Some good information in this piece except re certain people surveilled in the COINTEL programs. Some were national security threats. Some, not! You have to know the full backgrounds of each individual in order to see why they were under some form of intelligence surveillance or action.
I just wish that the government would, and should have, revealed more information about individuals after a certain period of time when such disclosures would not affect national security.
Why do you think that the late Rep. John Conyers Jr. tried to have all House Committee on Un-American Activities and it’s successor, the House Internal Security Committee, destroyed in 1975?
It would have exposed him as a secret supporter or covert member of the Communist Party as well as possible KGB/GRU asset.
The same thing was done to the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security/Sen. Judiciary Committee re it’s existence.
Attempts were made to destroy the invaluable Military Intelligence Division files but they were saved by a very savvy and patriotic military officer. You wouldn’t believe what they contain, going back to WW I. They are a historian’s archival dream and damming re certain people in America’s modern history.
If you haven’t seen them and other investigative files re national security threats, then you (I.e.) the author of this article, shouldn’t make broad generalizations. You would end up looking like a fool.
Yes, as you say, a mix of good and bad information, it’s important to know the background specifics. This part in particular is problematic:
“Those targeted by the FBI under COINTELPRO for its intimidation, surveillance and smear campaigns included: Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, the Black Panther Party, John Lennon, Billie Holiday, Emma Goldman, Aretha Franklin, Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, Felix Frankfurter, and hundreds more.”
Briefly, King had been told directly by President Kennedy and RFK to stop associating with Soviet agents Stanley Levison and Hunter “Pitts” O’Dell and refused to comply (which does not excuse some of the illegal tactics used against him but does account for his surveillance); Malcolm X came under surveillance when he became affiliated with the Nation of Islam, which had been of concern since its founder was investigated for Nazi ties, and the Pan-African movement, which was supported by the Soviets; the Black Panther Party was being supported by Fidel Castro; John Lennon came under scrutiny when he started funding the Yippies and the White Panther Party while they were planning riots at the 1972 RNC convention (see my post #131 here: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1756224/posts?page=131#131); Billie Holiday’s case involved narcotics rather than politics and was initiated by the FBN rather than the FBI; Emma Goldman was a terrorist working directly with Russian anarchists and later the Soviets; Aretha Franklin’s file is a mix of investigations to her ties to Black Panthers/Black Liberation Army type groups and information about threats to her life that were under investigation; Charlie Chaplin was the top financier of the Communist Party in Hollywood starting the 1920s and had high-level ties to leading fellow travelers in California and the UK; Ernest Hemingway belonged to some of Willi Munzenberg’s front groups and fought for the Communists in Spain; and Felix Frankfurter was acting from 1916 to 1937 as an agent of his mentor Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, a leader of the socialist movement in Boston who was flagged by Army intelligence in 1920 as a contact of Soviet representative Santeri Nuorteva; Frankfurter helped place numerous Soviet agents—generally recruited from Harvard Law School—in the U.S. government, including Jerome Frank, Alger Hiss, Lee Pressman, Nathan Witt, and others I’ve discussed here: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1198744/posts. So yeah, it’s important to know the backgrounds. . .