Heavy Radicals: The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists is a history of the Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party - the largest Maoist organization to arise in the US - from its origins in the explosive year of 1968, its expansion into a national organization in the early '70s, its extension into major industry throughout the early part of that decade, and the devastating schism in the aftermath of the death of Mao Tse-tung to its ultimate decline as the 1970s turned into the 1980s. From its beginnings the grouping was the focus of J. Edgar Hoover and other top FBI officials for an unrelenting array of operations: Informant penetration, setting organizations against each other, setting up phony communist collectives for infiltration and disruption, planting of phone taps and microphones in apartments, break-ins to steal membership lists, the use of FBI 'friendly journalists' such as Victor Riesel and Ed Montgomery to undermine the group, and much more. It is the story of a sizable section of the radicalized youth whose radicalism did not disappear at the end of the '60s, and of the FBI's largest - and, up to now, untold - campaign against it.

Seventy years since the radical music of the 1960s first hit the airwaves, the anthems of the era continue to resonate with our current times. Through studying these musicians and the political contexts in which their pioneering songs were birthed; amidst paranoia, psychedelic delusions, desire and civil unrest; Aaron Leonard's Whole World in an Uproar is an important new critical history of countercultural music from the Summer of Love to the unwelcome arrival of Bob Dylan.

Positioning statement: The untold story of the FBI informants who penetrated the upper reaches of organizations such as the Communist Party, USA, the Black Panther Party, the Revolutionary Union and other groups labeled threats to the internal security of the United States. Sales points: Tells the story of FBI informants in Communist groups in America in the 60s and 70s Uses newly released FBI documents to uncover significant information about various suspected FBI informants The follow up to their groundbreaking 2015 book, Heavy Radicals. Topical in light of recent US Government leaks and FBI cover-ups Synopsis: Sometime in the late fall/early winter of 1962, a document began circulating among members of the Communist Party USA based in the Chicago area, titled ''Whither the Party of Lenin.'' It was signed ''The Ad Hoc Committee for Scientific Socialist Line.'' This was not the work of factionally inclined CP comrades, but rather something springing from the counter-intelligence imagination of the FBI. A Threat of the First Magnitude tells the story of the FBI's fake Maoist organization, The Ad Hoc Committee for a Scientific Socialist Line, and the informants the FBI used to penetrate the highest levels of the Communist Party USA, the Black Panther Party, the Revolutionary Union and other groups labelled threats to the internal security of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. As once again the FBI is thrust into the spotlight of US politics, A Threat of a First Magnitude offers a view of the historic inner-workings of the Bureau's counterintelligence operations - from generating ''''fake news'''' and the utilization of ''''sensitive intelligence methods'''' to the handling of ''''reliable sources'''' - that matches or exceeds the sophistication of any contenders.

Heavy Radicals: The FBI's Secret War on America's Maoists is a history of the Revolutionary Union/Revolutionary Communist Party - the largest Maoist organization to arise in the US - from its origins in the explosive year of 1968, its expansion into a national organization in the early seventies, its extension into major industry throughout early part of that decade, the devastating schism in the aftermath of the death of Mao Tse-tung, and its ultimate decline as the 1970s turned into the 1980s. From its beginnings the grouping was the focus of J. Edgar Hoover and other top FBI officials for an unrelenting array of operations: Informant penetration, setting organizations against each other, setting up phony communist collectives for infiltration and disruption, planting of phone taps and microphones in apartments, break-ins to steal membership lists, the use of FBI 'friendly journalists' such as Victor Riesel and Ed Montgomery to undermine the group, and much more. It is the story of a sizable section of the radicalized youth of whose radicalism did not disappear at the end of the sixties, and of the FBI's largest - and up to now, untold - campaign against it.

Sometime in the late fall/early winter of 1962, a document began circulating among members of the Communist Party USA based in the Chicago area, titled "Whither the Party of Lenin." It was signed "The Ad Hoc Committee for Scientific Socialist Line." This was not the work of factionally inclined CP comrades, but rather something springing from the counter-intelligence imagination of the FBI. A Threat of the First Magnitude tells the story of the FBI's fake Maoist organization and the informants they used to penetrate the highest levels of the Communist Party USA, the Black Panther Party, the Revolutionary Union and other groups labelled threats to the internal security of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. As once again the FBI is thrust into the spotlight of US politics, A Threat of a First Magnitude offers a view of the historic inner-workings of the Bureau's counterintelligence operations - from generating "fake news" and the utilization of "sensitive intelligence methods" to the handling of "reliable sources" - that matches or exceeds the sophistication of any contenders.