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CHURCH COMMITTEE REPORTS

INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES-FEDERAL BUREAU OF
INVESTIGATION
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1975
U.S. SENATE,
SELECT COMMITTEE To STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS
WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES,
Washington, D.O.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 :05 a.m. in room 318,
Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Frank Church (chairman)
presiding.
Present: Senators Church, Hart (Michigan), Mondale, Huddleston,
Morgan, Hart (Colorado), Goldwater, Mathias, and Schweiker.
Also present: William G. ::\Iiller, staff director; Barbara Banoff,
.John Eliff, Michael Epstein, Mark Gitenstein, professional staff
members.
The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will please come to order.
The subject of the hearing this morning is the domestic intelligence
activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The committee has
adopted a different procedure for this hearing. We have directed committee
counsel, Mr. Schwarz and Mr. Smothers, to present a report
on our investigation of FBI domestic intelligence operations. Representatives
of the FBI will appear tomorrow for a dIscussion of these
matters.
These public hearings on the FBI concentrate on its domestic surveillance
programs. The committee has also undertaken an inquiry
into FBI intelligence activities relating to foreign espionage and national
defense. However, the committee is conducting this latter part
of its investigation in executive session, so that vital FBI operations
necessary for the national defense will not be impaired. Our final
report and recommendations will address both the domestic and foreign
sides of FBI intelligence.
For 50 years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been an
outstanding law enforcement agency. The Supreme Court in the landmark
Miranda case praised the FBI for its exemplary record of effective
law enforcement and respect for the rights of suspects in criminal
cases. But the FBI is not only a criminal law enforcement agency. It
has a domestic intelligence role which is separate from its criminal
investigations.
The very nature of our democracy demands that these activities
undergo periodic public scrutiny. Yet there has never been a full public
accounting of FBI domestIc intelligence operations. Therefore,
this committee has undertaken such an Investigation. Its purpose is
not to impair the FBI's legitimate law enforcement and counter-
(1)
2
espionage functions, but rather to evaluate domestic intelligence according
to the standards of the Constitution and the statutes of our
land. If fault is to be found, it does not rest in the Bureau alone. It
is to be found also in the long line of Attorneys General, Presidents,
and Congresses who have given power and responsibility to the FBI,
but have failed to give it adequate guidance, direction, and control.
Information is a powerful resource. One of the FBI's most significant
features is its system for efficiently processing, filing, and retrieving
the data it gathers. The potential dangers in this system are
obvious. The late Francis Biddle, Attorney General in the 1940's,
warned the Nation about, and I quote his words, "The future use of
this great machine of detection, with its 10 million personal files, its
reputation grown sacrosanct, its obvious possibilities of misusing the
power it has won." Attorney General Biddle did not believe the FBI
could safely continue with what he called "the virtual freedom from
control." As our technological sophistication increases, the warning
of Francis Biddle grows ever more urgent.
Over 4 years ago, the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights
exposed the massive surveillance of Americans by the U.S. Army
intelligence system. Earlier this year we learned of extensive domestic
intelligence gathering by the Central Intelligence Agency. Now, we
look at the FBI, the most important domestic intelligence agency of
all. The Bureau's reports provided much of the raw material for both
Army intelligence and CIA domestic intelligence operations. Our own
hearings in September showed that FBI intelligence officers helped
develop the 1970 Huston plan, with an eye toward an even greater
expansion of surveillance programs directed against American
citizens.
Today we are here to review the major findings of our full investigation
of FBI domestic intelligence, mcluding the COINTELPRO
and other programs aimed at domestic targets, FBI surveillance of
law~abiding citizens and groups, political abuses of FBI intelligence,
and several specific cases of unjustified intelligence operations.
These hearings have one overriding objective: The development of
sufficient information for Congress to legislate appropriate standards
for the FBI. Attorney General Levi has undertaken a similar task
within the Justice Department, and we intend to work with him in
framing proper FBI guidelines. The Attorney General and Director
Kelley of the FBI will be invited to appear before the committee in
December to discuss recommendations for the future.
Now, before I turn to Senator Tower for his opening comments,
there is one other important point that I would like to stress and ask
members of the committee as well as the staff to give this point special
attention as we proceed this morning. Investigations such as these
which are designed to determine whether Government agencies are
infringing on the rights of citizens run the risk themselves of injuring'
private citizens' rights unless great care is taken. The disclosure of
the contents of raw FBI files or characterizations or other derogatory
information in the course of this investigation should be avoided at
all costs by this committee, its staff, and its witnesses.
For that reason, I want to instruct the staff to refrain from mentioninl!
the names of private citizens as being the subject of FBI
surveillance unless permission has been given in advance by that person
or unless the information is already in the public domain. The docu3
ments the committee is releasing have already been excised, and I hope
that committee members in their questions will exercise the same
due care.
Now I would like to turn to the vice chairman of the committee,
Senator Tower.
Senator TOWER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, at his request, I would like to explain the absence of Senator
Baker. He is the ranking Republican on the Public Works Committee
which is at this moment considering some very vital and
critical environmental legislation, and therefore he cannot attend
the hearing.
Today, in a sense, the select committee comes home. For today,
the select committee begins hearings designed to shed light upon the
Nation's domestic intelligence activities. Our purpose, however, is
not to conduct a legislative trial. In conducting these hearings, we
do not seek either to assign fault or to apportion blame. Rather, our
aim is to illuminate the policies and the practices of our domestic
intelligence agencies. Our hope in so doing is that a complete record
and an informed public will assist the sele.ct committee in its difficult
task of evaluating the important intelligence work being done by
the FBI.
These matters, of course, must be seen in perspective, and we must
always guard against magnifying at hearings what has been in practice
only a very small segment of the undeniably valuable work done
by the FBI in the vital areas of crime detection and crime prevention.
While the select committee has been fully informed of those allegations
which have charged the Bureau with mistakes and excesses, we
are no less vividly aware of the great difficulties and the complex
problems which the Bureau's intelligence arm has confronted over
the years.
As the chairman's remarks have indicated, today's hearing will
focus on the FBI, the most recent subject of our ongoing examination
of domestic intelligence functions. As with other governmental
a~encies, our concern today is with the issues of authorization for
domestic intelligence activities and the privacy and other civil rights
considerations raised by Government intervention in the lives of
citizens. It is not our contention that all invasions are unwarranted.
However, our charter is to reassess current activities. To this end, the
staff's presentation will touch upon such controversial topics as confidential
sonrces. informants, indexes. gene,ral warrants, disruptive
techniques, "black bag" iohs. COINTELPRO. and subversive activities.
In an attempt at full disclosure. reference will be made to such
widely divergent concerns as the Communist Party, Black Hate. the
Ku Klux Klan. Women's Liberation. the New Left. and radical
terrorism.
These next sessions will provide a full and forthright look at the
domestic intelligence mission of the Bureau. By so doing, by establishin,!!
a comnlete and onen record of Bureau activity, the select committee
hones fullv to dischar,!!e its responsibilities under Senate Resolution
21. by adding to our nearly completed rpview of intelligence
action abroad. the critical and perhaps overriding element of what
hannens to our citizens at home.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Tower.
4
Now, I have two further recommendations to make. I note by the
schedule that there will be a series of Senate votes this morning, and
that means that we need to come to some kind of understanding before
we commence.
There is an old story told about a justice of the peace in Idaho who
was a farmer, and he used to, so the story goes, get his trial going and
both sides giving their testimony, and then he would say, "Now, you
fellows just go ahead with your testimony while I go out and irrigate
the north 40." And today we--
Senator TOWER. That is a Texas story, by the way.
The CHAIRMAN. It cannot be because you do not have water enough
to irrigate 40 acres.
We may be faced with that problem with the votes today, so I would
suggest that as the votes come on, Senators leave individually and
return so that the hearing itself is not constantly interrupted. That
way Senators will always be present. vVe will do that rotating, and the
hearing can go forward.
The only other recommendation I have is that to the extent possible,
and of course, this will not apply to the chairman and the vice chairman,
but to the extent possible, other members of the committee are
requested not to ask questions that will interfere too much with the
continuity of the presentation, and then the questions can follow the
presentation. If Senators can restrain themselves, that would be
appreciated.
Now, I think that covers all of the announcements I have to make,
and I believe, in accordance with the custom of the committee, Mr.
Smothers and Mr. Schwarz should stand and be sworn.
Do you, the counsel of this committee, solemnly swear that all the
testimony you are about to give in these proceedings will be the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God 1
Mr. SCHWARZ. I do.
Mr. SMOTHERS. I do.
TESTIMONY OF FREDERICK A. O. SCHWARZ, m., CHIEF COUNSEL,
AND CURTIS R. SMOTHERS, COUNSEL TO THE MINORITY, SENATE
SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS
WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTMTIES
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Schwarz, would you please proceed 1
Mr. SCHWARZ. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, may I first state
that Mr. Smothers and I have divided this presentation. We are
entirely at one in our view as to the facts and our view as to what
should be presented. It has been an entirely c()operative and helpful
venture between the minority and majority staffs here.
I am going to start by outlining the subjects we are going to cover.
Before I do that I want to pick up on a comment that both the chairman
and the vice chairman made about the obiective of this set of
hearings being to develop the faets upon which decisions can be made
as to what should be done, and go back to 1938 when this whole program
of domestic surveillance started, for the second time in this
country, and put into the record what Director Hoover, the Attorney
General, and the President of the United States said to each other at
that time about the necessity to keep secret from the American people
the facts as to domestic surveillance by the FBI. This was written in
1938 and it reads as follows:
5
In considering the steps to be taken for the expansion which then occurred "of
the present structure of intelligence work, it is believed imperative that it be
proceeded with the utmost degree of secrecy in order to avoid criticism or objections
which might be raised to such an expansion by either ill-informed persons
or individuals having some ulterior motive." ... "Consequently, it would seem
undesirable to seek special legislation which would draw attention to the fact
of what is being done."
And as you know, no legislation, no special legislation relating to
the subject of the FBI and its domestic surveillance, has been sought
or enacted since that time.
Now, we intend this morning to cover six broad subjects. Mr.
Smothers will follow and deal with the size and the scope of FBI's
domestic intelligence activity. In essence, the proof will establish that
the targeted investigations directed specifically at American citizens
and groups have numbered in the hundreds of thousands, that general
intelligence, that is, the simple collection of information about Americans
and what they are doing and what they are thinking, is infinitely
bigger than that, and that the requests, the annual requests to the FBI
for intelligence data on Americans, number in the millions.
Mr. Smothers will also briefly cover the history of the FBI intelligence
program and demonstrate how there have been periodic chan~es
since the 1920's, periods when people have believed this kind of actiVIty
is improper, and other periods where people have believed this kind of
activity is essential,albeit kept secret.
We will then briefly discuss what the FBI collects and what the
grist is for the mill of the Intelligence Division. There we will make
points about the extraordinary breadth of the desire for data and the
vagueness of the requirements by which the agents are instructed to
collect this extraordinary mass of data: for example, all information
on racial matters, whatever that may be.
vVe will put before you the fact that there have been repeated examples
of the actual collection of personal data about the private lives
of American citizens, that that has not only been done, but that has been
done pursuant to instructions, and that there have been instructions to
use that material to specifically injure particular American citizens or
groups.
Now, we will also put before you the fact that there have been
instructions to collect the views of people on issues, the views of groups
on issues. This part of the hearing will also demonstrate that the intelligence
innstigation, once started, may just go on and on like a
river without stop, and without regard to whether or not information
has been collected which is of any use whatsoever to a purpose of looking
for a criminal violation, or for dealing with any purpose concerning
which one would have thought the Federal Government
ought to be collecting information.
For example, we will cite the case of 1Vomen's Liberation and will
read to you from a document in which the agent, based on several informants,
collects information about the 'Vomen's Liberation movement,
concludes women are interested in liberating themselves and improving
their lives and wish to be freed from the humdrum existence
of being only a wife and mother, and what conclusion is reached after
that valuable information is delivered to the Bureau ~ "Continue to
investigate."
vVe will demonstrate that in the case of a particular person, in this
case Martin Luther King, the Bureau continued for 7 years to have
6
the most intensive possible investigation into him and his organization.
We will have another example of a religious group, not the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, but another religious
group, where for 20 years the Bureau continued to collect information
on the group, hoping and hoping that it might find at some time that
it was genuinely a danger, and finding that it was not. The Justice
Department also instructed the Bureau to keep collecting information
in this case, so that it just never stops.
We will put before you information on an attitude which is prevalent
in the intelligence field, that in effect indicates that a subject
for surveillance is to be regarded as guilty until proven innocent. For
example, I will read a quote relating to a civil rights leader in New
York where the New York office reported to the Bureau that the man
was not sympathetic to Communist causes, and the response from the
Bureau was as follows:
The Bureau does not agree with the expressed belief of the New York Office
that Mr. X is not sympathetic to the Party cause. While there may not be any
direct evidence that Mr. X is a Communist, neither is there any direct substantial
evidence that he is anti-Communist.
Therefore, the instruction is keep going, keep going, and hope to
find it.
That gentleman was subjected in the months surrounding that document
to three COINTELPRO actions designed to discredit and
destroy him on the basis of a record where they said they could not
say he was a Communist, but the instructions were to keep going, you
might find that he is, and it has not been proven that he is not.
We will then turn to the subject of how the Bureau collects information.
We will tick off some of the particularly invasive techniques that
have been used, and pay special attention to the subject of informants,
which turns out to be by far the greatest source of information. We
will identify some of the key problems in the informants area for
which there is a whole day's hearing scheduled after Thanksgiving.
We will then turn, Mr. Chairman, to the question of dissemination
and use, talk about official dissemination to agencies ranging from
local law enforcement to Presidents, and then we will talk about
unofficial dissemination, whereby the Bureau uses what they call
friendly or cooperative news media to put out stories from their files
based upon information which they regard as harmful to the individuals
whom they wish to injure.
We will then turn to certain examples of particularly troublesome
programs and incidents, programs to disrupt, discredit and destroy
groups and individuals, examples of the use of what is called misinformation
to prevent dissenters from meeting or engaging in protest
activity, examples of efforts to neutralize people by breaking up their
marriages or ruining their jobs, examples of where decisions have
been mad.e to ris~ the death of suspect individuals by intentionally
exacerbatmg tenSIOns between groups known to be violence prone and
known to have a desire to injure each other, where there were intentional
acts taken by the Bureau, with fnll authority, to exacerbate
that tension. We will give you some examples of the Bureau's electing
to, in effect, enter into the political arena~I mean political with a
small "p" and not party politics, but political arena in the sense of the
7
great social issues of this country. For example~ in the instance of the
civil rights area, the Bureau at one point had a plan to select a leader
who they thought ought to lead the blacks in this country, and at the
same time to depose Martin Luther King, against whom they ran their
most sustained and toughest program of any that we have seen.
As another example of choosing sides on issues of importance to
society~ we will show you that after the 1968 Democratic Convention,
the instructions went out to Bureau officials to collect evidence to disprove
any allegations that police had mistreated demonstrators.
Finally, in the area of troublesome problems, we will identify for
you instances where the Bureau had been misused politically by higher
authority, selecting some examples of the Bureau's having been asked
to intercede and to spy on people for directly political reasons, and
where higher authority has used the Bureau's information-gathering
resources to collect material on newsmen.
If we have time, Mr. Chairman, after that litany of facts, we will
discuss serious problems with respect to oversight and serious problems
with respect to control, that are illustrated by such matters as
the plan to lock up dissenters. For 20 years there was a plan to lock
up dissenters, for 15 years perhaps, and it was a different plan than
the plan that Congress had approved. And the Justice Department
and the Bureau agreed to go ahead with their plan, a broader plan to
lock people up beyond that time which the Congress had approved in
the Internal Security Act of 1950.
That is a broad outline of the subjects we are going to cover. Mr.
Smothers is going to discuss the history and the size and the scope of
these operations.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Thank you, Fritz.
Mr. Chairman, our discussion of domestic intelligence has been and
will be very largely limited to the FBI and those executive agencies
charged with its supervision, largely because these agencies, the Attorney
General, and the White House, together with the FBI, have the
primary responsibility for the domestic intelligence in this country.
Now~ there are some activities undertaken by other agencies. Our
own investigation indicates that those raise identical issues, or are
rather minimal, conducted in cooperation with the Bureau.
Now~ the issues that we will not cover in detail in this presentation
are really those that have been previously examined in our look at the
Huston plan, CIA domestic operations, and of course, the use of the
IRS for nontax purposes.
I think that it might be helpful, before a detailed examination of
some of the points Fritz has mentioned, for us to present a very brief
overview of how the FBI is organized-the nature, if you will, of the
animal which we are discussing here today. The functional organization
chart, which is exhibit 1,1 indicates that the headquarters of the
Bureau is organized primarily in three divisions. As with many governmental
entities, you will see it is heavily weighted in the area of
administration; the second division engages planning, evaluation, and
inspection; and the third division is the· one with which we will be
primarily concerned today~ the so-called investigation division.
Actually our concern will be with a small component of the Intelligence
Division.
1 See p. 347.
8
The general Intelligence Division is really organized into two basic
elements. You will see to the right of the chart which is exhibit 2 1
t~e denomination "Counterintelligence." Now, we will not be discusslllg
the counterintelligence method today. This involves primarily
the FBI's efforts to deal with the activities of unfriendly foreign governments
in the United States, largely counterespionage.
In looking to the internal security functions, the remainder of the
Intelligence Division outlined on the chart, we see that the FBI has
taken the approach that there are really two primary areas of concern,
in addition to an item appearing as IS-3, which is largely the research
effort in the intelligence organization.
The first organization you see as IS-1 concerns itself with the socalled
extremists, and we see here the so-called black nationalist
groups, the white hate groups, the other groups promoting civil
disorder.
And then we turn to IS-2, the unit concerned with another kind of
extremist activity, largely the so-called subversive activity, the preoccupation
with the Communists, the Trotskyites, and other people
believed to be motivated primarily by foreign nationals.
It should be pointed out that the Intelligence Division really represents
a small share of the investigative effort of the FBI. The General
Investigative Division that we saw on the larger chart deals with
many of the traditional law enforcement issues. We're talking here
about bank robbery, kidnapping, civil rights violations, mail frauds.
The minority of issues dealt with by the Intelligence Division really
does not amount to an even near majority of the allocation of the FBI's
resources. In fiscal 1975, approximately 18 percent of the $440 million
budget, approximately $82 million, was devoted to the entire intelligence
effort.
Now, any breakdown between counterespionage and domestic intelligence
becomes extremely difficult for two reasons.
First, the manner of the FBI's recordkeeping in terms of costs has
not been very defined or precise; and second, the FBI has indicated to
us, and we are impressed by the fact, that a further breakdown would
really result in a significant revelation of how much is going into counterintelligence,
and we feel that revelation of that would serve no
useful purpose and indeed might do a significant harm.
In looking at the headquarters operation, I think it is important
that we not lose sight of the assets, the capabilities employed by the
Agency in the total organization, the resources it brings to bear in the
carrying out of any policies developed at headquarters level. The
Bureau, with its 59 field offices staffed by more than 9,500 special
agents, maintains a data bank on citizens which includes criminal information,
and this investigative data bank contains more than 50
million cards. The resource of the bank grows daily, as the FBI conducts
more than 2 million of the name-check kind of investigations
that we will talk about later, more than 2 million name checks annually.
Since 1939 the Bureau has compiled more than 500,000 dossiers on
American citizens, adding 65,000 to this total in 1972 alone. This bank
of information is constantly fueled by arrest records, fingerprint files,
taps, information of informants, and a myriad of other sources we
will discuss a little later. And I think when we talk about the tremen-
1 See p. 348.
9
dous capability, we ought to have some concern for the fact that we
are not raising what is essentially new business. The debate on the
propriety of this effort has really gone on for some time. In fact, it
might be helpful to take just a brief look at the evolution of the
intelligence function.
In 1919 the then-Director .T. 'V. Flynn decided that the Bureau,
and I quote, "required a vigorous and comprehensive investigation of
anarchists and Bolshevists, along with kindred agitations advocating
change in the present form of government."
He took the position at that time that the FBI's effort should not
be limited to investigations of violations of existing law, but indeed,
could extend to investigations of legislation that may be enacted in the
future.
This is an important determination, because in 1919 the general intelligence
effort was then vested in the office of the Attorney General.
Mr. Hoover was then in charge of that effort and it was the Flynn
endorsement that led to the development, or the first development,
of an indexing system for information retrieval on the activities of
these radicals and activists and other persons of a revolutionary
character.
It was after objection to this kind of collection by such legal scholars
as Roscoe Pound, Felix Frankfurter, and Charles Evans Hughes, that
we begin to see the first debate on the question. The debate, of course,
was speeded by actions that the FBI was involved in such as the
famons Palmer Red raids.
In 1924, Harlan Fiske Stone became Attorney General of the United
States and took the position that the Bureau's activities in this regard
should become more circumspect. He raised the danger of a police
state and indicated that the business of inquiring into political or other
opinions was to be avoided by the agency.
At this time Mr. Hoover readily agreed with Mr. Stone and indicated
that except for investigations of matters concerning penal statutes or
the violation of penal statutes, such investigations would not cease,
and our records and investigation indicate that they probably did cease
until we become concerned later in the developing political atmosphere,
raising the specter of Fascism and Communism.
In 1936, coincidentally, the then-Attorney General was away from
'Vashington. Mr. Roosevelt became very concerned about what we were
doing about the Fascists and Communists in this country and invited
Mr. Hoover to come over and discuss the matter with him. Mr. Hoover
did, and indicated that indeed we could be concerned about the business
of domestic intelligence. There was some problem with authorization,
but it was resolved that it would not be difficult to seize upon
a little-noticed provision in the FBI's appropriation allowing the FBI
to conduct domestic intelligence when requested to do so by the Department
of State. Our research does not indicate that this was a
budgetary problem, but largely one of finding some authorization for
the agency to hang its hat on.
We get a second authorization of this in 1939 when we involve the
military, again pursuant to an F. D. R. direction, in the business of
assisting the FBI on matters of espionage, counterespionage, and
sabotage.
10
The next significant development of the process comes in 1962 when
we recognize that the function has not only becomes somewhat bifurcated,
but maybe difficult to be controlled centrally. The then-President
Kennedy transfers the oversight authority with respect to this
function to the Attorney General.
While some specific programs that we will talk about later have
been discontinued, the Intelligence Division remains essentially intact
and the intelligence effort does go on.
In a general sense, it is important that we have some feeling for the
nature and form of this effort. Basically, intelligence conducted by the
Bureau breaks down into two forms: so-called general intelligence,
which is a collection of information regarding groups, movements, or
categories of individuals, which is basically trend and developmentkind
of reporting; the second category is the so-called targeted investigation
or targeted intelligence, which is designed to determine rwhtt-her
an individual or a group is in fact subversive, extremist, or otherwise
objectionable.
Now to get a feeling for what general intelligence has meant to the
Bureau, it is useful to note some of the matters that have been looked
into under the mandate to conduct general intelligence. In a memo of
November 1970 the FBI noted that it was conducting general intelligence
investigations of all black student unions and similar campus
groups. In 1968, the same kind of standard was applied to any demonstrations
by persons opposing intervention in Vietnam. A 1972 memo
points'to the need to identify and report back to headquarters on the
identities of organizations and speakers, together with any leading
activists involved in any protest demonstrations, without further defining
protest demonstrations. They seem to conduct the general intelligence
with a fairly even hand.
In 1968, the issue of busing was already alive and the FBI determined
that there was a need to investigate neighborhood groups known
to sponsor demonstrations against integration or busing.
New Left organizations entered the general investigation spectrum
in 1970, when a'll individuals belonging to whatever was to be defined
as "New Left" rwere to 'be investigated as a part of the general intelligence
effort.
Now, the problem with the distinction offered here is that when one
tends to look at the effect of this investigative effort, it is virtually impossible
to assess the impact of general intelligence. We have some data
on the business of targeted investigations. The targeted figures, though,
also are of fairly limited value because they only tell us what has 'been
targeted by the headquarters of the Bureau. We do not know, for example,
the targets identified in the field. We are unable to determine
in terms of any cause-effect analysis, any first amendment impact, any
chilling effect that may simply result from knowledge of the target.
Keeping this in mind, it may be helpful, though, to look at the process
of targeting investigation, as we have been able to find it.
We will begin with the investigation of the so-caned subversive investigations.
You will note that on the investigation of subversives,
and we will talk a little further a'bout the question of definitions here,
largely we are talking about Communists, Communist-infi'ltrated organizations,
organizations or persons involved in the overthrow or perceived
overthrow efforts against the Government. As we see from ex11
hibit 3,t we go through a series of ups and downs after the late fifties,
a period of relative dormancy through the sixties, until we get to the
1971-72 time frame where we see a nmv emergence of interest.
Now the labels here are exceedingly dangerous because, as we will
develop later on, the labeling of subversive activities was often used
as a basis to investigate organizations which did not, at least publicly,
advocate a subversive purpose. The subversives are largely a forerunner
effort.
About 1959 we introduced a new category of dangerous persons to be
investigated, the so-called extremists.
Exhibit 4 2 is a chart depicting investigations of extremists. Until
the termination of some of these significant programs about 1973 and
1974, we see a fairly steady climb in the investigation of extremist
activities. We are in, and moving relatively rapidly through, a period
of thp, development of the so-called New Left, of the emergence of the
so-called Black Nationalists, and the Bureau decision to concentrate
on the so-called White Hate groups, the Klan and kindred kinds of
organizations.
An interesting observation from a look at both the subversive and
the extremists charts, though, is a coming together in the 1971-72
time frame, the highlight of this aggressive investigation technique.
Now again, in any attempt to say "what did it all add up to?" or
"was it really worth the effort ?"-I think even a mild view of the situation
would reflect that we are really trying to analyze what
amounted to a kind of vacuum-cleaner approach to the area of investigation.
We see here a move into the views on politics and personal
life. When we add that kind of complicating data to the raw information
of whether an individual belongs to a certain group or espouses
certain views, it becomes difficult to make any significant kind of costbenefit
analysis.
As we will see later on, this matter is further skewed by the Bureau's
own meddling in the areas that it was investigating, the so-called
COINTELPRO efforts, which may have indeed changed the results
of some of the facts found as a result of the investigations.
But one attempt that has been made with respect to the issue of assessment
was attempted by the General Accounting Office earlier this
year after a review of FBI efforts. Taking the approach of looking at
the prosecution's or law enforcement imtiatives resulting from the
FBI efforts, GAO, in looking at 675 cases studied, identified 16 of them
that had been referred for prosecution, less than 3 percent, 7 prosecutions
actually initiated, and a total of 4 convictions.
If we look at it as a purely intelligence effort, the results are not
significantly more impressive. In fact, one could argue that they are
less impressive. In only 12 instances of the cases looked at did the
FBI gain any advance knowledge of planned activities, and 51 percent
of those cases revealed no association with objectionable organizations
or no illegal objectionable activities.
I guess the bottom line comes very close to raising questions of why
we should do this if we are faced with, one, a paucity of prosecutions
and. two, no indication of a preventive effectiveness, no indication that
this effort is going to assist the FBI in stopping the commission of illegal
or subversive activities.
1 See p. 349.
2 See p. 350.
12
With that overview of where we have been and what the result has
been from it, I think it might be helpful if we could turn our attention
back to a point that Fritz had mentioned earlier and look at the mentality,
the theme, the approach of the Bureau with respect to what
it was going to go after, lwd who were going to be its targets.
Senator TOWER [presiding]. Mr. Schwarz?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Mr. Chairman, before turning to that, let me make
one observation about the exceeding danger of these labels that the
Bureau throws into its programs: subversive, extremist, dangerous
persons, violent revolutionary. Let me just give two examples.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is a group of ministers,
nonviolent-no doubt about that in our history, and we all know
that. But they were labeled by the Bureau, assigned the label of "Black
Hate group," for the purpose of an attack against them, designed
to destroy and disrupt them. They were characterized as being among
the groups having violent leaders. So we have to be extremely careful
of these labels. A language has lost its meaning if groups like the
SCLC become labeled as Black Hate groups or as violence-prone.
Second, let us remember the danger of the attitude that says the facts
don't matter, and my example of Mr. X, where the New York office of
the Bureau came in and said "there's no evidence that he supports
the Communists," and the Bureau said, "well, keep going because
there is no clear evidence that he doesn't."
And finally, picking up on that point, Justice Jackson, when he was
Attorney General, spoke of the terrific problems in the past and today
that result from using these labels like "subversive" and "extremist,"
saying, "Some of our soundest constitutional doctrines were once
punished as subversive. We must not forget that it was not so long
ago that both the term republican and the term democrat were eJ.lithets
with sinister meaning to denote persons of radical tendencIes
that were subversive of the order of things then dominant."
I see Senator Tower there laughing, and you always have a better
quote when we give one.
Senator TOWER. That suspicion may linger in some minds yet.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Before turning to the subject of overbreadth, I want
to add a comment about the material made available to us by the
Bureau. The Bureau, commencing in July, when we reached an agreement
with the Attorney General, has been exceedingly cooperative.
We had great difficulties before then, but after that point, once there
was an agreement with the Attorney General, they were indeed very
cooperative, and we did see the full files, absent only the names of
informants.
However, this staff, in the course of the past few weeks, has made
an analysis, prepared by Mark Gitenstein, which indicates very
strongly that after the death of Director Hoover, substantial numbers
of relevant, highly pertinent, and sensitive Bureau documents were
destroyed. This came to our attention first in the spring when the
Attorney General revealed that there was something called the Official
and Confidential files of the Director himself.
The Attorney General, then, on his own motion, and at our request,
had an investigation of another kind of file which had come to our
attention called the personal file, and an extensive investigation was
undertaken by the Attorney General, and the results [exhibit 51]
1 See p. 351.
13
were furnished to us a couple of months ago.
Now, you all will remember the "black bag" job memo with the "Do
Not File" procedure. In the course of examming that document very
closely, it became clear to us that in a very dim handwritten indication
in the upper right hand-corner--
Senator TOWER. Mr. Schwarz, would you yield at that point ~
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes.
Senator ToWER. On the matter of destruction of documents, is it
correct that the responsibility for the destruction has not been pinpointed
on any specific basis ~
Mr. SCHWAItZ. That is correct. We are not going to allege responsibility
or knowing destruction. Weare going to describe the facts
as to what we have now discovered and deduce from the indicia on
these documents. Yes, indeed, it could have happened before his death,
Senator.
In handwritten form there is the notation "PF" in the upper right
hand corner of the "black bag" job memorandum, and we determined
that PF meant personal file. But this document [exhibit 6 '] was found
in the O. & C. file. Then, pursuing the investigation, we determined
that what had happened is that before his death Mr. Hoover had the
opportunity to go through at least letters A through C on the so-called
personal files, and transfer certain official documents into the so-called
Official and Confidential files, but that that effort was not continued
for the files, after letter D, and all of the personal files, the so-called
personal files were destroyed after Mr. Hoover's death, and therefore,
what was lost to the ability to assess what happened in the past we
cannot know. We can only guess that there may well have been documents
like the "black bag" job, "Do Not File" documents, which happened
to be at letter B, in letters D through Z that are now lost to
scrutiny. We do not know that, but that is a surmise.
The CHAIRMAN [presiding]. Now, the Department undertook its
own investi~tion as to why the personal files of Mr. Hoover were
destroyed,dlditnot~
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes, it did, Senator.
The CHAIRMAN. And have you testified while I was voting that
the investigation of the Department, a copy of which was furnished
to this committee, turns out to be incomplete ~
Mr. SCHWARZ. Well, I wouldn't wantto-
The CHAIRMAN. I want to ask you about that because I wanted it to
be fairly stated.
Mr. SCHWARZ. We have been able, Senator, to go further than they
have because of the hint that was given by that PF initial up in the
upper right-hand corner of the "black bag" job document. We have
no reason to think that they intentionally failed to find that. They just
did not.
The CHAffiMAN. In other words, you are not charging the FBI with
having furnished the Attorney General with an incomplete report out
of any intention to deceive him.
Mr. SCHWARZ. No, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. And the only reason it turned out to be incomplete
was because of later information that was turned up by the committee
staff.
1 See p. 357.
14
Mr. SCHWARZ. Turned up by our staff people, who then analyzed
the matter further.
The CHAIRMAN. It was turned up initially by our staff, then it was
analyzed further by the Bureau and nO'" it has been turned over to
the Attorney General.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Well, I assume it has been turned over to the Attorney
General. I do not think I have said anything he does not know,
Senator. Yes; I am correct.
The CHAIRMAN. Very well, thank you.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Now, getting back to this problem of the extraordinary
breadth of the investigative activity, I read a portion to you of
the "document concerning Mr. X, where despite the finding and the
suggestion from New York that he was not a Communist, the instruction
was "continue, continue until you have been proven negative."
That document went forward to set forth the standard in that case, but
it appears to be the generally applicable standard within the Bureau
as to the kind of coverage that is necessary on any matter in which
they are interested. And reading into the record what was said, "The
Bureau cannot adjudge as adequate any coverage which does not
positively provide to the Bureau 100 percent of the intelligence reIatmg
to the Communist influence in racial matters."
Now, in fact, the Bureau not only sought 100 percent of the evidence
with respect to that matter, but simply 100 percent of the information
that could be obtained with respect to racial matters generally. Every
demonstration, every protest was to be reported to the Bureau.
In the area of what they characterize as the New Left, an example of
the overbreadth of the requirements for information laid on the field
can be found in the document that is exhibit 17 1, and in this document
the Director of the FBI issued an instruction to all special agents of
the Bureau as to the kind of information that he wanted them to
collect and report on.
Now, the number of items in the report are in letters from A through
R, and numbers under each one of those entries. I will just refer to
a couple of the specific examples of what the FBI agents are required
to report in from the field.
In the area of finances, it sought the so-called angels for the group.
In the area of publications, describe all the publications. In the area
of religion, the policy of the organization relating to its approach to
religion, and any vehement statements made against religious bodies
by leaders; conversely, any statements of support for the movement by
religious groups or individuals. In the area of political activities, any
and all political activities in which so-called New Left leaders are
involved, and details relating to their position taken on political matters,
including efforts to influence public opinion, the electorate and
government bodies. In the area of education, all information concerning
courses given, together with any educational outline, and together
with what is the assigned or suggested reading. In the area of so-called
social reform, all information on activities in connection with demontrations
aimed at social reform, whatever that may be. In the area of
labor, all information including all activity in the labor field. With
respect to the public appearance of leaders, the identity of any leader
1 See p. 393.
15
who makes a public appearance on radio and television and who
appears before groups; for example, labor, church and minority
groups. And in connection with such appearances, the identity of the
group sponsoring the speaker and a succinct summary of the subject
matter discussed. In the area of mass media, influence of the New Left
on mass media and any indication of support of the New Left by the
mass media, a wholly comprehensive listing of everything those people
thought or did on any subject you can imagine their having a
concern with.
As the next example of how the FBI seeks out information scarcely
relevant to subjects that we had thought the Bureau was concerned
with, as in the area of ",Vomen's Liberation, there is report after report
about meetings of women who got together to talk about their problems.
Now, how the Bureau got this information is not entirely clear,
but it is apparently by informants. So we have informants running
all over the country checking up about what housewives are talking
about in their efforts to decide whether women should have a different
role in this society; reports on particular women who said why they
had come to the meeting and how they felt oppressed sexually or otherwise;
reports on such important matters as the release of white mice
by women at a protest demonstration; reports on such other important
matters as the interest of the Women's Liberation movement in zapping
the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City by protesting the
standards and whatever else they protested in Atlantic City.
And my favorite example concerning the Baltimore Women's Liberation
movement is a document, exhibit 7" which was sent not only
to the FBI, but to three military agencies for some reason; a document
in which there is a long discussion of the origins, aims and purposes
of the group, its location, its pamphlets, and in concluding on the purposes
of the group, it comes up with such important findings as that
women that wanted a purpose, and that was to free them from the
humdrum existence of being only a wife and mother. They wanted
equal opportunities that men have in the working society and so forth,
nothing to do with violence, nothing to do with these labels of subversion
and extremism. And what is the conclusion on the document?
"We will continue to follow and report the activities of the Women's
Liberation movement."
The CHAIRl\fAN. How did they find any time to investigate crime?
Mr. SCHWARZ. I don't know, Senator. I don't know. There is a lot
of effort going into this stuff. There is a lot of effort going into it.
There is paper after paper. We see tracks of informants and what does
it 'all do? What is it worth?
I have talked already about those labels, "subversive" and "extremist"
and how loose they are and how ,they are applied. They say
"violence" for nonviolent groups. Under subversive and extremist
subjects, they are instructed again to look at all of the ideas, all of
the associations, women's matters and groups, farmers' matters and
groups, youth matters and groups, the "Negro question," legislative
activities, third party movements. I am reading from the instructions
to the Bureau in the manual in 1960. "Candidates for public office,
veterans matters, religion and religious bodies, bookstores, education,
mass organizations, industry, including labor unions," again the most
1 See p. 360.
16
wide catalog that could be imagined of the affairs of American citizens.
I have nothing further on the subject of the breadth of these
activities, these investigations. I have made the point previously that
they go on and on and on, 7 years for King, 15 years for a religious
group which they couldn't prove was subversive or not, but the instruction
was to keep trying.
Mr. Smothers has the subject now of the gathering techniques, the
ways in which the FBI collects information.
Mr. ~MOTHERS. ~n looking at the question of how they gather informatIOn,
we begm to focus on perhaps the most serious problem
before this commIttee and the most serious issues faced by the staff,
and that is the question of control, and indeed what should be
controlled.
The easier questions, although they have been the subject of some
of the more extensive invasions, center around control of the machines:
the wiretaps, the bugs. We have had an example of Attorney General
approval of wiretapping. We have, indeed, court procedures for the
approval of such efforts. The situations with the bugs has become a
more refined problem and one that has gone with much less regulation,
indeed, for a very long time with the belief that the Bureau
could do it when appropriate, particularly in cases that would be
labeled counterespionage efforts.
We do not have a lot of datlli on the machines. We know that with
regard to the electronic surveillance conducted without a warrant,
the number probably never exceeded 100 in any given year and that
this kind of invasion was for all practical purposes stopped in 1972.
While we were focusing, though, on the machines in much of the
legal discussion, the investigative effort, the intelligence effort of the
Bureau was gradually stepping up the use of the so-called human
resources. Of course the primary example of human resources is the
so-called informant.
We are going to talk a little bit about the kinds of informants later,
but we should be particularly lliware of the fact that unlike the activities
conducted with machines, no warrant was required to use an informant
as the basis for invasion into an individual's privacy.
If you would look to the chart which is exhibit 8/ we see a survey
conducted by the GAO to try to trace for us the sources of the information
gathered by the Bureau. Up in the No.1 position we have the
use of informants, the warrantless invasion in one person's affairs by
another, ranking 83 percent; police confidential sources account for
74 percent of techniques employed by the Bureau to gather intelligence.
We get a little bit away now from law enforcement and we get into
things like motor vehicle departments of the various States, the
utilities companies. They are great for locating people for determining
matters such as the expenditures of individuals or organizations.
Educational records and State employment agencies also help to locate
individuals.
Fifty percent of the time this kind of source was utilized, according
to GAO. I must say "according to," as we are now under oath, and relying
upon somebody else's research with respect to these areas. In
fact, when we get to electronic surveillance here. we find that it accounts
for only 5 percent, and that other kinds of human efforts, like
1 See p. 367.
17
surreptitious entry and mail openings, which we discussed earlier,
account for a mere 1 percent of what is gained in the way of information.
And this chart tells a part of the story and gives us some idea of
where the Bureau might reach for information.
'Vhat it leaves out and what I think we must spend just a moment
on here is how we define some of these categories. Let us take our
informants, for example. In examining the FBI's approach to the
question of informants we found that we were looking-at a fairly
structured program in terms of gaining information from individuals
who may have had contact with subjects. Perhaps one of the largest
programs was the so-called ghetto informant program. The FBI
pointed out that it was necessary in situations of potential violence
to gain information from laborers, clerks, housewives, businessmen,
anybody.
In August 1968, we had 3,248 racial g-hetto-type informants, as they
were called, in this country. The number goes to 4,500 in March of
1970. By October we were at 6,000. It reached its peak in 1972 with
7,500 ghetto informants spread across the country, the FBI sort of
encouraging, and even some indication of enforcing, a kind of quota
program with respect to the development of ghetto informants.
This rather terse definition here as to why the ghetto informant
was necessary and what he was supposed to do, is merely a reflection
of the fact that we could use persons outside of the groups in question
to provide the kind of general intelligence information that was
necessary for the FBI to gather.
In addition to the ghetto informants, we found that there was a separate
and rather structured informant program aimed directly at
extremists. This was kind of a successor effort after we abandoned the
ghetto informants in 1973 and the target now is to get information on
extremists.
By an FBI memorandum of March 1973, we find the development
of a new category-actually three new categories of informants-and
here the rigidity of bureaucracy helps us explain to the field the
purpose of our efforts. The first category is the potential extremist informant,
a person who might be in a position to know something.
They weren't terribly sure about him. He was to be taken on a I-year
trial. After 6 months the potential extremist informant would be
evaluated. If he was not producing anything, they would consider
whether or not to get rid of him. If he did not get elevated to the level
of extremist informant within a period of 1 year, then he was to be
eliminated.
Extremist informants have obtained a new status, a special kind of
qualification under the Bureau's guidance. It took at least 6 months
to move from potential extremist informant to full blown extremist
informant. Then to be sure they had covered the neighborhood, the
confidential sources extremist informant was developed, and he is
defined by the Bureau as "an individual who is willing to cooperate
with the Bureau by furnishing extremist information brought to his
attention by virtue of his position in the community, his employment,
or in view of his background in extremist activities."
I guess the shorthand for that would be the turncoats. We discovered
still another source of human information or human source informa"tion
with the Bureau's development of what we have loosely labeled
"notionals" and what I call fake or quasi-fake organizations.
18
One such effort is noted in a letter from an internal FBI memorandum,
calling the Director's attention in 1967 to the fact that the
Bureau had set up an entire klavern of the Klan composed of Bureau
informants, and that they paid the expenses of setting up the organization.
And apparently at its height, this group of informants was
designed to attract membership from one of the main Klan groups.
Now in paying the expenses of the new person, if you will, the
purpose was to develop here a separate source of information. The idea
with respect to the Klan did not im'ohe an entire group of Klansmen.
This was a core group dm'eloped and based on informants and expanded
later to 250 members. The entire group development was done
with respect to the 'V.E.n. Dubois clubs, which had in its rolls an
entire group of Bureau informants and fictitious individuals. The purpose
of this chapter was to really frustrate the efforts of the American
Communist Party by causing the Party the additional expense of
sending organizers into an area and funding the organization's effort,
mediums, and literature,.
Another effort that has become a product of the human sources and
which was used as a kind of spur to spark the surfacing of additional
information was the use of fake correspondence or fake newsletter-kind
of information, which by virtue of the articles presented therein would
cause other persons to come forth and either challenge or supplement
material.
Now we have talked a bit about the use of State agencies and other
police agencies that would provide the FBI with information.
I think we have talked previously to the fact that the FBI also relied
upon the efforts and assistance of the Internal Revenue Service from
time to time as a source of information gathering.
We will talk a little more on this later on when we come to the
COINTELPRO but we must be aware of the fact that this information
gathering was closely allied to the use of this very same information
as a basis for spurring agencies to create problems for the
individual or to conduct investigations, or in the case of IRS, to
conduct audits or other efforts that would detract from the person's
organizational activity or protest efforts.
In addition to IRS, our investigation reveals that other sources were
indeed, the Postal Service, the Passport Agency, Immigration and
Naturalization, the CIA, of course, and to some limited extent, the
Customs officials.
After the Bureau gathered this tremendous reservoir of information
utilizing the various techniques, one of the things we found important
to track was what happened to the information. We know that on
these 15 million data cards and the tremendous files we have up there,
there is information as to what the Bureau is doing, who gets the
intelligence data, and under what circumstances.
Fritz will start with a review of the official dissemination of that
information.
Mr. SCHWARZ. I want to add one further example of another kind
of problem.
In 1965 and runninj! for at least 3 years, the Bureau created a fictional
organization called the Committee for Expansion of Socialist Thought
in America, which was set up to publish a newspaper purporting to
be from genuine persons and which newspaper was designed to attack
19
the Communist Party, U.S.A. from the so-called Marxist right. This
was a wholly fictional organization which was presented to the American
public as if it were a real publication by real people, instead of
being a pseudopublicatioll by members of the FBI.
Mr. S~IOTHERS. Fritz, we might add, too, to that information on
sources that during much of the period, we looked at the FBI's access
to banking records which appeared to be fairly extensive, particularly
when the investigation was initiated by the indication that it had to
do with the investigation of subversives, as opposed to extremists.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Kow the gamut of official distribution runs, as we
said earlier, from the local police to the President of the United States.
I call your attention to a memomndum which is exhibit 9,1 which
deals with the so-called FBI intelligence letter for the President, a
program that commenced in 1969. The document sets out the kind of
information which the Bureau instructed its agents to colled and send
in to headquarters for transmission by the Bureau to the Pr~sident
of the rnited States. It was initially sent only to the President and
the Attorney General. At some point the name of the Vice President
was added to the list of persons who received this special letter, known
as the "Inlet" letter. The kind of information which is called for is
set forth. I call your attention to item 6, in which the agents were
instructed to collect and the Bureau intended to disseminate to the
President "items with an unusual twist or concerning prominent personalities
which may be of special interest to the President or the
Attorney General."
The Inlet program was stopped as a particular program in December
of 1972. The document which suspended the particular program,
however, instructed the field to continue to collect the information
and noted that changes in communications capability, including the
ability to afford immediate teletype disseminations of such data to
the ·White House, made the special letter on that necessary.
In connection with other examples of official dissemination, we have
called to your attention previously a case prior to the Democratic
Convention in 1968 in which the FBI obtained information which
they believe to be used to neutralize a professor who sought to go to
the Democratic Convention, and the FBI field office proposed, and
the Diredor approved, that that information be sent to the IRS for
the expre..<;s purpose of seeking to induce an investigation of this
professor's tax matters for the express purpose of making it harder
for him to go to the Democratic 1968 convention.
Curt Smothers is going to deal now with the general subject of
unofficial dissemination.
Mr. S~IOTHERS. A use or a dissemination of information which has
often been referred to as an illegal use of the Bureau-at the 1964
Democratic Convention-showed how information which may have
indeed been relevant to law enforcement or had a basis in law enforcement
was used as a start and then simply expanded. There was an indication
in the 1964 Democratic Convention that violence may erupt and
the Bureau was called upon to supply information regarding the
potential for violence-I am assuming both on a Federal level and to
assist local law enforcement officials.
1 See p. 368.
20
In addition to that, after infiltration of various groups, the challenged
plan to the Mississippi convention, the plans of those who
challenged the official delegation, were developed by the FBI and
submitted to the White House throug-h the White House staff. The
plans of Dr. King, the plans of CORE, the plans of SNCC with respect
to activities at the convention were also communicated both as
they related to efforts to disrupt, as well as general political strategy at
the convention.
This was accomplished really through a complete infiltration of
these groups, and when it became apparent, as in the case of the Mississippi
challenge, that it might be politically expedient to have some
information to discredit the group, the FBI provided that also by
providing some bookkeeping data on the organization and its funding
sources.
We see this same kind of unofficial dissemination occur after the
critics of the 'Vanen Commission began to surface, and the White
House 'was a bit concerned about these persons who were criticizing the
""Varren Commission. The FBI is directed here to gather information
on those persons, information which extended to their personal lives,
indeed, down to their sex activities.
The name-check process was often used as a basis of getting a clearer
fix on people who had begun to criticize the administration.
In several cases we have identified news correspondents of major
networks who apparently at one point or another earned the White
House's ire and were the subject of name checks. The names of a number
of reporters from major newspapers pop up immediately after
revelations or accusations about misconduct or activities of the White
House.
We even got to the point where the name-check process was used as
a basis to gather the views or information on private citizens that
objected to Vietnam policy, and this information was subsequently
distributed to persons who may be in a position to point up adverse
information in the individual's background.
This took the form, for example, of going to political figures and
saying to those figures. "If you have an occasion to comment on so and
so, you might want to have this information."
We will talk a little more about that when we come to COINTEL
PRO activities. The use, though, in the political arena virtually covered
the spectrum. In one case we adduced information regarding
the FBFs reporting efforts to influence the Speaker of the House regarding
a prominent civil rights figure using information that had
been gained through various investigative techniques and accomplishing
this unofficial over-lunch kind of dissemination.
Another kind of dissemination that was particularly troublesome
was the dissemination of information gained to the enemies of individuals
or organizations. Again, when we come to COINTELPRO, we
will see examples of this use and how it was used as a means of promoting
factionalization and in some easelS, even promoting violence.
Some of the information communicated was true. Other information
was purely false. One of the favorite tactics was to communicate or
disseminate information that so-and-so was a Bureau informant, immediately
calling his pxistence or role in an organization into suspicion
and creating internal dissension in the organization. The dissemi21
nation of information was also used as a basis to attack family situations,
to which Mr. Schwarz alluded earlier.
'When we talk about dissemination, we come very close to the socalled
COINTELPRO, or the COINTEL Program, because it is the
active use of the product of investigative technique together with false
information and other investigative tactics. The use of this in a manner
which goes beyond collection, beyond law enforcement, and into an
active attempt by the FBI to right perceived wrongs begins to create
a program that has been of particular concern to many in this area.
Fritz, do you want to cover the aims of the COINTEL Program ~
Mr. SCHWARZ. I thought of two things, Curt, before doing that, that I
would like to put on the record.! This all-pervasive desire for information
concerning political matters-Mr. Smothers mentioned the 1964
Democratic Convention and the information that was gathered there.
The same thing was done at the Republican Convention in 1964 and
again, Dr. King was one of the targets of the Bureau and the Bureau
put both the tap and the bug on Dr. King's phone when he was out at
the Republican Convention, having stated prior to that that
it would be desirable to reflect as much technical coverage that could be safely
done to cover King's activities on the West Coast. He undoubtedly will attempt
to inject himself into the convention proceedings.
And then they instruot people not only to find out information
about the convention, but about the current Mississippi situation, the
current St. Augustine, Fla. situation, where there were demonstrations
going on at that time, and in general, they said to get all of the information
you can on the man because he is out in Los Angeles on a
political convention. They did it, they put on a tap, and they put on
a bug.
Second, a footnote on the 1964 Democratic Convention: a technique
which was used there was the furnishing to the FBI of false press
credentials by one of the major networks, which the FBI then used
in order to insert an agent as a bogus newsman into legitimate discussions
of political persons and protest groups and acquire information
concerning their plans, pretending to be a reporter and in fact
acquiring it for the purposes of the Bureau and transmission to
higher authority.
Now turning to COINTELPRO, CONTELPRO is an abbreviation
of the words "counterintelligence program." COINTELPRO is the
name for the effort by the Bureau to destroy people and to destroy
organizations, or as they used the words, "disrupt and neutralize."
May I call your attention to exhibits 10 2 and 11.3 Remember the
slipperiness of these labels, which we have talked about before. But
the five labels were the Communist Party, FS.A.; the Socialist 'Workers
Party; 'White Hate gronps, including the Klan; persons labeled as
Black Nationalists and" Black Hate groups; and the so-called New
Left.
The rhetoric of the Bureau-as these programs advanced from the
initial program relating to the Communist Party, U.S.A. to the ultimate
programs of Black Nationalist and New Left-became tougher
1 The Select Committee deelded not to pllhllRh documentR concernln~ the FBI and Dr.
c\lartin Luther Kln~ with theRe hearln~R out of conRlderation for the pr!\"acy of Dr. Kin~'R
famll~". Pertinent materialR wllI be Included in the Select Commlttee'R report to the Senate.
, See p. 370.
3 See p. 371.
22
and tougher, and what began as efforts to disrupt-the word used for
the Communist Party,and in the case of the Klan some indication that
they genuinely were looking after violence and not simply to destroy
the groups-became in the case of Black Nationalists and New Left, as
we will illustrate copiously, the most extreme rhetoric of a plan to
destroy political protest groups that you could imagine.
For example, from the Black Nationalist-initiated document in
1967, agents of the FBI were instructed to "expose, disrupt, misdirect,
discredit, or otherwise neutralize." Then when they got along t.o the
New Left they added "misinform," and we are going to come to a
series of actual instances where efforts were made to misinform and
thereby prevent protest activities from taking place.
The CHAIR~IAX. Does that category "New Left" mainly refer to the
protest groups that opposed the war?
Mr. SCHWARZ. One of the Bureau witnesses was asked what the
term "New Left" meant. It has never been defined. It was defined in
practice as being largely students and people opposing the war. You
will notice in the New Left chart on the kind of activity undertaken,
that there is by far the largest amount there, percentagewise, of No. 1type
a.ctivity.
No. I-type activity is the effort to prevent people from teaching
and meeting and speaking, and a large number of the New Left
targets were professors and instructors at universities.
What we are going to try to do now is to just briefly touch on each
of the programs and then concentrate on certain of the techniques.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes. The only point about exhibit 11 1 is that its techniques
kind of vary. The black nationalists get hit in the family and
seetionalization, where the New Left gets hit more in the campuses,
as far as meetings go. But this shows the aggregate of the
COINTELPRO activities.
Now. we are going to briefly,as I say, go through what the programs
were, and then we are going to come back to particular techniques.
Mr. SMOTHERS. The first effort., or the forerunner for the so-called
COINTELPRO effort, began with the decision to initiate an effort
against the Communist Party. U.S.A. The decision grew largely out
of frustrations with the lack of success in attempts to enforce the
Smith Act, and the FBI's determination that law enforcement in a
traditional sense was simply not enough to neutralize or discredit the
Communist Party.
So. in 1956 the Bureau directs a counterintelligence program against
the Communist Party, U.S.A., designed tocapitalize
on incidents involving the party and its leaders in order to foster factionalizMion,
bring the Communist Party and its leaders into disrepute before
the American public, and cause confusion and dissatisfaction among rank and
file members.
rExhibit 12.2J
Now. they indicate that prior to this time their action had really
constituted more harras.<;ment than disruption. but that it was time to
move on a positive initiative on the broader scale. "a program that not
onlv "'ill harass from the outside but will work from within. 'by feeding'
and fostering from within the internal fight currently raging.' "
1 Rpp p. ~71.
2 F;pp p. ~72.
23
There we can see an active effort not only to infiltrate or misinform,
but the idea coming to fruition that the way to deal with the Communist
Party is to aggressively get about the business of its downfall,
get about the business of its downfall outside the court structure,
outside the various administrative actions proceeding against the
party and its members.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Turning to the Socialist ,Vorkers Party, it isa relatively
small program in scale and milder in its rhetoric. ,Vhat I found
interesting in the initiating document of October 1961 is what the
Bureau thought ,vas important to tell its agents this party, which now
they were instmcting their agents to dismpt, had been doing. This is
exhibit 13 1 and it is a very simple quotation. The Bureau told its
agents, here's the problem: "The Socialist "Varkel'S Party (SWP) has,
over the past several years, been openly espousing its line on 'a local and
national basis through running candidates for public oillceand
strongly directing 'and/or supporting such causes as Castro's Cuba
and integration problems arising in the South."
After that introduction it said, in effect, "Let us go get them."
And a program was started against the Socialist Workers Party. It is
smaller in scale, only some 57 instances, but the key thing appears to be
that here was the first situation where an organization, which beyond
any doubt isa domestic organization, was to be targeted because of the
nature of its public positions and the way in which it ran candidates
for office and the positions which it was supporting.
The next target is the so-called White Hate group. [Exhibit 14.2
]
Mr. SMOTHERS. The ,Vhite Hate and the Klan. It is never really
clear, but they are apparently used interchangeably here. The focus
does not really change an awful lot in terms of how we view it, except
that the memorandums now start relying- upon the experience gained
by the Bureau in prior COINTELPRO actions, and the memorandums
begin to speak of calling upon one's experience in the initiatives
against the Communist Party, calling upon one's experience in the
initiatives against Socialist Workers, as the basis for the how to do
this.
This is expanded a bit more when we get requests for specific recommendations
from tlH' field as to "'hat would be a good disruptive program,
what would be a good COINTELPRO effort, and some of the
things recommended show the enthusiasm that the Director had urged
with respect to how we are going to attack this effort, ideas like anonymous
correspondence, either from existing or nOllE'xisting klaverns or
leaders, one accusing tIlE' other of improper conduct, ideas about getting
involved in disputes regarding tactics between the two groups,
and indeed, ideas about how we might infiltrate a particular Klan,
change or dired its policy i.n such a manner that it would become
embarrassing and promote factionalism.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Turning to that. )fl'. Sullivan. who was the Assistant
Director for the FBI in charge of intelligence for much of this perion..
was Questioned on a weekend about 2 weeks ago about the COIN
TELPRO and about what they really stood for and what the Bureau
had done. Here is the man who han. been behind much of this activity.
and how he now views it, looking back upon the actiyity, spl'aking
about teehniqul's designed to destroy a person~s family life.
1 See p. 377.
2 See {l. :'l7R.
66-077 0 - 76 - 3
24
He said, "This is a common practice, rough, tough, dirty business,
Whether or not we should be in it or not, that is for you folks to decide.
We are in it. To repeat, it is a rough, tough, dirty business, and dangerous.
It was dangerous at times'-that is, dangerous to the persons
who are being affected, not to the Bureau persons-when you are trying
to disrupt someone's family life. "It was dangerous at times, no
holds were barred. ",Ve have used that technique against foreign espionage
agents, and they have used it against us."
"Question: The same methods were brought home?"
And then he answered, "Yes; brought home against any organization
against "which we were targeting. We did not differentiate. This is
a rough, tough business."
And then the Senator who was presiding on that occasion said this:
"Would it be safe to say that the techniques we learned in fighting
Bundists and Silver Shirters, true espionage in ",Vorld War II, came
to be used, the techniques came to be used against some of our own
American citizens?"
And Mr. Sullivan answered, "That would be a correct deduction."
So the war was brought home, and the techniques of destruction that
had become involved in the fight against Communist intelligence services
or Nazi intelligence services overseas were, by the admission of the
man who was in charge of these programs, brought home and used
against the American citizens, and tilere is no better example of that
than the lan~age and the activity used against the so-called Black
Nationalist Hate groups, which I ,remind you again included such nonviolent
and gentle movements as the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference and the New Left.
The program against the so-called Black Nationalist Hate group
was started in August of 1967 [exhibit 15J.1 And now there was not, as
with the Klan, merely an effort to go after the group that were most
violent, or the persons who had the greatest propensity for violence,
but the instruction was tD go after the leadership, the spokesmen, the
membership, and the supporters of these groups. The instruction
again-now concentrating hard on the vulnerability of individuals as
far as their personal lives are concerned-the instruction was that the
agents were to collect personal information concerning so-called Black
Nationalist Hate groups and then use it against them.
In a document dated February 1968 rexhibit 16V where the Black
Xationalist program was expanded, instead of it being directed against
some, it was expanded to greater groups and more groups and more
FBI offices, and again let me concentrate on the attitude expressed in
this document. I have already pointed out that they label groups like
the SCLC as violence prone, and in the objectives, what the Bureau
trying to do as it attacked these black groups. here is what they
were instructed tQ do: "Prevent the rise of the 'messiah' who could
unify, and electrify. the militant black nationalist group."
Here is what they said about Martin Luther King in that connection:
"Martin Luther King * * * aspires to this position * * *
King could he a verv real pretender for this position should he
abandon his supposed 'obedience' to 'white. liberal doctrines'. (non"
dolence) and embrace black nationalism." So the theory as expressed
1 Re.. p. :l83.
2 Se.. p. :l86.
25
in this document [see footnote page 21] was that a man recognized
in the document as being someone who supported nonviolence ought
to be destroyed because someday he might abandon nonviolence and
hecome thereby what they regarded as a greater threat as a messiah.
In this same document the Bureau praises acti\'ities which ha\Oe
already taken place under COINTELPRO, giving as an example of
an apparently highly desirable activity the fact that the Washington
field office had furnished information about a Nation of Islam, as the
Black Muslim movement grade school, to appropriate authorities in
the District of Columbia who were induced to investigate the school
to determine if it conformed to the District regulations for private
schools. And again, praising that effort, it was noted that in the process
the \Vashington field office obtained background information on the
parents of every single pupil in that school. \Vhat possible bearing
does that activity have upon the activities which the FBI seeks legitimately
to do? Is that within the legitimate sphere?
They said that our job in the Bureau is to prevent the long-range
g-rowth of these movements, especially among youth, so they shDuld
be targeted-they should be destroyed so they no longer appeal to
young people in this country.
Now, we are going to covel' similar attitudes as displayed in the
New Left initiating documents, and then turn to certain of the
techniques.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the New Left
initiative involved the failure really to define what New Left was, and
the kind of no-holds-barred approach in terms of techniques that the
Bureau authorized.
In 1968, we see the initiating document, and it is interestinp: to note
some of the reasons why the New Left is identified as a problem.
Quoting from the document, exhibit 17,1 dated May 1968, "Some of
these activitists urg-e revolution in America and call for defeat or the
T~nited States in Vietnam. They continually and falsely allege police
brutality and do not hesitate to utilize unlawful acts to further their
so-called causes. The New Left has on many occasions viciously and
scurrilously attacked the Director and the Bureau in an attempt to
hamper our investigation of it and to drive us off the college campuses."
"Trying to drive us off college campuses," refers to the Bureau.
With this initiation came some subsequent requests for ideas and
t.he development of g-uidance kind of memoranda. One such appears
in your books as exhibit 18 2 and we see in the catalog- of things which
are permitted or should be attempted against the New Left perhaps
the most open or wholesale authorization for attacks under the
COINTELPRO label. The field is advised that thf>Y should do snch
things as prepare leaflets desig-ned to dispel the imp'ression that Students
for a Democratic Society and other groups speak for a majority
of the students. and the leaflet campaign is to try to include "the most
obnoxious pictures" one can find with respect to the activities or the
rnrmhership ofthese groups.
The use of pictll~es was also to be a plov in tl1P anonymous sending
of letters or other mformation to the parents and emplovers of New
Left people. again to trv to depict them in the most obnoxious light.
1 Spp p. ~~3.
2 Sep p, 39;-;,
26
That was the direction. 1Vhenm-er you can. bolster your assertion
with a picture.
Another technique adopted was to try to create the impre&sion that
any of the ~ew Left leaders were in fact informants and wherever
one could, the field was directed to implant that impression. The direction
included taking admntage of any personal conflicts known
to exist among New Left personalities. They were told to plant newspaper
articles. They identified specific hostilities. such as the one between
the SDS and the Socialist 'Workers Party, and they were told to
promote that hostility, and of course, were told that whenever----:and
this is the first time this one appears-whenever the Bureau recelved
information of a dismptive or immoral activity, the first action to be
taken was to notify the media, not the law enforcement officials but the
media, and hope that they could promote some coverage, and indeed,
if pictures came out of this effort, to get some of those to use for
further dissemination.
It is perhaps the most broad-ranging attack, and really reflects
a kind of cataloging of the various techniques that had been gained,
and the view in the Bureau at least that a certain level of expertise in
the business of discrediting, disrupting, and neutralizing was being
achieved.
In talking about many of the techniques-we have alluded to many
of them as we have gone-we have talked about the business of misinformation.
One of the other techniques utilized was to destroy the
job or family life, and family life was a particularly opportune target
in the Bureau's view, and played on some fairly tender sensitivities.
Without mention of the name reflected therein. if vou look at exhibit
19 1 you will see the Bureau's report on a COINTELPRO effort
against a white fema.Ie who was involved as an offi.cer in what was
resolved as a local black activist group. The way to discredit or neutralize
this leader was to take attention away from activities of the
group by creating another kind of distraction: The distraction read as
follows: "Dear Mr. [deleted] Look man I guess your old lady doesn't
get enough at home or she wouldn't be shucking and jiving with our
black man in ACTION, you dig? Like aU she wants to integrate is the
bedroom. and us black sisters ain't gouna take no second best from
our men. So lay it on her. man-or get her the hell out of [deleted]." It
is signed "a Soul Sister."
A particularly effective technique as reflected by the memorandum.
It did succeed in distracting her.
Mr. SCHWARZ. The same techniques were used a,g-ainst members of
the Klan. You will see in your books [exhibit 20] 2 the instructions
from tIl(' headquarters of the Bureau about how to prepare letters
with spemng mistakes and so forth so that they 'would look credible.
On the New Left, I mentioned in my opening statement what was
done by the Bureau immediatelv following the Democratic Convention
in Chicago in 1968, and you will all remember that there were great incidents
between the local police and demonstrators. and charges made
of excessive action by the police.
1 I'll'e pp. :l9~ throug'h 402.
, See pp. 40:\ thrOUg'h 40:;.
27
Now, what did the Bureau do a,fter those charges were made1 \Ve
have been given documents which have the curious heading, COIN
TELPRO-Xew Left. dealing ,,-ith the snbject of how to investigate
the charges of police brutality in the Chicago 1968 Democratic Convention,
and here is the instruction by telegram from the Director to
all agents in all major Bureau cities:
"In view of recpnt accnsations against Chicago authorities relating
to their handling of demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention,
the Bureau desires to collect all possible information regarding
provocations of the police by the demonstrators."
And then it goes on to indicate that what the Bureau desired its
agents to collect in that telegram and 1n the preceding memo of August
20, 1968, was the, following: "The Bureau should be alert to this
situation and be in a position to refute the allegations. Along these
same lines, you should also consider measures by which so-called cooperative
news media may be used to counteract these allegations."
Now, turning to the technique of misinformation or disinformation.
which at paragraph 12 of the instrudions on the Xew Left from which
~Ir. Smothers was reading, Bureau agents were told to attack the New
Left by disinformation and misinformation. and I will give you six
quick examples of what was done pursuant to that program.
There was a bodv called the National Mobilization Committee To
End the 1Var in Vietnam. At the time of the Democratic National
Convention in 1968, that body attempted to obtain housing in Chicago
for demonstrators ,,-ho had come to the convention. The FBI local
office in Chicago obtained 217 of those forms and filled them out with
fictitious names and addresses of persons who purported falsely to
have houses in which the demonstrators could stay. The tactic had its
designed effect because. according to FBI documents, the persons who
went out to look for these houses made "long and useless journeys to
locate the addresses and the efforts to find housing ,were canceled."
1Vhat effect that had upon the attitude of the persons who were there
in Chicago, and what contribution that made to what happened thereafter,
I suppose we will ne,"er know.
Precisely the same tactic and program was carried out by the Bureau
with respect to the 1969 Presidential Inauguration where they a.gain
filled out false housing forms to confuse and disrupt efforts by persons
coming to 'Vashington to find places to stay.
During those 1960 inauguration ceremonies. the 'Vashington field
offices of the FBI discovered persons who were attempting to coordinate
and control the demonstrations. or marshals. Ancl this committee
has examined in executive session ~fr. Egil Krogh. who was responsible
for cOOl'dinating law enforcement at that demonstration, 'and he
has told us that the marshals of tIl(' demonstrations <were a very useful
and very helpful group of persons in order to keep the demonstration
orderlv.
Nm;. what did the FBI do? Thev found out what citizen band was
heing used for ,,-alkie-talkies, and tl;ey used that citizen band to supply
the marshals with misinformation, and, pretending to be a unit of the
~ational ~robilizationTo End the 'Varin Vietnam, reeountBrmande6
the ordprs issued by t.he movement.
28
In 1967 there was a rally in Washin~rton protesting the Vietnam
war. A newspaper in Xew York City indiC"ated that its contrihution to
this rally was to be the symholic act of (lropping flowers on the meeting,
and the newspaper put an ad in the newspaper asking for a pilot
who could help them do that. The Federal Bureau of Investigation
answered the ad, and it kept up the pretense that it was a genuine pilot
up to the point 'when the publisher of the newspaper showed up with
200 pounds of flowers and there was no one there to fly the plane.
In these two examples I am now going to give, the files that have
bepn produced demonstrate a field suggpstion and demonstrate no disapprO\-
al from headquarters when the proposal ,,-as made to headquarters.
However, the Bureau has been unable to determine whether the
next two activities took place actually as compared to the ones I have
already given you.
The New York office of the FBI proposed that it sabotage a printing
press which was being imported to be used by the Communist Party
of the United States. The documents we have indicate that this request
was handlpd by telephone. There is no indication of disapproval. The
Bureau, however, is unable to tell us whether it actually occurred.
Similarly, with another publishing organization in Detroit, called
the Radical Education Project. which published pamphlets and
papprs, the Detroit office of the FBI asked the headquarters lab to
prepare a quart of a solution "capable of duplicating a scent of the
most foul-smelling feces available." The Bureau is unable to tell us
whether that was done, but the paper record indicates clearly that
that was not disapproved.
Now, Mr. Smothers, I gue~s, is going to deal with violence and
factionalism.
Mr. SMOTHERS. 'Ye talked a little bit about factionalism earlier and
a little bit about the increasing development, or honing, of various
techniques. Perhaps the culmination of the ability to apply certain
kinds of techniques that haw been learned in the early efforts against
the Communists and the Socialist 'Yorkers took place when the Bureau
looked at the competing efforts of groups thpy defined as Black Nationalists
and thought of \vays to neutralize or destroy those groups.
Exhibit 21 1 is a correspondence from 1968, a Bureau document indicating
just how far the Bureau had departed from its law enforcement
mission. It is shown on the chart at your left.
Reading from that document, the Bureau pointed out that a serious
struggle ,,-as taking place bet\veen the Black Panther Party and another
west coast organization known as US: "The struggle has reached
such proportions that it is taking on the aura of gang warfare with
attendant threats of murder and reprisals."
Recognizing these threats of murder and reprisals and the clear
threat of violence, the FBI does not talk about law enforcement, but
talks about initiating COI~TELPRO activitips designed "to fully
capitalize upon Black Panther Party and rs differences as well as to
exploit all avenues of creating further disspntion in the ranks of the
BPP, recipient offices are instructed to submit imaginative and hardhitting
counterintelligence measures aimed at crippling the TIPP
(Black Panther Party)."
1 See p. 406.
29
'Yhat we see here is the Bureau deciding that not only is la\y enforcement
an adequate tooL but indeed, that violence now, or the promotion
of violence. becomes an acceptable technique as a basis fOI" doing- away
with objectionable g-roups and organizations. .
A. chart [exhibit :2:2] 1 that may Iwlp us sollie if \ye like bright colors
represents our attempt, and the attrmpt of our staff herr, to translate
our rather yague directions and do a composite picture of
COIXTELPHO activitv.
I think the chart is' particularly helpful because what it does is
indicate to us \yhat was happening in terms of frequency frolll the
period of 1956 up through about 196G.
'Ve see \-ery intensive activity against the Communist Party. 'Vith
the involvement of the Socialist 'Varkel'S who are viewed by the documents
as a minor element, \Ye see really a kind of tridding curve that
hO\-ers along the bottom of the graph, as shown there in black.
As the social issues began to change, the Bureau's efforts and intensity
changed. The first. is the effort here against the Klan, which
I"eaches its peak in HHi6. They are immediately followed by a literal
preoccupation with the activities of the New Left and blacks.
In 1968 that activity is at its peak. The initiatives against the Kew
Left began to drop off, as we see some change in the war sentiment in
this country. However. either thPI'e was no perceived sentiment or the
FBI did not get the message in terms of Black Nationalists because
the intensity of that effort is shown to continne right through the last
showing of the chaIt in the 1971 time frame.
Now one of the questions that emerges when \ve examine all of this
activity is certainly the obvious one of who told them they could do it.
And with respect to who told them th~y could do it, the anS'iver is
largely one of the Bureau deciding that it was a good idea.
However, this should not be taken to mean that there was no communication
and no attempt to advise important officials of at least some
of the Bureau's efforts. It is pretty cIear from our look at this area
that with respect to efforts against the Communist Party and efforts
ttgainst the, Klan, Mr. Hoover sent lett€rs to Attorneys General, including
Rogers. Krnnedy. Katzrnbach, Clark, and Mitchell, which he
believed constituted a notification of tIll' existence of these efforts
against the Communist Party and thr so-called White Hate organizations.
There is some indication that the Cabinet \vas briefed in 1958 regarding
the Communist Party COINTELPRO efforts and that a House
Appropriations Subcommittre \vas given information on both the
Communist Partv and 'Vhite Hatr COIXTELPRO.
'Vhat we have'been unable to find are disc10surrs relating to the Bureau's
efforts against the Xl'''' Left, against Black Nationalists.
The issue of authorization thrn seems to be one of the FBI assuming
the authoritv and the need to take on certain actions. and then a subsequent
comrmmieation of \,hat had been done to thr Attorney General
and to officials in thr ,Vhite House-oIlr can only assume relying upon
tlw do-not-do-it-againl or the failure of a do-not-do-it-again directive
as the basis for continning- the action.
Now in discussing- whether many of these efforts are continuing today,
I believr Fritz has looked at thr trl'l11inating docnments with
1 See p. 408.
30
respect to COIKTELPRO and has some observations in that regard,
lwfore we turn our attention to what ,ve haye found in our estimation
to be probably the best example of COIXTELPRO in action, the effort
against ~fartin Luther King.
~[r. SCHwAnz. First. let me observe that ,yhatever effort there was
to turn oft" COIXTELPHO occurred only after it had been exposed,
exposed by the theft of documents from the Media, Pennsylvania, office
of the FBI, and exposed in the press, pursuant to a Freedom of Information
Act lawsuit.
In April of 1971, a notice was sent out that the extant COIKTEL
PROs, naming fiw domestic COINTELPROs there-since that it
has been discoyerecl that there were more, but that apparently headquarters
had forgotten about-that those COIKTELPRO operations
should be discontinued. However, the document goes on to indicate:
"In exceptional instances where it is considered counterintelligence
action is warranted, recommendation should be submitted to the Bureau
under the individual case caption."
We have determined through testimony, moreover, that the line
between so-called COINTELPRO operations and intensive investigation-
another term used within the Bureau-is one which is exceedingly
fuzzy and that the same kind of activity which was carried in
some cases under COINTELPRO has been carried in other cases under
the label of intensive investigation.
Senator MO~DALE [presidingJ. In fact, the evidence we are about
to hear on the Martin Luther King case occurred under a title other
than COINTELPRO, did it not?
:Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes. the most vicious kinds of acts that we have
discovered occurred under a label which was not even called counterintelligence.
Now finally, the current leadership of the FBI has declined in its
testimony before Congress in situations where the evidence that we
have was not available to Congress. Indeed, until we got this evidence,
not even the .Justice Department, in their review of the 80called
COINTELPRO, saw what actually existed in the documents.
But the current leadership of the FBI has taken the position in defense
of COINTELPRO that "for the FBI to have clone less under the circumstances
would have been an abdication of its responsibilities to the
American people," and has declined to condemn the programs or, to
date, the kind of activity which we have been discussing.
Of course the Bureau witnesses are going to be coming in beginning
tomorrow and we shall see what their position is in light of the
evidence as to the actual activity which has been put forward to this
committee.
Now on King, Mr. Smothers is going to start with respect to the
aims as they appear from the documents.
Mr. S:MOTHERS. It appears that the Bureau's effort against Dr. King
starts with a response to the perceived dissatisfaction or complaints
raised by Dr. King against the Bureau. There is the early suggestion
that they should look at him because SCLC or the movement had
been infi'ltrated by Communists. [See footnote page 21.J
A total examination of the record. though, indicates a very limited
kind of almost nonexistent concern of the Communist issue except as
it, related to trying to get information on this point regarding people
with whom King spoke.
31
But in the period from If);')fi \,,!len King begins his emergence, \H'
begin to see developing, if not a dispute, certainly no love lost between
Dr. King and Mr. Hoover. In fact, by January of 1962, Mr.
Hoover has already typed Dr. King as "no good.~~ Hoover is particularly
disturbed after lU();) when it became clear that the concept
of nonviolence was gaining acUierence, adherence to be made even more
clear by the time the march on IVashington came around.
This development of a concept of nonviolent confrontation or nonviolent
protest wus seen as a threat to law enforcement, and something
the Bureau was indeed lmhappy about. This was aided apparently
by what the Bureau regarded as Dr. King~s direct attacks on
Mr. Hoover and the Bureau and the public controversy was pretty
much full blown at the time in lU63 wllen Mr. Sullivan, who should
be able to gi\'e us some assistance on this matter, communicates to
Mr. Hoover a plan for dealing with Dr. Martin Luther King.
Quoting from a memorandum, the plan here is to completely discredit
Dr. King by "taking him off his pedestal and to reduce him
completely in influence."
In its effort to reduce Dr. King~s influence, to take him off his
pedestal and to change, if you will, his image before the masses, we
begin to get some insight into the thought process of the FBI at this
time. The thinking was that this would not be a terribly difficult task.
The memo indicated, for example, that -this can be done and will be
done:
"Obviously, confusion will reign, particularly among the Negro
people. The Negroes will be left without a national leader of sufficiently
compelling personality to steer them in the proper direction."
So the F HI decided that if they were going to take King off his
pedestal, it was a part of their task to find and bring into prominence
a new national Negro leader.
To this end the FBI did research and identify a personality, a person,
not a civil rights leader incidentally, whom the Bureau believed
would qualify and should be promoted as the new national Negro
leader.
In addition to the efforts to discredit King and to knock King off
his pedestal, if you will, the FBI felt that it had a need to gain as much
information as possible regarding every aspect of the activities of Dr.
King and of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
To this end, the FBI set about a path of authorizing some 16 wiretaps
against Dr. King, microphone bugs, if you will, in addition to
wiretaps, which were also planted. The bugs Wl.'re to be used for the
most complete surveillance imaginable. That is to get everything we
can on Dr. King.
I think when we look at or attempt to evaluate the purposl.' here,
what we really see is that not only are the attacks on or the dispute
against King a part of the Bnreau~s concem at this point. but the
whole concept of ciyil disobedil.'ncl.'. as the Rurl.'au thought was personified
bv Dr. King, is getting to be a problem. Thl.' FBI sees no alternative
to doing away with the growing adhl.'rl.'nce to civil disobedience
as a means of redrl.'ssing grievances. no aJt{'rnativl.' othl.'r than beginning
or l.'mbarking upon a rather prl.'sumptuous coursl.' of replacing
Dr. King and establishing a ne,,' national Negro leader.
Fritz. I believe vou have some information on soml.' of the things
that thl.'!, attempted in that regard.
32
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes; the extraordinary thing is to look at the timing
of the effort the Bureau made to discredit and destroy Dr. King. They
come to crescendos at e\'ery single point where Dr. King touched the
issues in this country. After the march on 1Vashington there was an
acceleration. He was defined, because of his speech in that demonstration
in Washington, as the most dangerous and effective leader in the
country and there was a paper battle within the Bureau as to how
best to attack him. He was attacked after Time magazine named him
as the Man of the Year. Again. the Bureau finds that reprehensible,
believes it must attack and destroy. When he was given the Nobel Prize,
again, they seek to discredit Dr. King with the persons who welcomed
him back from that 'award. When he began to speak out against the
Vietnam 'Val', there was a new crescendo of efforts by the Bureau to
discredit and destroy Dr. King. When the Poor People's Campaig-n
took place, once again they go after Dr. King. And their activity to go
after Dr. King did not even cease when he died, because as Congress
began",to consider the question of whether or not Dr. King's birthday
should be made a national holiday. the Bureau developed plans to call
in friendly Congressmen for off-the-record briefings concerning King
in the hopes that those Congressmen could keep any such bill from
being reported out of committee.
The period surrounding the march on 'Vashington and immediatelv
following is particularly revealillQ:. A report is written for the Director
by his chief intelligence officer reporting that the Communist
Party. in fact. for 40 years had been trying to control the Negro movement
and that it had always failed and that its efforts in connection
with the march on 'Vashington were infinitesimal. This was not accepted
bv the Director of the FBI. He found that thinking wrong, nnacceptable.
and said that it must be changed. And it was changed and
then we find paper coming in in which the lower level people in the
FBI apologized for having misunderstood matt~rs and on they go with
this effort to discredit and start the bugs on Dr. King.
The efforts to discredit him range from political people to foundations
to universities. A particular university was select~d as a target
because it was thought unseemly that. since it had once granted an
honorary degree to the Director of the FBI, for it to grant one to
Dr. Martin Luther King. The FBI sought to prevent the Pope from
meeting with Dr. King. It inten'ened with a Cardinal.
The ('HAIRMAN. To prevent the Pope from meeting with Dr. King?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes; the Pope. And when the Pope, despite that
rffort. did meet with Dr. King, the FBI documents record the adverb
"astounding."
The ClIAIR;\L\X. It must haTe lwen Pope.Tohn. was it?
Mr. SCHWARZ. It was in 1904. Someone has got to help me on that.
Who was the Pope? Pope Paul.
But in any event, that effort did not work. The paranoia, the belief
that American citizens could not deaL themselves. with Dr. King is
indicated by this story. At one point Governor Rockefeller was planning
a trip to Latin America and the Bureau felt that it had to approach
Governor Rockefeller so he could be-he was planning to see
Dr. King lwfore going-so that lll' could be warned of what a great
33
danger Dr. King was. This effort went on and on and on. Each time
he was doing something important there was an effort to discredit him.
Each person he met who the Bureau felt could give further credit,
further recognition to Dr. King, an effOlt was made to stop that from
happening. The Bureau \vent so far as to mail an anonymous letter to
Dr. King and his wife shortly before he was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize, and it finishes with this suggestion: [See footnote page 21.]
..King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it
is. You have just;34: days in which to do it. This exact number has been
selected for a specific reason. It has definite practical significance." It
was34 days before the award. "You are done.~'
Senator MOXDALE. That was taken by Dr. King to mean a suggestion
for suicide, was it not?
~1r. SCHWARZ. That is our understanding, Senator.
The CHAIR~L\N."Who wrote the letter?
Mr. SCHWARZ. That is a matter of dispute. It was found in the files
of Mr. Sullivan who \vas the Assistant Director of the FBI and was
heavily involved in these programs. He daims that it is a plant in his
files and that someone else in the Bureau, in fact, wrote the document.
The document which was found is a draft of the letter, the anonymous
letter which was actually sent.
The CHAIRMAN. Is there any dispute that the letter did in fact come
from the FBI?
Mr. SCHWARZ. We have heard no dispute of that.
Mr. SMOTHERS. One thing that is very dear as \ve examine the King
information is that the FBI is not only presumed to know an awful lot
about the movement which Dr. King headed, but that many of its
fumbling efforts, many of its failures to convince people that Dr. King
should be discredited, were born out of the ignorance and, if you will,
the very clear racism at large then in the Bureau.
A particularly revealing aspect of the Bureau's approach to the
question, even at a time when they were examining the so-called Negro
question, is evidenced by the response to a memorandum which then
Attorney General Kennedy wrote to ~Ir. Hoover. Mr. Kennedy wrote
a memorandum asking Mr. Hoover how many Negro special agents he
had. Mr. Hoover wrote back, "",Ve do not catalog people by race, creed,
or color," and now, reading from Mr. Sullivan's transcript on the
point, "It was assumed by .:\1r. Hoover that this would take care of Mr.
Kennedy. Mr. Kelmedy came back with another very nice letter, that's
a laudatory attitude, you are commended to have it, but I still want to
know how many Negro spe~.ial agents do you have." So we were in
trouble.
"It so happened that during the war he had five Negro chauffeurs, so
he automatically made them special agents. It did not matter whether
they finished college or high school or grammar school or had a law
degree. So now we wrote back and said we had five. Then Mr. Kennedv
('arne back and said this was atrocious." At the time. according to M;.
Sullivan. the FBI had ;').500 special agents. "Out of that number 5,500,
and you only have five Negro agents."
Mr. Sullivan again. "Of course. we did not say in that memorandum
that 110ne of them conducted investigations; they Were just drivers."
34
This is 1961. Is it any wonder that the FBI was later presumptuous
enough to feel that it'could determine the next new national Negro
leader? A part of their problem is that they attempted to translate the
tactics first used against the Communist Party against virtuapy every
perceived enemy; as they looked across the landscape and deCIded who
should be neutralized. discredited. or dest.royed.
The CHAIRMAN. I think this is a time ,,:hen the committee might
consider breaking. 'Ve han a cloture vote coming up now. We will be
coming back this afternoon as we examine by what legal authority the
FBI presumed to conduct operations directed toward discrediting,
even endangering American citizens, and that hearing will commence
at 2 o'clock this afternoon.
Immediately following the conclusion of the staff presentations,
members of the committee will then address questions to the staff. So
we are adjourned until 2 o'clock this afternoon.
['V"hereupon, at 12 :28 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene at
2 p.m. the same day.]
AFTERNOON SESSION
The CHAIRMAK. The hearing will please come back to order.
:Mr. Schwarz, you and Mr. Smothers had not yet completed your
presentation to the committee when we had to break for votes and for
lunch. I suggest that you proceed now to complete that presentation
before we go to questions.
Mr. SCHWARZ. :Mr. Smothers has a historical note he wants to make
first, and then I'm going to return to the subject.
Mr. SMOTHERS. I have a historical note because you told me you were
going to talk about indexing.
~fr. SCHWARZ. You're right.
:Mr. SMOTHERS. And I think it is worth noting that at the time we
talked about the very beginnings, when Mr. Hoover was then in charge
of the Intelligence Division of the FBI, we see the starting of the first
indexing system. the system being established there as the basis to insure
the ability for retrieval of information against the anarchists and
Communists and other kinds of revolutionaries, if you will, that Mr.
Hoover identified. And he considered the indexing system to be a valuable
aid in the efforts to link radicals to the steel and coal strikes in
1919 and 1920 and the railroad strikes.
The CHAIRMAN. In other ,vords, you are talking about the origins
of this indexing system going back to 1918, 1919, 1920, right?
Mr. SMOTHERS. I think, Mr. Chairman, it would be fair to say that
in terms of the techniques we have talked about, what we have really
seen as we have looked at the development of this thing is that not
very fiUCh is terribly new. It changes in intensity, it changes in targets,
but the origins have been with us a long time.
Mr. SCHWARZ. The issue of indices and how they came to be used
as devices to plan to lock up American citizens in a kind of emergency
evolved from the initial start that Mr. Smothers referred to, to a plan
that lasted from at least 1939 until the 1970's-if it is indeed gone
nmv-to prepare lists of American citizens who would be locked up.
in effect. on the order of the President or the Attornev General and
without the intervention of the court at a time of emergency.
35
I want to tell that story briefly, for the purpose of illustrating some
of the problems of oversight and relationships between the FBI and
on the one hand the .Justice Department, and the FBI and the Congress,
because in the course of tel1ing the story, al1 of the types of
relationships come out. vVe get the situation of the FBI complying
with the orders of Attorneys General. 'Ve get situations where the
FBI secretly defied orders of the Attorneys General. 'Ve get situations
where the FBI is complying with the Congress, and we get times where
the FBI, in coordination with an Attorney General, is planning to
secretly defy the orders of Congress on the subject of indices for times
of national ~mergency.
In 1939 the FBI established an index called the Security Index,
which was a list of individuals. both aliens and citizens-I am now
quoting from exhibit 23: 1
On whom there is information available to indicate that their presence at
liberty in this country in time of war or national emergency would be dangerous
to the public peace and safety of the United States Government.
The documents which notified all FBI offices of such lists and notified
them to prepare names, indicated that the Bureau should make
certain that the fact that it was making such investigations does not
become known to individuals outside of the Bureau. Nevertheless, the
Department of .Justice was then informed, and in 1941, the Department
of Justice commenced to work with the Bureau on classifying
persons as to degree of dangerousness.
In 1943, however, the Attorney General then in office, Mr. Biddle,
wrote a memorandum for .J. Edgar Hoover [exhibit 24] 2 in which he
instructed .J. Edgar Hoover to get rid of the lists and to stamp on
each document in which a person had been given a classification for
the purpose of being locked up, the following legend: "This classification
is unreliable. It is hereby canceled, and should not be used as a
determination of dangerousness or of any other fact.'· Attorney General
Biddle tDld .J. Edgar Hoover that after full reconsideration of
these individual danger classifications:
I am satisfied that they serve no useful purpose.... There is no statutory
authorization or other present authorization for k~ping a "cm;todial detention"
list of citizells. The Department fulfills its proper functions hy inYl'stigating
the activities of persons who may have violated the law. It is not aimed in
this work as to classifying persons as to dangerousness.
vVithin a few days of that very flat instruction frOIL the Attorney
General, the Dilwtor of the FBI indicated to all FBI agents that the
instruction. in effect. should not be carried out. He told them that what
they should do is simply to change the label on the files to "Security
~fatter" from "Custodial Detention" and instructed the agents of
the FBI that the Bureau "wi]] also continue to prepare and maintain
security index cards" [exhibit 25.J:J This was for the same purpose
of knowing who the Bureau might lock up. And he further instructed
them. "The fact that the Security Index and Securitv Index Cards are
prepared and maintainN] should be considered as st;ictly confidential,
and should at no time be a]]uded to in investigative reports or discussed
with agencies or individuals outside the Bureau" other than
1 See ]1. 40n.
2 See p. 412.
" See p. 414.
36
representatives of the military intelligence agencies who were going
to he let in on the secret.
In 1948 there was a new Attorney General in office, and he, contrary
to Attorney General Biddle, who instructed that .this be
turned off, instructed the FBI to prepare an emergency detentIOn program
following something called the Attorney General's Portfolio.
This included plans to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. It ultimately
included plans for a master warrant of arrests whereby, on a
signature of the Attorney General, and only that signature, without
reference to the courts, thousands of people could be locked up.
The CHAIRMAN. What Attorney General was this who succeeded
Mr. Biddle?
Mr. SCHWARZ. In 1948 it was Attorney General Clark.
In 1950 the Congress passed the Internal Security Act. That act also
provided for an emergency detention system hut it was far more restrictive.
It gave less power to the Government than the Attorney
General's program. It did not provide for the suspension of the writ
of habeas corpus. It ,vas more restrictive in its standards as to who
could be apprehended. It did not permit apprehending people on a
master warrant, hut rather it had to be an individual warrant based upon
probable cause. It provided for hearings, and hearings in courts
within 48 hours, instead of under the plan of the Justice Department
no hearings in court, and no hearing at all for up to 45 days.
There then ensued. after the passage of the Internal Security Act, a
lengthy exchange of correspondence.
The CHAIR~fAN. The Internal Security Act was passed in 1950?
Mr. SCHWARZ. 1950.
A lengthy exehange of correspondence in which the Bureau and the
Department were discussing whether they should comply with the
Internal Security Act, and change the custodial detention program, to
which they previously agreed. to comply with its standards. or whether
they should. despite the passage by the Congress of the Internal
Security Act. stick to their tougher standards that let them lock up
more people and kept the courts out of it.
So the decision was made in 1952, November of 1952, and the Department'
in the person of the Attorney General, decided to notify the
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigat.ion that the Bureau
should continue the plan to proceed under the Department's own portfolio
instead of proceeding under the Internal Security Act. [Exhibit
26.J 1 •
The CHAIRMAN. Under what claim of authority?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Inherent executive power. I suppose. These authority
matters are ones which it seems have been focused on more, in retrospect.
in the la.st couple of years. a.<; opposed to things that were thought
about ~t the tIme. and the legal authority issue does not seem to have
been dlscussed at all as far as the FBI's right to pursue any of these
prowams until the summer of 1973. .
The list which was prepared under the f'tricter .rustice Department's
FBI prog-ram. called at one time for the locking- up of 19.436 Americans.
By the time of the repeal of the Internal Security Act it numbered.
in 1971. approximately 12.000 persons. .
1 See pp. 416 through 427.
37
The CHAIR:\L\X. Since the repeal of tht' Internal Security Act, have
they continued to maintain these files for lockup purposes '(
Mr. SCHwAnz. Your key question is your last thrt't' words, Senator.
They have continued. upon tIll' agrcE'mcnt of the l)E'pRrtment of
.Justicf'. to maintain the salllt' files. The numbers ha\'e nmv been reduced
to 1,200 persons. The namp has been changed to something called
the Administrative Index. '''hat purpose thRt seiTes and whether it
still is used as a resen'p list of peJ'Solls to lock up. I think we are going
to Rsk the Hurelw. I cannot give yon a definitiye anS\Yer.
Xow. in addition to thE' so-called Secnrity Index, there was, throughout
this period of the fifties and sixties, also a resene index. As to this
we haye not been able to discm'er any notification to the Department of
.Justice about tIl\' reserve index. The reserve index was composed of
persons who diclnot meet the criteria of the Security Index but wholll
the Bureau felt should have special attention in a time of national
mnergency.
In 1962 there \vere approximately 10,000 names on the reserve index.
A special section of that list was reserved for educators, labor
union organizers and leaders, media personnel, lawyers, doctors,
scientists, and other potentially influential people. And the point I
make in connection with these lists is not only their existence, but the
problems, as revealed by the different areas, of times when the Bureau
appears to be acting without anybody knowing it, times when the
Bureau is acting pnrsuant to coordination with the Department of
.Justice, and times when the Bureau and the Department appear to be
acting beyond the authorization of the Congress.
Mr. Smothers has another case study of the problem of oversight.
~fr. SMOTHERS. Yes. I think as we have gone through the materials
today, there might be some suggestion that the Bureau did not make
an effort to secure guidance from the Department of .Justice. While
1 think that may be true in some cases, we have others in which the
effort was made, and which the Department is either unresponsive
or merely takes a see no evil, hear no evil kind of approach, and at the
same time nods to the Bureau, go ahead, or at least, go ahead if you
wish to.
The case in point is the effort initiated against the Nahon of Islam,
the so-called Black Muslims. At least as far back as 'Vorld 'War II,
the FBI had been keeping track of the Nation of Islam. and on a
number of occasions-we can only document a 20-year period~had
gone to the Department of .Justice seeking guidance in its efforts.
If I might, just a bit of that 20-year chronology that we have, to
see that even when the Bureau attempted to gain guidance and clarification,
the,re were some who thought that it was in the best interests
of the GovernmenUo leave them unadvised.
In 1952 the Department of ,Justice was advised that the Nation of
Islam may be "a fit gTOUp for the Attorney General's list." Here they
were operating under the Federal employee loyalty program. In
:May of 1952 that information is communicated. In 1953 the Department
of .Justice says, we, wilJ not prosecute this group under the Smith
Act, but "the group would under certain circumstances represent a
serious threat to our national securitv," This is Februarv 9, 1953.
The ('HAmMAN. Can you give us a word of descrIption of the
group?
38
Mr. SMOTHERS. The Nation of Islam? "'VeIl, not having had first
hand experience with it, the Nation of Islam, formerly led by Elijah
)Iuhammed, claims to be and was operated as a religious group. The
thing generating concern hen' ,,,as apparently the group's rhetoric
regarding its dislike for ,,,hite- persons and its belief that the war of
Armageddon was near, that the time of the dominance, if you will,
of the white race is about to come to an end, and in preaching this
philosophy, it certainly soon came to the attention of the FBI. And
I will come to what happened with the FBI's efforts, Mr. Chairman.
Senator TOWER. ~fr. Smothers, hasn't that group somewhat moderated
its, or at least deescalated the rhetoric?
Mr. SMOTHERS. Well, the latest information I have, Senator, is it
would be true. In fact, I understand that breaking with all precedent
in a recent social gathering some white persons were invited. So I
think that the history of the group certainly was not different or
changing during most of the time that the FBI sat in on it. And the
concern was that there was some kind of very softly expressed danger
to the national security, a concept expressed both by the FBI and
by the Department of Justice.
For example, there was a question regarding the refusal to participate
in the draft under the claim, which many of you may recall that
led to a prosecution of Muhammed Ali, the claim being that every
member was, in fact, a minister of the church of the religion.
In 1954 the Department of Justice advised the group would not be
prosecuted for any conspiracy to violate the Selective Service Act..
They continued their efforts with respect to some individual violations.
In 1955 the FBI goes to the Department of Justice and says, "review
the file of the group and advise us whether the 150 most active
members should continue on the Security Index," which Fritz has
just mentioned. Avoiding the question, the Department, 5 months
later. comes back noting only that a potentially dangerous instrumentality
is represented here in the event of a national emergency.
The next entry we have is 1959. There the Department indicated
that the group would not be prosecuted or designated for the Attorney
General's list, and Hoover, upon receiving this communication said,
in essence. "they always come up with excuses for not doing anything,"
and he asked or noted that they should take a constructive approach.
He was asking them for advice.
In 1960 the Department gave the same advice, saying that the group
was not subversive as defined by the employee security program. However,
the FBI was requested to continue its investigation of the group.
Hoover noted on the bottom of that memorandum, after he received
it. that .Justice ""as "just stalling." It is interesting to take a look at
that particular memo [exhibit 27],1 that one of September 23, 1960.
",Valter Yeagley, then Assistant Attorney General of Internal Security
Division. in a fairly clear discussion, notes that the first amendment
requires something more than language of prophesy and prediction
-and implied threats against the Government to establish the
existence of a clear and present danger. He further notes in the memorandum
that the evidence is insufficient to meet the criterion of advocating
the O\-erthrow of the Government, but then he apparently comes
1 s~~ p. 428.
39
to the same bottom line that the FBI had reached. "Because of the
semisecret and violent nature of this organization and the continuing
tendency on the part of SOllle of its members to use language of implied
threats against the Government, it is requested that the Bureau
continue its investigation of the Nation of Islam and its leaders."
In 196i, we are on the same merry-go-round. The Department repeats
the auviceand says, "Continue to investigate."
In 1963, the Department said there 'would not be a prosecution and
did not request further investigation, but in 1964 the members are
still on the list, the investigation is continuing. The Department is
advised of that. In its response to the FBI, the Department does not
even mention the fact the investigation is continuing.
For 7 years, from 1966 to 1973, there are no further instructions
to the Department, and the FBI did not ask.
In 1973, the FBI comes up again and asks the Department of Justice
if they should continue. It took the Department nearly a year to
answer them. At that point the Department replied that the investigation
should continue because the group represented "a potential threat
to the public safety."
The FBI was asked to consult the Department if the group "changed
its tactics and objectives." And the Department the next time advised
that another reason for continuing the investigation might be the
antiriot law. The employment security program comes up again.
Finally, after 20 years of exchange with the Department of Justice,
late in 1974, the FBI decided that it would not bother investigating
any more. In this 20 years of back and forth, reading the correspondence,
the memorandums, it is virtually impossible to decipher anything
that approaches the decision, guidance, firmness, or direction. So it
is not all the Bureau run wild. There was some very clear advice here
as to at least some of what was going on, and this is a good case in
point.
Mr. SCIIWARZ. The final part, Mr. Chairman, is the lack of legal
authority and the ambiguity, the uncertainty. This has troubled the
FBI and the Attorney GeneraFs office seriously since 1972. Prior to
that time there is no evidence that consideration was given to issues
of whether there is legal authority except the kind of hint you get in
that 1938 memo where they say "Let us not go to Congress, because
if we seek a statute, people are going to get upset about this kind of
spying on Americans."
But in 197i and 1973, the Bureau did focus on the problem. They
wrote in 1973 to the then Attorney General saying, "'Ve are very concerned
about whether we have legal authority to act in these intelligence
areas." They indicated then that the theory which had been used
for the 30 years, which were the rather ambiguous and vague Executive
orders, many of which were secret, from Presidents Roosevelt and
Truman, and Eisenhower, at least. Those had been the bases on which
the Bureau said they can go ahead and spy on the people. Really,
those orders just said to look at subversives. They had no real content
to them. They had certainly nothing about tactics and activities,
no specificity.
By the summer of 1972 and 1973, the Bureau was very concerned,
and concluded internally that they probably did not support its intelligence
'activities and asked the Attorney General to please help
get a statute passed and get some Executive orders passed.
66-077 0 - 76 - 4
40
The CHAIR:\L\~. 'Which Attornev General? 'We had three in 19-Mr.
SCHWARZ. That was Attorney General Elliot Richardson. I think
he left fairly soon after that request ,yas made. and in any event,
statutes have not been sought. The current Attorney General has been
Yery diligently at work thinking about the issue of guidelines, at least
internal guidelines. 1Ve have not seen any proposed statutes, but perhaps
that is the work of this committee.
But the FBI anel the Attornev General are now, it appears, genuinely
concerned about the issue of legal authority.
Mr. S::\IOTHERS. Mr. Chairman, it is not clear in terms of the chain
of that motivation. I do not think there is doubt that some of it is
being actiYelv considered now. but unless we focus it on an isolated case
and point mit that the volume. the sheer volume of information being
received by the Department of .rustice from the FBI, appears to
have been 'sufficient to put the A.ttorney General. the various Attorneys
General on notice that an awful lot of information was coming
in from somewhere.
For example, in 1967. the Internal Security Division received periodic
reports on approximately 400 organizations. an annual total ot
about 14.000 memorandums, about 150 reports a day. And yet we see
little evidence that anybody asked "1Vhere are you getting this stuff
from? What is the source of all of this r'
I think that is a question, the real legal authority's point, that is
now beginning to focus.
The CHAIR)fAX. How much of that enormous volume of information
eYer meant anything to the Government? How many mandays,
how much money was spent in such a massive and continuing
effort of surveillance through the years?
These are questions that occur to me as we watch the organized
crime in this country, the generalleYel of crime that keeps rising from
year to ye.ar.
Is it any wonder that we are not dealing effectively with it if so
much of our attention and resources are diverted into activities of this
kind? That bothers me Yery much.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Mr. Chairman. that is a hard question to get at in
terms of the complete answer. I think it might be a question we could
raise with the Bureau. .
You recall earlier we talked about the combination of the intelligence.
functions, both counterespiona,g-e and domestic intelligence.
What we get is a lumped figure. fiscal 1975. of about $82 million. That
includes both our foreign and domestic effort. The Bureau does not
wish to break it out further. and I think for some good reason-€.g.
because it would tenrl to disclose the amount of the counterintelligence
budget. That figure lumped together is about 18 percent of the resources.
The actual resource application though. in terms of manhours,
one, records that the Bureau did not keen: and two. if yoU look
at the memorandums. vou see (lpsignations of half an ap:ent's time,
des!~ate an agent to do this. 1Ve saw the peaks and valleys in the
acbntv. It is anvbody's gue~s as to how much of personnel costs has to
be outlined in this.
The CHAIR::\fAN. Before I am going' to pursue my own questions I
would lih to recoemize after some ,weks of abse'nre that we have
Senator Phil Hart back with l1S and we are so pleased that he is back.
that he is here today narticipating at this hearing, and all the members
of the committee feel that way.
41
So I thought it would be entirely appropriate. Senator Hart, to
turn to you first with whatever questions you would like to ask.
Senator HART of )Iichigan. I do not recommend that others pursue
the course I took in order to get this advantage, but thank you very
much.
Having the benefit of not having heard anything until yesterday for
all of these months. I would just react very generally to what you
have told me todav.
As I'm sure others have, I have been told for years by, among others,
some of my own family, that this is exactly what the Bureau was
doing all of the time. and in my great wisdom and high office, I assured
them that they were-it just wasn't true. It couldn't happen. They
wouldn't do it.
What vou have desc.ribed is a series of illegal actions intended
squarely to deny first amendment rights to some Americans. That is
what my children have told me was going on. Now I did not believe it.
The trick now, as I see it. ~Ir. Chairman, is for this committee to be
able to figure out how to persuade the people of this country that
indeed it did go on. And hmv shall we insure that it will never happen
again? But it will happen repeatedly unless we can bring ourselves to
understand and accept that it did go on.
And now mv last note. Over the vears we have been warned about
the dan(~er of subn'rsive organizations, organizations that would
threaten our liberties. subvert our system, would encourage its members
to take further illegal action to advance their views, organizations
that would incite and promote violence, pitting one American group
against another.
And I think the story you have told us today shows us that there is
an organization that does fit those descriptions and it is the organization,
the leadershin of "'hich has been most constant in its warning to
us to be on guard against such harm. The Bureau did all of those
things.
And I say that as one who worked as a U.S. attorney with the
Bureau. I have enormous respect for its capacities in the field of
kidnapping. bank robbery, and a lot of other things. but am appalled
to learn. if that is correct, of the intelligence side that the Bureau has
been up to for so long.
I am glad I got back in time to be persuaded of what my own family
had not been able to persuade me of.
Thank you.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Of course there are actually violent groups. There
are people who do aet violently in the country and there is a role to be
played there. The, problem is the process. no che,ck, no control, no
nputral nerson chpckinO' how tIlE''' draw the, line. and no appare,nt
effort to balance with the vnllles of the first amendment.
The CHAIKUAX. I would like to recognize Senlltor Mondale next.
Senator )loxDALE. Thank YOU very much. ~Ir. Chairman.
I think "'e all on this coinmittee' join w"ith Senator Hart in expressing
our admiration for the FBI and the conduct of its criminal
inwstigating and prosecutorial functions. I just do not think there is
an:v profe&'3ional ],\\v-enforcenwnt orgnnization in the world that perhaps
equals the FBI in its ability and its training in that field.
42
As an old law-enforcement officer myself, I wanted the point made
clear. '''hat we are confronting here, however, is another matter
beyond the law, which is called counterintelligence or internal security.
And it is a matter which strangely has troubled the FBI in the past.
In fact, the abuse of that internal security function by the old Bureau
of Intelligence so led to its disgrace that a new organization, known
as the FBI, was created precisely for the purpose of staying out of
this dirty work in the future.
So here we are again. The case of Martin Luther King strikes me
as being the central case to demonstrate precisely what was involved
and the profoundly serious danger of those tactics.
I would like to ask a few questions about it which, I think, demonstrate
the elements of that matter.
What was the threat that the FBI believed that Martin Luther
King posed to this country ?
Mr. SCHWARZ. You get different feelings on that, Senator, from the
documents, but it is a threat of change. There is a flavor running in
there of an assertion that he was influenced by Communists, but that
does never seem to be followed through on or proven what his actions
were. It was the threat of change, I would say.
Senator MONDALE. ·Was there any evidence at any time that they
were suspicious that he was about to or had committed a crime?
Mr. SCHWARZ. None that we have seen.
Mr. SMOTHERS. I think it is easy to underestimate the impact
the concept of civil disobedience had on the Bureau in general and
Mr. Hoover in particular.
Senator MONDALE. I want to get into the flavor of that later.
Mr. SMOTHERS. It was a big part.
Senator MONDALE. But I'm trying to find out what it was that
impelled some part of the FBI to pursue Martin Luther King with
such an obsession, and what I understood that answer to be was, first
of all, it was not any suspicion of the commission of a Federal crime.
None of the literature showed up a single suggestion that Martin
Luther King had committed or was about to commit a crime.
Is that correct?
Mr. SCHWARZ. That is correct.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Yes, sir, but at this point much of what was being
done did involve challenges to local laws, and there is a very strong
suggestion that King was seen as rallying the lawbreakers and
would-be lawbreakers. albeit for a cause that sounded pure, looking
now in terms of-if you look at what might have gotten the Bureau
started, remember at the same time he is extremely critical of the
Bureau's own law-enforcement efforts.
We see throughout these documents, the New Left documents, it is
taboo to criticize the Bureau and particularly the Director.
Senator ~fo~'mALE. 'Vas he Her charged with fomenting violence?
Did he ever narticipate in violence? 'Vas it ever alleged that he was
about to be violent? .
:\fr. SCHWARZ. That was the very opposite of his philosophy,
Senator.
Sentaor MOXn\LE. So it waR neither the fear of commission of a
crimp nor the commipsion of violence?
'Vas there any serious charge that he himself was a Communist?
43
Mr. SCHWARZ. No such charge whatever.
Senator MONDALE. So that what was left was the decision on the
part of some persons or person within the FBI that he should nevertheless
be pursued. The basis for that decision apparently was political, the
decision that he was dangerous or potentially dangerous to someone's
notion of what this country should be doing and a theory that the
FBI possessed the ability to enter into this field and to investigate
and to intimidate and seek to neutralize, and indeed replace, a civil
rights leader whom they thought to be politically unacceptable.
Is that correct?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes.
Mr. SMOTHERS. That is correct.
Senator MONDALE. All right. And the tactics they used apparently
had no end. They did not, howe,'er, include direct physical violence.
They did not include incarceration. But they included practically
everything else, did they not?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes.
Senator MONDALE. They included wiretapping. They included
microphonic surveillance of hotel rooms. They included informants.
They included sponsoring of letters signed by phony names to relatives
and friends and organizers. They involved even plans to replace
him with someone else ,,,hom the FBI was to select as a national civil
rights leader. Is that correct?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes; that plan did not get very far, but they had
that plan.
Senator MONDALE. Yes; it was seriously considered, and Mr. Hoover
pinned a note to that suggestion commending its authors, did he not 'I
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes.
Senator MONDALE. It also included an indirect attempt to persuade
the Pope not to see him.
Mr. SCHWARZ. And many other people.
Senator MONDALE. It directed him to persuade one of our major
universities not to grant him a doctorate degree.
Mr. SCHWARZ. That is correct. I think there were two universities.
Senator MOXDALE. It included an attempt to send him a letter prior
to the time he received the Nobel Peace Prize, which Dr. Martin
Luther King and close associates interpreted to mean a suggestion
that King should attempt suicide.
Mr. SCHWARZ. That's right. Included in that were materials which
the Bureau had gathered illegally or improperly through taps and
bun-s and so forth.
Senator MONDALE. Well, I must conclude that apart from direct
physical violence and apart from illegal incarceration, there is nothing
in this ('asp that distinguishes that particular action much from what
the KG-R nopS with dissenters in that country.
I think it is a road rr,ap to the opstruction° of American rtemocracy,
and I would hope. as we lead to the strengihening of the FBI in the
criminal field, we impose very clear and unquestioned limits, so that
this kina of unrffitrainetl., illerral, secret intimidation and harassment
of the PBsent;!!l !! bilitv of Americans to participate freely in the American
political life shall npver J>appen again.
One final question. Wnat is the position of the FBI now as to
whether it continues to havp tl'e authority to pursue tactics such as
this against someone like Dr. King?
44
Mr. SCHWARZ. Of course the FBI witnesses are now commencing to
come, Senator. There is, on the COINTELPRO subject, which is related
to the testimony of the current director in effect defending that
program as appropriate for the times in which it took place.
'Whether he gave that testimony after knowing the fullness of what
was done or not. I don't know.
Senator MOXDALE. Thank you "ery much, Mr. Chairman.
Senator TOWER [presidingl. Senator Huddleston?
Senator HT.:'DDLEsTox. Thank vou. :\fr. Chairman.
First, I too would like to sav that I think all of us are weB aware
of the outstanding work that'the Federal Bureau of InvestiR"ation
does in many areas and that they do have a large number of diligent
and dedicated agents who are doing outstanding work in the field of
crime and in protecting this country against our foreign enemies.
I think it probably is unfortunate but the fact of the matter is it is
not what they are doing right and correct that is of major interest to
this committee. Our major interest. first of all, is to discover and
identify what is not correct. not right. and to take whatever action may
seem to be necessary in order to correct those abuses.
So the fact that we dwell on incorrect actions and abuses should not
in itself inclicate that the entire Bureau is guilty of gross impropriety
in the performance of its duty. But we are in an area here that must
concern all of us and all of the citizens of this country.
It seems to me that we have moved awav from concern bv the Bureau
for actual actions that might be violent 'or might be criminal toward
action toward ideas that might be unpopular or may not be acceptable
to some people.
But within the Bureau, within the administration, would it be accurate
to sayan the basis of the information you have presented at
this time that. in fact. the motivating factor behind much of the FBI's
concern in this area was not that there was likelv to be some direct
violent action taken by some individual or some crime committed. but
simply that ideas were being expressed that were not acceptable to the
Bureau?
Is that a corred inferenee from the information you have given
us?
Mr. SMOTHF.RS. Yes, sir. I bplieve that is an accurate summary. I believe
it is particularly true when we look at the subversive investigations.
R~nator HUDDT,ESTOX. Now where is tl' ere any mandate for the FBI,
or Executive order or anv other authority, to mon in this particular
direction? . .
Mr. SrHwARZ. Well. there are claims of anthority. For example, title
XXVIII. section 533 of the United States Code permits the A.ttorney
General to appoint officials to detect and prosecute crimes.
Now thllt is read as implying the authority to pry into tl1 ese
mattPfs. Whetl1er that is a correct reading or not. I suppose other
people shon1d iudge.
Senator HT.:'DDLESTON. Rut in case after case. and in particular, the
Martin Lnther King- ca~e. there was certainlv no ilirpct eviflflnpe that
there ,vas abont to he a crime committed that could bp idpntified as a
soppifip crime.
Is that correct?
45
Mr. SCHWARZ. Certainly not. Ybu are certainly correct.
Senator HCDDLESTOX. ·We have talked some this morning when vou
gave the presentation of the various targets that had been selected,
and one relating to the New Left seems to be a particularly nebuloustype
target.
. Was there ever any written description or any kind of understandmg
on the part of the ag-ents that you talked to or those who were enforcing
the program that would indicate that they had a very definite,
clear understanding of just what this was?
Mr. SCHWARZ. It was a loose term that started and it appears to remain
a loose term in its application.
Senator H"l'DDLESTOX. It would be very difficult then to identify very
clearly just what the threat of a so-called New Left would be to the
securitv of the United States.
Mr. SMOTHERS. That is correct, Senator. Some of the guidelines provided,
and it changed from time to time, included everything from opposing
the war to saying bad things about the Director of the Bureau,
and it just started to be a catchalL
Senator HumLEsTOx. Did yon in fact find officials or agents who indicated
that they had no clear understanding as to what it meant?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes; we did. Of conrse some of them might have said,
as one Supreme Court .rustice said about obscenity, you can tell it when
you see it but they conldn't describe it.
Senator HUDDLESTOX. Now this information. the files that were built
upon all of these indi\'iduals, aside from the manner in which it was
disseminated. which you have reported in great detail. what was finally
done with this evidence? Was it left in a file within the Bureau?
Mr. SCHWARZ. It is still there.
Senator HUDDLESTOX. It's stilI there now?
Mr. SCHWARZ. It does not matter how it was obtained. Even the material.
for example. obtained through illegal mail openings is still there
and still usable. If the Government asks for a name check on somebody,
they would get back information from tho~e sources.
Senator HCDDLESTON. Does the Bureau have a clearly defined policy
on how long it should stay there or what would be done with it?
Mr. SCHWARZ. I think we ought to turn to some of our staff experts
on that one.
Mr. GrrENSTEIX. The basic investigative files remain in the files forever,
as far as we know.
Senator H"l'DDLESTOX. No matter how the material was gained, no
matter whether or not it was accurate or true or how damaging to an
individual it might be. it rests there to be plucked out at someone's
whim to be disseminated in whatever way they might want to disseminate
it?
Mr. GITEXSTEIX. In fairness to the Bureau. in recent months the
Bureau has talked about a destruction program based on age.
Senator H"l'DDLESTOX. They are talking about a destruction program
but so far as you know. they haw not put it into ~ffect? .
Mr. SCHW.\RZ. TJ>ere is a g-reat problem along that hne. Senator.
Even if you are willing to assume some right to collect some information,
that is a very doubtful assumption, the Bureau collects all
information. Let us say a wiretap was authorized in order to check
if someone was likely to commit some kind of an act. They do not
limit the information which is obtained to that. There are some
46
efforts now to say, do not listen in when lawyers are talking on the
phone, for example, but by and large once you target on the individual
or group, you get all of the information.
Senator HUDDLESTO~. That would certainly be a broad application
of the search and seizure warrant requirement that requires a specifying
of, first of all, where you are going to search and what you are
searching for.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes, and do you remember on the chart which showed
that 80 percent of the information comes from informants? Of course
there is no warrant procedure whatsoever for the use of informants to
infiltrate groups.
Senator HUDDLESTOX. Did you find any report within the FBI or
any assertion by them that they were in fact able to prevent violent
acts or criminal acts because of the information they had gathered 1
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes, and I'm sure it is true there have boon instances.
That GAO study, however, indicated they were a very small percentage.
But of course they undoubtedly have managed to deal with some
violent acts in the course of this ,york and I'm sure the witnesses that
come in tomorrow will have samples where they have in fact done it.
Senator HUDDLESTox. Thank you, Mr. Chainnan,
Senator TOWER. Senator Hart.
Senator HART of Colorado. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, would you discuss an incident which reportedly happened
in the closing days of Dr. King's life in Memphis when he had
gone to the marches in connection with the sanitation workers strike,
and which related to the Bureau's involvement in the question of what
hotel he may have been staying at in Memphis?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes, Senator, I would like to ask Mr. Epstein of our
staff, who has conducted the main investigation of the Dr, King
matter, to answer the question.
Mr. EpSTEIN. This is a document dated March 29, 1968. [See footnote
page 21.] It is an internal Bureau memorandum. The caption
on it is Counterintelligence Program, Black Nationalists, Hate
Groups, Racial Intelligence, Martin Luther King.
The purpose is to publicize hypocrisy on the part of Martin Luther King.
Background: Martin Luther King has urged Negroes in Memphis, Tenn., to
boycott white merchants in order to force compliance with Negro demands in
the sanitation workers strike in Memphis. Violence broke out during the march
King led in ~Iemphis. On March 28, 1968. King disappeared. There is a first-class
Xegro hotel in :\Iemphis, the Hotel Lorraine, but King chose to hide out at the
white-owned and operated Holiday Inn Motel.
Recommendation: The above facts have been included in the attached blind
memorandum, and it is recommended it be furnished to a cooperative news
media source by the Crimes Records Division for items showing King is a
hypocrite. This will be done on a highly confidential basis.
The attachment reads as follows, and March 29, 1968, is the date at
the top of it: "Martin Luther King, during the sanitaltion workers
strike in Ml'mphis, Tennessee"-and by the way, this is headed, "do
as I say, not u.s I do," and this apparently is the item that was recommended
to be distributed. .
Martin Luther King. during the sanitation workers strike in Memphis. Tennessee.
has urged Negroes to boycott downtown white merchants to achieve Negro
demands.
47
On :\Iareh 29. 1965. King If'd a mareh for the ~anitation workers. Like Julius
leading lambs to slaughter. King led the marche-rs to yiolence and when the
yiolenee broke out. King di~appearE'(1. The fine Hotel Lon-aine in Memphis is
owned and patronized exclusiYely by Xegroes, but King did not go there from his
hasty exit. Instead, King decided a plush Holiday Inn :\lotel. white-owned,
operated. and almost exclusively white patronized. was the place to "cool it."
There will be no boycott of white merchants for King, only for his followers.
Senator HART of Colorado. Mr. Epstein. do you know for a fact
whether the Bureau distributed that information to members of the
press?
Mr. EpSTEIX. The only notation that would shed any light on that,
on this document. is as follows: There is a notation that says, "OK,
H." which is the usual OK that ~t(r. Hoover signed on var(ous FBI
documents. And then there is a notation also on the document which
says. "handled." and there is a date next to it, which has been illegible
for us. ",Ve have inquired of the Bureau as to what that date is, and
the Bureau maintains that it is April 3, 1968. ",Ve have not yet seen
the original of the document.
The FBI also asserts that Martin Luther King, .Jr. had already
moved into the Lorraine Hotel prior to April 3, 1968.
Senator HART of Colorado. He did change hotels?
Mr. EpSTEIN. That is correct.
Senator HART of Colorado. Did we ask the Bureau whether or not
thev distributed that information?
Mr. EpSTEIX. We did not discover anything additional with respect
to this incident. There apparently were newspapers at the time that
stated that Dr. King was staying in the Holiday Inn motel, I think
described as a "plush" Holidav Inn motel in a cOlwle of newspaper
articles. There was no indicafion that thosf' particular articles were
written as the result of this particular COINTELPRO recommendation.
There is no proof one way or the other.
Senator HART of Colorado. Are there date coincidences between the
memo dates and the elates of the stories?
Mr. EpSTEIX. Other than the same 5- or 6-day time-period, I do
not have anv additional facts.
Senator HART of Colorado. ","\11at day was Dr. King killed? On
April the 4th? .
Mr. EpSTEIX. The chain of events. as I understand it, was he was
in Memphis for a period of se,-erlll davs, left Memphis apparently and
went back to Atlanta for a weekend. or for a couple of davs. And
it was when he returned to Memphis that he checked into the Lorraine
Hotel.
Senator HART of Colorado. And that was where he ,,-as killed?
Mr. EpSTEIN. That is correct.
Senator HART of Colorado. Thank vou very much.
Mr. Schwarz. I would like to askvou about the tangible results of
the entire COINTEL Programs. -
Do we have specific instances where the pro!!rams "suf'ceeded"?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Yes. Out of some 2.600 COINTELPROsMs.
BANOFF. Twentv-hYo nerce-nt of them have results.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Can'r ask Ms. Banoff of our staff to deal with that
question?
Senator HART of Colorado. Yes.
49
48
Ms. RUWFF. The Bureau did not define success; it defined result.
The Bureau agents, field agents, were also instructed from the very
beginning to resolve any doubts in their favor, and, in fact, our investigation
in some instances shO',ed the result that was claimed was
not, in fact. produced by the counterintelligence action.
Senator HART of Colorado. ,Vhat ,,'as the result?
Ms. BANOFF. Some concrete thing that happened supposedly as a
result of the Bureau action, Bureau counterintelligence action that
fulfilled the purpose of the action.
For instance. Senator. in the dissemination act, it is one of the letters
to wives. In fact. to husbands. One that :Mr. Smothers showed, shows
as a result in the status letter. and this is how it was shown to reporters,
that the husband and wife separated. This was claimed as a tangible
result.
Senator HART of Colorado. You have all indicated that the Bureau
began concentration on COINTELPRO as a result of the Smith Act
convictions being overturned and the Bureau's feelings that it was impossible
to use ordinary law enforcement techniques against Communist
Party members.
,Vhat indications are there in the records or your interviews with
Bureau personnel that the Justice Department or the Bureau itself
ever addressed themselves to the legality of the techniques that were
being used in the program?
Mr. SCHWARZ. No evidence that any produced, any theory under
which those programs were legal.
Senator HART of Colorado. Was it discussed within the Bureau or
between the Bureau and the Department?
Mr. SCHWARZ. No.
Mr. SMOTHERS. There were after the fact notifications of the activities
against the Communist Party and against the Klan. The Bureau
sent over a memorandum after the fact. In some cases it said, there
apparently were some brief intelligence activities.
Mr. SCHWARZ. It does not make it legal.
Senator MONDALE. Would the Senator yield?
Senator HART of Colorado. I yield.
Senator MONDALE. ,Ve interrogated a very prominent high-level
FBI official who had been in a top role throughout all of this period,
and he was asked whether anyone had questioned the legality or constitutionality
of these actions. He said no one. I never heard anyone raise
the Question of legality or constitutionality. Never.
M"r. SMOTHERS. And yet they were going to Justice daily with information,
not COINTELPRO but information, and the product of
information was coming over.
Senator HART of Colorado. Did the Bureau ever activelv conceal
from the Justice Department the techniques it was using in these
programs?
Mr. SMOTHERS. I think so. The general prohibition on all the
COINTELPRO activities was there should be no disclosure outside
the Bureau.
NO', the subsequent or after-the-fact notification on the Communist
Party. the plan. it appears that the Bureau felt a little safer about.
There is no indication that the Bureau e,'er belim'ed information
against the other groups would be discussed. and there is no indication
that we found that they disclosed the background.
49
Senator HART of Colorado. With respect to COINTELPRO speC'ifical1y.
is it your respective or col1ective judgments that the Bureau
was operating under the control or the Department or Justice or out
of control of the Department of.Tustice?
;\11'. S)IOTIIERS. I do not see how one can charge the Department
with control at least outside the Communist Party plan area. I think
there. may have heen sufficient evidence, some evidence or a pattern
where they could have at least said don't do it again. But no advance
notice. And with respect to the other activities, I think the record is
very clear that they did not with .Justice. or anyone else.
Senator HART of Colorado. So I tnke it vour ans\yer is that there
was not sufficient control of the COINTELPRO?
.Mr. S)[{)TJIERS. Xa question.
Senator HART of Colorado. ~1r. Sdnyarz, do you agree with that?
1'11'. SCHWARZ. Yes. I do.
Senat-or HART or Colorado. Thank you very much. ~fr. Chairman.
Senator TOWER. Senator Hart? . .
Senator HART of Michigan. No; I have no questions.
Senator TOWER. X0 questions.
Senator ~fondale?
Senator ;\fOXDALE. 'Would it be fair to sav that the tactics used
against Dr. King had been borrowed from tactics used against foreign
risks, spies. agents. and the rest. \yho could and did pose a threat?
~Ir. SCHWARZ. ;\11'. ;\Iondale. vour own examination of Mr. Sullivan
seems to me brought home that point as clear as it could be.
Senator ~IOXDALE. So that the techniques 'which were used were
techniques that we kne,,' about through experience against foreign
enemie..c:;. So that ror all practical purposes. Dr. King was treated as
though he ,wre one or them?
Mr. SCHWARZ. I do not thillk he was the only person, but that is
certainlv accurate. .
Senat"or ~IOXDALE. I raised the Dr. King example because I think
that is the classic example which sho,yS all of the elements and the
dan~ers involn>d in this tactic.
'Vhen did counterintelligence programs stop?
~Ir. SCII"',\RZ. 'Yell. that is in question.
In 1971. after they had been exposed through the media, there was
an instruction that they should stop. The instruction says. however,
"If anvth1ll.<! like this is reallv important. pleHse ach'ise headquarters."
And as I think some of the witnesses indicated. the line between
counterintelligence and intensive investigation is one that really cannot
be drawn and has not been drawn.
Senl1tor N(OXDALE. flo are vou saying we cannot be snre that
COINTELPRO, in all of is elements, has been terminated ~
Mr. SCHWARZ. I would not want to use. that label, Senator. and I
think that is a matter better directed to the FRT witnesses. But it is
a problem when von have. a Director of the FBI who declines to say
that the activ;ties were improner. as he did when he te~c:;tified in 1973.
Senator MOXDALE. To nrovide some of the flavor of the k;nd of concentration
that was directed ao-ainst Dr. Kin,,!, do vou ha'-e availflble
an agenela thl1t WI1S prppan:'d for a meeting of FBI officials to decide
how to deal \vith Dr. King?
Mr. SCHWARZ. I think ~fr. Enstein. who has 2 reet or documents,
Senator, ought to be able to pull that one out.
50
Senator )IoXDALE. ~Iaybe M1ke Epstein could testify directly on
this. because I think he \wnt through this with us.
Could vou tell us about this meeting? ,'110 came? ,Vhat was the
purpose ~f the meeting? "What was discussed there?
~Ir. EpSTEIX. Senator. apparl'ntlv therl' was a mel'ting conwned at
FBI hl'udquarh-rs in Decl'mber 196;). The JJ1Plllorandum recommending
the meeting reeommende(l that it he conn-ned in order to explore
fullv the Commun1st influence in racial matters as 1t pertained to
~Iai·tin Luther King.•J1'.
The summary memo with resped to the nweting itself \Vas written
aftenmrd.
Senator MOXDALE. As I recalL there was an agenda or a memo
\\Titten ahout tactics that could be used aga1nst h1m.
Mr. EpSTEIX. That's right.
Senator )£mmALi:. Can vou list some of the tactics that were
discussed? .
~fr. EpSTEIX. "Can colored agents be of anv assistance to us in the
Atlanta area. and if so. how many would be needed? Possibilities
of contacting anonymous sources at"the home of King and/or SCLC"
is a tactic that was' also discussed. "",,""auld tesur's or misur's on King's
associates help to set UP a counterintelligence move?"
Senator MOXDALE. ,Vhat does that mean?
Mr. EpSTEIN. Tesur's means telephone surveillance and misur's
means microphone surveillance.
What are the possibilities of using Mrs. King? Are there any disgruntled employees
at SCLC and/or former employees who may be disgruntled or disgruntled
acquaintances? Does the office have any contacts among ministers, both colored
and White, who are in a position to be of assistance, and if so, in what manner
could we use them?
Do we have any information concerning any shady financial dealings of King
which could be l'xplored to our advantage? Has this point eVl'r bl'l'n explored
before? And what are the possibilities of placing a good-looking female plant
in King's office?
Senator MOXDALE. So, this meeting was caned to bring together FBI
agents to explore every possibility of spying upon and intimidating
Dr. Mar6n Luther King.
Is that right?
Mr. EpSTEIX. There are a total of 21 different ideas that are on this
document. which is headed: "Questions To Be Explored at Conferenee."
[See footnote. page 21.J
Senator MOND.\LE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIR1\IAK [presiding.]. Senator Schweiker, I believe, has not
questioned vet. .
Senator SCHWEIKER. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
:\£1'. Smothers. earlier in your presentation. when talking about
:l('tivities of the FBI ag-ainst people and targets, you mentioned that
,Yarren Commission critics were sing-led ant for some kind of special
treatment. I wonder if yon would just elaborate a little bit more on
\"hat kind of special attention people who criticized the Warren
Commission Report got?
Mr. S:\lOTHERS. Sne('ial attention started with a reQuest for information
0'1 them ann the informntion reonests were made bv the then
Special Assistant to the President. and we must a"sume that the
requests were at the President's direction, or maybe at the initiative of
51
the Special Assistant. We do not know, but our evidence tends to
show that it reflects a Presidential concern. What came back were a
series of monographs or biographical statements.
Senator SCHWEIKER. 'Would this be raw file material, probably?
~fr. S:\:lOTHERS. Yes, it appears to reflect all of what the FBI had on
that individual. Some of them are very brief. One person in question is
described as "a person who thrives on dissension and causes much
local dissension and arguments in his community." They talk about
his educational background. the marital status, and that is a onepager.
The next one isa one-pager. We have not contacted these people,
Senator.
Senator SCHWEIKER. I understand there were some derogatory material
also included in some of this. Without getting into specifics--
Mr. S~IOTHERS. Yes, there is one that reflects a morals arrest. It
appears again to be a vaccuum cleaner situation though, because in
the same discussion of the alleged morals violation, in two preceding
paragraphs. they note traffic fines imposed by a municipality.
Senator SCHWEIKER. And this was an attempt then on the part of
the "'bite House in this case, a request to the FRI. so we set the record
straight, to discredit people who disagreed with the findings of the
'Varren Commission or to use material against them in some way or
to be knowledgeable about the material in the raw files, any derogatory
information on critics of the 'Varren Commission.
Mr. SMOTHERS. To be fair, Senator, I do not think they were asked
to make use of it. It was certainlv asked to provide it. and every indication
that we have is that the FBI merely provided it. They took no
further steps to disseminate it. Now what the White House did with
it, we do not know.
'Senator SCHWEIKER. So that the request initiated from the White
House. It was not an internal FBI request.
Mr. SMOTHERS. That is correct.
Senator SCHWEIKER. I think that is very interesting because it indicates
that to some extent you became an intelligence target of somebody's:
o~ interest certainly, if you disagreed strongly with the Warren
CommIssIOn.
I think we do have to ascertain, if the material was used in some
way. There certainly had been some allegations that this material was
in fact used in some way. Whether it was in fact used bv the White
House or by somebodv else. I do not know. But I think this is the first
time we ha\'e an indication that the mite House requested such derogatory
or personal material.
Mr. Smothers, what in your judgment could have been the purnose
of fel'Iyv'nting antagonism hetween the Black Panther Party and the
Black Nationalist P..'roup. United Slaves?
Mr. SMOTHERS. Well, it apppears to me at this !10int what we see
with the Black Pantl'er Party-Fnited Slaves (US) dispute is the
FBI's taking the concept of neutralization. tl'e ~oncept t1'ey have used
ear1ier with the Communists and the Socialist Worker Party one step
further.
It is really an indication, I believe, and we see some from the other
documents not insensitivity. hut outright racism on the part of the
Bureau. I think they view' it as anoth'er nelltralization effort, except
when it came to blacks, the most violent kinds of techniques were
accepted.
52
I think they proceeded with the assumption that we would sure like
to be rid of both of them. They appear to have a little bit more antagonism
against the Black Panthers. But if they "ere going to have
gang fights, if they were going to kill each other, then it appeared to
be a wonderful opportunity for the Bureau to promote.
Senator SCHWEIKER. So in this case, instead of acting to calm the
violence and to actually have it subside, they really were inciting it
and encouraging it and confronting it and causing it. Is that a fair
summation? -
Mr. SMOTHERS. I think that would be a fair statement, Senator. The
memo urges the aggressive kinds of efforts, the coming up with creative
ideas as to how one might fuel the fires, if you will.
This is not the only inCIdent where I think the FBI got in the
middle of a situation when they saw that violence was apparent. The
Blackstone Ranger-Panther conflict in Chicago had shades of the
same problem. The resolution therefore, when they couldn't find a
rival group, as the experience was with the revolutionary action movement
in Philadelphia, they simply worked on the local police as a
means of taking them out of existence.
On one occasion a series of memos and communications reflected
that any charge whatsoever was to be utilized by the Philadelphia
police to get these people off the streets prior to a planned activity.
And they then commend the Philadelphia operation for being successful
in defeating this demonstration by putting them all in jail on
one charge or another.
Senator SCHWEIKER. Mr. Schwarz, you described one of the purposes
of the Inlet letter, which is exhibit 9" as reporting items with an
unusual twist or concerning prominent personalities. The letter was
discontinued. Do we have any knowledge or information as to whether
that kind of reporting was discontinued?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Well, the discontinuing letter says in effect it is not
necessary any longer to have the Inlet letter because we now have better
means of communicating, and it instructs the -agents to continue to
refer to headquarters the same kind of information. What has in fact
been furnished I cannot answer for you, Senator.
Senator SCHWEIKER. Does this particular situation indicate that it
would vary on the particular personalities of the issuing, of the authoritative
people, as to what kind of material would be of interest,
or what kind of material would particularly be looked for that would
sort of win their fancy of whoever was requesting it?
Mr. SCHWARZ. There were no standards, Senator.
Senator SCHWEIKER. And how. Mr. Schwarz. do we prevent this kinrl
of thing from happening? In other words, I think it is interesting to
note that it happened, but the question in my mind is how do we stop
this abuse of power where a person may get a kick out of reading
about somebody else's human failures. and mayor may not pass these
human failures on to other people? 'W'hat is your surmise as to how
we mip-ht proceed to stop this in the future?
Mr. SCHWARZ. Less secrecy and tougher laws, Senator, which I am
sure are <Toing to come.
Mr. Elliff, do you have a comment on the Inlet letter?
1 See p. 368.
53
Mr. ELLIFF. Senator SchwE'iker. I did havE' an opportunity at the
Bureau to review the Inlet letters. I did not have an opportunity to
review everything that has gone on since that program was discontinued
by teletype to the "'White House. The definition of items with an
unusual twist appears, from my review of these documents, to be
information that otherwise came to the Bureau in the course of its
intelligence activities. The Bureau did not go out and look for items
to put in the Inlet letter but if they did happen to, in the course of
their ordinary activities, come across such items on prominent persons,
in one instance I recall an actress, the Bureau did learn through its
intelligence coverage of an extremist organization of something as to
the personal life of that actress, and that was indeed disseminated to
the White House in the Inlet letter.
Senator SCHWEIKER. And once again, in fairness to the Bureau. this
was originated in the vVhite House in terms of the use and procedure.
It was collected and gathered in the normal coursE' of their activities,
but the :focusing and whatever use was or was not made, or the receipt
of it was initiated by the White House?
Mr. ELLIFF. That is not clear. The Bureau memoranda indicate that
this had gone on for several administrations. and indeed, we have letters
from ,J. Edgar Hoover to President Truman and Presidents since
then in which he volunteers similar information saying, we thought
this might be of interest to the President.
Senator SCHWEIKER. That is one of the prerogatives of the Presidency?
.
In fiscal year 1974 the FBI received requests for name checks on
more than 2 million cases. Over the years the Bureau has maintained
actual inte11igence files for more than 500.000 F.S. citizens and organizations.
I think my question here is. obviouslv a lot of the material
is pure raw file material. some of it uncorroborated, some of it
allegations, some of it sources of questionable reliability, and I am
sure some of it is quite accurate.
My question is, has the FBI taken any steps to destroy files of
persons who never should have been subjected to surveillance at all,
and. what procedure for cleaning out past errors of judgment exists.
or do these files just go on in pE'rpE'tuity when you have situations of
this kind? Can anyone shed any light on that?
Mr. SMOTHERS. As to what the Bureau is doing now, Senatod
Thp best information we have is that a system for cleaning out
the files or a svstem for retiring information or determinina what
should be held is at this time being worked on between the Department
of Justice and tlw Bureau. I do not know of any prior efforts
to purg"e or update the filE'S.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Senator. in vour Question about name checks. I think
the record should be supplemE'nted with this fact, that in 19f17 name
che('k information was sent to the 'Vhite House on seven Senators
who I am not going to name because we have not snoken to them, but
I can see from looking" at them that thpv are all antiwar Spnators.
Senator SCHWEIKER. In the area of insnection I would like to ask,
in the militarv thev have an Insnector General svstem whose job is
to ferret out allegrltions of imnroper fictions on tlw part of people
within that particular unit or that particular function.
54
I wonder what you can tell us in terms of how the Inspection Division
operates, and what we might learn from comparing that, say,
to an Inspector General system.
Mr. SCHWARZ. I think ~Ir. Gitenstein is our expert on that.
Mr. GlTEXSTEiIN. There is a separate division within the FBI called
the Inspection Division. It conducts annual inspections of all of the
other divisions of the FBI as well as all of the field offices. It also
responds to allegations of abuse within the FBI, but the inspections
are all conducted internally by FBI agents and rarely, if ever, are
there inspections or investigations by other personnel within the
Department of Justice of what the FBI does, although in recent
months there have been investigations of allegations of illegality by
the Criminal Division of the Justice Department concerning mail
opening and other allegations.
Senator SCHWEIKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Schweiker.
Senator Tower, do you have any questions ~
Senator Huddleston, did you have some further questions ~
Senator HUDDLESTON. Just one quick question or two on the matter
of oversight. Was the Congress, or were Members of Congress or
appropriate committees, informed by the Bureau of the COINTEL
program~
~fr. SCHWARZ. The evidence on that as provided to us by the
Bureau is that the House Appropriations Committee-I've got to be
very careful how I put this-there are documents which indicate
remarks were prepared for off-the-record comments to the House
Appropriations Committee. Whether in fact those comments were
delivered is not revealed by any record. Moreover, it is perfectly clear
that those comments concerned only the CPUSA and the Klan COIN
TELPRO's. and did not concern the others. .
. Senator HUDDLESTOX. The other three were not mentioned at all?
Mr. SCHWARZ. And they were scanty on the details with which the
individnal techniques were disclosed.
Mr. SMOTHERS. To supplement that, I think it should be pointed
out that the Bureau claims that this kind of briefing occurred on six
separate occasions.
Senator HUDDLESTON. There were bri~fings on six separate occasions ~
Mr. SM0!lIERS. Yes; beginning. apparently in 1958, and ending
apnarentlv m 1966.
Senator HUDDLESTON. No indication that they touched on any except
the first two COINTELPRO targE'ts, and no indication as to what
deQTee of comnleteness was in the testimony. as to the techniques used
or the ohiectives or what was accomnlishpd.
Mr. SCHWARZ. Well, there, was an indication that if the testimony
was given, that it was not at least as detailed as what we have brought
before you today, Senator. .
Senator Hr-DDI,FlSTox. Did the Rllrefln make anv explanation or any
assertion as to whv more thorough briefings or more thoroul!h inform(
ltion was not gi~ypn to the proner congrpssional committees?
Mr. SCHWARZ. The person who gare those briefings is no longer
alive.
Sf'nator HUDDu:sTox. Thank vou.
The CHAIRMA~.Senator Mondale?
55
Senator MoxDALE. I would like to put a few more questions to Mr.
Epstein. Since this is the first time we have ever had a good look
at this COINTEL Program and the so-called internal security program,
I think it is important to review briefly how the risk of so-called
Communist influence in the direction of the civil rights movement
was arrived at.
And perhaps you can testify about that peculiar set of memos which
began "'ith one memo saying that Communist influence was infinitesimal
and was unimportant, and within a month resulted in a final
memo saying that it was terribly dangerous and threatened to subvert
the civil rights movement, [See footnote, p. 21.]
'What kind of steps led to that remarkable change in assessment?
Mr. EpSTEIN. Senator, shortly before the Poor People's March,
which was in late August of 1963, the Domestic Intelligence Division
of the Bureau prepared a detailed memorandum concerning the efforts
of the Communist Party, U.S.A., to exploit the American Negro,
and that included a conclusion which stated, "The Communist Party
in the next few years may fail dismally with the American Negro.
It has in the past. Time alone will tell." And a note was inscribed on
the end of it--
Senator MONDALE. But wait. "Vas that the one in which they said
the influence of the Communist Party is infinitesimal?
Mr. EpSTEIN. I believe that was another memorandum in which the
Director noted something next to the fact that there were only 200
members of the party in attendance at the march, which had 200,000.
Senator MONDALE. All right. Proceed.
Mr. EpSTEIN. The note that the Director inscribed on this memo,
which also detailed the historv of the partv's efforts in the past to
infiltrate the Negro movement, "This memo reminds me vividly of
those I received when Castro took over Cuba. You contended then
that Castro and his cohorts were not Communists and not influenced
by Communists. Time alone proved you wrong. I for one can't ignore
memos about [various people] as having only an infinitesimal effect on
the efforts to exploit the American Negro by the Communists."
Senator MoxDALE. So the first memo from the Intelligence Division
told the Director that the Communist influence was very speculative
and minor.
Mr. EpSTEIN. That's ri~ht.
Senator MmwALE. Hoover then, in that memo. said "That is not
right. this is just like you told me about Castro." Then what happended?
Mr. EpSTEIX. The context of these, of course, is the fact that the
Director of the Domestic Intplliaence Division exppcted that this
was what was aoina to hannen. His testimonv to us hilS been thilt whpn
they were asked to nnt this document to~ether. informinO' the Director
as to how sllostantifll thp Communist influence nroblem was,
that they were conrernpn thflt the facts were not going to add up to
wh'lt thp Dirpetor expprtea to hear.
Senator MONTHI,E. All riQ'ht.
So he aot this memo he riid not like. and he sent it back. So then
whflt hanpened?
Mr. ErsTEIx. That's right.
66-077 0 - 76 - 5
56
Now, there was a response to that several days later which, by then,
was after the march which referenced that note from the Director
which had said "this memo reminds me vividly of those I received
when Castro took over Cuba", and then said "the Director is correct.
When investigating and writing llbout communism and the American
Negro, we had better remember this and profit by the lessons that it
should teach us," meaning Cuba. He concluded with comments such as,
"It may be unrealistic to limit ourselves, as we have been doing, to
legalistic proof, or definitely conclusive evidence that would stand up
in testimony in court or before congressional committees that the Communist
Party, U.S.A., does wield substantial influence over Negroes
which one day could become decisive."
"The memorandum which the Director questioned while showing
the details of the Communist impact on Negroes, did safer from such
limitations," and at the end he wrote, "We re~ret greatly that the
memorandum did not measure up to what the Director has a right to
expect from our analysis."
Senator MONDALE. What did he say about that ~
Mr. EPSTEIN. There was no response at all, and what the Director
of the Domestic Intelligence Division apparently interpreted by the
silence was that action was desired, because that was the next thing
that happened.
Senator MONDALE. Did Hoover write another memo saying I cannot
understand you, you just said the Communist Party wasn't influential,
and now I get another memo saying it is influential. Have you got
that memo?
Mr. EpSTEIN. Following that apologetic memo, which is my characterization
of it, a recommendation went in--
The CHAIRMAN. That's not apologetic. It is simply a recognition
that intuition is one of those sources for investigative information
that onght not be ignored.
Senator MONDALE. I think it is a source of survival. I think this is
very interestinp: because this led to the official determination by all
hands that the Communists were a very serious influence in the civil
ri~hts movement. In fact, the department which was in charge of
inspecting it did not think so at all.
Mr. EpSTEIN. The memo I am about to read [see footnote, p.
211. which was in mid-September of 1963. the Director of Domestic
Intelligence Division informed us he wrote because he believed that
he, at that point, had to g1.ve the Director words he believed the
Director wanted to hear. and he wrotp a memorandum recommending
"increased coverage of Communist influence on the Negro":
The field is bl'ing instructed to intpnsify our coverage. We are stressing the
urgent need for imaginative and aggressive tactics to be utilized through our
counterintelligence program,
and recommending that such instructions be sent out to the field.
This is the memorandum on whi.ch thp Director inscribed the following:
note.
Senator MOXD.\LE. 'What did Hom'er sav? In other worns, this is the
memo in w~ich the Department said yes. YOI1'1'P rig:ht, ~fr. Director.
let llR get gOIng.
'What did he say?
57
Mr. EpSTEI:S [reading]:
No. I cannot understand how you can so agilely switch your thinking and
evaluation. Just a few weeks ago you contended that the Communist influence
in the racial movement was ineffective and infinitesimal. This notwithstanding
many memos of specific instances of infiltration. Now you want to load the field
down with more coverage. in spite of your recent memo deprecating CP influence
in racial movement. I do not intend to waste time and money until you
can make up your mind what the situation really is.
Senator ~IoxDALE. All right. 'What then happened?
Mr. EpSTEIX. Ten days later this memorandum, again from ~Ir.
Sullivan--
Senator ~IoxDALE.To the Director?
Mr. EpSTEIX. To the No.3 man in the Bureau, Mr. Belmont,
stated-it is prepared not on an official officp memorandum but rather
on plain bond-"believing that this discussion need not be a matter of
official record" :
On returning from a few days leave I have been advised of the Director's
continued dissatisfaction with the manner in which we prepared a brief on the
above-captioned subject, and subsequent memoranda on the same subject matter.
In this memorandum, I seriously and sincerely try to clarify a most regrettable
situation.
The essence of the situation seems to be this. We presented what facts there
are in our files in the Brief in que>:tion and I know the Director certainly
would not want us to do other than this. It is obvious to us now that we did
not put the proper interpretation upon the facts which we gave to the Director.
And then again he reiterates, the recommendation that was made to
intensify coverage and states again, which in his testimony he has
informed us that this is what he believed the Director wanted to hear,
as we stated before in a memorandum: [see footnote, p. 21,]
We regard Martin Luther King to be the most dangerous and effective Negro
leader in the country. May I repeat that our failure to measure up to what the
Director expected of us in the area of Communist-Negro relations is a subject
(If very deep concern to us. We are disturbed by this and ought to be. I want him
to know that we will do everything that is humanly possible to develop all of
the facts.
It was 3 months after this memorandum that the December conference
was convened, and it was 1 month after that, in January of 1964,
that the first microphone was installed.
Senator :MONDALE. In other words, the first factual summary of the
risk of Communist influence and control over Dr, King and the civil
rights movement reported that there was a very small risk indeed.
Didn't the Assistant Director also testify that the role of the
Communists in the civil rights rally of 1963 was practically nil?
Mr. EpSTEIX. That's right.
Senator MONDALE. That there were about 250,000 people and only
about 190, as best they could count, Communists around, and they had
no role to play at that rally.
Mr. EpSTEIX. I think he added that his recollection was that there
was some lparler from the Partv that they had to get on a fishing hoat.
Senator Mmm.\LE. They had to pleao with him to leave a fishing
trip, and he stayed an hour ann left. Then this memo went to the
Director saying that it's not much of a risk. The Director got mad
58
and responded that he rejected that advice, and then they began to
try to change their position in accord with the Director's expectations.
Is that right? And it took two memos of that kind in which they
disregarded the facts, pumped up the fear, before they finally persuaded
the Director that they accepted his point of view. Is that right?
And didn't testimony suggest that the person who wrote that memo,
those memos, did not believe them, but in fact ,vas only doing what
he thought he had to do in order to keep his job?
Mr. EpSTEIN. That's right.
Senator MOXDALE. Then it was on the basis of this pressured asse"" .
ment of the threat of Communist control of the civil rights movement
that they then proceeded to pursue these COINTEL Programs of
harrassment, neutralization, spying and intimidation against Dr. Martin
Luther King. Is that correct?
Mr. EpSTEIN. That appears to be the period of time when it began.
And it was at that time the recommendation went to the Attorney
C'rtmeral requesting his authorization for wiretap, and then 3 months
later was the December conference, and in January the microphones
were put in use.
Senator MOXDALE. Do you have the quotation from that testimony
about the fear that the agents had toward the protection of their
jobs?
Mr. EPSTEIN. I do not have it tabbed, Senator, but if you like I will
find it and when I locate it I will read it in.
Senator MONDALE. You do not have that?
Perhaps you could summarize, based on your recollection of what
we were told about why they reacted as they did.
Mr. EpSTEIN. I think he said if they didn't they would be
transferred.
Senator MONDALE. And that they knew what they were doing, which
was, namely, just writing a memorandum to please the Director, is
that right?
If I may ask one other question, did this same Assistant Director
also testify about the FBI official estimates on the number of Communist
members in the United States?
Mr. EpSTEIX. Yes; he did.
Senator MONDALE. What did he say?
Mr. EpSTEIN. It was my recollection that he said that for years
they submitted the total number of members of the Communist Party
who were in the United States-I do not remember the exact totals-Senator
MOXDALE. Something like 80,000.
Mr. EPSTEIN. Wben it started. in the first report, but that fact was
reported each year to the Department, and that when the numbers
began to diminish. as the years ,,-ent along. and when it reached some
level, very. very few in the thousands. very few thousand, the Director
instructed at that point that the figures should no longer be revealed
to the Department. and the Bureau should hereafter take the position
that that information was classified.
Senator Mmm\LE. So that what happened for years. when the public
would write in and say how many Communist Party members are
tl1ere. the answer would come hack. about 80.000 members in the United
59
States. But slowly the number of members in the United States
dropped down to half of that, or less than that. Then, according to
this Director, a teacher wrote in and said, what is this about the membership
of the CP"LSA·~ It stays 80,000 every year. It does not go
up, it does not go down. 'Yhy does it stay so constant? They did not
know how to answer that teacher because membership was then about
30,000, so they finally decided it was a matter of such high classification
that they should not talk to the public about it. Is that correct?
Mr. EpSTEIX. That is right.
Senator MOXDALE. So the public was left with the impression then,
uncorrected, that there wPre about 80,000 members in the country.
Mr. EpSTEIX. And, in addition, refused thereafter to provide the
fig'mes to the Department of Justice.
Senator ~IoxDALE. Refused to provide to the public the revised
figures indicating a much lesser Communist Party membership in
this country.
Is that correct ?
Mr. EpSTEIX. That is right.
Senator ~fOXDALE.Thank YOU, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. EpSTEIX. I might add, Mr. Chairman, I do not have the document
in front of me, but the document that recommended the discrediting
of Dr. King and the appointing of a new leader which was
in January of 1964, which was the recommendation from Mr. Sullivan,
and he was soliciting in that memorandum the Director's authorization
to pursue that possibility further, a recommendation that approval
be given for him to explore this whole matter in greater detail
as set forth above, and underneath it is "OK, H." And then there
is the note from the Director which says, "I am glad to see that light
has finally. though dismally delayed: come to the Domestic Intelligence
Division. I struggled for months to get over the fact that the
Communists were taking over the racial movement, but our experts
here couldn't or wouldn't see it. R."
Senator MoxDALE. That was the memo in which it was proposed
that King be destroved as a civil rights leader. and that the FBI
o~ght to sponsor his replacement by another person not in the civil
rIghts movement.
Mr. EpSTETX. That is correct.
. Se:r:ator MOXD.\L}:. And Roon'r personally appreciated that suggestIon:
IS that correct?
Mr. EpSTEIX. He OK'd it.
Spnator MoxD.\LFl. Thank vou. 'Mr. Chairman.
The rnATRMAN. Anv Clllpstions. Senator Tower?
Spnll tor TOWER. No O1lPstions.
The CllATR;\L\N. I thi)lk Tmi!!ht point ont in cO)1cllldini! the hearing
that staff hlls reYiewed thp OllPstion of 1pO'fll l111thoritv of what we
have hN'n discussing today and has ronrluded that therp is not and
never has bepn sprcific statutorY authoritv for thr FBI's intrrnal
srrurity intrlli!!rnce prO'<!rflln. 'T'hr on1" sh,tnte "'hich the "Rnreau
cites as authority is spction fi33 of title XXVIII of the Fnited States
Code, which rrads as follows: ~
60
"The Attorney General may appoint officials to detect and prosecute
crimes against the United States."
Now, we have had in the course of the hearings today a long recital
of crimes that have in fact been undertaken by the FBI itself. That
is a very sad proposition, as the distinguished Senator from Michi~all,
Phil Hart, pointed out, when it comes from a Bureau that has receIved
as much applause, that has been held in as much esteem, that has
rightly been regarded as a prestigious law enforcement agency for
the many things that it has done in its efforts to track down major
criminals throughout what has often been an illustrious past.
But the FBI has never had any statute clearly defining its authority
and after all of these many years, this is the first serious congressio~al
investigation of its activities, and we have seen today the dark SIde
of those activities, where many Americans who were not even suspected
of crime were not only spied upon but they were harassed, they
were discredited, and at times endangered through the covert operations
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Such revelations place serious responsibility upon this committee
to see to it that that cannot happen again. I think there are many
lessons to be drawn from the testimony today, but chief among them
is the necessity to draw the lines much more carefully in the statutes
that this committee should recommend, and to subject the counterintelligence
activities and other internal security activities of the FBI
to the same kind of congressional oversight to which others have suggested
that the CIA and the NSA and other foreign intelligence agencies
of this country should be subject to.
And I hope that the committee, in the light of these revelations,
will give very serious consideration to that whole problem area.
I want to thank the members of the staff for the excellent presentation
that you have made today, and tomorrow the FBI, of course, will
be here to reply to these disclosures, and respond to questions of the
committee.
Senator MOKDALE. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to join with you
in commending the staff for, I would saY,an almost historic presentation.
These materials are new; they were hard to find; and I think
we have now got a record that will help us move toward reform, and
I want to thank the staff.
The CHAIRMAX. Senator Tower?
Senator TO·WER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to join with you and
others in commending the staff for I think an excellent job, done in a
cooperative and bipartisan spirit, one that is characterized by energy
and objectivity and by the most comprehensive work of this kind that
has been done I suppose in this body, especially to Mr. Schwarz, Mr.
Smothers, but not to overlook the excellent work done by the people
back in the trenches who I suspect might have even done more work
than they have done.
Mr. SMOTHERS. Your suspicion is correct.
The CHAIRMAK. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
This hearing is adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorow morning.
[vVhereupon, at ;):55 p.m.. the committee recessed to reconvene at
10 a.m., vVednesday, November 19, 1975.]

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