AMY GOODMAN: “Been in the Storm So Long,” certainly what many pastors feel around the South right now as churches continue to go up in flames, the last one just last night on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Well, President Clinton is planning to meet with governors from the Southern states, where African American churches have burned to the ground in this wave of arson attacks. So far, the FBI, though, has been silent about this wave of domestic terrorism, refusing to call it such. And that angers our guest, Tyrone Powers, an African American former FBI agent and author of a new book called Eyes to My Soul: The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. And we’re also joined by my co-host in Chicago, Salim Muwakkil, who is senior editor at In These Times and a columnist with the Chicago Sun-Times. Hi, Salim.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Good morning, Amy. How are you?

AMY GOODMAN: Good. And welcome to Tyrone Powers. Well, why don’t we start with the church burnings? And then we’d like to go on and talk about your experience, both as an FBI agent and, before that, as a Maryland state trooper. Your reaction to how the investigation is being conducted into the church burnings?

TYRONE POWERS: Certainly, I don’t think that enough is being done. The FBI should be the lead agency on this investigation. It should be termed exactly what it is, which is domestic terrorism. There’s a new bill passed last year on domestic terrorism that gives broad power and authority, including more money, to investigate domestic terrorism cases. Now, ATF is the lead agency now, with the FBI assisting.

AMY GOODMAN: And ATF, of course, is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

TYRONE POWERS: Correct. And the irony in that is that two years ago, maybe even less than that, the ATF was — Congress and other individuals was calling for it to be dissolved because of its ineptness. It also was the organization involved in a good ol’ boys roundup, and in fact had assigned two of the agents who attended that to interview some of the ministers of the Black churches.

Again, it should be termed domestic terrorism. Now, the FBI defines domestic terrorism as the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of a political or social objectives. That fits this category of what is happening with the Black churches.

Now, certainly, I understand that as saying that the FBI should lead the investigation doesn’t necessarily mean that they would do a thorough investigation. As being part of that agency, I’m certainly aware that they are not interested in a lot of things, in promoting justice in the Black community. So, I’m not promoting the FBI in that sense. But I think they will in this case.

And I think the reluctance of President Clinton to call it domestic terrorism, and the politicians to call it domestic terrorism, and the photo opportunities that they’re giving the ministers and bringing the governors in, it’s just all a smoke screen. They do not want to call it domestic terrorism simply because there’s a major multibillion-dollar event that’s coming up, the Atlanta Olympics. And how do you invite the world to South, to the south of America, when you have terrorism running wild? You’ve been complaining about terrorism all around the world, and now all of a sudden you’re going to bring the world into America, and you have terrorism going wild? So, they’ll downplay it. They’ll call it arson. They’ll call it something else. They won’t even let the FBI be the lead agency, to downplay the fact that this is domestic terrorism. And we are three months away, or maybe even less than that, from the world coming here. And the world will be sitting down, flying in and landing in the midst of terrorist activity internally in the United States. He is trying to avoid that. There’s billions of dollars at stake. So, the economic incentive if they call it domestic terrorism and make the FBI the lead agency will cause the FBI to act, not because they want to act in the interest of Black people in this country. We know they’ve been detrimental to Black people and Black organizations. But there’s an economic issue here, and that’s why I think they should be the lead agency. It fits the definition, because they will be forced, for economic reasons and because of the Olympics. But they’re playing games with that. And again, President Clinton is given face time with the photo opportunities and the prayers and the singings and the governors.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Mr. Powers, so, you think that there are other considerations, other than kind of the inherent racism of these federal agencies, that accounts for their lack of interest in focusing on these burnings as domestic terrorism? Economic interests overpower that?

TYRONE POWERS: Yeah, I think that the inherent racism is a major part. Don’t get me wrong. I think that is a major part. But I think that at least the media would be asking more questions about it being considered domestic terrorism, if somehow the economic considerations wouldn’t be pushing that back in the philosophy of the country to avoid this kind of domestic terrorism kind of title at all costs. So, there’s a combination of both, certainly the inherent racism, but also, again, the economic considerations, which a lot of people have at stake. But I just don’t think that even for the economic considerations, that the Black community should be stepped on and be used as a stepping stone.

AMY GOODMAN: The front page of The Washington Post today says “Pattern, Not Conspiracy.” What is your thought about that? And do you need to prove conspiracy in order to say domestic terrorism? I mean, certainly, when the Oklahoma City building blew up and when the World Trade Center blew up, the FBI was leading the investigation immediately, before they knew anything about it.

TYRONE POWERS: Certainly. And in the Oklahoma bombing case, they actually arrested an individual in another country, ours, and he caught a flight out of another country. And what pattern did they see immediately? And along with that, the abortion clinic shootings were considered domestic terrorism, and they were very sporadic, all around the country, from West Coast to East Coast, from north to south.

AMY GOODMAN: My understanding was they were never considered domestic terrorism, and that’s what the women’s rights community was calling for.

TYRONE POWERS: Well, in the end, they were. Enough pressure came upon them, which is what is not happening in this case here. Enough pressure was brought upon them to call it domestic terrorism in the end.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to continue with Tyrone Powers, author of Eyes to My Soul: The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent, after this.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, the election program where citizen action matters most. I’m Amy Goodman, here in Washington, and we’re joined in the studio here in Washington by Tyrone Powers, former FBI agent and Maryland state trooper, author of Eyes to My Soul: The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. And my co-host is out in Chicago, Salim Muwakkil. Salim?

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Mr. Powers, you confirm my notion that there’s inherent racism within these federal agencies, and yet you spent nine years with the FBI. How did — how did you justify that, or how do you reconcile that?

TYRONE POWERS: Actually, from the day that I joined the FBI, and through the academy, when my room was invaded by FBI Klansmen, or FBI agents dressed in sheets pretending to be Klansmen — maybe they were — but at any rate, from that point on, I think what happened is I grew stronger in the sense that I said that instead of running, because I think after the point that they decided that I was not going to be submissive in terms of just going along to get along in this particular agency — I decided that instead of running, I would stand up. I would stay in this agency and speak out. I would be on the inside. I would be an internal problem, a bad cell. And then what I did was every time I confronted the kind of racism and the kind of request to infiltrate certain organizations by this particular agency, I would stand up, let them know it was wrong. I yelled at them about not investigating civil rights matters, and simply was told that the FBI never had and never would be interested in investigating these matters, unless they had pressure from the public or the press.

AMY GOODMAN: But when you joined, what, in 1984, you certainly had heard about people, like the gunning down of Freddie Hampton, the FBI’s infiltration of the Black movement, and the Black Panther movement in particular, Counterintelligence Program, COINTELPRO.

TYRONE POWERS: Yeah, certainly. And I was made even more aware of that by my brothers, who was trying to talk me out of it before going into the agency. But I guess their conversation and my knowledge of that history even intrigued me even more. I wanted to go into the belly of the beast and see what was really internally involved in this agency. I suffered a great deal over the nine years for the stances that I took, but I also learned a great deal. And that also was a benefit and a reason for me staying there, to learn and continue to learn firsthand what this agency was doing in the Black community and to Black agents internally.

AMY GOODMAN: One of the things — 

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Well, what are — 

AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Yeah. What are some of the things that the agency was doing to the Black community?

TYRONE POWERS: Take the case of Coleman Young in Detroit, Michigan. The FBI continuously harassed him for the entire time he was in office, certainly the entire time that I was there. They had no criminal charges on him, but yet they had individuals inside of his — inside of his government organization. And it’s not just the infiltration. Understand this technique. It’s not just the infiltration. It is letting you know that you’ve been infiltrated. So, then what you do is you accuse everyone around you, everyone. You don’t trust anyone. And that kind of psychological pressure, it is so — it is so stressful on an individual. And that’s what happened to Coleman Young over the entire time that he was in office, constantly. They disliked Coleman Young. Coleman Young said that he refused to have gun control in Detroit unless the suburbs had gun control. He wasn’t going to disarm inner-city Blacks unless someone disarmed suburb whites. He was not going to have them surrounded by that. He put a statue of Joe Lewis downtown on Jefferson Street in Detroit, which actually was a fist, and the white agents there were sure that he meant that as a Black Power symbol. And so they were extremely upset with Coleman Young, and they constantly and consistently put pressure on him.

That psychological pressure over the long term has an unbelievable effect, and they know that. Understand that the FBI at Quantico, Virginia, have a behavioral science unit that can tell — they can analyze you, do a profile on you, and see what bothers you, what is most effective against you. They released information, and I was there. It was consistently talked about in the office, how they released information to certain reporters and the press, so that when they interviewed Coleman Young, they knew what buttons to push, what would make him react in a certain way.

But not only Coleman Young. When Harold Washington died of a heart attack in Chicago, agents in that office actually jumped up and celebrated, so they were glad he was dead. He was a racist, and I confronted them on that right away when they did that.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: You were in Chicago when that happened?

TYRONE POWERS: I was in Cincinnati, and Cincinnati office is relatively close to Chicago. But the announcement came over through the FBI on the radio, and the agents there begin celebrating. FBI agents. You have to understand these are the same agents that when Clinton and Gore was elected, the talk around the office was, “Oh, now, now they’re going to give rights to Blacks. Now civil rights is going to become a big issue.” And so they took the picture of President Clinton and Gore, put them in plastic sleeves and put it in the urinals in the bathroom. So, white FBI agents was coming in, urinating on the pictures of President Clinton and Al Gore. Understand that this is the agency that would be responsible for investigating their death, if such an event would happen, or any threat to their life. These are the agents who would be responsible for investigating this, urinating on the pictures of the president of the United States. This is the philosophy and ideology of the FBI in the '90s. I'm not talking about of the ’60s and the ’70s or the ’50s — in the ’90s. This goes on internally, and it needs to be brought out.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Tyrone Powers. He’s a former FBI agent. Your subtitle on your book, Eyes to My Soul, is The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. Why the “or decline”?

TYRONE POWERS: Well, Amy, I think you hit on that a little earlier. Knowing — having the knowledge I had of what the FBI historically was about, and I went into this agency anyway and dealt with these problems. So, was it really a rise, or did I really advance by going into this particular agency, or did I — was it a decline? I leave that to the reader to decide. In the end, I think it was very important and very significant for me to be there, because I would have never witnessed these things. And certainly, as a community, we’ve become less vigilant of this agency. Some of us are aware, but it is no different than the '60s and the ’70s. In fact, it is more insidious, simply because we are more silent. And they don't have to call it COINTELPRO now. They just do it.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: We previously attributed much of their benighted behavior to J. Edgar Hoover or as — well, I won’t get into his cross-dressing preferences. But now there’s no Hoover. Is it simply just a part of the character of the agency that accounts for this racist behavior?

TYRONE POWERS: Certainly, it is the residue of Hoover. Some of the individuals in there are the ones who recruit the next generation of agents, and they talk to them, and they — it’s the same kind of philosophy. Understand, there’s 10,000 FBI agents across the country and across the world, and there’s 500 Blacks, or less than 500 Blacks, in that particular agency. The philosophy is they really do not want Blacks there, and they say that on a consistent basis. I mean, to be in an FBI office, to show the extent of the disrespect, and have them have two white police officers kill a Black motorist in Detroit, the Malice Green case, which was covered nationally, and have them hang posters up in the office indicating that they’re having a fundraiser for the defense of the officers, at the same time that the FBI have an open investigation for civil rights violations against the officers, so your tax dollars are paying for the FBI to investigate them, and then the FBI is paying for their defense, and they hung posters around the office. What they hope is that they got this vetting process, and the agents they bring in, including the Black agents, are the malleable type. They’re the type of agents that will go along to get along. And with that kind of philosophy, they don’t hide anything internally.

AMY GOODMAN: Before you were an FBI agent, you were a Maryland state trooper. Is the mentality, the atmosphere in the state trooper corps any different?

TYRONE POWERS: No, I don’t think it’s different. I think that in the FBI, it’s more insidious. It’s more concealed. They’re more sophisticated and professional about their racism. And actually, it does more damage in the FBI. Certainly in the state police, the philosophy against Blacks is the same. And again, my reason for joining the state police, I was just hoping that if I would be at some scene at some point, maybe I could keep some brother from being beaten down, just because I was there.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you able to?

TYRONE POWERS: Certainly I was. And one police officer told me, during the time I was with the state police, that that’s just how they used to handle Blacks. And he said that he grew up in Frederick County. It’s a haven for the Ku Klux Klan. And he said that he had never even worked with a Black until I got there. And this was in the 1980s.

AMY GOODMAN: You describe in your book what it’s like for Black motorists to take refuge in the troopers’ barracks.

TYRONE POWERS: Certainly. A motorist had came in on one specific occasion, had came into the barrack, his car broke down, and asked for permission to stay in the barrack. He addressed the white sergeant by “sir,” and politely. And the sergeant said, “Well, you can stay here in the barrack, if you sit down, be quiet and act like a white man.” And he told him — specifically told him that, in my presence. I confronted him about it. And then he was — he was upset that I would even confront him. That was not how they had supposed to have vetted me into the system. That’s not the kind of Black agents that they like bringing in. You’re not supposed to be confrontational. You’re supposed to laugh, smile, buck and grin and walk away.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: And when you are confrontational, what kind of a price do you pay for that?

TYRONE POWERS: A tremendous price. Certainly, my mother, in 1991 — it’s documented in the book with documents in the appendix. My mother and sister’s house was raided by my co-workers, by FBI co-workers. They had a warrant, they said, for my deceased brother. They knew he was deceased. They sent a funeral wreath to his funeral and sent a letter to me talking about his death, which is also in the appendix, with their signature on it, indicating that they knew he was dead. Then, after they did this raid — I had just testified a few months earlier in Washington, D.C., on racism in the FBI. After they did this raid, they wanted to come out and apologize, and things of that sort, but it was an intentional raid. White and Black agents came to me and say, “Well, you better be careful, because you know this is intentional. This is not a mistake.”

But even after that, in 1991, I refused to allow them to break me. In fact, my family came together and said, “Well, you can’t run. You definitely can’t run now, because you certainly know you’re being targeted for this.” So I still stayed in that agency until 1994. If more Black agents came together, or if more agents came together and stood up, then no agent could be isolated and subject to this kind of persecution, but the fear factor that the FBI have over individuals in that agency and individuals in the community is unbelievable.

AMY GOODMAN: Again, we’re talking to Tyrone Powers, author of Eyes to My Soul. He is a former FBI agent. Now, let me bring this back to the church burnings, because you are describing an agency that is racist to the core, and you’re talking about an agency in the 1990s. And yet, at the same time, you’re saying this is the agency that should be taking the lead in the church burnings. The ATF at the time is doing this. And let me just add, I just got news that the church on the Eastern Shore that burned earlier this morning apparently is now saying it was an electrical fire, caused by an electrical fire in the kitchen. But anyway, there are dozens of Black churches that have been burning in the last 18 months, and many more than that over the last five years. Why do you think the FBI taking control of this investigation would be any better than the ATF?

TYRONE POWERS: For a couple of reasons here, and there’s a downside to it, too. One thing I mentioned before, I don’t think the FBI would do this on behalf of Black people. I think that if it’s termed “domestic terrorism,” they would act quickly and with expediency because of the economic factor of the Olympics coming up in Atlanta. That economic factor would drive them, not because all of a sudden they would have this divine intervention thing where they love Black folk, and all of a sudden they’re going to aggressively pursue an investigation on attacks on Black folks. That wouldn’t be the case.

Now, what we need to do, though, is analyze this domestic terrorism bill. If you looked at that new bill, they can suspend constitutional rights. They can do so much. We need to open that bill up and analyze it. I was looking at it just the other day, and it talked about deportations. It is an unbelievable bill. But what I am saying to them, and putting them in a position of us saying, that you’ve done this anyway. In the CISPES case and the Black Panthers case, you suspended constitutional right. You had extralegal and illegal acts against Black people all of these years. Now, when Blacks become the victim, and you even have a legal document to go after white groups, you refuse to do it. And you’ve done it all along. So I’m putting them in the position to say, “Now you do to them with the legal document what you’ve done to us illegally.” And this time you have a legitimate cause.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me quickly ask: When the ATF is leading the investigation, does the FBI cooperate?

TYRONE POWERS: To a minor extent. The FBI, from talking to some of the Black agents in the FBI, believe that the ATF is definitely inept, and they will not give their informant information. Remember, the FBI have infiltrated and have informants everywhere. They will not give their informant information to the ATF, because they feel that the ATF can’t handle it, would expose the informant sources that they worked on to get over the years. And they say they have a prime example of that, because in the Waco case, the ATF called the press. The press called David Koresh before the agents even showed up. And so, the FBI is not going to give them that information. So, the investigation is being called cooperation, is being bungled.

And again, Louis Freeh is conspicuous by his absence. He made comments on Montana, on everything else, even the files that supposedly that were given to the White House. And that’s a strange scenario altogether, anyway, because the FBI has been giving up files on people for years. All of a sudden it’s an issue. In fact, Ron Kessler wrote a book called The FBI, and he had a case in there that listed an open investigation, intelligence investigation, that agents couldn’t even talk about, and the FBI released the files to a writer. His book is in the stores now. When we looked at the book, we said, “This is unbelievable. This is an open, top-secret intelligence investigation, and the FBI has released files to him.” And now they’re talking about changing?

SALIM MUWAKKIL: So, why is Louis Freeh acting as if this is some insult to his agency now?

TYRONE POWERS: That is such a smokescreen. And it’s unbelievable for me to sit back and watch that and hear Louis Freeh and hear the comments being made, knowing, as part of that agency, how much they release to whoever they want to release, whenever they want to, including files on Blacks who were involved in any kind of a movement anywhere. And you have the CISPES investigation as a grand example. And nothing has changed. Nothing has changed with that. And for them to say that, and again, for them to be releasing files to Ron Kessler, open, ongoing investigation, which is a major policy problem, and again, agents weren’t even able to talk about that case amongst themselves, now all of a sudden this is so appalling, and we’re going to change policy, is so ridiculous and such an insult to the American public.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something: Did the FBI try to restrain any — exercise any kind of prior restraint on your book, Eyes to My Soul?

TYRONE POWERS: The FBI, technically, I was supposed to let them know that I was writing the book and putting it out, and I didn’t do that. I mean, here’s an agency that had disrespected myself and certainly everyone in the Black community, and I was supposed to give them the respect of telling them I’m writing a book talking about you. There’s no way I was going to do that. They were supposed to have a response to that. They’ve talked to some of the — some of the major networks have asked them for a response. They said they were reviewing the book. Then they said they were going to prepare a written statement, and they haven’t responded to it yet. What they have done, and I believe, in my mind, is that many of the bookstores, major bookstores around the country, have — people have told me and said they called them, and the bookstores are saying it’s on our list, it’s in books in prints, it’s on the screen, but we’re not going to carry it, we won’t special order it, and we don’t ever intend to carry it, those kind of things. But again, the word will get out.

AMY GOODMAN: I have to say, every bookstore I called, especially the Black stores in Washington, they said they were out of the book.

TYRONE POWERS: OK.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: You said that you were advised by some agents, Black and white, that you were in danger, so to speak, while you were an agent. Have any come to you since you’ve been out of the agency to say that you are still in danger, or do you sense any danger?

TYRONE POWERS: Certainly, I sense a danger. But let me tell you something about that agency. And some agents have come to me and told me that. And I am cautious, even though I am not scared, and I’ll go forward with the message, because it needs to be put out there. But let me quickly tell you about this agency. They have a long-term memory. They may not get you today or right now or the next few minutes, but they can wait 10, 20, 30 years, and they will never forget you. If you were involved in a movement of the '60s, don't think that there’s not files on you in the ’90s. That agency will continuously hound you. Ask Coleman Young in Detroit.

SALIM MUWAKKIL: Is there any truth to the charges that the FBI harasses Black officials in general around the country? Do you think —

TYRONE POWERS: The same agent who was involved in the investigation of Marion Barry in the Marion Barry case in D.C. has moved on to — was involved in the Hastings case and also involved in the investigation of Blacks in Houston now, the same agent. And we don’t — they don’t have a transfer policy like that.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, we didn’t even talk about the voter fraud investigations that are going on. And many people in the South, where churches have been burned, many of the parishioners have said that the agents will come to them and ask them about who they voted for and what’s going on, you know, investigating voter fraud at the same time that they’re investigating the churches, and that intimidates them. But I want to thank you very much, Tyrone Powers, for being with us. We’ll certainly have you on again. Tyrone Powers, his book is Eyes to My Soul: The Rise or Decline of a Black FBI Agent. And ask a bookstore if it has the book. And if it doesn’t have it, ask why not.

Democracy Now! is produced by Julie Drizin. We had help today from Bill Wax. Ken Mason is our engineer. Special thanks to Mark Bevis. My co-host has been Salim Muwakkil. If you’d like a copy of the show, you can call the archives at 1-800-735-0230. That’s 1-800-735-0230. Call our comment line at 1-202-588-0988 extension 313. That’s 588-0988 extension 313. I’m Amy Goodman for Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now!