FBI's Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) Redacted form
COINTELPRO [COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAM] (1956-1976) POSTED ON MARCH 14, 2014 BY CONTRIBUTED BY: HANNAH FOSTER Public domain image COINTELPRO was a counterintelligence program run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from roughly 1956 to 1976. It combined the efforts of the Bureau and local police forces to track, harass, discredit, infiltrate, destroy, and destabilize dissident groups in the United States. COINTELPRO targeted the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the American Indian Movement, those considered part of the “New Left,” the KKK, and most acutely, black civil rights and militant black nationalist groups. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, considered militant black nationalist groups to be the most dangerous threat facing the United States at that time due to their perceived potential to cause civil unrest and violence. The FBI’s COINTELPRO focused on the Black Panther Party , Malcolm X , the Nation of Islam , a...