Dark History of the FBI

HOW J EDGAR HOOVER HUNTED AMERICANS

OPEN

As Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover ran a secret police force for nearly fifty years.

In the name of hunting spies and traitors, Hoover imprisoned people for saying the wrong thing, or joining the wrong group. He destroyed careers of ordinary citizens based only on the fear they might act against their country. And he brought down heroes of the civil rights movement.

This isn’t supposed to happen in America, but it did. 

Was it done with good intentions? That’s what Hoover would tell you. He was devoted to stopping anyone out to overthrow the American government. Even if it meant breaking into their home to gather evidence.

For decades he operated in secret and almost completely without accountability.

Until a young college professor had a crazy idea.

He would turn the tables on the FBI. He would break into their office. And steal their files. And he would let the American people see just what they were up to.

Of course, no one would actually do it. Except he did.

And Hoover’s secrets were blown wide open.

THE BOMB ON R STREET

From day one, J. Edgar Hoover was obsessed with hunting down communist radicals. There was a good reason. In his first year working for the Justice Department, a communist nearly blew his boss to pieces.

It happened at 11:15pm on June 2, 1919. It was a quiet night on one of the fanciest residential streets in Washington DC: the 2100 block of R Street.  Inside the multi-story brick mansions, some of the most prominent families in America were retiring to bed. 

Outside, a lone man wearing an expensive black suit and a brown fedora walked down the sidewalk. We know he was wearing a brown fedora because police found it later among pieces of body parts blown through the neighbor’s windows.

The lone man carried a black suitcase with brass clasps. Fortunately no one was out on the street to notice.

In his pocket he had leaflets explaining he was a member of “The Anarchist Fighters”. The group were communists from the Bolshevik party. They were determined to teach American capitalists a deadly lesson.

They were not kidding about the “deadly” part. Two months earlier, the Bolsheviks mailed wood boxes with nitroglycerin bombs to thirty-six American politicians and capitalists. Only one made it to its destination, the home of former Senator Thomas Hardwick. His servant opened the package and had her hands blown off.

Luckily, the other packages were discovered at the post office before they were sent to kill their targets. Had they been mailed, they would have exploded at the homes of John D. Rockefeller, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Helms, and JP Morgan, among many others. 

And one of the “many others” was Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Hoover’s boss.

Palmer was home that night with his family. At 2132 R street.

And on this night, the lone Bolshevik intended to finish the job of killing him.

He walked up the stone steps to Palmer’s home and put the black suitcase down in front of the front door.

Inside, the Attorney General was turning off the lights in his first floor library and heading upstairs for the night. Had he remained in the library, Palmer would not have survived.

At this point, officials think the Bolshevik tripped as he turned to go down the stairs and make his escape. Because his suitcase bomb exploded too early and blew the lone radical into pieces. And it destroyed the first floor of Palmer’s home along with it. 

The explosion was powerful — windows from all the neighbors shattered. 

Trees on both sides of the street were splattered with blood. Neighbors found body parts in their homes. Police found more body fragments as far as two blocks away against the wall of a private school.

Across the street, the Assistant Secretary to the Navy told police he found a leg with “cheap brown socks” in his home. His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, future President of the United States. On that night he was doing his best to help identify the bomber.

But the killer was no mystery. Along with the blood and gore everywhere, there were leaflets left by the radical that explained it all.

They said the Bolsheviks spoke for common workers “through the voice of dynamite”. They said they “will kill because it is necessary”. They promised to “rid the world of your tyrannical institutions.”

Palmer was terrified and furious - his wife and kids were in that house. The communists pissed off the wrong guy. Palmer wasn’t just any government official. He was Attorney General at the Department of Justice. Which meant he commanded men with guns and the power to enforce the law. Add to that, Palmer was running for President that year. He was itching to make a big splash in the media. 

The communists had terrified the nation with their mail bombs. Now Palmer would fight back. And he would take it way too far.

THE PALMER RAIDS

Palmer picked someone obsessed with crushing American traitors to lead his operation. No one complained the kid was only twenty-five years old. Because he’d more than proven himself. At only twenty-three he’d worked his way up to run the Alien Enemy Bureau in the middle of World War I. There, he oversaw 6,200 Germans interned in camps and 450,000 more under government surveillance. At twenty-four, he lead the new Radical Division of the DOJ, where he rounded up thousands of suspected radicals using no guns - only secret intelligence. At the time, it was the biggest counterterrorism operation in U.S. history. The kid was ruthless.

His name was J Edgar Hoover and he was at war with radicals day and night, weekdays and weekends, always on the job.

The term “hard worker” doesn’t quite explain it. Hoover was truly single minded.  

He would live 77 years and never have a wife, never have children, never have a known romantic relationship - let alone a hobby - outside the job. He was a machine focused entirely on ending America’s enemies.

And suddenly, he was in charge of Palmer’s operation to destroy anarchists, communists, socialists, and unionists once and for all.

The operation would become known as the Palmer Raids. But it was Hoover who organized and directed them. 

The plan was to conduct surprise sweeps of radical groups in 30 cities across 23 states. There were no warrants, no evidence of criminal activity collected. Just teams of FBI agents and police unleashed on unsuspecting citizens, about to experience a night of terror.

THE WRONG LESSON

On the night of January 2, 1920, 50 year old Mitchel Lavrowsky was on the second floor of the Russian People’s House in New York City. He was teaching algebra to his fellow Russian immigrants.

The building was a cultural and social center for Russian immigrants. It provided language classes, held social events, and provided assistance to new immigrants looking to start their lives in America.

And on this night, it was also hosting a meeting on the first floor for the Union of Russian Workers.

Which is why it was a target of Hoover’s raid.

Lavrowsky wasn’t aware the cops surrounded the building. He didn’t know they burst in the front door downstairs and rounded up everyone at the Union meeting. 

He didn’t hear the bewildered questions in Russian to the cops from immigrants who didn’t speak English. Or the blunt instructions to “shut up” as police lined up 200 men and women Union members. They were to be loaded on a bus and sent downtown for questioning and possible deportation.

But Lavrowsky certainly heard the door of his classroom slam open. Cops came in with guns pointed at him. They ordered him to remove his glasses. They hit him over the head with batons and threw him down the stairs. More police beat him on the stairs with wood blocks ripped from the bannister. They ordered him to wash away the blood before forcing him outside so reporters wouldn’t see it. 

Lavrowsky was taken to the Department of Justice office on Park Row and questioned about his political views.

He had committed no crime, so around midnight he was released. With his head, left shoulder, and left foot broken from the night’s violence.

When morning came, Americans woke to headlines bragging that over 3,000 radicals were rounded up in raids across 23 states and 30 cities. The FBI broke into political meetings, private homes, social clubs, dance halls, restaurants, and bars across America. Agents hauled people out of bookstores and bedrooms. Some were placed directly on boats back to Russia. Some were put in jail for weeks or months. Some, like Lavrowsky, were released. None were shown warrants or given any protection against unlawful search and seizure as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

Hoover himself later admitted there were “clear cases of brutality” in the raids.

To justify the actions, the Department of Justice claimed to have found several bombs in the searches, and showed a few iron balls to the press. But there were no bombs. Only four pistols were found.

The press was positive at first. America wanted a response to the anarchist bombings and it got a big one. Many members of Congress loved the Palmer Raids.

But the love for these unconstitutional tactics did not last. That year, the American Civil Liberties Union was founded specifically to respond to these raids. They delivered a report accusing Palmer and Hoover of torture and illegal imprisonment. The ACLU said they had mounted an “assault upon the most sacred principles of our Constitutional liberties.”

Ultimately, the courts agreed and denounced the raids. Palmer’s reputation was damaged - he lost his bid to win the nomination for President. 

But Hoover had a different takeaway. He learned the wrong lesson.

Rather than abandon unconstitutional tactics, Hoover decided this work would have to be done in secret.

For the next fifty years the FBI put on a new public face. They were crime-fighting heroes who championed the Constitution. 

This was, of course, often true. The FBI tracked down terrorists, brought mobsters to justice, foiled enemy plans in World War II, and captured dangerous spies during the Cold War.

But through it all, Hoover continued secret operations using illegal tactics. Often directed at American citizens. All in the name of stopping threats to America before they happened.

And no one would ever find out.

Except in 1970 - nearly fifty years later - an ordinary American citizen decided to try.

A CRAZY IDEA

Bill Davidon had seen enough. He was a professor at Haverford College. But more importantly, he was extremely active in the peace movement. He wanted to end the war in Vietnam so passionately he was willing to take dramatic action. He was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Harrisburg Seven case. Basically, a group of nuns and priests plotted to kidnap national security adviser Henry Kissinger, in an effort to end the war. When the case went to court, the jury decided not to charge a group of peace loving nuns and priests.

Davidon went on to work with the Catholic left to break into Selective Service offices and disrupt efforts to draft new young men into the Vietnam War.

Over 58 thousand Americans would die in Vietnam - along with 2 million Vietnamese. An entire generation of protesters felt these enormous losses were unjustified and unnecessary. 

But it was becoming very dangerous to be a protester in America.

At Kent State University the Governor of Ohio sent the National Guard in to suppress student protests. He called the protesters “the worst kind of people we harbor in America.” A day later, four students were killed and nine injured when National Guard soldiers opened fire on a peaceful student demonstration.

And Davidon couldn’t help but notice the government charged no one with the killings.

Two students were killed days later by state police at Jackson State University. The police used overwhelming force, including submachine guns and shotguns. And again, no one was ever convicted of a crime.

In the week after, scores of students protesting on Wall Street were bludgeoned by construction workers with crowbars and other heavy tools. The Wall Street Journal reported that financial workers supporting the violence threw ticker tape out their windows in celebration. Again, the construction workers were not arrested. Even worse, they were actually honored. President Nixon invited them to the White House and gave them flag lapel pins for assaulting the students. Or, as the Vice President put it, for putting on “an impressive display of patriotism”.

It was during this mad time that Davidon started hearing from various peace groups they feared FBI spies were in their midst. 

People were worried the person who stood beside them at a protest, or even a random neighbor, was really an FBI informer.

If the government’s plan was to destroy their movement from the inside, it was working.

That’s when Davidon had that crazy idea. Break into the FBI office and get the truth. Show the world what was really happening.

After months of convincing his friends, the professor managed to gather a rag tag group willing to - and convinced they had to - do the job.

The group included a professor of religion, a daycare center worker, a cab driver, a social worker, and two college dropouts working full time against the war. Not exactly Ocean’s Eleven. But the cab driver had learned how to pick locks, so he could help break into draft offices. And in 1971, if you could pick a lock, you could get in just about anywhere.

They cased the FBI office to see what they were up against. Turned out, the office in Philadelphia was across from the Delaware County Courthouse. That was bad news right off the bat. There would be a guard nearby. Bad news number two: the FBI office was on the second floor above apartments where people lived - so someone was always in the building. 

The next challenge was getting a look inside. It was easy enough to map out the exterior. But to do this right they needed the layout of the offices: what kind of locks did they have? Were the file cabinets locked? Were there alarms? What was the layout of the rooms? 

One of the women on their team volunteered for a very risky recon mission. She called the FBI office and made an appointment to go in for an interview. She said she was a student doing research on opportunities for women in the Bureau. The plan worked perfectly. The FBI agents never suspected a thing. She returned to the attic where the team secretly met. And she brought the layout of the FBI office, and confirmed there were no alarms, the doors had standard locks, and the file cabinets were unlocked.

Next, they had to figure out how to handle other people living in the building and the night watchman across the street. The team had a brilliant idea that would distract all of them. They chose the night of March 8, 1971 to break in. Because on that night, every living human being in New York would be glued to their radio, or closed circuit TV. 

That was the night of the heavyweight fight between Muhammad Ali and Walt Frazier. The Fight of the Century. It’s hard to describe how big this event was at the time. Bigger than the Super Bowl. Ali was heavyweight champion of the world - only he had his title removed when he refused to be drafted into the Vietnam war. Frazier went on to become Heavyweight Champion. And to add to the drama - Frazier supported the war. So you had two heavyweight champions - both undefeated, representing two sides of the biggest political issue of the day - facing each other. It remains the biggest boxing match in history.

Turns out, it was also the greatest distraction in history.

The first step in the plan began at 8PM sharp. The lock picking cab driver drove to the FBI building alone. 

He dressed in a nice business suit so anyone who saw him walk up to the FBI office door would figure he belonged there. But no one saw him.

He got out his homemade lock picking tools and put on rubber gloves. He started to work on the lock. And then he froze.

There was a second lock installed. The first one was a simple five-pin tumbler - he was prepared for that. But the new one must have been just installed - and it was high security, his tools wouldn’t work.

Why was there a new lock? Did someone leak their plan to the FBI?

The cab driver drove back to the attic, assuming they’d call the whole thing off.  But the woman who cased the inside said there was a second door. Maybe there was a file cabinet in front of it, but there was definitely a second entrance.

So the cab driver returned. And he found that second door. He easily picked the lock on that one. But the door still wouldn’t budge. There was a deadbolt on the top. He wasn’t going to let that stop him after all this. He went to his car and got the jack from the trunk. He used it as a crowbar to get past the deadbolt. Then he pushed on the door but - as predicted - there was something blocking it. He decided to risk making a loud noise - he was too far into this now - and he pushed against the door with all his strength.

He was in.

He alerted the other seven members of the team. They arrived in nice suits with giant suitcases. And they proceeded to fill those suitcases with over a thousand top secret FBI files. Later, FBI agents would wonder how the burglars knew to take the most sensitive documents. Truth is, they had no idea. They just took everything.

When the suitcases were overloaded with files, they packed them in their cars and drove to a remote farmhouse where they immediately began looking through the files.

Over 60% of the documents explained in detail how the FBI was spying on American citizens.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Hoover’s secret operations were about to be revealed to the world.

The group moved to the last stage of their plan. Releasing the documents to the press. They called themselves the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI.

Reporters at the New York Times, the LA Times, and the Washington Post received photocopies of the files. For the first time ever — outside the walls of the FBI - the public read instructions to agents on how to infiltrate student groups and instill paranoia. The exact quote was, “make them think there’s an FBI agent behind every mailbox”.

Document after document revealed the FBI had been actively surveilling students, peace groups, and civil rights organizations.

In one example, Hoover directed the Bureau to investigate anyone who had been in the Soviet Union for a month or more to determine if they’d been recruited as spies.

Documents identified black students as a definite threat to the nation’s stability. One college in Pennsylvania had every black student under secret surveillance. And the FBI ordered that all Black Student Unions and any other groups focused on demands of black students be under secret investigation.

The shocking details kept coming. The FBI infiltrated war resisters at colleges across the country.

The Bureau was investigating the Jewish Defense League, as well as the Ku Klux Klan. Professors suspected of harboring fugitives had their phones tapped.

Files revealed transcripts of private conversations among members of the Black Panthers.

Up until this moment, most of what the press reported about the FBI was positive. Now the press and the public would be in shock. Because it turns out, the FBI was targeting them.

COINTELPRO

Hoover was livid the files got out. Over 200 agents were assigned to the manhunt to find out who was behind the burglary. He placed security guards at all FBI offices. 

But despite the revelations, Hoover’s FBI survived the initial uproar. Some in Congress - along with every major newspaper - called for a first-ever investigation of the FBI. But Senator Sam Ervin refused. And it was his committee that would do the investigation.

It seemed like the controversy might blow over. 

Until a reporter from NBC, Carl Stern, was leafing through papers from the FBI burglary. And he noticed an odd file in the mix.

It had big block letters on the upper right hand corner. “COINTELPRO”.

He had no idea what that meant.

He asked around, but no government officials would say what the strange word stood for.

In 1973, Stern filed a Freedom of Information Act to find out. A Judge approved the release of four documents to Stern. The documents explained that COINTELPRO was the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program.

This was pretty intriguing. Even more intriguing were references to seven COINTELPRO operations. Targets included the Communist Party, the New Left, White Hate Groups, the Socialist Workers Party, and Black Extremists.

Stern filed another Freedom of Information request thinking there must be more documents.

In 1974 he received 50,000 pages.

And suddenly infiltrating student groups seemed like no big deal.

The FBI was up to much, much worse.

COINTELPRO AGAINST SWP

COINTELPRO targeting the Socialist Workers Party was authorized in a memo from Hoover in 1961. The SWP was tiny - they only had 2,500 members nationwide. But Hoover was convinced the group supported Castro’s Cuba and inflamed “integration problems arising in the South”. Of course, these causes were completely legal to support. But Hoover wasn’t having it.

Like all the COINTELPRO operations, Hoover used all the illegal tools at his disposal: Undercover informants, electronic surveillance, propaganda, and a COINTELPRO favorite: “surreptitious entries”. 

Otherwise known as “black bag jobs”.

Otherwise known as - they broke into homes and offices.

Typically, this meant three agents with no identification on them would break into the target office. One would photograph everything. The other two would search desks, files, shelves, and cabinets for any documents of interest. Often they’d have a “slugger” remain outside to deal with any unexpected visitors. If they were discovered, the FBI would deny any association with them. The black bag teams were on their own.

These break-ins happened all the time. The Socialist Workers Party national office in New York was hit 81 times in 7 years by FBI break-ins. The New York local office was hit 76 times. Nearly 10,000 documents were removed or photographed.

And who were they bringing to justice? Not mobsters or bomb makers. In almost every case, they were teachers. Sometimes highly regarded.

A black elementary school teacher in Washington DC was targeted because she was a member of the Young Socialist Alliance in college. She wasn’t a current member. Yet the FBI sent fake derogatory letters to the School Superintendent claiming the teacher was holding regular socialist meetings in her apartment. The letters claimed she was out to overthrow the government and should be fired. The letter was signed as if from a concerned neighbor.

A Scoutmaster in New Jersey was targeted. He wasn’t a party member but had attended a couple of meetings. The FBI sent a message to the Boy Scouts National Headquarters defaming the Scoutmaster as subversive, and asked he be removed. The Boy Scouts agreed not to allow the Scoutmaster to lead the troop, destroying his reputation.

In San Antonio, a teacher widely regarded as a great educator was fired because the FBI notified the school system of her Socialist Workers Party membership.

One of the worst examples was the case of Morris Starsky.

He worked his way up to become a tenured professor at Arizona State University. He had no idea he was about to have his career destroyed by the FBI.

His crime? He became involved in liberal causes, like anti-war teach-ins. And he supported the Social Workers Party.

At one point, he allowed his philosophy students to miss class so they could attend an anti war rally.

The FBI proceeded to contact the Board of Regents asking to have Starsky removed from the University payroll.

When that didn’t work, Hoover approved stronger action.

The FBI mailed anonymous letters to all five members of the faculty Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The letters contained a blistering attack on Starsky and his activities. It was strongly recommended he be removed from the University. The letters were signed “from a Concerned ASU Alum”.

This time it worked. The faculty committee recommended Starsky be removed. And the Board of Regents, sick of all the controversy, agreed. Even though the controversy was entirely fake.

Starsky lost his job despite being fully tenured. He was never able to get a decent job in teaching again.

Years later, Starskey would see his name on the COINTELPRO documents and learn what the FBI did to him.

A federal court awarded him $15,000 for being fired illegally. But Starsky lost decades of his career. After committing no crime whatsoever.

COINTELPRO targeting the SWP caused enormous human misery. Careers of law-abiding American citizens were destroyed. First and Fourth Amendment rights were ignored. Over 1,000 undercover informants were used at a cost of more than $300,000 to American taxpayers. Not to mention over 36,000 wire taps. 

Your government at work.

But Hoover’s most terrifying work was suppressing a movement we consider among the most important in our nation’s history.

Hoover went to great lengths to destroy the heroes of civil rights.

STING LIKE A BEE

On January 7, 1966, world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali was in Florida for a private and personal meeting. He finalized his divorce from his first wife, Sonji Roi. He had no idea this personal event would result in a classified memo to the Director of the FBI. The memo detailed Ali’s exact alimony payments and revealed details of his testimony in the meeting. Specifically, that his wife had not lived up to his “muslim faith”. Because she did not dress modestly and wore makeup. The FBI knew because they had Ali under extensive surveillance.

How is this any business of the FBI? At the time, the boxing legend was associating with the Nation of Islam. They were a Black Nationalist group. And Hoover considered them a threat to America. It was all in the files.

One of the stated goals of COINTELPRO was to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate type organizations.” And the Nation of Islam was one of the groups targeted.

Hoover knew the American public would object. The COINTELPRO instructions warned, “under no circumstances should the existence of the program be made known outside the Bureau”.

In Hoover’s view, Muhammad Ali was a threat to become a charismatic leader for the Nation of Islam. Because at this moment in time, Ali was as famous as anyone on the planet.

In February of that year Ali was notified his draft status was 1-A. That was the potential death sentence every young male in the United States feared. It meant he would be drafted to fight in Vietnam. 

Ali he told the press he would not go. As a muslim, his faith wouldn’t allow him to fight in a war “not declared by Allah himself”. He famously added, “I don’t have no personal quarrel with those Viet Congs”.

Refusing to obey the draft is a felony. The Governor of Illinois called Ali disgusting. The governor of Maine said Ali should “be held in contempt by every patriotic American”. But Ali would not budge. He said, “I have searched my conscience and I find I cannot be true to my belief in my religion by accepting such a call." Ali refused to be inducted. Before the Government even charged him with a crime, the World Boxing Association stripped the 25 year old of his championship title.

Ali still didn’t budge. He told a national television audience, “whenever people want to make real progress some people have to sacrifice a lot. White America is spending 30 million dollars a day in Asia and black and white boys are dying unjustly for nothing so why should I worry about going to jail for my poor people?”

At the same time, the FBI was actively looking for ways to embarrass Ali. And disrupt his rise in the Nation of Islam. 

The COINTELPRO files revealed it all. The Bureau fed negative information to newspaper columnists. They said Ali was “a loudmouth” who was loyal to the “racist Nation of Islam”. They said he was being forced into a marriage with the Nation of Islam’s “prized show piece” - referring to .

Informants reported on all of Ali’s activities. Where he went, what he said, how much he was paid. The FBI knew who he called when he arrived at a hotel. They knew how many people were at every speech he gave. They had transcripts of conversations about who he might fight next.

But the FBI never found the one thing that would justify years of cost and effort: a crime. 

Ali took his draft objections all the way to the Supreme Court. And on June 28, 1971 Ali had his biggest win outside a boxing ring. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned Ali’s conviction. The world heavyweight champion would not be going to jail.

Hoover held back information that could have hurt Ali’s career. Bureau informants had info on championship fights allegedly being fixed. And there was a legitimate customs violation Hoover could have leaked to the press.

But the FBI Director had a different civil rights leader to worry about. Someone just as charismatic and with much more political power. One he called “dangerous”.

Hoover was going after Martin Luther King Jr.

OPERATION SOLO

Jack and Morris Childs were enemies of America for twenty-five years. The brothers were active officials of the Communist Party in the United States. Morris became editor of the Daily Worker, the U.S. newspaper dedicated to spreading communism and overthrowing the capitalist system. Jack helped move money to fund party activities. The brothers made trips to Moscow meeting directly with Communist officials. But after years of loyal service, a minority faction in the Party grew uncomfortable with their growing power. In typical Communist party fashion, the brothers were driven out in a cold-blooded coup.

That’s when the FBI knocked on their door.

The Bureau routinely contacted inactive or former Communist Party members. Mostly to get information. But in this case, they happened upon the most successful double-agents in American history.

The Childs brothers felt betrayed by the Communists after devoting their lives to the cause. So when the FBI suggested the two could work for the Bureau - reactivate themselves in the Party and pass along all the information they could - the answer was a resounding “yes”.

This was the birth of Operation Solo. Cleverly named since it involved two brothers. They’d been enemies for twenty-five years, but they would spend the next twenty-five as Hoover’s gold mine of information on Communist activity.

Almost immediately, Operation Solo went better than anyone hoped. Within three years, the Childs brothers became the crucial link used by the Soviet Union to secretly channel millions of dollars to the U.S. Which meant the brothers knew virtually everything that happened in the Communist party. Suddenly, Hoover could report to the White House every secret, every confidential detail, every move the Party made. Including contacts with foreign powers. Information on agreements between Moscow and China. Childs even met with Soviet Politburo officials and — at one point - Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung. There are reports Childs may have briefed Presidents ahead of  foreign trips. 

For Hoover’s FBI, Operation Solo was a tremendous success.

And it was Operation Solo that put a white New York legal counselor with thick glasses on the FBI’s radar.

Hoover first heard about Stanley Levison when Operation Solo identified him as a secret financial benefactor to the Communist Party. Basically, Levison helped find business partners who could fund the Party.

The Childs brothers alleged Levison was using his own business associations to launder money for the Party. When Levison got involved in a Ford dealership, took a trip to Poland, helped finance a laundromat - it was considered a possible front for the Communist Party.

In 1954, Levison made things worse. FBI’s double-agents reported Levison took an official role in the Party managing its secret funds. The Party Treasurer died and Levison agreed to take on the role. In a crazy stroke of luck, this meant Levison was the boss of Jack Childs - the FBI double-agent.

At this point, the FBI COINTELPRO machine went into high gear. Levison had constant surveillance. His hotel rooms were bugged. Transcripts of his private conversations landed on Hoover’s desk.

Then Stanley Levison did something completely unexpected.

He quit the Communist Party.

The Childs brothers no longer had regular contact with him.

The FBI’s close surveillance on his activities stopped.

Levison began working with groups raising money for other causes, including the growing civil rights groups focused on equal rights for African Americans.

By 1957, the FBI dropped Levison from its list of key Communist figures in the United States.

As the FBI did with the Childs brothers, they paid a visit to Levison to see if he might become an informant. Levison refused.

He really was moving on - he was absolutely not returning to the Communist Party.

So why do we care about Stanley Levison?

THE COMMUNIST INFLUENCER

In 1962, Hoover received a report from Operation Solo that contained information the White House would want asap.

The FBI’s double-agents had information that Mao Tse-tung and Nikita Krishchev - the leader of China and the leader of the Soviet Union - hated each other. There was a breach between the two superpowers that President Eisenhower could exploit.

The CIA had been reporting the two enemy nations were of one mind. But Hoover had the truth - and the CIA was wrong.

Operation Solo was delivering insights no eavesdropping satellite or spy plane could deliver. This was information direct from on-the-ground insider sources. Communist leaders were confused and quarreling.

And there was more.

Moscow had decided that the main goal of the Communist Party in the United States would be to “fight for Negro equality and integration”.

The Kremlin’s theory was the civil rights struggle could disrupt the U.S. government and destabilize the nation.

From that moment on, Hoover saw the civil rights movement as a dangerous arm of the Communist threat.

There was one other detail that would ignite a fever in Hoover.

Operation Solo reported the Kremlin requested a copy of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s first book. The one just published called “Stride Toward Freedom”.

The one written with the help of - you guessed it - Stanley Levison.

Turns out, when Levison left the Communist Party he found a more fulfilling role - one that would give him a front row seat to history.

He used his business skills to help a civil rights group called “In Friendship”. He became friends with one of its prominent activists, a man named Bayard Rustin. You might recognize the name. He went on to become a legend, helping to organize the March on Washington among other accomplishments in the movement. 

At the time, Rustin was concerned about an incident in Montgomery, Alabama. They had some strange rules about riding the bus if you happened to be black. You paid at the front like everyone, but you had to enter the bus from the back. And you had to stay in the back - you weren’t allowed to sit in front rows. They were reserved for white people.

A couple of times, young black women tried to sit in the “wrong” seat. One was a 15 year old girl. Claudette Colvin. She was arrested. Then 18 year old Mary Smith refused to give up her seat to another person just because they were white. She was also arrested. Police in Montgomery weren’t kidding about segregating their public buses.

But then they met their match. On December 1st, 1955 a 42 year old woman named Rosa Parks took a seat in the front of a bus. And she was arrested for it. Only Parks wasn’t some kid. She was one of the most respected women in the community. Her arrest prompted a one-day protest - 90% of all black citizens in the city stayed off the bus. And that meant the city suddenly took a financial hit. It opened some eyes. Organizers wanted to hit harder - extend the boycott.

They formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to run a mass protest that would last 13 months and go all the way to the Supreme Court. And they would win. 

A big reason for their success was the man they chose to lead it. He had a certainty in the cause that motivated his members. His speeches were beyond charismatic - they had the energy of a preacher. They gave his members courage against power. Of the bus boycott, he said:

“If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong.”

Rustin went to Alabama to help organize the boycott. And he introduced Levison to this new, inspiring leader on the scene, named Martin Luther King, Jr.

Levison and King got along great from day one. And Levison had legal and business skills King needed.

Levison quickly became a close confidant. He helped draw up the founding documents for King’s new organization that would become the heart of the civil rights movement: the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Levison helped polish speeches and drafts of books, and even did the taxes. In May of 1957, King’s focus was on removing barriers preventing African Americans to vote. On paper, they had the right. But the reality was much different. The South used poll taxes, literacy tests, and flat out violence to stop blacks from voting. Infamously, registrars would make Black voters guess the number of jelly beans in a jar before they could register to vote. It was clearly wrong, and King was going to change things.

Levison listened while King ran a speech by him. He was going to give it at the Lincoln Memorial. He would give it on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown vs the Board of Education that said schools could not be segregated.

"Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of an anti-lynching law ...

"Give us the ballot and we will fill our legislative halls with men of good will ...

"Give us the ballot and we will place judges on the benches of the South who will do justly and love mercy ...

"Give us the ballot and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement the Supreme Court’s decision of May 17, 1954.

Levison likely had no notes. It remains one of the most important speeches in American history.

A DANGER TO THE NATION

For Hoover, King’s talents to motivate his followers was a danger to the nation. When he discovered Levison - a former Communist Party member - was involved in shaping King’s message, all bets were off. Hoover let loose the full resources of his secret COINTELPRO operations on King.

On January 8, 1962 Hoover sent a letter to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy alerting him of King’s close relationship with Levison. Hoover made it sound as bad as possible. He said a Communist Leader was writing King’s speeches. Left out was the part where Levison left the Party years before. Levison was identified as a Communist controlling King. According to Kennedy, “When I heard that (King) was tied up, perhaps, with some Communists, I asked the FBI to make an intensive investigation of him.”

Kennedy authorized a wiretap on Levison’s office. Now Hoover was getting transcriptions of conversations with Levison and King - the civil rights hero called Levison constantly. They were indeed close.

Hoover sent RFK a recording from Levison’s office and got the Attorney General’s attention. There on the tape was the baritone voice of Martin Luther King, Jr. An additional tap on Levison’s home phone was authorized. Turns out, King called Levison late at night several times a week. The conversations were about their work in the civil rights movement - no dangerous communist talk was uncovered. But RFK was convinced Levison had tremendous sway on King. And Hoover was unwavering that they knew Levison was a Communist influencer. How he knew was kept secret from the White House - and so was the lack of any evidence it was still true.

FBI agents began hearing Levison and King making big plans for a March on Washington. 250,000 demonstrators would show up in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It would be the largest public protest in American history. It’s an event so important to our history as Americans we still study it in school. But to Hoover, the March was an unprecedented mobilization of black people playing right into Communist hands.

Hoover desperately wanted to wire tap King himself. He wanted damaging information that would stop King’s influence.

Hoover was relentless with memos to the Kennedys warning King was leading a Communist conspiracy against America. 

He commissioned FBI reports on the deep history of the Communist Party’s connections with the civil rights movement. 

The FBI report - delivered in August of 1963 - did not disappoint. It claimed: “The 19 million Negroes in the United States today constitute the largest and most important racial target of the Communist Party USA.” The report went on: “Since 1919 communist leaders have devised countless tactics and programs designed to penetrate and control the Negro population.” 

But the report was missing one key thing. As usual. There was no direct evidence of Communist control. 

So Hoover doubled down.

Martin Luther King’s most famous speech is obviously “I Have a Dream”. We literally have a national holiday where that speech is aired and celebrated every year. The FBI wasn’t so inspired.

The day after King made the speech during the March on Washington, the FBI sent a new memo. It was circulated widely at the White House. It said, “In the light of King’s powerful demagogic speech . . . we must mark him now, if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro and national security.” The memo - prepared by FBI officials - was signed by Hoover.

Still, getting RFK to approve surveillance on the civil rights leader was a tall order. 

Because of one key thing.

While Hoover was out to destroy Martin Luther King, Jr. RFK wanted to help him.

THE KENNEDY BROTHERS

Back in 1960, King was arrested and put in jail for nothing more than a traffic violation. The charges were trumped up and designed to put King in real danger. Because the Georgia judge sentenced King to four months hard labor. Which would be done next to hardened White criminals. It was likely King would not survive the experience.

This was at the end of the Presidential campaign between Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Nixon had just been endorsed by none other than Martin Luther King Senior. But it was JFK who called Martin Luther King Jr’s wife Coretta to console her. And at the same time it was RFK who called the judge and got King released on bail.

Once in office, the Kennedy’s continued to step in and help King. Truth is, politically they hoped King would slow down his drive for change. But in the end, they always sided with King.

Like in 1961, when King organized Freedom Rides - buses with both black and white passengers - into the still segregated South. Hard to imagine now, but Southerners would beat the Freedom Riders with baseball bats and iron pipes — and throw them in jail. Simply because whites were riding with blacks. 

FBI agents infamously stood around and did nothing while Freedom Riders were beaten in the Montgomery Alabama Terminal. 

But RFK ultimately demanded the Interstate Commerce Commission comply with their own bus desecration ruling from five years earlier. Segregation wasn’t solved, but there was progress: in bus and train stations in the South White and Colored Only signs came down.

And when RFK got the reports of King associating with a Communist, he actually warned King. As did the President of the United States. King responded by lowering Levison’s public profile. But the relationship remained close. The Kennedys couldn’t go so far as telling King the FBI was listening to Levison’s phones and tapping his office.

So when Hoover was demanding Martin Luther King Jr. be made the target of secret surveillance like a suspected criminal, RFK was not eager to agree.

But RFK did agree. Because Hoover had the upper hand.

Hoover had secret information on the Kennedys.

In March of 1962, Hoover had lunch at the White House and let JFK know. The Kennedys better not cross the FBI, or the secrets would come out.

The COINTELPRO files revealed it all. Hoover knew the CIA and RFK were working to assassinate Fidel Castro, the leader of Cuba. 

He knew the plan included the participation of Mafia boss Sam Giancana.

And it got worse from there.

Hoover knew the President had slept with Judith Campbell, who was the girlfriend of the Mafia Boss.

And that JFK had several other relationships outside his marriage.

There was an allegation that as senator JFK was sleeping with his wife’s social secretary. 

When JFK was in the navy, there was an affair with a married columnist for the Washington Post. Who was suspected of being a German spy. Which is why the FBI had her hotel room bugged when she slept with JFK. 

According to a White House official, after the lunch, the president told an aide that he had to fire “that bastard” J. Edgar Hoover.

Of course, Hoover was not fired.

And now he wanted to bug Martin Luther King, Jr.

RFK later called it, “absolute blackmail.” To his staff, he said he could not, with the “flood of memos” from the FBI about King’s Communist associations, turn the Bureau down “on a tap.”

By October of 1963, King was subjected to unlimited electronic surveillance. Taps included the King home, the headquarters of the Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta and New York, and motel rooms wherever King traveled.

And Hoover’s bugs got immediate results.

Turns out, the motel rooms were an issue.

In one of the first incidents, FBI agents got word King would be staying at the Willard in Washington DC. They broke into King’s room ahead of time and planted the first of many bugs. When King arrived, the FBI was listening. They heard King thinking out loud, working out strategy and tactics. In the later hours, members of the SCLC arrived, along with two women who worked in the Philadelphia Naval Yards. There was a party. And then, after the party, they heard King having sex with one of the women.

In just this one night, the FBI produced over a dozen large reels of tape. Bureau employees transcribed the material.

The surveillance revealed nothing important to national security or communist infiltration. But it did reveal King was involved in extracurricular sexual activities. And it wouldn’t be the only time.

The FBI considered this a win. This was something they could use.

Hoover’s orders were to find information to discredit King. The stated FBI goal was to “leave negroes without a national leader of sufficiently compelling personality to steer them in the proper direction”.

The world was not helping the FBI in this devious goal. Time Magazine just announced their man of the year in 1963 was going to be King.

So when Hoover heard the tapes, he was excited. He said the tapes would, “destroy the burrhead” — Hoover’s racist nickname for King he only said in private.

They could have kept the tapes in a safe, hidden them for leverage. But the FBI did the opposite.

They immediately sent transcripts to the White House. King would be discredited as fast as possible.

Notably, they kept the tapes from RFK thinking he would simply tell King and end the operation right there.

The surveillance continued. Many nights they got nothing - not even sexual encounters. King still met with Levison. But the Bureau never uncovered anything proving communist influence or criminal intent.

There was a night King was recorded being particularly vulgar. He was having fun, giving explicit nicknames to friends, making dirty jokes about JFK. All of it went straight to the White House. King had no idea.

Then - in October of 1964 - Hoover found out King was going to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. This discrediting thing wasn’t going well.

Hoover couldn’t stand it. He decided to give an interview, complaining about comments King made insulting the FBI two years earlier. King said the FBI was ineffective in battling civil rights. Hoover insisted King told his followers never to ask the FBI for help. Of course, that was a lie. But in this interview, Hoover called King, “the most notorious liar in the country”. He was desperate to knock the man about to win a Nobel Prize off his pedestal.

The FBI went even further. In fact, they committed what would later be seen as one of the most shameful acts in its secret history.

They put the damning tapes of King’s sexual exploits - tapes King did not know they had - in a package and mailed it to King. 

Of course they hid the fact the package came from the FBI. They mailed it to Atlanta from a mailbox in Miami. The FBI labs created a dark and threatening note and added it to the package. The hope was King would open it, realize his enemies had evidence to destroy him, and step down as leader of the civil rights movement.

The letter, from an anonymous critic, read in part:

“King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes . . . You are no clergyman and you know it . . . you could not believe in God . . . Clearly you don’t believe in any personal moral principles.

King, like all frauds your end is approaching. You could have been our greatest leader. You, even at an early age have turned out to be not a leader but a dissolute, abnormal moral imbecile.”

The letter went on to not so subtly suggest King kill himself. It said, “There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.” That last part was clearly a threat that the tapes would be released to the public. It’s astounding this was a product of official FBI business. Such was the way of FBI’s COINTELPRO operations.

The package was sent to King at the SCLC office in Atlanta.

Hoover then sent the tapes to Newsweek, hoping they would print a story on King’s immoral activities. They didn’t bite.

The FBI kept trying. They gave illicit photos taken in secret of women leaving King’s motel to the Chicago Daily News. They didn’t print them.

The Bureau offered transcripts to the LA Times, the New York Times, the Atlanta Constitution. No go. The Atlanta paper said it was “not the sort of news the Constitution wanted to print”

Meanwhile, the FBI’s package arrived at SCLC headquarters. But the box was placed unopened with similar packages.

Turns out, the person who would go through packages at the Atlanta office was none other than King’s wife, Coretta. She discovered the package and read the threatening letter. She listened to a part of the tapes and was horrified. Then she called King.

The tapes did not have the effect on King intended by the FBI.

At first, he was emotionally distraught and feared he would be exposed. But in the end, he found resolve. King saw the tapes as proof outsiders were trying to intimidate him. And suddenly he regretted distancing himself from Levison.

He had allowed the FBI to drive Levison - his close friend and advisor - away for no reason.

By 1965, King resolved to correct that mistake.

The FBI kept up its surveillance to no avail.

In October, they requested another six months authorization for wiretaps on King. They insisted the electronic surveillance had “provided considerable valuable intelligence information concerning communist influence on the SCLC through King”. 

The taps would continue until 1966. And at first they were approved yet again. But at that time, Senator Edward Long began an investigation into federal agencies who used electronic surveillance techniques. Hoover never wanted any of his operations public. So he got the Senator to agree not to ask any FBI agents to testify.

And Hoover needed their operations to stop so they wouldn’t be discovered by the investigation. The request for more surveillance on King had a new note attached. It said, bluntly, “Remove this surveillance at once.”

It was just as well. After years of effort, in the end there was simply nothing to report.

Tragically, King would only live two more years. But they would be years free of FBI electronic surveillance.

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. 

There have been conspiracy theories suggesting the FBI was involved in the assassination. But in this case, that doesn’t appear to be true.

In other cases - it was absolutely true.

THE HAMPTON KILLING

William O’Neal was 17 years old and in jail on felony charges. He was caught stealing a car. And being a black kid in jail - in Chicago - in 1967 - well, his future looked bleak. Chicago cops were flat out racist at the time. Many were openly members of the Ku Klux Klan. 

O’Neal had little hope for a better life.

Until someone dropped his charges and got him released.

He thought he was the luckiest kid in the world. Someone was getting him out of jail. But unfortunately for O’Neal, that someone was an FBI Agent working for COINTELPRO secret operations. And it would lead to a horrific end.

At the time, The Black Panthers were gaining power in the city. They were different than King’s group, not so interested in non violence. Quite the opposite in fact.

They had some mainstream goals - organizing marches, fighting for equal rights, pushing for candidates that support black issues; even providing free breakfasts for poor children.

But they also believed in arming blacks so they could defend themselves against police brutality. Even more - they were in favor of proactive violence when needed. The Black Panthers openly said they were at war.

The Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers had yet another charismatic leader that motivated its members.

Fred Hampton was an impressive speaker and organizer from his high school days to his work with the NAACP to his leadership in the new Chicago chapter of the Black Panthers. Everyone in the community loved him.

This was Hoover’s nightmare come to life.

The FBI Director proclaimed the Black Panther Party the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States.

Chicago Police and FBI agents fed stories to local media to discredit the Panthers. They also shared intelligence, spied on the group’s meetings, planted informants, and proactively tried to cause friction in the Panthers. 

And now an FBI Agent was saving 17 year old William O’Neal from jail, to begin another standard COINTELPRO operation.

The Agent told O’Neal to infiltrate the Panthers. Become a trusted member. And then report back information to the FBI. Not only would O’Neal get out of jail. But he would be paid every month he stayed on the job.

O’Neal liked the idea of working for the law. Unfortunately, it was Hoover’s law.

O’Neal took the gig. He joined Fred Hampton’s Black Panthers.

First he ran errands, did minor tasks, whatever was needed.

But it turns out O’Neal was good at this infiltration thing.

He worked his way up in the group. And eventually he was put in charge of security. At every step he dutifully reported back to the FBI everything that went on.

One of Fred Hampton’s skills was coalition building. He helped create a politically powerful movement by joining poor ethnic groups of all kinds. Led, of course, by black youth. Hampton called his group the Rainbow Coalition. They fought against Chicago’s destructive urban policies and police brutality.

O’Neal would grow to admire Hampton the more he worked with him. He would later say, “they started talking about black struggle and Black rights, and their whole program seemed to make sense.”

But he still did his duty, informing the FBI.

Then Hampton raised a major red flag with the Bureau. He sought out an alliance with the Blackstone Rangers gang. This gang of black youths was extremely violent, and much bigger in number than the Panthers. The FBI was determined to stop the groups from ever working together.

The Chicago FBI office had an idea - they would send an anonymous letter to the head of the Blackstone Rangers. The letter warned Hampton’s Panthers had a hit out on the Rangers leader. And part of the plot involved the Panthers taking over the Rangers gang. Hoover signed off on the idea. So right when the two groups might work together, the Rangers were being told their leader was going to be killed by Hampton.

The FBI believed this letter would create intense animosity between the groups. And the hope was the violent Rangers would take action, and strike first. Basically they were hoping Fred Hampton would be the one killed.

The Rangers decided against an alliance with the Panthers - the letter worked that much. But Hampton remained very much alive.

That prompted a meeting between the FBI and O’Neal in November of 1969. The FBI had a new request for their loyal informant. 

They wanted a drawing. ONeal was asked to create a detailed floor pan of Fred Hampton’s apartment. The Bureau wanted to know placement of furniture, rooms, doors — and specifically where Hampton slept.

ONeal complied. If he knew why the FBI wanted it, he might have acted differently. 

The FBI took the floor plan to a special unit of the Chicago police that worked secretly under the State’s Attorney General. The inside information was extremely valuable to the unit. Because they were planning an armed raid on Fred Hampton’s apartment.

Maybe O’Neal figured out what was about to happen. Because the night of the raid, O’Neal slipped Hampton a dose of secobarbital in his drink before he went to bed. Hampton was basically comatose. 

At 4AM a 14-man police team armed with submachine guns and shotguns burst into Hampton’s home. Hampton was shot once in the chest and twice point blank in the head. Clearly an assassination. After that, all Hell broke loose. Cops let go 98 rounds, killing Mark Clark, another Panther leader, and injuring six others.

No Panther fired a shot.

All the Panthers who survived were charged with aggressive assault and attempted murder - as if they had shot back. 

A week later, FBI’s COINTELPRO Chicago section head wrote a memo bragging about the operation’s success.

In the memo, he requested a bonus for O’Neal as the informant who made it all possible. The bonus was approved for $300.

And Fred Hampton was dead.

It took over a decade of battling the courts, but the Panthers ultimately sued the Chicago police and state officials for the illegal action.

The FBI couldn’t cover it up. The operation left over 10,000 documents behind detailing every step.

In November 1982, a District Judge finally determined there was sufficient evidence of a conspiracy to deprive the Panthers of their civil rights. They were awarded $1.85 million in damages.

In January of 1990, O’Neal committed suicide. Maybe it was his guilt over helping to assassinate a man he grew to admire. But whatever the reason, he was another victim of Hoover’s secret police.

END

The COINTELPRO files reveal decades of covert action directed against domestic groups. 

By the time J. Edgar Hoover died on May 2, 1972, these secret methods had horrified enough people that Congress finally took action.

The unjustified and cruel actions taken against Martin Luther King, Jr. were an example of an FBI that had lost all sense of purpose.

Under Hoover, more than a thousand political organizations were watchlisted. At least 10,000 American homes were burglarized in "black bag jobs" for the purpose of political intelligence gathering. 500,000 investigations on so-called subversives were made without a single conviction in a court of law.

In January 1975, the Church Committee was formed in the Senate to bring new guidelines to the Bureau.

There would be no more targeting anyone unless the bureau had facts they were engaged in a crime. And the Attorney General was given approval authority on any informers, mail interceptions, or other COINTELPRO style methods.

Mark Felt became the number two man at the FBI. He knew the Bureau did a lot of good outside all the controversy. He was determined to help run the place the right way. The days of secret break-ins against American citizens were over.

Except they weren’t at all.

A former FBI agent named G. Gordon Liddy had taken a new position where his experience in black bag jobs would come in handy.

He worked for the President of the United States.

Turns out, Nixon had become a version of Hoover - he was ordering burglaries, bugging his enemies, and using the FBI and CIA to attack his political opponents. He would have gotten away with it, too.

Except someone called a reporter at the Washington Post named Bob Woodward and anonymously leaked just enough information so Woodward could find the story. And report it to the world. Nixon’s crimes were uncovered and the President was forced out of office.

Woodward called this anonymous source “Deep Throat” - an unfortunate nickname. For decades people wondered who this mystery man was that betrayed Nixon.

Turns out, his name was Mark Felt. And he worked for the FBI.