Today on Democracy Now! we are going to return to the era of the FBI’s domestic so-called 'counter-intelligence' program, or COINTELPRO.

In early 1971, COINTELPRO came to light when a “Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI” removed secret files from an FBI office and released them to the press. Agents began to resign from the Bureau and blow the whistle on covert operations that went far beyond intelligence gathering. That same year, publication of the Pentagon Papers, the Pentagon’s top-secret history of the Vietnam War, exposed years of systematic official lies about the war. The public exposure of COINTELPRO and other government abuses resulted in a flurry of apparent reform in the 1970s, but domestic covert action did not end.

We turn now to the last section of a radio documentary called “Me and My Shadow: Infiltration Of The Left By The US Government,” which we began playing on yesterday’s program. The documentary was produced for Pacifica radio in 1976, just as the outline of the government’s secret war against the left was beginning to emerge. In the documentary, you’ll hear the voices of agent provocateurs–people the FBI hired to engage in violent acts, and to provoke others to do the same.

Tape:

• “Me and My Shadow,” produced by Adi Gevins and narrated by Don Sorta.