Davis - coauthor of Kelley (1987), the autobiography of former FBI
director Clarence M. Kelley - delves into the FBI's secret
counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO), which from 1956 to 1971
aimed to stifle dissent among domestic radical groups. J. Edgar
Hoover, Davis explains, obtained a vast charter for the FBI to
monitor domestic intelligence when FDR signed a special directive
just prior to WW II, and managed to get the National Security
Council to expand the FBI's portfolio in this arena in 1956. The
author documents the Bureau's war against extremist groups of both
the left and the right, such as the Communist Party U.S.A., the
Socialist Workers Party, the KKK, and the Black Panthers, and shows
how Hoover also employed extensive surveillance against New Left
organizations like SDS. He pays particular attention to the FBI's
virtually obsessive campaign to destroy the reputation of Martin
Luther King. The lid was blown on these activities when, in 1971,
an illegal break-in occurred at the FBI's Media, Pennsylvania,
office. The perpetrators, believed to be anti-Vietnam War
activists, proceeded to release to the press stolen classified
documents that revealed the FBI's secret operation. To research his
text, Davis interviewed FBI agents, former agents, and people who
were subject to illegal surveillance or harassment. He recognizes
the need for an organization like the FBI, but argues that the
Bureau got out of control with COINTELPRO and severely damaged
American civil liberties in the process. And Davis notes that,
although congressional committees investigated the FBI in the
mid-1970's, the Bureau was still committing abuses in the 1980's,
particularly against groups opposed to US policy in Central
America. A fair-minded and balanced report, backed by extensive
research. (Kirkus Reviews)
COINTELPRO. An acronym for Counterintelligence Program, this is
the code name the FBI gave to the secret operations aimed at five
major social and political protest groups--the Communist party, the
Socialist Workers Party, the Ku Klux Klan, black nationalist hate
groups, and the New Left movement. Spying on America, the first
book to chronicle all five of the operations, tells the story of
how the FBI, from 1956 until COINTELPRO's exposure in 1971,
expanded its domestic surveillance programs and increasingly
employed questionable, even unlawful, methods in an effort to
disrupt what amounts to virtually our entire social and political
protest movement. Violations of citizens' constitutional rights
were rampant, and the secret operations actually resulted in a
number of deaths. At the time, neither the public nor the news
media knew anything about COINTELPRO. In vivid detail, Spying on
America demonstrates that the system of checks and balances
designed to prevent such occurrences was simply not
functioning--until an illegal act uncovered the secret
activities.
The book opens with the daring raid of a Media, Pennsylvania FBI
office by a group that adeptly used its booty--about 1,000
classified documents--to make COINTELPRO operations public. The
burglars, who called themselves the Citizen's Commission to
Investigate the FBI, used sophisticated methods (the FBI never
caught up with them), releasing copies of incriminating documents
to the media at carefully timed intervals. Spying on America draws
on newspaper and magazine articles, interviews with many of the
people involved, and FBI memos to trace the historical beginnings
and operating methods of COINTELPRO efforts against each of the
five targeted groups. In vivid detail, the author re-creates the
reactions of the bureau--including the subsequent policy
changes--as well as the response of the news media and the
resulting shift in public attitudes toward the FBI. Finally, Davis
looks at the possibility of similar operations in the future. In
the context of our current, heightened state of socio-political
awareness, it is difficult to comprehend how so many unlawful deeds
could have been committed without the public's knowledge. Spying on
America makes us aware of how easily such activities can occur--and
in doing so, helps us prevent them from happening again.
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