The FBI planted false media stories and forged documents to destroy civil rights and anti-war movements

For decades, the FBI denied it. Civil rights leaders who spoke of government harassment were dismissed as paranoid. Anti-war activists who claimed they were being systematically destroyed faced ridicule. Yet in 1971, a group of activists broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, and walked out with over 1,000 classified documents that would prove the government had been lying all along.

The claim seemed outlandish at the time: that America's premier law enforcement agency had systematically planted false media stories, forged documents, and orchestrated disinformation campaigns against its own citizens. Who would believe that the FBI would impersonate civil rights leaders in letters, publish fake leaflets under their names, or feed fabricated stories to journalists to destroy political movements? Yet that's exactly what happened under COINTELPRO, the FBI's secret counterintelligence program that operated from 1956 to 1971.

The targets were extensive and politically diverse. Martin Luther King Jr. received anonymous letters threatening his life and containing recordings designed to embarrass him. The Black Panthers were subjected to infiltration and forged correspondence that pitted members against one another. Anti-war groups found themselves the subject of manufactured evidence. Feminist organizations were similarly targeted. The FBI's stated goal was blunt: to "discredit and neutralize" these organizations and their leaders.

When activists first made these accusations, they faced an uphill battle. The FBI issued blanket denials. Officials testified before Congress that the bureau operated within proper legal boundaries. outlets, some of which had unknowingly published the FBI's planted stories, were skeptical of the claims. The government's credibility at the time seemed unassailable.