Attempts to manipulate and control one’s mind date back as far as 1550 BCE to the Egyptian Book of the Dead. It details occult rituals using “methods of torture and intimidation (to create trauma), the use of potions (drugs), and the casting of spells (hypnotism), ultimately resulting in the total enslavement of the initiate” (Edward). In the beginning of the Cold War era, rumor had it that Stalin was perfecting mind control techniques in the gulags on Chinese and Korean prisoners, but Allen Dulles and Richard Helms wouldn’t let the Soviets go through with this unchallenged. Initially their research into mind control and hypnosis would produce Project Bluebird in 1951, which would be renamed to Project Artichoke later that year to reflect the changes in scope and study- both of which were to be expanded. Artichoke continued to expand, and in 1953 Project MKULTRA would rise from its ashes.
 
MKULTRA was the umbrella project for about 150 subprojects all centering on how the CIA could create their own “Manchurian Candidates” to run operations for them without questioning it, and then having no recollection at all. MI6 in Britain did some work with the CIA, with Dr. Ewen Cameron leading much of their research in Canada. Using witting and unwitting test subjects, MKULTRA studied everything from religious cults, behavioral analysis, sensory deprivation, and chemotherapy radiation, to psychedelic drugs. Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, more commonly known as LSD, or acid, was a drug that was given to subjects as a truth serum. Project MKULTRA was officially shut down by the mid to early 1970s, but attempts at mind control, especially on a national scale, were not. The legacies and effects of MKULTRA are not fully known to us yet, but that which we can speculate is severe. The victims, many unwitting American and Canadian citizens, may never be known to us completely. Many of the victims don’t know that they were associated with the project because their trauma was so intense that the body’s natural reaction was to simply dissociate.
 
The threat of the Soviet Union loomed over Washington like a cloud- ominous and intangible. At the CIA headquarters in Langley it was like a tornado. The Agency’s only mission had become to defend the world from Soviet communism. At the end of WWII there was a race between the British, French, Americans, and Soviets to recruit the intellectual backbone of the Third Reich. This organized, clandestine effort was named Operation Paperclip. Included in this group are those responsible for weaponizing sarin gas and bubonic plague, many of whom would later stand trial for war crimes at Nuremburg. Known as the “Angel of Death” for his work in Auschwitz, “[Josef] Mengele’s research served as a basis for the covert, illegal CIA human research program named MKULTRA” (Edward). Although many in the CIA began their espionage careers in the military or OSS during WWII fighting against the very people they now employed, they saw it as a lesser of two evils scenario. In their minds, they had to make a choice between fascism and communism and using the intellectual leaders of the fascist Third Reich was more appealing than allowing the communist powers a leg up in covert operations (CIA).
 
MKULTRA was the result of a number of projects within different government agencies. Before 1953 the US Navy was studying the effects of brain concussions, specifically centering on memory loss. At some point during that research, they began to wonder if a drug could induce the same amnesia that occurs with a concussion, allowing the potentially successful Manchurian Candidate to have no recollection of their actions. It was at that point that the project was handed off to the CIA because it required human subjects that could not be justified by medical-therapeutic grounds (Drummond). In 1953 the CIA Chief of Special Operations, Richard Helms, wrote a memo to Director Allen Dulles in which he “proposed a program for the ‘covert use of biological and chemical materials’ both for its offensive potential’ to ‘give us thorough knowledge of the enemy’s theoretical potential.’ He recommended shielding the program under extreme secrecy: ‘Even internally in CIA, as few individuals as possible should be aware of our interest in these fields and of the identity of those who are working for us.’ He recommended Sidney Gottlieb to head its operations” (“1953”). Dr. Sidney Gottlieb was the Director of the CIA’s Chemical Division of Technical Service Staff, who specialized in “lethal poisons and creative methods of assassination,” and has been referred to as the CIA’s sorcerer. The author of the report on these memos wrote that “Sidney Gottlieb personified CIA’s immoral universe; a universe where there was nothing, however evil, pointless or even lunatic, that this unaccountable intelligence agency will not engage in, in pursuit of its secret wars. Gottlieb had used his studies on poisons and applied it to the attempted assassinations of world leaders. It’s been reported that Sidney Gottlieb was the inspiration for Stanley Kubrick’s character “Dr. Strangelove.” Dulles agreed with Helms on all accounts, and he exempted MKULTRA from “normal CIA financial controls, authorizing Gottlieb to start projects ‘without signing the usual contracts or other written documents’” (“1953”). Much of the research for MKULTRA was done with university professors, frequently using prison inmates and hospital patients as the main subjects. Academics and scholars at the University of Oklahoma, UCLA, University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, University of Illinois, Stanford University, Yale University, Cornell University, and Emory University, to name a few, were involved in MKULTRA research, some wittingly and others unwittingly. Aside from being top individuals in their fields, who would provide excellent research, the CIA had other motivations for using them as well; the idea was that as the project goes on, these individuals could be used as top- secret consultants (Jackman).

MKULTRA didn’t begin as an experiment with psychedelic drugs, as its more commonly known for today. In the memo from Richard Helms, we saw that what he described was more centering around chemical and biological weapons, which they had a basis on from the Nazi scientists recruited through Operation Paperclip. However, the goal of MKULTRA shifted from the offensive use of biological and chemical agents to the creation of a Manchurian Candidate. The Manchurian Candidate is a novel published in 1959 by Richard Condon that describes the son of a prominent family in American politics who had been brainwashed into becoming an assassin for a Communist conspiracy. Amid rumors that American soldiers had returned from Korea brainwashed, the CIA didn’t hold back in trying to perfect this as well. Gottlieb, having a specialty in assassination techniques, was the natural architect. The process by which a Manchurian Candidate could be created is known as Monarch Programming. A successful monarch slave will carry out operations, will not question orders, and will not remember their actions. The name comes from a monarch butterfly “who begins life as a worm (representing undeveloped potential), and, after a period of cocooning (programming) is reborn as a beautiful butterfly (the monarch slave)” (Edward). ​

Monarch programming tears down a person’s psyche, so that it can be built back up to have multiple personality disorder, and the different personalities can be triggered at will by the handler. These methods include “electroshock, torture, abuse and mind games in order to force them to dissociate from reality” (Edward). The torture may include confinement in boxes or cages for extended periods of time, near drowning, submersion into ice water or burning chemicals, forced ingestion of offensive body fluids like blood, urine, feces, or flesh, sleep deprivation, stress positions, hanging upside down, sensory deprivation, injection of chemicals such as chemotherapeutic agents, forced ingestion of amphetamines and barbiturates, and being forced to witness the abuse of others. Edward writes, “Due to the severe trauma induced... the mind splits off into alternate personalities from the core... Further conditioning of the victim’s mind is enhanced through hypnotism, double-blind coercion, pleasure-pain reversals, food, water, sleep, and sensory deprivation, along with various drugs which alter certain cerebral functions.” Once the victim dissociates and a split in personality occurs, the programmer can create alter personas to be triggered with a phrase or symbol. An official Monarch Program within the CIA has never been proven to have existed, however when CIA Director William Colby was asked, “he replied angrily and ambiguously, ‘We stopped that between the late 1960s and the early 1970s’” (Edward).
 
The CIA’s Monarch-like experiments were not held in the United States, and were performed by Dr. Ewen Cameron, a British psychiatrist, in Canada. Cameron had been studying what he considered psychotherapy, which involved a three-step process on mostly involuntary hospitalized women. The first step, mental depatterning, put subjects into a drug-induced coma for prolonged periods of time- some up to eighty-six days. The second step involved three high-voltage electroshock treatments every day, continuing the electroshock until the subject stops convulsing. The final step puts victims into isolated confinement, being kept on LSD while under food, water, sleep, and sensory deprivation. During this third step the victim would be subjected to what Cameron called psychic driving, “by use of a football helmet clamped to the head with taped messages played for hours non-stop" (“1950s”). This psychic driving could go on for weeks. After their “treatment,” most of his patients after were reduced to a state of infancy and lost almost all basic cognitive and motor functions. In the case of Gail Kastner, “The shock treatment turned the then 19-year-old honours student into a woman who sucked her thumb, talked like a baby, demanded to be fed from a bottle and urinated on the floor” (“1950s”). Cameron had been doing research like this before he was contracted by the CIA, but it was an opportunity that neither of them could refuse. For the CIA, they had found someone who was willing to perform electroshock experiments, drug tests, and deprivation exercises on unwitting subjects. For Cameron, he found someone to fund his sadistic research. Cameron gave his plans, and the Agency funded them.
 
MKULTRA experimented with the same techniques on American soil. However, the CIA did more experiments with drugs than the basic monarch programming. The CIA didn’t just use LSD, in fact one of their methods to force sleep deprivation was to give subjects a constant cocktail of amphetamines and barbiturates- uppers and downers. While awake, the victims would be given barbiturates which would make them calm and sleepy- at which point they’d be given amphetamines to make sleep near impossible. The victims of this could be anyone- witting volunteers, unwitting victims, pregnant women, prison inmates, hospital patients, rehab patients, or even members of the US military. CIA experiments with drugs were very holistic, almost all demographics were targeted to give an encompassing view of how people respond to physical trauma and drugs. One experiment studying the effects of prolonged exposure to LSD at the US Public Health Service Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, then called the Federal Addiction Research Center, had heroin addicts be put on LSD for 77 days straight under the supervision of Dr. Harris Isbell, a CIA contracted psychiatrist. The subjects were told they would be doing drug experiments, nothing more specific, and were promised free heroin at the end of the tests as a reward for their participation (Mernit and Morowitz). Another experiment looked to see LSD’s effect on soldiers. The US Army had been conducting tests in conjunction with the CIA to see if LSD could be used as a drug to incapacitate enemies, but not kill them. Using witting volunteers, the Army had soldiers run basic drills on command from their drill sergeant, which they performed like clockwork. Then, the soldiers were given LSD, and after a certain amount of time (which allowed the drug to kick in) they were ordered to do the same basic drills. The results were confounding for the observing scientists. Soldiers became giggly, fell out of line, performed slower than normal, and had a hard time doing simple tasks like jumping over a wooden obstacle (Mernit and Morowitz).
 
The CIA’s LSD experiments expanded past labs and controlled tests on witting volunteers, however. One subproject of MKULTRA, Operation Midnight Climax, involved the CIA running brothels in San Francisco and New York, hiring prostitutes to pick up men at bars, bring them back, and dose their cocktails with LSD. Two-way mirrors were put into the bedrooms, behind which a CIA officer would be observing the men's behavior. Aside from simply observing the johns, the CIA also was observing the women. They wanted to look at how the women responded to being given clandestine missions, and whether they could be turned into agents with split personalities, Manchurian candidates. The man Sidney Gottlieb put in charge of overseeing Midnight Climax was Col. George White. White had earned the rank of lieutenant colonel during his time in the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, during WWII. Upon White’s death in 1975, his widow left his diaries and papers to a junior college outside of San Francisco, from which we now have dates, names, and thoughts behind Midnight Climax which had yet to be uncovered. White wrote that he had met with Sidney Gottlieb and his deputy, Dr. Robert Lashbrook. Gottlieb recruited him to be a consultant, and a year later he was on CIA payroll. White was officially put in as the regional head of the Bureau of Narcotics, and unofficially oversaw Midnight Climax. In the safehouse that became White’s residence, he was known to keep pitchers of chilled martinis in the refrigerator and had photos of women being tortured and whipped, implying that he may have taken pleasure from his new position. White was so intrigued with his research that he himself used LSD under the supervision of psychiatrists, psychologists, and pharmacologists. White wrote, “So far as I was concerned, ‘clear thinking’ was nonexistent while under the influence of any of these drugs. I did feel at times that I was having a ‘mind-expanding experience,’ but this vanished like a dream immediately after the session” (“Diaries...”). The supervisors of Midnight Climax wanted to step up the experiment to a more realistic scenario. If the goal was to use LSD as a truth serum for foreign diplomats, foreign agents, or anyone with information to share, they needed to test it as such on people who had secrets. The CIA sought out drug dealers to be used, drugged, and questioned to simulate a real-life interrogation.
 
Some experiments had to do with contaminating entire cities with LSD, as was tested in New York and France by CIA research scientist Dr. Frank Olson and Lt. Col. George White. Dr. Olson specialized in aerosol chemical delivery, which subsequently was how LSD was released into the New York subway system in 1952 by White- among unwitting American citizens as subjects. The evidence of this experiment is spotty, however it was documented in White’s personal diary and confirmed by a colleague of Dr. Olson’s, Dr. Henry Eigelsbach. However, the New York experiment pales in comparison to an alleged CIA experiment in the French town of Pont St. Esprit. A New York Post article reports, “Over a two-day period, some 250 residents sought hospital care after hallucinating for no apparent reason. Thirty-two patients were hauled off to mental asylums. Four died. Mercury poisoning or ergot, a fungus of rye bread, was cited as the cause of the symptoms. Ergot is also one of the central ingredients of LSD. And curiously enough, Olson and his government pals were in France when the craziness erupted” (Messing). It’s unknown whether the French government was consulted hitherto.
 
For much of the duration of MKULTRA, other government agencies were involved to make the process go by without complication. The Department of Agriculture was helpful in speeding up the process of bringing “various botanicals” into the country for Project Artichoke and shows the FDA cooperating to allow the CIA to use laboratories and testing facilities- making these agencies complicit, whether they knew the CIA’s intentions or not (Jacobs). In his personal writings, Lt. Col. White discussed that although the Bureau of Narcotics was involved, its chief would “disclaim any knowledge of it” if he were ever to be asked (Drummond). The FDA was perhaps the agency most closely linked to MKULTRA. In 1962, a regulation was passed through Congress stating that any and all testing with LSD was to be done with special permission from the FDA, however there were loopholes for the CIA and Department of Defense in which the FDA could grant “selective exemptions.” If any research was classified for reasons of national security, the FDA ignored it, stating that “those seeking to develop hallucinogens as weapons were somehow more ‘sensitive to their scientific integrity and moral and ethical responsibilities’ than independent researchers dedicated to exploring the therapeutic potential of LSD” (Martin and Shlain). The FDA also provided personnel with security clearance to act as “consultants for chemical warfare projects” (Martin and Shlain). ​

When LSD was declared illegal in the late 1960s, MKULTRA began to quietly shut down. Conveniently, in the early 1970s Director Richard Helms and Sidney Gottlieb, one of the masterminds behind MKULTRA ordered all relevant paperwork be destroyed (Boylan). Gottlieb said that [MKULTRA and MKSEARCH] had been a waste of time, citing certain “scientific and operational flaws” ("June 1972”). The techniques that they were using to try to control human behavior proved to be too unpredictable, which, ironically enough, was the same conclusion that Nazi scientists had reached at Dachau in the 40s ("June 1972”). MKULTRA officially ended without anything going too public.
 
That was, however, until Seymour Hersh, an investigative journalist, published an article in the New York Times just a few months after the Watergate scandal announcing that the CIA was spying on American citizens. This forced President Ford’s hand to create a commission led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller into unlawful CIA activities. Only two pages of the entire commission were about MKULTRA, because the report downplayed the scope of the project. It did, however, mention the story of a CIA employee who jumped from his hotel window in New York City after having been dosed with LSD a few days earlier. The family quickly recognized the story as being about Dr. Frank Olson, whose family was told he committed suicide in 1953. Within ten days, the Olson family had made public accusations that the CIA had a role in Dr. Olson’s death, and were in the Oval Office receiving a formal apology from President Ford and $750,000 as compensation. The implicit reasoning for the money was to appease the family so they would drop their lawsuit against the US government. Later in 1974, Seymour Hersh exposed MKULTRA in an article he published which eventually led to the special hearings of the Church Committee (Boylan). The Church Committee is what provided us with testimonies about MKULTRA and gives us most of the information we have now. Although Helms and Gottlieb ordered the paperwork destroyed, the committee found a money trail with corresponding documents. More of MKULTRA was exposed by John Marks, who got about 16,000 pages of CIA documents through the Freedom of Information Act. There were several smaller commissions, including the Pike Committee Investigation. Although many of them, including Pike, were met with hostility by the CIA and White House. The opening line of the Pike report reads, “If the Committee’s recent experience is any test, intelligence agencies that are to be controlled by Congressional lawmaking are, today, beyond the lawmaker’s scrutiny” (“February 1975”). ​

​Citations
 
Boylan, Dan. “Acid Flashback: CIA's Mind-Control Experiment Reverberates 40 Years
after Hearings.” The Washington Times, The Washington Times, 30 Aug. 2017,
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/30/cias-mk-ultra-lsd-mind -control-experiment-has-ling/.
 
“CIA Had Nazi Doctors Test LSD On Captured Soviet Spies, Book Says.” The Huffington Post,
TheHuffingtonPost.com, 13 Feb. 2014,
www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/13/operation-paperclip_n_4781137.html.
 
Cohen, Zachary. “CIA Explored Using Potential Truth Serum Drug for Post 9/11
Interrogations.” CNN, Cable News Network, 13 Nov. 2018,
www.cnn.com/2018/11/13/politics/cia-documents-truth-serum-drug
-interrogations/index.html.
 
Drummond, Katie. “Chemical Concussions and Secret LSD: Pentagon Details Cold War Mind
-Control Tests.” Wired, Conde Nast, 14 Jan. 2018, www.wired.com/2010/05/chemical
-concussions-and-secret-lsd-military-releases-cold-war-mind-control-report/.
 
Edward, Sebastian. “MK-Ultra Project,Monarch and Julian Assange – Sebastian Edward –
Medium.” Medium.com, Medium, 20 Jan. 2015, medium.com/@sebastianedward/mk -ultra-project-monarch-and-julian-assange-ad2aa42ba1a4.
 
“February 1975: President Ford Appointed a Commission Headed by Nelson Rockefeller.” McCann 13 AHRP, 26 Mar. 2015, ahrp.org/feb-1975-president-ford-appointed-a-commission
-headed-by-nelson-rockefeller/.
 
Finger, Stan. Homeland Security Plans Inert Chemical Tests near Kansas Border. The Wichita
Eagle, 9 Nov. 2017, www.kansas.com/news/local/article183818896.html.
 
“Harmless Gas Released into New York Subway to Prep for Biological Attack.” The
Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 May 2016,
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/09/new-york-city-subway-harmless-gas
-released-biological—attack-study-jessica-now.
 
Hatmaker, Taylor. “DARPA Awards $65 Million to Develop the Perfect, Tiny Two-Way Brain
-Computer Interface.” TechCrunch, TechCrunch, 10 July
2017, techcrunch.com/2017/07/10/darpa-nesd-grants-paradromics/.
 
Jackman, Tom. “The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy: Was Sirhan Sirhan Hypnotized to Be
the Fall Guy?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 June
2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/06/04/the-assassination
-of-bobby-kennedy-was-sirhan-sirhan-hypnotized-to-be-the-fall-guy/
?utm_term=.4449af741e24.
 
Jacobs, John. “CIA Papers Detail Secret Experiments on Behavior Control.” The Washington
Post, WP Company, 21 July 1977,
www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/07/21/cia-papers-detail McCann 14 -secret-experiments-on-behavior-control/90524b32-2527-413b-9673-f57be3ce7800/
?noredirect=on&utm_term=.686ff4748698
 
Jacobs, John. “The Diaries Of a CIA Operative.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 5 Sept.
1977, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1977/09/05/the-diaries-of-a
-cia-operative/65b08a3e-c95a-434e-b1c6-c05f726a3a6f/
?noredirect=on&utm_term=.99166637bc9e.
 
“June 1972: Project MK-ULTRA and MK-SEARCH Were Terminated by Sidney Gottlieb.”
Alliance for Human Research Protection, -http://ahrp.org/june-1972-project-mk-ultra
-and-mk-search-were-terminated-by-sidney-gottlieb/.
 
Lee, Martin, and Bruce Shlain. “An Excerpt from Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of
LSD The CIA, the Sixties and Beyond.” Acid Dreams, Grove Press, 1985,
www.levity.com/aciddreams/samples/ciafda.html.
 
Mernit, John, and Morowitz, Noah. CIA Secret Experiments Documentary. National
Geographic Television, National Geographic, 26 Dec. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch
?v=7Afjf2ZgGZE.
 
Messing, Philip. “Did the CIA Test LSD in the New York City Subway System?” New York
Post, New York Post, 14 Mar. 2010, nypost.com/2010/03/14/did-the-cia-test-lsd-in-the
-new -york-city-subway-system/.
 
Odeshoo, Jason R. “Truth or Dare?: Terrorism and ‘Truth Serum’ in the Post-9/11 World.”
Stanford Law Review, vol. 57, no. 1, 2004, pp. 209–255. JSTOR, JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/40040204.
 
Rodriguez, Nicole. “Homeland Security Chemical Attack Tests Could Turn People into Lab
Rats, Residents Say.” Newsweek, 12 Dec. 2017, www.newsweek.com/chemical
-warfare-drills-homeland-security-turn-people-lab-rats-residents-fear-745697.
 
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www.cchrint.org/2009/09/03/cia-mind-control-doctors/.
 
Wolverton, Joe. “Pentagon Dumps $65 Million Into Mind-Control Project.” The New
American, www.thenewamerican.com/tech/item/26528-pentagon-dumps-65-million
-into-mind-control-project.
 
“1950s–1960s: Dr. Ewen Cameron Destroyed Minds at Allan Memorial Hospital in Montreal.”
AHRP, 26 Mar. 2015, ahrp.org/1950s-1960s-dr-ewen-cameron-destroyed-minds-at -allan-memorial-hospital-in-montreal/.
 
“*1953: MK-ULTRA Was Hatched by Allen Dulles and Richard Helms.” AHRP, 26 Mar. 2015,
ahrp.org/1953-mk-ultra-was-hatched-by-allen-dulles-and-richard-helms/.
 
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ahrp.org/1974-seymour-hersh-exposes-huge-cia-spying-on-americans/.

About the Author:
​​Joseph Senecal is a student completing undergraduate research in international studies and political science at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. McCann is interested in structuralism, post-structuralism, ideology, revolutionary history, and translation. Particularly inspired by French structuralist and existentialist writers of the 1960s, McCann hopes to translate works that have yet to be put in English for an American audience. Applying to doctoral programs in philosophy and political science, McCann hopes to continue his education in Marxian thought. In his personal life, he works as a cook, enjoys blues rock, and has an adored cat named Carlos Santana.

Throughout its history the United States has billed itself as an open society upholding the free exchange of ideas. We are told that, unlike people in less-enlightened countries, Americans do not have to worry about being persecuted for their political beliefs. Of course, this has never been true. From its very inception, the US government has been restricting free-speech through legislation such as the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798- not to mention the restriction on expression for the enslaved. Americans usually consider this a thing of the past, but political repression continued throughout the 20th century to this day, but in more covert forms. In this essay, I will explore the historical development of the US government’s system of covert domestic political repression, its consolidation, and its culmination in the FBI’s COINTELPRO program.

The FBI has its origins in the General Intelligence Division which was created in 1919 by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to collect information on radical organizations. J. Edgar Hoover, who would remain in power for the next several decades, was appointed as its head.[1] The GID was immediately used in the infamous Palmer Raids- a series of mass arrests and deportations targeting “alien” members of radical movements. The raids began on November 7, 1919 when GID agents raided offices of the United Russian Workers across the country arresting 650 people and deporting at least 43 without due process.  The crescendo of the raids came on January 2, 1920 when GID agents descended on radical groups in over 30 cities across the country, arresting at least 3,000 people.[2] Much of this repression was directed at the Communist Party USA, with Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson announcing on January 19th that membership in the CPUSA was enough to warrant deportation of immigrants.[3] The raids were finally ended by a court ruling in June 1920, but by then the damage had already been done. Left-wing organizations were effectively decimated with Communist Party membership dropping from over 27,000 in 1919 to just over 8,000 the next year.[4]
​
Along with the Palmer raids, the Bureau utilized numerous other methods to harass radical groups. In 1919, Hoover targeted Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. The Bureau employed several infiltrators in the UNIA to uncover information which could be used in trumped up criminal charges against Garvey. After numerous charges of criminal activity failed to stick, the Bureau managed to obtain a conviction against Garvey on mail fraud in 1925. He was deported to Jamaica in 1927.

By the mid-1920s, Hoover was able to renounce the FBI’s past political operations. Aside from participating in repression of major strikes, the Bureau would be true to its word for the next decade. But as the Communist Party began to regain relevance- reaching 66,000 members by 1939- Hoover gained approval from President Roosevelt to resume repression of “subversive activities”. Although Roosevelt later altered this directive as the Soviet Union became a key ally in the fight against Nazi Germany, it would not prevent Hoover from using it as justification for later counter-intelligence activities.[6]

After World War II ended and the Cold War began, Communism became enemy #1 with the CP becoming a natural target. In coordination with the CIA, the FBI began a program of intercepting and inspecting the international communications of US citizens. This was particularly focused on the mail and cables between the US and Soviet Union.[7] Additionally, the Bureau would frequently use other forms of information gathering such as “surreptitious entry” and “bugging” CP offices.[8] The FBI also cooperated with the IRS to gather information on targeted groups and single them out for harassment from the IRS.[9]
​
Additionally, the FBI would perfect the divide and conquer techniques it would later use to great effect in official COINTELPRO programs against the CP. The Bureau used infiltrators to exploit internal divisions within the party, such as over Khrushchev’s denunciations of Stalin.[10] The Bureau also used “anonymous mailings” in various ways to disrupt party activities. Agents would send letters to party members warning about the treacherous activities of others in the party, hoping to stir up factional disputes.[11] This was also a common ploy in the FBI’s “snitch jacketing” technique to portray loyal party members as informants. This was also frequently accomplished by informants within the party spreading rumors, forged informant reports, or “interviews” where agents would publicly speak with a target to create the impression the party member was an informant.[12]

Anonymous letters and interviews would also be used to impact the personal lives of party members or disrupt alliances the party would make with other groups. Agents would contact the employers or landlords of party members in efforts to get them fired or evicted. Additionally, if the CP were seeking to cooperate with other organizations, agents would send derogatory information to these organizations to prevent an alliance.[13]

These were the FBI’s covert methods in the battle against domestic communism, but it also played a direct role in the overt repression. The FBI played an active role in the rise of McCarthyism by cultivating “friendly media” outlets which would be used to disseminate derogatory information about the CP. Further, the Bureau aided anti-Communist private organizations such as the American Legion and anti-Communist congressmen, with FBI agents even writing their speeches.[14]

These activities would create a general context for the US government’s legal attacks against the CP leadership. FBI agents would use selective law enforcement to harass the party and its members. Party members were frequently arrested for minor or spurious causes. For example, a secretary of the Alabama branch of the CP was arrested and convicted of possessing “seditious literature” for carrying copies of The Nation and The New Republic. He was sentenced to 100 days hard labor and fined $100.[15] This culminated in the government’s use of the Smith Act to prosecute Communist Party members. The Smith Act was passed in 1940 and created criminal penalties for advocating the forcible overthrow of the US government and required all adult non-citizen residents to register with the federal government. It would be used to prosecute eleven top Communist Party members in 1949. All eleven were convicted with ten being sentenced to five to ten years and one- a World War II veteran- sentenced to three.[16] Similar cases would occur across the country, with frequent FBI interference in the judicial process.[17]

The official COINTELPRO program would not begin until 1956, although this was just a formalization of already existing FBI practices. Even though the Communist Party had already been decimated by the mid-1950s, the majority of COINTELPRO operations were carried out against the party. However, the most impactful COINTELPRO activities in this period were against other left-wing and civil rights movements. Some of the groups targeted were called “Black Extremist” groups. The Nation of Islam was an early target of this program, with the FBI maintaining massive files on just Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X. The FBI would go on to play a role in driving a wedge between the two.

As would become a habit for the FBI, the parameters for which groups qualified as “Black Extremists” was expansive. Organizations that would eventually come under the COINTELPRO purview included the NAACP, SCLC, and SNCC.[19] The FBI infamously wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr. and sent him anonymous letters encouraging him to commit suicide.[20]

COINTELPRO would reach its zenith in the late 60ss and early 70s with the inauguration of COINTELPRO-Black Panther and COINTELPRO-New Left. As with its counterintelligence activities against the CP, the Bureau’s tactics ranged from the petty to the outright murderous. Bureau infiltrators of New Left student organizations were instructed to uncover evidence of members’ “depravity” to be publicized.[21] Agents would even contact targets’ parents to inform them of their child’s subversive activities. The FBI also sought to prevent these groups from exercising their first amendment rights by preventing speaking events and public demonstrations. Further, given that many of these groups were popular on college campuses, the Bureau targeted academics friendly to radical groups, seeking to get them disciplined or fired.[22]

The Bureau also attempted to instigate violence between target groups and violence-prone rival political organizations or criminal organizations. In 1968, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sent a memorandum to FBI field offices instructing them to devise plans to exploit the conflict between the Black Panther Party and Ron Karenga’s Black Nationalist “US” organization.[23]

This was accomplished through infiltrators, anonymous mailings, and forged propaganda. For instance, the Los Angeles field office responded to Hoover’s call for proposals reporting:[24]

Agents also distributed forged propaganda meant to increase tensions between the BPP and US, such as this cartoon attributed to US:[25]

This strategy would bear fruits as hostilities between the two groups spilled over into violent confrontations resulting in the deaths of four BPP members, including prominent members John Huggins and Bunchy Carter. Despite Bureau protestations that it never intended to encourage violence, the FBI continued to encourage hostility between the two groups even after these killings. This is illustrated by a 1970 report from the FBI’s Los Angeles office:[26]

The Bureau used a similar technique with Operation Hoodwink, where the Bureau attempted to spark conflict between the Communist Party and the criminal organization La Cosa Nostra, as well as criminal elements within reaction unions such as the Teamsters. Fortunately, this attempt did not lead to any reported physical conflicts.[27] [28]

Additionally, the FBI liked to use a specific form of infiltrator known as “Agents Provocateurs” who would encourage members to commit violent or criminal acts. For example, a member of the Weather Underground arrested for a conspiracy to bomb Detroit police facilities was actually an FBI informant, Larry Grathwohl. Grathwohl reportedly instructed members on how to build bombs and participated in the group’s bombing of a Cincinnati public school.[29] One of the most famous provocateurs was “Tommy the Travler” Tongyai who traveled around college campuses in the northeast encouraging students to bomb military research facilities.[30]

As they did with the CP, the Bureau cooperated with local law enforcement to harass targeted groups and their members. Officials sought to stop targets frequently, hoping to arrest and convict them on minor charges. They would also attempt to frame targets for crimes they did not commit. This is exemplified by the case of Geronimo Pratt- a prominent member of the Los Angeles branch of the BPP. After numerous attempts to convict Pratt on trumped up charges failed, Pratt was accused of the 1968 “Tennis Court Murder”. On December 18, 1968, a white couple, Caroline and Kenneth Olsen, were robbed and shot by two black men on a tennis court in Santa Monica, California. Caroline Olsen would die a week later. In August 1969, an anonymous letter was delivered to the Los Angeles Police Department claiming Pratt had committed the murder and had been bragging about it. Pratt was also positively identified by Kenneth Olsen, leading to Pratt’s arrest and eventual conviction in 1972. Of course, the FBI was heavily involved in the trial. The anonymous letter turns out to have been written by Julius Butler, an FBI infiltrator, who would become a key prosecution witness. Additionally, the Bureau had at least one infiltrator in Pratt’s defense team keeping the Bureau informed on defense strategy. And the prosecution concealed the fact that Kenneth Olsen had initially identified another man, Ronald Perkins, as his wife’s killer and that police had purposefully influenced his identification. Pratt would remain in jail for a crime he did not commit until 1997 when his case was invalidated due to the prosecution’s suppression of evidence.[31]

But the worst of COINTELPRO was the Bureau’s use of violent raids and political assassinations. On April 6, 1968 a group of Panthers were confronted by police officers in west Oakland. Gunfire was exchanged and the police cordoned off the block. After an hour and a half, the Panthers attempted to surrender, but when unarmed ‘Lil Bobby Hutton emerged from a nearby basement, he was shot dead by police officers.[32] In a more overt case, Chicago police officers, with the assistance of the FBI, assassinated Fred Hampton in 1969. They were assisted by an FBI infiltrator, William O’Neal, who provided detailed floor plans of Hampton’s apartment.[33]

This is far from an exhaustive exploration of the FBI’s counterintelligence programs. The FBI targeted numerous groups such as the Socialist Workers’ Party, American Indian Movement, etc. that I was unable to cover here. While COINTELPRO was brought to light by the Church Committee in the 1970s and, subsequently, formally ended, the FBI has definitely continued its counterintelligence activities. In recent years, it has been revealed that the FBI maintains a list of “Black Identity Extremists”.[34] With this in mind, I think it is incredibly important for leftists to learn the history of COINTELPRO. With this knowledge we can more thoroughly safeguard our organizations against the inevitability of government subversion 

​Citations


[1]Churchill, W., & Vander Wall, J. (2001). COINTELPRO Papers. Retrieved 2020, from https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/Black%20Liberation%20Disk/Black%20Power!/SugahData/Government/COINTELPRO.S.pdf, 297

[2] Admin. (2020, July 24). AG Palmer Promises "War on Reds," Delivers Palmer Raids. Retrieved October 03, 2020, from https://todayinclh.com/?event=ag-palmer-promises-war-on-reds-delivers-palmer-raids 

[3]Churchill, W., & Vander Wall, J. (2001). COINTELPRO Papers, Retrieved 2020, from https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/Black%20Liberation%20Disk/Black%20Power!/SugahData/Government/COINTELPRO.S.pdf, 299

[4]“Communist Party Membership by Districts 1922-1950.” Accessed October 3, 2020. https://depts.washington.edu/moves/CP_map-members.shtml.

[5] Marcus Garvey.” FBI File on Marcus Garvey, Part4, document no. 190-1781-6, 10 Aug. 1922. The FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice, https://vault.fbi.gov/marcus-garvey/marcus-garvey-part-04-of-12/view

[6] Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate: Together with Additional, Supplemental, and Separate Views. Vol. II. Washington: U.S. Govt. https://www.transformation.dk/www.raven1.net/cointeldocs/churchfinalreportIIb.htm Accessed: 2020

[7] Ibid

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid

[10] Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate: Together with Additional, Supplemental, and Separate Views. Vol. III. Washington: U.S. Govt. http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_1_COINTELPRO.pdf Accessed:2020, 45

[11] Ibid, Pgs. 33-49.

[12] Ibid

[13] Ibid

[14] O'Reilly, Kenneth. "The FBI and the Origins of McCarthyism." The Historian 45, no. 3 (1983): 372-93. Accessed October 4, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24445173.

[15] Churchill, W., & Vander Wall, J. (2001). COINTELPRO Papers. P. 318, Retrieved 2020, from https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/Black%20Liberation%20Disk/Black%20Power!/SugahData/Government/COINTELPRO.S.pdf 

[16] McElroy, Wendy. “Smith Act Tyranny Against Communists.” The Future of Freedom Foundation, March 5, 2018. https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/smith-act-tyranny-communists/.

[17] Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate: Together with Additional, Supplemental, and Separate Views. Vol. III. Washington: U.S. Govt. http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_1_COINTELPRO.pdf Accessed:2020, 57

[18] Chicago. Bureau of Investigation. Chicago Letters. Chicago: Bureau of Investigation, 1969. http://docs.noi.org/fbi_january_22_1969.pdf

[19] Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate: Together with Additional, Supplemental, and Separate Views. Vol. III. Washington: U.S. Govt. http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_1_COINTELPRO.pdf Accessed:2020, 5

[20] Gage, Beverly. “What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals.” The New York Times. The New York Times, November 11, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html.

[21]  Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate: Together with Additional, Supplemental, and Separate Views. Vol. III. Washington: U.S. Govt. http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_1_COINTELPRO.pdf Accessed:2020, 24 

[22] Ibid, Pg. 56

[23] “Federal Bureau of Investigation – Initial Memo on Fomenting Violence Against Black Panther Party.” Genius. Accessed October 4, 2020. https://genius.com/Federal-bureau-of-investigation-initial-memo-on-fomenting-violence-against-black-panther-party-annotated.

[24] Bloom, Joshua, and Waldo E. Martin. Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016, 218

[25] Los Angeles. Bureau of Investigation. Things to do Today. Los Angeles: Bureau of Investigations, 1969. http://collection-politicalgraphics.org/detail.php?type=browse&id=1&term=Black+Panther+Party&page=3&kv=54716&record=141&module=objects

[26] Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, United States Senate: Together with Additional, Supplemental, and Separate Views. Vol. III, Washington: U.S. Govt. https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/book3/pdf/ChurchB3_3_BlackPanthers.pdf Accessed: 2020, 24 

[27] “Hoodwink.” FBI Files for Operation Hoodwink, part 1, document no. 100-159407, 29 Nov. 1967. The FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice, https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro/hoodwink/cointel-pro-hoodwink-part-01-of-01/view

[28] “Hoodwink.” FBI Files for Operation Hoodwink, par1, document no. 100-49252, 25 Jan. 1968. The FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice, https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro/hoodwink/cointel-pro-hoodwink-part-01-of-01/view

[29] Newton, Michael. The FBI Encyclopedia. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2012, 133

[30] Churchill, Ward, and Jim VanderWall. Agents of Repression: the FBI's Secret Wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. Cambridge, MA: South End Pr., 2008, 48.
 

[31] Ibid, 77-94

[32]  Bloom, Joshua, and Waldo E. Martin. Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016, 118-120.

[33] Churchill, Ward, and Jim VanderWall. Agents of Repression: the FBI's Secret Wars against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. Cambridge, MA: South End Pr., 2008, 64-77.
 

[34] Speri, Alice. “The Strange Tale of the FBI's Fictional ‘Black Identity Extremism’ Movement.” The Intercept, March 23, 2019. https://theintercept.com/2019/03/23/black-identity-extremist-fbi-domestic-terrorism/.