STRANGE COINTELPRO: The FBI's Own Files
The FBI Vault's COINTELPRO index lists the program's targets: White Hate Groups, New Left, Puerto Rican Groups, Black Extremist, Hoodwink, Cuba, Socialist Workers Party, and Espionage programs — the domestic surveillance and disruption operations the Church Committee later exposed.
FBI Counter Intelligence Program, authorized by Hoover in 1956. Declassified files show warrantless wiretapping, surreptitious entry, mail opening, paid informants, fabricated correspondence and forged documents against civil-rights, antiwar and other groups — including the 1964 anonymous letter urging MLK to kill himself. Exposed by the 1971 Media, PA office burglary; terminated April 1971. The FBI's own Vault summary concedes it was 'rightfully criticized... for abridging first amendment rights.'
Evidence status: Confirmed by primary sources — court records, government reports, declassified documents.
AI DOCUMENT REVIEW
Generated from the primary source document. How we review.
AI review of the FBI Vault COINTELPRO index page, read in full: - The Vault organizes the released COINTELPRO files under: White Hate Groups, New Left, Puerto Rican Groups, Black Extremist, Hoodwink, Cuba, Socialist Workers Party, and Espionage Programs. - These are the FBI's own released files on its 1956-1971 Counter Intelligence Program — covert operations to surveil, infiltrate and disrupt domestic political groups. - Context from the Church Committee record: COINTELPRO was 'covert action designed to disrupt and discredit' targets including the SCLC, the anti-Vietnam War movement and MLK. - Note: this index page lists the file groupings; the underlying case files are the multi-thousand-page releases. Record summary verified consistent.