Eva Golinger -- THE INFILTRATORS!

"...We used to engage in tactics to divide, conquer and weaken an organization by various means... "
(extract from a memo regarding the FBI's counterintelligence program in the 1960s)

US-Venezuelan lawyer Eva Golinger writes: United States security and intelligence agencies are experts in tecniques of subversion and infiltration. One of their most effective tactics, developed over more than five decades, has been the penetration and infiltration of movements on the left in the USA and Latin America in order to weaken and neutralize their actions. That's how they destroyed the strongest communist party outside the USSR from the '30s to the '50s; inside the USA. A decade later, this counterintelligence and subversion program became known as the FBI's "COINTELPRO" (counterintelligence program) and maintained as its principal objective "the infiltration, disturbance and neutralization" of key leftist movements in the USA during the '60s and '70s.

Also known as "disruption programs", these strategies employed by the FBI were aimed at "exposing, disrupting, misdirecting, discrediting and neutralizing" the activities of Black nationalist, antiwar, socialist and leftist movements. Its main targets were the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement (AIM), the "Brown Berets", Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Weatherman and Malcolm X's anti-imperialist and anti-racist movement.

COINTELPRO's agents were instructed to "take an enthusiastic and imaginative approach towards this new counterintelligence program", including the use of mass media "to disinform, disrupt or otherwise neutralize" social organizations' activities and to "ridicule and discredit them". But the most effective agents were the infiltrators or the agent provocateurs, those used to infiltrate the targeted social groups and promote violent actions and initiatives. The actions included the use of explosives, attacks on police forces or government entities, arson, theft and other criminal and violent acts. These methods, employed by infiltrators, were used to criminalize the movements, jail their members, discredit them in the public eye and cause internal conflicts and distrust.

Declassified documents evidencing these actions and strategies used by the FBI against social movements show that almost all the violent actions by the Black Panthers, AIM, SDS and other groups were promoted, provoked or executed by infiltrators. For example, one memo from the FBI in 1968 highlights COINTELPRO's efforts to "expose, disrupt and neutralize the activities of many organizations on The New Left, its leaders and members" through "instigating violence on college campuses", "disruption of student groups", "elimination of radical professors" and "theft of important documents from social and students' movements". They also sought "to block the development of a massive and visible anti-war movement" through "promoting internal turmoil amongst anti-war groups" and "provoking violent confrontations" instead of "massive peaceful manifestations".

On one occasion, the FBI sent an anonomous letter titled "Open letter to trotskyites", designed to create discomfort and doubt in the party about its participation in the new anti-war movement. Particularly, the FBI was interested in creating conflicts between the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Young Socialist Alliance about their participation in an anti-war conference on November, 1965. This caused doubts and internal confusion in addition to distrust and competence amongst themselves. Soon after, the most respected and popular organization in the anti-war movement, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), ended up withdrawing from the national movement and never again engaged in a national mass movement. The trotskyites were accused of being "destructive and disruptive", and the possibility of a massive, nationwide left movement was over.

Other techniques used by the FBI to weaken social movements included wiretapping and surveillance. Phones were tapped, the homes of organizations' leaders and members were bugged, their mail was stolen and read, their houses and offices were broken into. The objective was not to collect information, but to induce paranoia. The FBI wanted the leaders and important members of the left movement to feel like they were under investigation by intelligence services in order to induce paranoia and distract them from their political activities. The intelligence agencies also fabricated communications and correspondence between members of organizations under their surveillance to promote divisions and internal conflicts. They used "black propaganda" (although it's illegal inside the USA), which is the production and distribution of fabricated publications sent in the target organization's name with the purpose of misrepresenting its positions and objectives to discredit and to create tensions in the movement. A document from the US Congress titled "FBI's covert actions to destroy the Black Panthers Party" details "the efforts to promote violence between the BPP and other well armed and potentially violent organizations". One of the methods used was the production and distribution of a series of cartoons making fun of other afroamerican organizations. According to the FBI's memo, this technique was employed with the intention of "exploiting any means to create divisions and conflicts inside the BPP".

Disinformation, or "gray propaganda" was another technique used by the FBI to weaken social movements. The FBI systematically provided disinformation to the mass media about groups or individuals to discredit them or to promote internal tensions. This was also used efficiently to justify excessive FBI and police actions against those groups. An FBI memo that promoted false information about an alleged conflict between the BPP and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) stated: "It is recommended that the attached article be distributed confidentially to mass media as a counterintelligence measure to help neutralize extremists within the BPP and promote a division with SNCC".

But the technique most employed to neutralize social movements was the use of infiltrators or agent provocateurs. The latter were used specifically to promote or execute illegal or violent actions that could be blamed on key members or entire organizations. They were also used to cause problems or internal conflicts in order to disrupt the organization's functioning and spread disinformation. Thousands of infiltrators were used against the US left during the '60s and '70s. According to an article in the New York Times, the FBI used 361 infiltrators in the SWP and the YSA between 1960 and 1976. Forty-two were in important positions inside those parties and participated in the making of those organizations' policies. And they had over 70 infiltrators inside the BPP that were responsable for many violent actions and assasinations of important leaders and speakers such as Fred Hampton, 21, who was brutally murdered by the FBI in his Chicago apartment on December 4th, 1969. (An infiltrator had provided a detailed map of Hampton's apartment so the FBI could easily find him, and by using disinformation they managed to convince public opinion that Hampton was "a violent criminal" in order to justify his murder).

Another technique used by the FBI was "bad-jacketing"; the practice of creating suspicion through gossip or fabrication of evidence about loyal, trustworthy members of the movement in key positions, to make them appear as FBI informants or infiltrators with the purpose of isolating and eliminating leadership in key organizations. This tactic was employed with full knowledge that it might result in extreme violence against those targeted.

These methods, which effectively destroyed important movements on the US left, are nowadays used by US ntelligence agencies against revolutionary movements around the world, particularly in Latin America. We have to learn the bitter lesson from the US left and understand how to neutralize these infiltration and provocation strategies to ensure the future of the revolution. This requires serious and sincere investigations to avoid the trap of "bad-jacketing" or suspecting just anyone, which will only weaken and divide us.

Translated by Franco Munini
muninifranco@gmail.com
-- a member of Tlaxcala

Los infiltrados ... por Eva Golinger
http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/a52218.html