Fruhmenschen: German for COINTELPRO
![handle is hein.journals/howscl1 and id is 49 raw text is: Howard Scroll: The Social Justice Review
Fruhmenschen': German for COINTELPRO
The FBI's targeting of black officials for harassment and investigation is another episode of a recurring
nightmare of political policing in America.
Bernard P. Haggerty
INTRODUCTION
This article is not about1 COINTELPRO2 or the FBI's attempts to neutralize
Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz)3 and Martin Luther King, Jr.4 and to derail the
civil rights and voting rights movements of the 1960's. Many such FBI indiscretions have
been well documented,5 although they are not as well publicized as they deserve.
1 FBI harassment or neutralization of Arab-Americans. American Indian Movement activists, anti-war
activists, Central American solidarity and sanctuary groups, trade unions, anti-nuclear activists,
environmentalists, Puerto Rican independence activists, lawyers and law students, authors and artists, library
patrons and librarians, gay and lesbian rights activists, and the FBI's historical role in anti-communist witch-
hunts or xenophobic anti-foreigner campaigns are all beyond the scope of this article. See generally, FBI v. THE
FrtsT AmENDmm rr CONFu CE HADBoOK, NEws CLtPPNGs AND DocumE : A HISTORY OF FBI AmusEs PAST AND
PRESENT (National Committee Against Repressive Legislation, Washington, DC 1991). Copies Available for a
S10.00 donation plus $2.50 postage. Write: NCARL, 3321 12th Street, N.E., Third Floor, Washington, DC
20017.
2 The Senate committee which investigated the FBI in the mid-seventies described COINTELPRO this
way:
COINTELPRO is the FBI acronym for a series of covert action programs against
domestic groups. In these programs, the Bureau went beyond the collection of
intelligence to secret action designed to disrupt and neutralize [the FBI's words]
target groups and individuals. The techniques... ranged from the trivial (mailing
reprints of Readers Digest articles to college administrators) to the degrading
(sending anonymous poison-pen letters intended to break up marriages) and the
dangerous (encouraging gang warfare and falsely labelling members of a violent
group as police informers).
Howmw ZINN, DEctARATIoNS OF INDPENDEINCE (Harper Collins Publishers, NY., 1990) ((citing, Final Report
of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Book 3
(1976) (the Church Committee report)). According to the Church Committee, COINTELPRO operated from 1956
until April 27, 1971. Id. The FBI officially dismantled COINTELPRO when unidentified burglars raided the FBI
offices in Media, Pennsylvania and leaked numerous documents (some with the heading COINTELPRO) from the
FBI's files to a small radical magazine. Declarations of Independence, at 204. It is a premise of this article,
however, that the FBI has merely stopped using the name COINTELPRO, but continues to engage in similar illegal
activities using new code names. See, e.g., Part I infra.
3 CLAYBORNE CARsON, MALcoLM X, TE FBI FLE (Carroll & Graf Publishing, Inc. 1991).
4 DAviD . GARROW, TE FBI AND MARTIN LuiER KING. JR. (Penguin Books 1981).
5 See'I&ARD CHRANDJM VANERWALI, AGENtS OF R SSION: TiE FBI's SEctErWARs AGAINSTTIE
AmiucAN o m MOw Arm TmE BLAK PANnm PARTY (South End Press 1988); Ward Churchill and Jim Vander
Wall, COINTELPRO papers: Documets FROMTHE FBI's StcRr WARS AGAISr DIssENr IN THE UN=D STATES (South
End Press 1990); RICA&RD CRIEY. THE FBI v. TBE FIRsT AMEN ENT (First Amendment Foundation 1990); Ross
GamSPAN, B tEAK-iNs, DEATH TRAT AmTi FBI, TuE COVERT WAR Aa U.S. Acnv AND WHAT WE CAN Do](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/howscl1&div=8&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Fruhmenschen: German for COINTELPRO
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