The Bureau's Secret War
For fifteen years the FBI secretly worked to discredit and destroy American activists. The country only found out because citizens broke into an FBI office.
Between 1956 and 1971, the FBI ran a covert program called COINTELPRO — counterintelligence aimed not at foreign spies, but at Americans: civil rights leaders, antiwar organizers, and dissidents the Bureau decided it wanted silenced.
The Methods
Agents planted informants, forged letters, spread anonymous smears, and tried to break apart organizations from the inside. In one infamous case, the Bureau mailed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a letter designed to push him toward suicide.
The target was not crime. The target was dissent.
The Break-In
In 1971, a small group of activists broke into a small FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, took the files, and mailed them to reporters. It was the first hard proof COINTELPRO existed. A Senate committee later confirmed the full scope.
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The Bureau had spent fifteen years deciding which Americans deserved to be watched, smeared, and broken. We only know because someone stole the paperwork.
You've Seen the File.
The FBI secretly worked to destroy lawful activists for fifteen years. Overreach — or the system protecting itself?
The Burglary — Betty Medsger
The inside story of the break-in that exposed COINTELPRO.
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