capitol to pay their

12:32

respects, the only director the

12:34

FBI had ever known was laid

12:36

to rest at Congressional Cemetery.

12:40

It is eulogy for Hoover. President

12:42

Nixon didn't just praise the late FBI director.

12:45

He also lashed out at the FBI's haters.

12:47

The FBI will carry

12:49

on in the future true

12:52

to its finest traditions in the past, because,

12:56

regardless of what the snipers and detractors

12:59

would have us believe, the fact

13:01

is a director

13:04

Hoover built the bureau

13:07

totally on principle.

13:12

Hoover died a hero to mainstream America,

13:15

having blackmailed, imprisoned, buried,

13:18

or otherwise outlasted generations

13:20

of enemies and detractors.

13:24

I'll be honest, I wish Hoover had lived

13:26

just a little bit longer, because

13:28

the following year, the judge in Carl

13:30

Stearn's Secret Document case ruled

13:33

in his favor and ordered the

13:35

release of a few crucial documents

13:37

explaining that mysterious phrase co

13:40

intel pro.

13:43

What I got was four pages

13:46

of paper.

13:47

Okay, so not a lot of pages, but turns

13:49

out a lot of revelations

13:52

even then.

13:54

The first of the four pages

13:56

reference eighth co

13:59

and tailpro programs dealing

14:01

with things as the

14:04

Black Extreamist Socialist Workers

14:06

Party, disruption of white

14:08

hate crubs, they got New Left, of course,

14:11

so on and on.

14:13

It had been more than two and a half years since

14:15

the Burglars first uncovered that word co

14:17

intel pro. Now finally

14:20

the world would know what it meant.

14:23

This was the umbrella term for no fewer

14:25

than eight FBI programs,

14:27

all using patently unconstitutional

14:30

counterintelligence tactics against

14:32

American citizens, and,

14:34

according to Carl sources, all

14:37

happening without the knowledge of

14:39

any Attorneys general. It

14:42

was an explosive story. On

14:44

December sixth, nineteen seventy three, a

14:46

dapper and confident young Carl Stern

14:49

appeared on the NBC Nightly News and

14:51

introduced America to the dark

14:53

sides of j Edgar Hoover and

14:56

the FBI.

14:57

The documents proved for the first time with the

14:59

FBI undertook a program to

15:02

harris and destroy new Left political

15:04

organizations whose views the federal

15:06

police agency disagreed with. Wrote

15:09

FBI Director Hoover, the purpose

15:11

of the program would be to expose and

15:13

disrupt the new Left. We must

15:15

frustrate every effort of these groups and

15:17

individuals to consolidate their forces

15:20

or to recruit new or youthful adherents.

15:23

Carl's referencing memos from nineteen

15:25

sixty eight here, But to be clear, Cointel

15:28

pro began all the way back in nineteen

15:30

fifty six. The FBI

15:32

had kept it a secret for the better part of two

15:35

decades, but now Carl

15:37

was reading the bureau's secrets out loud

15:40

on national television.

15:42

One former agent who participated in the

15:44

program has described how burglaries,

15:46

forged blackmail letters, and threats

15:48

of violence were used to try to stop

15:51

anti war marches. Many of the

15:53

techniques were clearly illegal, but justified

15:56

in the interest of national security. Today,

15:58

the Justice Departments said no Attorney

16:01

General authorized or knew

16:03

of the program.

16:05

Almost immediately the calls for congressional

16:07

hearings began, but in classic

16:10

Congress fashion, Congress dragged

16:12

its feet. It took several more

16:14

shocking revelations, including the news

16:16

that Hoover had illegally spied on members

16:19

of Congress, for the legislative

16:21

branch to officially establish a committee

16:23

to start looking into all this shit. Leading

16:27

that committee was Senator Frank Church,

16:30

Democrat of Idaho.

16:32

He once said to me and others that

16:34

he would be the last Democrat ever elected to

16:37

the Senate from Idaho, and in fact,

16:39

that's exactly what happened.

16:41

That's Locke Johnson.

16:42

He was special assistant to Frank Church during

16:44

what came to be known as the Church Committee hearings.

16:47

Locke and his team of investigators conducted

16:50

an exhaustive review of intelligence

16:52

practices at the FBI, CIA,

16:55

NSSAY, and a bunch of other spooky

16:57

acronyms. By the way, for more

16:59

on that, I hope you'll check out our bonus interview

17:01

with Locke. Anyway,

17:04

it took more than a year before the committee

17:06

was ready to make its findings public.

17:08

We were slow

17:11

rolled and stonewalled,

17:13

and we used a couple of Washington expressions.

17:16

We had to fight them tooth and nail.

17:19

Despite the slow rolling and stonewalling,

17:22

Church's team eventually pried mountains

17:24

of co intel pro documents away

17:26

from the FBI, they conducted interviews

17:29

with agents and with victims of the

17:31

bureau's misbehavior. On

17:33

November eighteenth, nineteen seventy five, Frank

17:36

Church sat in a crowded, high columned

17:38

chamber in the Russell Senate Office building

17:41

and called to order a momentous

17:43

hearing.

17:47

There has never been a full public accounting

17:49

of FBI domestic intelligence operations.

17:53

Therefore this committee has undertaken such

17:55

an investigation.

17:57

It was packed with people. Very ornate

18:00

took place and in the front of the

18:02

people there are five hundred people or so, citizens

18:04

and tourists in many cases, and

18:07

no doubt some KGB people, and they're trying

18:09

to learn about American intelligence. In

18:12

the front row television cameras and reporters

18:15

senators all the eleven senators, and behind

18:17

the senators were we staffer is sitting to

18:19

help them if they needed help.

18:22

You can actually see a young Lock Johnson just

18:24

behind Frank Church in the old C span

18:27

footage of the hearings.

18:29

The proceedings began with a thank you.

18:31

Frank Church voiced his appreciation

18:33

for the anonymous burglars whose courageous

18:36

actions had precipitated these hearings.

18:39

From there, the focus turned to two government

18:41

lawyers, Fritz Schwartz and

18:44

Curtis Smothers. They were there

18:46

to lay out the facts of Hoover's secret FBI.

18:49

Here's Schwartz now turning

18:51

to Cohen Tailpro coen.

18:53

Telpro is a abbreviation

18:56

of the words counter intelligence program.

19:00

Telpro is the name

19:03

for the effort by the Bureau to

19:05

destroy people and to destroy organizations,

19:08

or, as they used the words disrupt, to neutralize.

19:14

All the horrible operations by

19:16

the intelligence agency is, particularly the FBI

19:19

against American citizens, had

19:21

their origins in this false belief

19:24

that communism was going to destroy

19:26

US.

19:29

Counterintelligence activities are by definition

19:32

conducted to counter the activities

19:34

of foreign intelligence agents, but

19:37

for years the FBI had operated under

19:39

the assumption that anyone speaking out against

19:41

the government could be a foreign agent,

19:44

or at least could be investigated

19:46

as if they were.

19:47

Here's Curtis Smothers.

19:49

Part of the problem as they attempted to translate

19:51

the tactics used first against the Communist

19:53

Party against virtually every

19:56

perceived enemy. As the Bureau looked

19:58

across the landscape and decided whose be

20:00

neutralized, discredited, or destroyed,

20:03

take.

20:03

For example, the Socialist Workers Party. They

20:06

had been the target of what the FBI called quote

20:08

black bag jobs, acute

20:10

euphemism for when the FBI just straight

20:13

up committed burglary. Between

20:16

nineteen sixty and sixty six, FBI

20:19

agents broke into the party's New York City

20:21

offices no fewer than ninety

20:23

two times. You know what they

20:25

say, If at first you don't succeed in finding

20:28

evidence of Soviet espionage, try try

20:30

again ninety one more times.

20:35

More than four hundred black bag

20:37

jobs would eventually come to light. Many

20:40

of them involved photographing private homes

20:42

and offices and or leaving behind

20:44

listening devices to gather information on

20:46

their targets. This kind

20:49

of thing is legal if you have a warrant, but

20:51

the FBI never bothered with that pesky

20:53

formality, which meant none of what they

20:56

learned from these break ins would be admissible

20:58

in court. Hoover and his men were

21:00

well aware of this. They didn't intend

21:02

to build criminal cases against co intel

21:05

pros targets. Rather, the

21:07

goal of these operations was simply

21:09

to gather information that could be used

21:11

against.

21:12

Them, all information on activities

21:14

in connection with demonstrations aimed at

21:16

social reform, whatever that

21:18

may be.

21:20

Basically, if your politics didn't meet with

21:22

the FBI's approval, the bureau

21:24

felt entitled to gather information on every

21:27

aspect of your life.

21:28

Information which extended to

21:31

their personal lives and died down to when

21:33

including sex activities.

21:36

Hoover kept these black bag jobs under

21:38

wraps with an almost unbelievably

21:40

simplistic bureaucratic trick. Any

21:42

files related to the break ins went into

21:44

a specially designated file called I

21:47

swear I'm not making this up, the do

21:49

not file file. Presumably

21:52

Hoover kept that file locked in his this

21:54

is not a filing cabinet filing cabinet

21:57

and whatever he needed to threaten, embarrass,

21:59

or just confuse his targets, he

22:02

knew exactly where to look that do not

22:04

file file.

22:06

Bureau agents were told to

22:08

attack the new Left by disinformation

22:11

and misinformation, and I.

22:12

Will give you.

22:13

Schwartz recounted a story from the first inauguration

22:15

of Richard Nixon. He told the committee

22:17

how a protest group called the National Mobilization

22:20

to End the War in Vietnam had

22:22

cooperated with police and their efforts to keep

22:24

demonstrations calm and organized, but

22:27

the FBI didn't want an orderly protest,

22:29

they wanted chaos, so they resorted

22:32

to counterintelligence tactics.

22:33

Now what did the FBI do. They

22:36

found out what Citizen Band

22:39

was being used for walkie talkies, and

22:41

they used that Citizen Band to supply the

22:44

marshals with misinformation and

22:46

pretending to be a unit of the National Mobilization

22:49

to end the war in Vietnam, countermanded

22:51

the orders issued by

22:54

the movement.

22:57

The bureau had targeted a lot of people

23:00

that went way beyond even spying.

23:03

These documents made it clear that the FBI

23:05

was attacking these individuals, attempting

23:08

to destroy their reputations.

23:14

As it turned out, investigating actual criminals

23:16

took a back seat to petty, vindictive

23:18

harassment, like trying to get people

23:20

fired. They'd even contacted

23:23

a bank in Wisconsin and urged them

23:25

not to give a home loan to a cub

23:27

Scout leader with Communist sympathies.

23:29

And I'll never forget going to visit

23:32

Anatole Rappaport. He

23:34

wrote some of the pioneer work in

23:37

game theory, so he was one of

23:39

America's finest intellectuals.

23:42

Rapaport was a Russian immigrant US

23:45

Air Force veteran and professor at the

23:47

University of Michigan. He'd

23:49

been at the forefront of the teaching movement, inviting

23:51

students to drop what they were doing and join

23:53

open discussions of what was going on in Vietnam.

23:57

Jego Hoover went after him like you wouldn't

24:00

leave, through anonymous letter, writing

24:02

in particular, why well,

24:04

First of all, Rappaport had been born in Russia.

24:07

Ooh, scary. So

24:09

the FBI began to send out these anonymous

24:12

letters claiming that Rappaport

24:15

was a communist, that he was in

24:17

control of Moscow and KGB.

24:19

The letters went to legislators in the

24:21

state of Michigan, went to university

24:24

administrators, and to the

24:26

great shame of all of them involved,

24:29

they believed these stories and finally

24:31

hounded Rappaport out of the

24:33

University of Michigan.

24:36

By the time Locke learned that Rapaport

24:38

had been a target of co intel pro, Rapaport

24:41

was living in Canada, and.

24:43

He sat down and leafed through these documents.

24:45

As I sat there, and he

24:48

would shake his head and he

24:50

just couldn't believe that his

24:52

own government, the

24:54

Federal Bureau of Investigation, had

24:57

been the one behind all of these attacks against

24:59

him. And at the end of going a

25:02

couple of hours through these documents, he began

25:04

to weep so very sad spectacle.

25:07

And that's just, you know, one of probably

25:11

two thousand ors so cases like

25:13

throughout the country.

25:17

This was one of co intel Pro's favorite

25:19

tactics, the poison pen letter,

25:22

usually sent anonymously or forged

25:25

to employers, colleagues, or even

25:27

loved ones. At the hearings,

25:29

Curtis Smothers was visibly uncomfortable

25:31

as he read aloud from a particularly

25:34

disgusting example, an anonymous

25:36

letter sent by the FBI to

25:38

the husband of a white woman who

25:40

was involved with a black activist group.

25:43

Look, man, I guess your old lady doesn't

25:46

get enough at home. Oh,

25:48

she wouldn't be shucking and jibing with

25:50

all black men in action, you

25:52

did, Like, all she wants to integrate

25:55

is the bedroom.

25:56

Remember, the FBI was overwhelmingly

25:59

white at this time. It was almost

26:01

certainly a white male FBI

26:03

agent who wrote these lines.

26:05

And us black sisters ain't gonna take no second

26:07

best for all men. It's

26:10

signed a soul system.

26:14

The FBI used this same tactic

26:16

against white actress Jean Seberg,

26:19

who was known for supporting groups like the NAACP

26:22

and the Black Panthers. When

26:24

Sieberg became pregnant in nineteen seventy,

26:26

the Los Angeles office of the FBI saw

26:29

an opportunity to neutralize her. With

26:31

Hoover's approval, agents furnished

26:34

fake letters to a gossip columnist

26:36

who reported in the La Times that an anonymous

26:38

actress matching Sieberg's description

26:41

had cheated on her husband with a Black

26:43

Panther and was carrying his child.

26:47

Overwhelmed with stress from these public

26:49

smears, Seeberg went into premature

26:51

labor, and the baby did not survive.

26:55

Sieberg never recovered, though

26:57

she lived long enough to see the FBI's

26:59

role in the affair come to light. She

27:02

died by suicide in nineteen seventy

27:04

nine,

27:08

and then came the bureau's most infamous poison

27:11

pen letter of all. It would emerge

27:13

as part of the FBI's sweeping and relentless

27:16

effort to disrupt the civil rights

27:18

movement. Co Intel profiles

27:20

on doctor Martin Luther King Junior revealed

27:23

that Hoover had become paranoid to the

27:25

point of delusion.

27:26

By January of sixty two. Mister

27:28

Hoover has already typed doctor

27:31

King as no good. Hoover

27:35

is particularly disturbed

27:37

after in

27:39

nineteen sixty three it became clear

27:41

that the

27:44

concept of nonviolence

27:47

was gaining adherents. Quoting

27:50

from a memorandum, the

27:52

plan here is to completely

27:55

discredit doctor King by quote, taking

27:58

him off his pedestal, and

28:00

to reduce him completely in influence.

28:05

In the wake of the nineteen sixty three March on Washington

28:07

for Jobs and Freedom, where King delivered

28:10

his famous I Have a Dream speech, Hoover

28:12

had his men conduct an exhaustive investigation

28:15

and to ties between King and Soviet

28:18

intelligence. The connection between

28:20

them, his agents reported back was quote

28:22

infinitesimal.

28:24

This was not accepted by

28:27

the director of the FBI. He

28:29

found that thinking wrong, unacceptable

28:33

and said that it must be changed, And

28:36

it was changed.

28:38

Think about that for a second. When

28:40

his own well oiled investigative machine

28:42

presented Hoover with facts that didn't line

28:45

up with his assumptions, he ordered

28:47

his agents to ignore those facts,

28:50

and he launched an effort to destroy King

28:52

anyway.

28:53

The lower level people in the FBI apologized

28:55

for having misunderstood matters, and on

28:58

they go with this effort

29:00

to discredit and start they do

29:03

the bugs on

29:05

doctor King.

29:09

Eventually, an illegal bug picked up

29:12

evidence that King was having an affair. As

29:14

he prepared to travel to Norway to accept

29:16

the Nobel Peace Prize, the FBI

29:19

sent him the ultimate poison pen

29:21

letter.

29:23

The Bureau went so far as to mail anonymous

29:26

letters to doctor King and his wife, which

29:30

were mailed shortly before he was awarded

29:32

the Nobel Peace Prize,

29:35

and finishes with this suggestion,

29:39

King, there is only one thing left for you to

29:41

do. You know what it is. You have

29:43

just thirty four days in which to do it. This

29:46

exact number has been selected for a specific

29:48

reason. It has definite practical significance.

29:51

It was thirty four days before the award.

29:53

You were done.

29:55

That was taken by doctor King to mean a

29:57

suggestion for suicide. Was it not understand,

30:00

Senator who wrote the letter? Well,

30:03

that's a matter of dispute. It was found

30:05

in the files of mister Sullivan.

30:08

Schwartz was referring to FBI Director Bill

30:11

Sullivan. Sullivan's name was all over

30:13

the co Intel pro documents. He'd

30:15

helped Hoover design the first co Intel pro

30:17

operations back in nineteen fifty six.

30:20

He claims that it's a

30:22

plant in his files and that someone else

30:24

in the Bureau in.

30:25

Fact wrote the document.

30:27

The document which was found is a draft

30:29

of the letter, which was the anonymous letter which

30:32

was actually sent.

30:32

Is there right to dispute that the letter did in fact come

30:35

from the FBI.

30:36

We've heard no dispute of that.

30:53

As the Church Committee hearings went on, it became

30:56

clear that the FBI had strayed light

30:58

years away from its mandate. The

31:00

Bureau was supposed to enforce America's

31:02

laws and prevent criminal activity, but

31:05

even when the targets were actual criminals,

31:07

co intel pro didn't appear at all

31:10

interested in enforcing the law.

31:12

We had one FBI informant

31:14

who had infiltrated the Klan.

31:17

Shortly before he was set to testify. This

31:19

informant, Gary Thomas Rowe, told

31:21

the Church Committee staff he didn't want his face

31:24

on camera. He had been a mole

31:26

in the Birmingham, Alabama KKK and

31:28

if anyone recognized them, his life might

31:30

be in danger.

31:32

So we had him wear a mask

31:35

with eye holes and a mouth

31:38

hole so he could.

31:38

Speak locks under selling it.

31:40

Roe basically testified before Congress with

31:43

what looked kind of like a diaper

31:45

on his head. Just google Gary

31:47

Rowe Church Committee you'll see what I mean.

31:50

He told us that the FBI had told

31:52

him, Look, what we want you to do is go down

31:54

there and have affairs with

31:57

clan members wives. And so

31:59

the word gets well this is going

32:01

on and the Klan members' families

32:03

will be dissolved and disrupted.

32:07

Okay, now that's a weird government

32:09

assignment. But Roe was also

32:11

gathering some very valuable intel. He

32:14

discovered that the Birmingham chapter of the Klan

32:16

was planning to assault the Freedom Writers

32:18

as they came through town. He even

32:20

learned that the local police were going to

32:22

assist them by looking the other way.

32:25

So Roe did what an informant is supposed

32:28

to do. He informed his handlers

32:30

that a violent crime was about to happen.

32:33

Did you inform the FBI about

32:35

planned violence prior to that incident?

32:38

Sir I gave the FBI information

32:40

pertanning to the Freedom Writers, so approximately

32:42

three weeks before the girth.

32:45

But the FBI did nothing.

32:47

On Mother's Day nineteen sixty one, the

32:49

Freedom Writers reached Birmingham and

32:52

were brutally assaulted by the KKK.

32:55

They were big more badly Yes, there were a

32:58

thousand men at least almost day

33:00

of the morning of the Freedom Writers, just roaming up and down

33:02

right in front of city Hall. We had baseball

33:05

bets, we had clubs, we had chains, we

33:07

had pistol sticking in our belts. It

33:09

was just unbelievable.

33:12

Later Rowe asked his handler why

33:14

the g men hadn't stepped in.

33:17

He said, we our investigating agency,

33:19

not an enforcement agency. All we do is gather

33:21

information, That was my answer.

33:26

Tens of thousands of quote subversives

33:28

surveiled over the course of decades, hundreds

33:31

of illegal break ins, thousands of informants

33:34

and wiretaps. You think

33:36

that casting a net this wide the FBI

33:38

would have prevented some crime or another,

33:41

even if it was by accident. Hadn't

33:43

the GMN caught at least one actual

33:45

bad guy in all of this? Apparently

33:49

not. Just as blanket

33:51

surveillance had failed to catch the media burglars,

33:54

a decade and a half of co intel pro operations

33:57

also failed to catch a single

34:00

Communist agent or any other

34:02

criminal, Hoover's

34:04

FBI had gotten people fired, broken

34:06

up marriages, destabilized law

34:08

abiding political groups, and sown

34:10

a general sense of paranoia throughout

34:12

the American left. But years

34:14

later, when historian and FBI

34:17

expert Athan Theoharis conducted

34:19

an exhaustive analysis of everything

34:21

that had come to light, he reached a

34:24

devastating conclusion quote,

34:26

I can think of no crime that

34:28

was stopped by information gained during

34:31

co intel pro. Co

34:34

Intel pro hadn't saved a single

34:36

American life. In fact, as the

34:38

Church Committee was about to learn, the

34:40

opposite was true, the FBI

34:43

had American blood on its hands.

34:51

In nineteen sixty eight, j Edgar Hoover wrote

34:53

a memo. In it he urged his g men

34:55

to quote prevent the rise of

34:57

a messiah who could unify and

34:59

elect the militant black nationalist

35:02

movement. That movement and

35:04

its leaders became co intel pros

35:07

chief targets, and.

35:08

Black Panthers, by the way, were the arch

35:11

victims among all the

35:14

array of other victims from

35:16

Anatole Rappertport to doctor King

35:18

to klueclickt Plan,

35:20

you name it. The Black Panthers

35:22

and other black kind of extremist

35:25

groups but non violent and

35:28

were the major targets

35:30

that Hoover wanted to destroy it.

35:33

He declares the Black Panther Party the

35:35

greatest threat to the internal security of the

35:37

United States in nineteen sixty eight.

35:39

That's Donna Merch, a scholar of the Black

35:41

Panther Party.

35:43

And does it it precisely the moment that

35:45

the party is turning away from

35:47

its use of police

35:49

patrols and explicit

35:52

arm self defense imagery.

35:55

These police patrols were organized groups

35:57

of Black Panthers who patrolled their neighborhood

35:59

are in accordance with the Second Amendment

36:02

as a deterrent against police violence.

36:05

They saw this as an essential way to defend

36:07

their communities against ongoing, unchecked

36:10

and widely accepted abuse from

36:12

police. But Donna says

36:14

the Panthers were turning away from their focus

36:17

on guns in favor of social programs

36:19

just as the FBI stepped up its efforts

36:22

against the Panthers. She told

36:24

us the FBI's interest in the Panthers was never

36:26

really about the threat of violence, but

36:28

about their ideas.

36:30

And so I think there was a real sense of fright about

36:33

the strength of their ideas and the

36:35

depth of support that they had within the black community,

36:38

but also among Mother Country radicals,

36:41

among white college students, also

36:43

white artists and writers. Because

36:45

the Panthers were an intellectual movement.

36:49

It was just awakening,

36:51

if you will, as what it was to be a

36:53

young black Afnan American.

36:55

This is Omar Barber again, whom you heard from

36:58

at the top of this episode on

37:00

a party.

37:00

One of the things we had to do was to read and not

37:02

only the autobioer Malcolm X, but James Baldwins

37:06

of various books as

37:08

well as France Banon.

37:10

I reatch you out earth.

37:12

If this is different from the image you have in your mind

37:15

when you hear Black Panthers, that's

37:17

probably because the FBI was so successful

37:20

in smearing them. The Panthers

37:22

were committed socialists. Fred

37:24

Hampton's socialist principles compelled

37:26

him to feed the poor, educate

37:29

kids, and reach out across

37:31

racial lines. In

37:33

sixty eight, Hampton formed the Rainbow

37:36

Coalition, a collection of groups that were

37:38

not natural allies. In fact,

37:40

some of them had actively fought against each other.

37:43

They ranged from street charities to street

37:45

gangs, and from Chinese and Puerto

37:47

Rican revolutionaries to the Young

37:49

Patriots Organization, a group of

37:51

poor white Appalachians who'd moved

37:54

to Chicago to find work. Through

37:56

the Rainbow Coalition, Fred demonstrated

37:58

that these disparate movements had

38:01

a lot in common.

38:03

But then he would articulate what

38:05

that stand up living was, that children's

38:08

educations, the ability to

38:10

feed themselves, and he would say, look, that's

38:12

the same problem we have down in Bronsville

38:15

in Chicago. He wasn't coming

38:17

to those Appellachian whites and saying,

38:19

you know, your guys should come with us, because we

38:22

the better ones. And now he was saying, you know, if

38:25

you really look at your condition and

38:27

you understand it is because of capitalism.

38:32

The Black Panther newspaper, which

38:34

they distributed in cities all over the country,

38:36

was a visible reminder of their presence and

38:39

their political agenda. So were

38:41

the Panthers food distribution programs.

38:44

Both became targets of the FBI.

38:46

They sprayed scatole,

38:49

which is a foul smelling basically

38:52

chemical agent on the newspaper.

38:54

We used to get the paper shipped in from

38:57

Oakland and to Kenney Airport. We go pick up

38:59

the papers. They would be destroyed what and

39:02

we would get a call from not to the workers say, man,

39:04

you guys been to go to papers. In fact, some of the workers used

39:06

to hide out papers for us to we come get them, and

39:08

stuff like.

39:09

That the breakfast programs had to constantly

39:11

be moved, that they were really

39:14

trying to destroy the breakfast programs

39:16

because they meaning the FBI

39:18

and local on state law enforcement,

39:21

they saw those as such a danger

39:23

because of the ways that they would influence parents

39:26

and children and families.

39:28

Omar and a fellow Panthers knew they were being

39:31

targeted by the government, but it was never

39:33

really clear exactly who was behind

39:35

it.

39:36

The core strategy is to criminalize

39:38

and kill the leadership of the party

39:40

and the rank and file. At the very

39:42

least a third of the party was

39:44

agen provocateurs and informers.

39:48

Omar says, it's now clear that many of

39:50

the people around him were working to undermine

39:53

the Black Panther Party.

39:54

We had members who were doing stick

39:56

ups, robbing people, and

39:59

doing other things, and we call them agent

40:01

provocate tools.

40:02

These provocateurs would commit flagrant

40:04

crimes like robberies and muggings, and

40:07

they would make sure that their actions implicated

40:09

the Panther organization, giving law enforcement

40:11

an excuse to move in.

40:13

And subsequently we learned to find a lot

40:15

of those people where in fact, not only

40:17

agent provocate tools, but undercover officers,

40:21

and.

40:21

You're inserting people into organizations to

40:24

increase that level of anger and to increase

40:27

that level of violence,

40:29

and often inserting violence because

40:31

that was a way to have people arrested and then locked

40:34

away in prison.

40:36

The FBI strategy worked. The

40:38

bureau successfully created deep

40:40

rifts within the party, using

40:43

forged letters and agent provocateurs

40:45

to encourage violence and foster grievances.

40:48

The same was true for the Black Panthers' relationships

40:51

to other black organizations.

40:53

A special agent in San Diego wrote

40:55

a classified

40:58

letter back to Jagger, who were saying, we've

41:00

managed to convince one black

41:03

group in San Diego that

41:06

the real enemies are another black group,

41:08

and we've got them into an argument, and

41:11

there have been some shootings and some killings

41:13

between these two groups. And we prevented

41:16

them from concentrating on civil rights by

41:18

getting them involved in gang warfare against

41:20

each other. And that was

41:23

a co Intel pro goal.

41:27

In nineteen sixty eight, co Intel Pro successfully

41:29

framed a Panther named Geronimo Pratt,

41:32

who was arrested and convicted of murdering

41:34

a woman in Los Angeles. He

41:36

spent twenty seven years in prison before

41:39

it was finally proven that Pratt had

41:41

been in Oakland, four hundred miles

41:43

away.

41:44

At the time of the crime.

41:46

The FBI had known Pratt was innocent

41:48

the entire time, but

41:50

they allowed him to spend nearly three decades

41:53

in prison. And

41:56

then there was the case of Fred Hampton.

41:58

The Black Panthers, and many of had long been

42:00

convinced that Jay Edgar Hoover had assassinated

42:03

Hampton. Now that Hoover was dead

42:05

and his secrets were out, the nation finally

42:08

learned the full story. In

42:11

nineteen sixty seven, a young black man named

42:13

William O'Neil stole a car in Chicago,

42:16

drove it to Indiana, and abandoned

42:18

it. Since he'd crossed state lines,

42:21

his crime was a federal one, so the

42:23

FBI investigated.

42:24

Eventually, an agent caught.

42:26

Up with O'Neil.

42:27

He told him that even though he was caught

42:29

red handed, there was no need

42:31

to worry. They could work something

42:34

out. He then asked O'Neill

42:36

to infiltrate the Illinois Black Panther

42:38

party. O'Neill

42:41

excelled as an informant. He ingratiated

42:43

himself with the Panthers and became head of security

42:45

to their charismatic young leader, Fred

42:48

Hampton. In late

42:50

nineteen sixty nine, O'Neill provided

42:52

the FBI with the address of the house where

42:54

Hampton was staying. He told

42:56

them there were guns there, and

42:58

he drew a map of the house, even marking

43:01

the location of Fred Hampton's bed.

43:05

On the night of December third, nineteen sixty nine,

43:07

O'Neil slipped a sedative into a glass of kool

43:09

aid and gave it to Chairman Fred

43:12

and then departed. A

43:14

few hours later, the police arrived and shot

43:16

their way into the apartment using the

43:18

map. They went straight to the bedroom and killed

43:20

Fred Hampton in cold blood as he lay

43:23

drugged and knocked out in his bed.

43:31

O'Neil was not the last informant and

43:33

Hampton was not the last Panther to die.

43:36

Not only was it the organizations

43:39

that were targeted Cointelpro, but the

43:41

greater Black community. There was

43:44

a criminalation of a people, a

43:46

race of people, not just the organization

43:48

that may be and represented those people. That's

43:50

the angle that we still have to look at. There

43:53

were a lot of panthers that were killed in very

43:55

unusual circumstances that a

43:57

lot of pants in that won in jail. If

43:59

the committee's invest atic guy

44:01

had not uncovered those files,

44:04

I think we would have seen more desks.

44:07

As part of his research before the hearings,

44:09

Locke Johnson traveled to Boston to interview

44:11

former FBI Assistant Director Bill Sullivan,

44:14

one of the chief architects of co Intel

44:16

pro Now. He

44:18

was sitting directly across from Locke in

44:21

a private room at Logan Airport.

44:23

And I asked him, how could you have

44:25

done these things? How

44:27

could you have tried to destroy anatole,

44:29

rappaport and doctor

44:32

King and the hundreds

44:34

upon hundreds of other people in

44:37

the civil rights movement and in

44:39

the anti war protest movement. How

44:41

could you have done that to these people

44:44

who weren't breaking any laws, that

44:46

they were expressing their views. And

44:49

he said, that's what

44:51

Hoover wanted me to do. And

44:54

I had a mortgage on my house and

44:57

I had three kids in college.

45:00

I reminded me of Hannah

45:02

Urant's banality of evil.

45:05

Help people do the most awful things

45:07

for the most mundane reasons.

45:10

It was really quite shocking. You

45:25

know the old cliche about you could hear a

45:27

pin drop, That's exactly what it was.

45:29

In the Russell.

45:30

Auditorium after hearing the facts

45:32

of Cotel pro laid out before the Church

45:34

Committee. Michigan Senator Philip

45:36

Hart spoke up.

45:37

I've been told for years by,

45:41

among others, some of my own family

45:43

that this is exactly what the Bureau was

45:45

doing all the time, And in

45:48

my great wisdom in

45:50

high office, I assured them

45:52

they were on pot.

45:55

This just wasn't true, couldn't

45:58

happen. They wouldn't do it.

46:00

Heart was nearing the end of his third and final term

46:02

in the Senate. His health was declining.

46:05

In fact, according to Locke, Heart had to

46:07

miss some of the hearings for medical reasons,

46:09

but he had heard enough.

46:11

What you've described is a series of

46:13

illegal actions intended

46:16

squarely to deny First Amendment

46:18

rights to some Americans. The trick,

46:21

now, as I say

46:23

it, Miss Chairman, is for this committee

46:26

to be able to figure out how to persuade

46:29

the people of this country that indeed it did

46:31

go on, and how

46:34

shall we ensure that it never happened again.

46:37

And it was kind of a turning point in which

46:40

even the three conservative

46:42

Republicans sort of had an epiphany

46:45

that the FBI had really gone way too

46:47

far. They had no accountability,

46:50

and the anchor of democracy is

46:52

accountability.

46:53

As he filled the questions from the Church committee,

46:56

visibly sweaty and red as a phone

46:58

tapping Tomato. FBI

47:00

Deputy Associate Director James Adams

47:02

acknowledged that the Bureau had strayed

47:05

from its mission. He encouraged

47:07

Congress to give them some quote guidelines,

47:10

at which point Frank Church reminded him that

47:12

he already had some you know, laws.

47:16

You shouldn't have ever had to have

47:18

had guidelines to tell you that

47:20

the federal government's chief

47:22

law enforcement agency ought not to disobey

47:25

the law. And really,

47:27

you don't need explicit guidelines

47:29

to.

47:30

Tell you that, or you shouldn't have.

47:32

Wouldn't you agree?

47:33

I would say that, looking

47:35

at it today, we

47:38

should have looked at it that way yesterday.

47:42

Hindsight's twenty twenty Congress

47:45

wasn't going to accept that old chestnut

47:48

and leave it at that. In

47:52

the wake of the Church hearings, it passed a new

47:54

law limiting future FBI directors

47:56

to a term of ten years.

47:58

Finally, seventy five, we

48:01

began to do something in the United

48:03

States of America about secret power,

48:06

the most dangerous power of all, and

48:09

we tried to tame secret power by

48:12

creating a House and sidate Intelligence Committee.

48:15

It sounds crazy now, but the

48:17

Church Committee really was the first time

48:20

that Congress ever held the FBI

48:22

to account. In

48:24

the wake of these revelations, both Houses

48:27

of Congress eventually voted to keep permanent

48:29

standing committees to review what intelligence

48:32

agencies were doing, which they still do

48:34

today. The

48:39

media burglars watched the hearings unfold,

48:42

unable to discuss them with each other or take

48:44

any credit for the crucial role they'd played.

48:47

It was very exciting when the Church Committee

48:49

decided to take us on.

48:51

This is fabulous.

48:53

I wasn't sure it was going to rise to that level,

48:55

but I thought it was amazing. And

48:58

you know, we had raised the coniousness in

49:00

the whole country about the FBI.

49:03

I had sort of a feeling

49:05

of, well, finally, you know, not

49:09

that I expected a whole lot out of it, but

49:11

at least it was, you know, the

49:14

Congress is acknowledging the

49:16

you know, the anti democratic stuff that had

49:18

been going on.

49:20

Our hope was that there

49:22

would be serious oversight of

49:25

the FBI and the CIA.

49:26

Long overdue in this so called democracy.

49:30

If you look at the history of Jaegar Hoover, it was the

49:32

most damaging act against

49:35

him in that long history. In

49:37

my view, there were more heroes and burglars

49:39

because it brought to light the fact

49:42

that cointelpro and the counter intelligence

49:44

program of the FBI existed.

49:50

Next on SNAFU, the fallout

49:53

from the Church Committee revelations,

49:56

What are.

49:57

We going to do about this? Easy as We're going to get?

49:59

The time of Goodbye, the

50:02

final chapters of our burglar stories.

50:05

I Changed, Sinning and

50:08

Sorry, My Underground Life.

50:11

And a Return to the Scene of the Crime.

50:16

Snapoo is a production of iHeartRadio,

50:19

Film, Nation Entertainment, and Pacific Electric

50:21

Picture Company in association with Gilded

50:23

Audio. This season of Snapfoo

50:25

is based on the book The Burglary The Discovery

50:28

of Jay Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI, written

50:30

by Betty Metzger.

50:32

It's executive produced by.

50:33

Me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka,

50:36

Mike Walbo, Whitney Donaldson, Andy Chug,

50:38

Dylan Fagan, and Betty Metzger. Our

50:41

lead producers are Sarah Joyner and Alyssa

50:43

Martino. Producer is Stephen Wood.

50:46

This episode was written by Albert Chen, Sarah

50:48

Joyner, and Stephen Wood, with additional writing and

50:50

story editing from Alissa Martino and Ed

50:52

Helms. Tory Smith is our associate

50:55

producer. Nevin Calla poly is our

50:57

production assistant. Facts checking

50:59

by char ARLs Richter. Our creative executive

51:02

is Brett Harris. Sensitivity consult

51:04

from Oloa Kemi Ala de Sui, editing,

51:06

sound design and original music by Ben Chugg,

51:09

Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley.

51:12

Additional editing from Kelsey Albright, Olivia

51:14

Canny and Jimma Castelli. Foley theme

51:17

music by Dan Rosatto. Special

51:19

thanks to Alison Cohen, Daniel Welsh and

51:21

Ben Riizak. Additional thanks to director

51:24

Joanna Hamilton for letting us use some of the

51:26

original interviews from her incredible

51:28

documentary nineteen seventy one. Finally,

51:31

our deepest gratitude to the courageous

51:34

Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI,

51:36

Bill Davidon, Ralph Daniel, Judy

51:39

fine Gold, Keith Forsyth, Bonnie

51:41

Rains, John Rains, Sarah Schumer

51:44

and Bob Williamson.