So, in case you've missed a recurring theme of my rants: CONSPIRACIES ARE REAL.Hoping to prove that Martin Luther King, Jr., was under the influence of Communists, the FBI kept the civil rights leader under constant surveillance.
The agency's hidden tape recorders turned up almost nothing about communism.
But they did reveal embarrassing details about King's sex life -- details the FBI was able to use against him.
The almost fanatical zeal with which the FBI pursued King is disclosed in tens of thousands of FBI memos from the 1960s.
The FBI paper trail spells out in detail the government agency's concerted efforts to derail King's efforts on behalf of the civil rights movement.
...
an FBI memo called King the "most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country."
The bureau convened a meeting of department heads to "explore how best to carry on our investigation [of King] to produce the desired results without embarrassment to the Bureau," which included "a complete analysis of the avenues of approach aimed at neutralizing King as an effective Negro leader."The FBI began secretly tracking Dr. King's flights and watching his associates. In July 1963, a month before the March on Washington, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover filed a request with Attorney General Robert Kennedy to tap King's and his associates' phones and to bug their homes and offices.
...
When King learned he would be the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the FBI decided to take its harassment of King one step further, sending him an insulting and threatening note anonymously. A draft was found in the FBI files years later. In it the FBI wrote, "You are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that." The letter went on to say, "The American public ... will know you for what you are -- an evil, abnormal beast," and "Satan could not do more."The letter's threat was ominous, if not specific: "King you are done." Some have theorized the intent of the letter was to drive King to commit suicide in order to avoid personal embarrassment. "King, there is only one thing left for you to do," the letter concluded. "You know what it is ... You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation."
Not all of them, of course. Some percentage are just paranoiacs jumping at imagined shadows. No doubt I've fled from a few of those myself over the years.
However, it is undeniably true that secret cabals do (or have) exist(ed) within and/or outside our governments. Those cabals have (at multiple points in our collective history, and most likely some such conspiracies continue to do so today) taken actions unethical, malfeasant, and frequently even illegal in their attempts to pursue sinister agendas that are not in line with the common good. Such things did neither begin nor end with Rome and Caesar.
Every FBI agent I have had the pleasure of meeting (which included several who were customers at the game store I used to run) has struck me as being bright, stalwart, ethical and immensely moral. Good men and women, every one of them.
Yet when I look back at our public history, I see no record of a great housecleaning. I am aware of no outward indicators that the overall moral pendulum has swung us to a era where power is no longer abused. Hoover's gone, of course, but nothing (that I have read of) coincided with his passing to give me reason to believe that the infrastructure and methods he supported have been swept away.
Instead, the political climate has merely broadened the powers that have previously been abused. And that scares me. We now know the crap the secret manipulators were pulling in the 60's - and progress and technology have only afforded such cabals greater tools and networking since then.
Please, if I am wrong (and the proverbial cleanup has transpired without my noticing) share what you know and enlighten me. I enjoy reading things that give me cause to be optimistic.Cartoon by Pat Oliphant.
1 comment:
Interesting anonymous note excerpts. Now I'm wondering if one or two of the anonymous hate letters I got back in 1992 during my whole pro-choice freedom of speech art ACLU fiasco were from the FBI. I would be honored if they were.
I should loan you my copy of Acid Dreams. While it is primarily a history of LSD, that means there are lots of stories about the CIA and the FBI and their movements within the drug culture and the late 60's era counter-culture.
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