JESSE JACKSON (associate of Martin Luther King): When you have this feeling that the government really is watching you, you know, taps your telephone, maybe in your text files, it has a chilling effect. King associate, Reverend Jesse Jackson was also targeted by COINTELPRO. But that was enough to infuriate Hoover and decided that Martin Luther King was an enemy to the country.ĬHIDEYA: At this point, it was all-out war between the quintessential American law man and the preacher who made his name challenging the righteousness of American law. The FBI was, in fact, working on civil rights at the time. And he said that the FBI has agents in the south who are segregationists, and actually that wasn't true. RONALD KESSLER (Author): Hoover really got ticked off because King criticized the FBI. An enraged Hoover then began to publicly denounce King, telling reporters that King was, "The most notorious liar in the country." Journalist, Ronald Kessler wrote the best-seller, The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI. There is little hope that they are still alive.ĬHIDEYA: After the disappearance of three freedom riders, King publicly questioned whether the FBI had done enough to safeguard the lives of civil rights activists and black citizens. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The three civil rights workers who disappeared in Mississippi last Sunday night have still not been heard from. And the rift between the two men deepened in 1964. But documents suggest that Hoover's campaign against King was as much personal as political. And that his two associates who may have been allied with the Communist party didn't influence King's views or his organization. The Church Commission found that the wiretap showed that Dr. Bobby thought that if he tapped it he would find out that you were not.ĬHIDEYA: And in fact, Kennedy was right. That would be used, really, as almost proof that King was being influenced by Communism. Kennedy's attorney): He did not let Hoover tap King's wire. NICHOLAS KATZENBACH (speaking as Robert F. Kennedy only agreed, according to his attorney Nicholas Katzenbach, in order to protect King. Kennedy, to approve a wiretap on King's telephone. A little more than a month later, the FBI Director petitioned the Attorney General, then Robert F. Thank God, Almighty, we're free at last.ĬHIDEYA: That march spurred Hoover to action. (Civil Rights leader): Free at last, free at last. EDGAR HOOVER (Former FBI Director): The Communist Party of America is doing everything in its power to steal the minds and the souls and the hearts of our young people.ĬHIDEYA: In August of 1963, Reverend King gathered more than a quarter of a million Americans on the Mall in Washington to champion Civil Rights. The charge, Communist influence in the civil rights movement. Hoover targeted few figures as relentlessly as Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. COINTELPRO involved not only wiretapping, but as the investigation showed, attempts to disrupt, discredit, and defame perceived political radicals. At the core of the Church hearings was COINTELPRO, a program started by FBI Director, J. Instead, they date from the 1970s, when Idaho Senator Frank Church led congressional hearings into whether intelligence agencies had gone too far in investigating U.S. Those words could have come from today's headlines. UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We are tasked by Senate Resolution 21 to investigate illegal, improper, or unethical activities engaged in by intelligence agencies. The program tested the constitutional limits of law enforcement and stirred a civil liberties debate that continues today. The FBI's surveillance of King came under the counter-intelligence program, known by its acronym, COINTELPRO. was the subject of an intense FBI campaign. government can go in monitoring its citizens. But first, Farai takes a look at the historical clash over how far the U.S. ![]() George Washington University law professor, Paul Butler, will join NPR's Farai Chideya in just a moment to discuss these legal challenges. The groups say the eavesdropping is both illegal and unconstitutional. Two civil liberties groups are suing President Bush and the National Security Agency over secret wiretapping of American citizens.
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