MIM Notes 35                    Jan 23 1989 

Book Review:

Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black 
Panther Party and the American Indian Movement

Ward Churchill and Jim VanderWall

South End Press, 1988

By MC2

This book is an excellent examination of the role of the FBI in 
suppressing political dissent in the United States.  It focuses on 
the FBI's war against the  Black Panther Party (BPP) in the late 
1960s and early 1970s, and on the government's crushing of the 
American Indian Movement from 1972 to 1976.  The book also discusses 
government oppression of the Wobblies during WWI, the Palmer raids 
from 1919 to 1921, the McCarthy era, and the current dirty work fo 
the FBI against Puerto Rican nationalists and the Committee in 
Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES).

The authors begin with a brief history of the FBI. J. Edgar Hoover 
used the FBI's success against bank robbers like John Dillinger 
during the 1930s to build up a myth that the bureau was an 
incredible crime fighting machine. In reality, the FBI has been 
relatively inept in dealing with organized crime. This book argues 
that the main purpose of the FBI since WWI has been to crush 
political dissent in the United States.

This book provides a truly chilling description of how the FBI 
smashed the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the American Indian 
Movement (AIM). Sometimes, the government lets right wing vigilantes 
do the dirty work. During the civil rights movement in the South 
during the 1960s some FBI agents passed on information to informers 
who also happened to be Ku Klux Klan members, and who later killed 
civil rights workers. (p. 181) Five Communist Workers Party members 
were killed in 1979 by an FBI infiltrator; although it was 
impossible to prove whether the FBI ordered this action. (p. 181) 
Right wing extremists terrorized AIM activists during the 1970s and 
the FBI did little or nothing to stop such right wing extremism; 
although, the FBI has arrested some neo-Nazis recently who went too 
far for the government. (pp. 181-198) The relationship between 
Oliver North and various right wing groups supporting the contras 
demonstrates that the United States is willing to employ right wing 
groups to perform jobs that are too politically controversial for it 
to do directly.

A very nasty technique is bad-jacketing. A police informer will 
spread the word that an honest cadre is a police fink. The FBI split 
the BPP by fabricating mail that led Eldridge Cleaver to become 
bitter enemies with Huey Newton. (pp. 40-2) The split led to several 
homicides. The FBI convinced the BPP that Stokely Carmichael was a 
CIA agent. (pp. 49-51) The FBI badjacketed a number of AIM activists 
and thereby created an atmosphere of suspicion in the movement. (pp. 
199-218)

The authors attempt to prove that the FBI had a role although 
perhaps indirect through informants; in the assassination of AIM 
activists. (pp. 199-218) The death of BPP leader Fred Hampton is the 
most clear-cut. The authors present evidence that Hampton was 
drugged by a police informant and was asleep when he was killed in a 
hail of bullets by the Chicago police in 1969. (pp. 71-77) Fourteen 
years later, after long legal battles, a federal judge ordered the 
FBI and other defendants to pay Hampton's family and other victims 
$1.85 million for violation of civil rights.

Throughout the book there is lengthy discussion of how the FBI uses 
informers, infiltrators and agent provocateurs to smash political 
movements. These operations destroy the trust needed in building a 
political movement. Often the police deliberately provoke radicals 
into violence so they can obtain a legal basis to arrest leaders of 
political movements. (pp. 219-234) The authors show how the FBI 
manipulates newspapers to spread disinformation and discredit 
movements.

To me the most disturbing part of the book was how the FBI 
manipulates the legal system to destroy cadres and movements. 
Sometimes there are arrests simply to harass people and drain their 
monetary resources. Worse are trials. The police frequently employ 
criminals as informants. A prosecutor will offer an informant either 
money or a reduced sentence in exchange for the "right" testimony. 
There are shades to this. At best, the prosecutor thinks the 
defendant is really guilty and that the informant is telling the 
truth. Many ordinary criminal trials are like this. The danger is 
that a dishonest prosecutor can abuse this system to nail a 
political activist by getting an informant to fabricate lies. The 
authors present evidence that the FBI has employed dishonest 
informants and that FBI agents themselves have committed perjury to 
convict AIM leaders. (pp. 287-328) Of course, it is very difficult 
to prove this. Appellate courts are unwilling to overturn 
convictions despite serious inconsistencies unless a defendant can 
provide the smoking gun that clearly proves that FBI agents 
fabricated evidence or committed perjury. Several BPP and AIM 
activists remain in prison despite considerable evidence that they 
were innocent and perhaps deliberately framed.

The authors call on all leftists to join in a united front to battle 
FBI abuses. Some liberals have claimed that FBI abuses were simply 
the result of J. Edgar Hoover's megalomania. But the suppression of 
AIM occurred after Hoover's death in 1972. There is now extensive 
evidence that the FBI during the 1980s spied on hundreds of CISPES 
activists and many other organizations. (pp. 370-376) MIM should 
consider working with other organizations against specific incidents 
of police oppression as circumstances dictate.

Anyone who is involved in radical or revolutionary activities must 
expect state oppression. The best way to fight such oppression is to 
publicize it and convince more people to fight it.