COINTELPRO
The FBI's COINTELPRO program systematically infiltrated, harassed, and destroyed American political organizations from 1956 to 1971. Targets included civil rights leaders, anti-war groups, and the women's liberation movement.
The FBI ran a secret program to 'disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and neutralize' American political movements. The targets included MLK, the NAACP, the Socialist Workers Party, and anyone J. Edgar Hoover decided was a threat.
Overview
COINTELPRO — the FBI's Counterintelligence Program — ran from 1956 to 1971 and targeted virtually every significant dissident political movement in the United States. It was exposed not by official disclosure but by a burglary: in March 1971, a group calling itself the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole files that revealed the program's existence.
The program's tactics were as creative as they were illegal: forged letters to create conflict between organizations, anonymous tips to tax authorities, fabricated evidence, illegal wiretaps, informants who sometimes themselves committed crimes, and psychological operations designed to destroy leaders' personal lives and marriages.
Martin Luther King Jr. was among the most heavily targeted individuals. The FBI sent King an anonymous letter urging him to commit suicide, accompanied by recordings of his extramarital affairs. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called King "the most dangerous Negro in America" and sought to replace him with a "controlled" Black leader.
The Black Panther Party was infiltrated so thoroughly that it's difficult to separate FBI provocateurs from genuine members in historical accounts. The FBI's operation against the Panthers contributed to the assassination of Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old Illinois chairman who was killed in his bed during a 1969 police raid that the FBI helped coordinate.
Timeline
COINTELPRO Begins
FBI Director Hoover launches the program initially targeting the Communist Party USA.
Church Committee findings
MLK Targeted
FBI begins intensive surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr., wiretapping his phones and hotel rooms.
Declassified FBI files
Fred Hampton Assassinated
Chicago police, with FBI coordination, raid Fred Hampton's apartment at 4am. Hampton, the 21-year-old Black Panther chairman, is shot twice in the head while sleeping.
Congressional investigation, civil lawsuit findings
Media, PA Burglary
Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI steals files from an FBI office, revealing COINTELPRO to the public.
Stolen documents, later confirmed by Church Committee
Church Committee Report
Senate Select Committee publishes comprehensive findings on COINTELPRO and other illegal intelligence activities.
Senate Church Committee Final Report
Key Players
J. Edgar Hoover
Ran COINTELPRO as a personal intelligence apparatus. Used gathered information to blackmail politicians and suppress dissent.
Fred Hampton
21-year-old Illinois BPP chairman assassinated in a 1969 raid. Evidence showed he had been drugged and shot while unconscious.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Subjected to years of illegal surveillance, wiretapping, and psychological warfare including an FBI letter urging him to commit suicide.
William O'Neal
FBI infiltrator in the Black Panthers who provided the floor plan of Fred Hampton's apartment before the assassination raid.
The Fred Hampton Assassination
Fred Hampton's death is the clearest documented case of the FBI using COINTELPRO to physically eliminate a political leader. Hampton was the chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party at 21 years old — a gifted organizer building a multiracial coalition called the Rainbow Coalition.
FBI informant William O'Neal had infiltrated Hampton's inner circle. He provided the FBI with a floor plan of Hampton's apartment and — according to subsequent investigation — drugged Hampton's drink before the raid. When Chicago police burst in at 4:45am on December 4, 1969, Hampton was essentially unconscious. He was shot twice in the head at close range.
The official story — that officers responded to gunfire from Panthers — collapsed under investigation. Subsequent ballistic analysis found that only one shot from inside the apartment was fired, and it likely came after the police opened fire. The apartment was riddled with bullet holes from the outside in.
In 1982, a civil lawsuit found that the FBI, Chicago police, and state's attorney's office had conspired in Hampton's death. The parties settled for $1.85 million. No one was criminally prosecuted.
Tactics and Methods
Church Committee findings documented the full range of COINTELPRO tactics:
FORGED LETTERS
The FBI sent forged letters between organizations to provoke conflict. They sent a letter purportedly from the Black Panthers to a Chicago street gang threatening violence, attempting to provoke a gang war.
POISON PEN
Anonymous letters were sent to spouses of activists claiming infidelity, to employers suggesting employees were communists, and to King himself suggesting he commit suicide.
INFORMANTS
Informants were instructed to disrupt meetings, spread rumors, and in some cases commit crimes — creating legal jeopardy for organizations while the provocateurs were immune.
TAX HARASSMENT
The FBI referred targets to the IRS for investigation, weaponizing tax enforcement against political opponents — a tactic later echoed in other administrations.
The Church Committee found that these tactics were not aberrations but systematic policy, explicitly approved at the highest levels of the Bureau.
The Bottom Line
COINTELPRO proves that the US government systematically targeted legal political activity, assassinated leaders, and destroyed organizations — not to protect national security, but to preserve the existing political order. The program ended only because documents were stolen. No one responsible was ever prosecuted.
Primary Sources4 cited
Senate Church Committee Final Report (1976)
Comprehensive Senate investigation into COINTELPRO and other illegal intelligence activities.
Declassified COINTELPRO Files (FBI.gov)
FBI's own released documents on the program.
Hampton v. Hanrahan Civil Case Records
Civil lawsuit records establishing FBI/police conspiracy in Fred Hampton's death.
"The COINTELPRO Papers" (Churchill & Vander Wall)
Comprehensive academic analysis of COINTELPRO documents.
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