Wes Swearingen served as an FBI agent from 1951 until he retired in 1977. During that period he perpetrated or witnessed numerous violations of law by FBI agents and their operatives, heard revealing statements by other agents about their illegal activities, and read files which documented violations of the rights of American citizens.

The activities of FBI agents and their "informers" include warrantless break-ins, theft, fraud, kidnapping, perjury, fabrication of evidence, suborning of witness perjury, and murder. The targets were political dissidents: anyone FBI agents didn't like.

Swearingen details how members of the Black Panthers were murdered by FBI operatives, another was framed for a murder he didn't commit, and still others were prosecuted on trumped up charges.

He does not mention anything about the deaths of John or Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King, but he describes an agency so deeply involved in criminal activity of every kind as to be capable of causing the deaths of those men and others who have died under mysterious circumstances.

He describes various files on political dissidents, called the "Security Index" and the "Reserve Index", which eventually included about 500,000 names, and which were the persons to be arrested without warrant and taken to detention areas in the event of a national security emergency. For those who are inclined to dismiss such concerns as paranoid, here is supporting evidence, notwithstanding the repeal of authorizing legislation in 1971, which would not stop people like these.

Swearingen provides an insider's view of the COINTELPRO program of suppression of political dissidents, but also tells us that the program continues to this day under another name, apparently without a paper trail.

He paints a picture of an agency riddled with corruption, incompetence, and inefficiency, composed of men who may have once been patriots, but who have been reduced to common criminals, whose crime fighting activities are limited at best and largely for show, with political repression being the primary mission.

Some may suggest that the FBI may have been reformed since Swearingen left the agency in 1977, and no longer does the things he describes. Certainly there have been some reform efforts, particularly during the period Edward Levi was Attorney-General, and we would expect another generation of agents to have taken the place of those Swearingen worked with, but available evidence, including continuing harassment of Wes by his former agency, indicate it has not been reformed at all.

There have been other books by former FBI agents that have told similar tales, such as William Turner, author of _Hoover's FBI: The Men and the Myth_, and books by former agents of the CIA, such as those by Philip Agee, John Stockwell, Victor Marchetti, Frank Snepp, and Ralph McGehee. It seems likely that similar books remain to be written by agents of almost every agency of the U.S. government, revealing them as criminal enterprises and implicating almost every employee as criminal conspirators. Such agents should read this book and begin gathering the evidence they will need to take out with them.

Even Swearingen still speaks with pride of his crimefighting activities, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there is no constitutional authority or federal jurisdiction for statutes against the offenses he was investigating, making enforcement in federal courts itself a criminal violation of the civil rights of the targets, even when they really are bad guys who deserve to be prosecuted under applicable state laws.

The most important thing this book reveals is the mindset of government agents, and the way otherwise good men get corrupted by the system of which they become a part. They are totally ignorant of the principles of constitutional republic government, and willing to do whatever works, regardless of legality. Their arrogance was revealed in a statement by Special Agent Joseph G. Deegan in 1977: "We are the only ones who know what is good for the country, and we are the only ones who can do anything about it." After reading this book and others, it is clear that this statement reflects a dangerous delusion of grandeur.

Anyone who is involved in any kind of politically significant activity, or who is concerned about the future of this country, needs to read this book to learn how government agents operate and how citizens can defend themselves against them, both in court and in the field. These agents are not very effective, and people should not be awed by them. Standing up to them works if one exercises a few simple precautions, such as taping all encounters and having witnesses around at all times. Going armed at all times may not be a bad idea, either.

Available from:

South End Press
116 Saint Botolph St
Boston, MA 01225

    WASHINGTON, March 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following statement
is being issued by the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

    Today the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued a misleading
release announcing a significant increase in the number of hate groups and
hate crimes over the last few years. The release then suggests that our
national debate over immigration reform has fueled the increase in both.
Offering no criteria as to what constitutes a hate group, manipulating the
data for self-serving purposes, and then making broad, unsubstantiated
conclusions, this latest release from the SPLC constitutes one of its most
reckless charges to date. It is calculated to be inflammatory, tarnish the
reputation of leading immigration reform groups, and shut down meaningful
public policy debate about immigration reform.

    When examined responsibly, the FBI hate crime data show a dramatically
different story than the one the SPLC portrays. First, in order to suggest
an artificially large increase in the raw number of hate crimes, the SPLC
selects 2003 as its base year, one of lowest years on record for hate
crimes against Hispanics. If one compares the number of hate crimes between
1995 (the earliest report available on the FBI's website) and 2006 (the
most recent statistical year available), one would see that the number of
hate crimes has increased only 17 percent.

    But even this is not the whole story. The SPLC conveniently forgets to
index the raw hate crime data with the population, a step always taken by
the FBI to more accurately depict an increase or decrease in crime. Thus,
when one indexes a 17 percent increase in hate crimes against Hispanics
with a 67 percent increase in the Hispanic population between 1995 and
2006, it becomes clear that the rate of hate crimes against Hispanics has
in fact dropped dramatically -- by about 40 percent.

    This reduction in the rate of hate crimes against Hispanics is even
more apparent when one considers that the number of law enforcement
agencies that participate in the FBI's hate crime data collection program
increased 33 percent between 1995 and 2006. Between 2003 and 2006 alone,
the number of law enforcement agencies participating in the FBI's hate
crime data collection program increased by over 700.

    Finally, the SPLC claims that there has been substantial growth in the
number of "hate groups" since 2000. However, the SPLC provides no
definition of a "hate group" and offers no objective criteria that it uses
to classify organizations as such. The SPLC appears to think that it can
stick this label onto any organization it wishes, including long-standing,
highly-regarded immigration reform organizations such as the Federation for
American Immigration Reform (FAIR) without being challenged as to its
motivations or methodology. FAIR is confident the media and the American
people will see through the SPLC's deceitful tactics.

    "There is no level of hate crime that is acceptable -- period," says
Dan Stein, President of FAIR. "However, the SPLC's calculated abuse of the
term 'hate group' and manipulation of hate crime data for self-serving
political interests is an affront to hate crime victims and those who
advocate on their behalf. The SPLC manipulates data to reach deceitful
conclusions, tosses the term 'hate group' at highly-respected organizations
like FAIR, and then mixes the two in an attempt to stop our national debate
over immigration reform. But this is consistent with the SPLC's growing
practice of making allegations with no factual basis, no criteria and
sadly, no one challenging their increasing habit of playing fast and loose
with the facts. Unfortunately, it is the American people who suffer most
through this irresponsible behavior."

    ABOUT FAIR

    Headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., FAIR is the largest,
oldest and most respected immigration reform group in America. With over
250,000 members, FAIR advocates for non-discriminatory immigration polices
that protect American jobs, wages, the environment, and national security.
As a bipartisan organization free from special interest influence, FAIR is
regularly sought by Congress and the media for its objective analysis and
for its fair, practical and effective policy solutions.

Ms. Jupina entered on duty as a special agent with the FBI in 1996. Upon completion of training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, she was assigned to the Washington field office, where she conducted investigations in cyber, white collar crime, criminal, and counterintelligence matters. While at Washington Field, she received the United States Attorney's Award for leading a high-profile cyber investigation. Ms. Jupina later became a Supervisory Special Agent in the National Infrastructure Protection Center, and later in the FBI's Cyber Division, where she focused on computer intrusion and malicious code investigations.

During her career with the FBI, Ms. Jupina also served as Special Assistant to the Executive Assistant Director (EAD) of the National Security Branch (NSB), the EAD of Intelligence, and the Deputy EAD of Administration. In those positions, she played a key role in strengthening the FBI's intelligence program and in the establishment of the Directorate of Intelligence and the NSB.

Prior to her appointment as SAC, Ms. Jupina served as the Section Chief of the NSB Executive Staff. In that position, she oversaw the coordination of the national security budget, performance metrics, strategy, training, human resource matters, information technology matters, communications, and policy issues that cut across the five NSB components: the Counterterrorism Division, the Counterintelligence Division, the Directorate of Intelligence, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, and the Terrorist Screening Center.

Clayt Q. Lemme Named SAC of Washington Field Office's Counterintelligence Division

Clayt Q. Lemme has been named Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Counterintelligence Division for the Washington field office. Director Robert S. Mueller, III appointed him to this position to replace SAC Kevin Favreau, who was recently named Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters. Most recently, Mr. Lemme served as Chief of the Counterespionage Section of the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters. Mr. Lemme has over 30 years of service in the FBI, with over 20 years of experience in espionage and foreign counterintelligence investigations.

Mr. Lemme entered on duty with the FBI in August 1977 as a fingerprint examiner, and was assigned to FBI Headquarters until he became a special agent in January 1984. Upon completion of training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, he was assigned to the Cincinnati Division, where he investigated white collar crime and violent crime matters. Mr. Lemme then transferred to the Washington field office, where he worked primarily foreign counterintelligence and espionage cases, with intermittent assignments in support of counterterrorism investigations such as the Oklahoma City bombing, the embassy bombings in Africa, and the Atlanta Olympics bombing. He became Supervisor of a Washington field office counterintelligence squad in 1993.

In January 2001, Mr. Lemme transferred to the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters. While there, he supervised infrastructure protection matters and participated in the management of the 9/11 investigations in the weeks following the attacks. He was then assigned to work with a number of federal agencies to develop and implement procedures for the identification and protection of critical national assets. In February 2003, he returned to counterintelligence, becoming Unit Chief of a counterespionage unit at FBI Headquarters. He was promoted in July 2003 to Assistant Section Chief for counterespionage matters. He remained in that position until he returned to the Washington field office to serve as Assistant Special Agent in Charge for Counterintelligence in May 2005. In May 2006, he was promoted to Chief of the Counterespionage Section in the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters.

WEB EXCLUSIVE: An Interview with Bill Fletcher Jr.

Bill Fletcher Jr. is one of the Left’s intellectual elders. A long time union activist and former president of TransAfrica forum, Fletcher is a fixture at Leftist gatherings and his articles fill pages of internet. I first saw him at the Left Forum in hand on chin, busily making notes for his presentation. We talked and kept in touch. Over the years, with each conversation I saw how his words make a clear line to the core of the question. As the 40^th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination and the now mythic year of “68″ approached, I interviewed him on the state of black radicalism.

Q: You recently participated in the Left Forum at Cooper Union. What did you make of it?

A: Mostly it was a success. One could see large numbers of young people but still the Left Forum has not tapped into large numbers of people of color. It’s not “racism” as such; there is a tendency for groups to reproduce themselves and their cultures unless dramatic actions are introduced. I believe that Left Forum has more work to do and I say that as a board member of the Forum. Secondly there is a tendency to self-isolation by some black radical activists. When in a white setting, we can hold high the red-black-green as a way to carve out a space to be heard. We don’t always challenge for the right to talk about other things, which connects to the last reason for the absence of people of color. This must change. There are many of us who do not wish to be pigeon-holed and we resist such efforts. Black radical activists have a lot to say about a variety of issues.

Q: Your answer brings up the question of post-racial politics, which the mainstream media has used to describe Newark Mayor Cory Booker and of course Sen. Barack Obama. Is there meaning in that phrase?

A: First there is no post race politics in the U.S. politics because racism was and is the primary means of social control. A useful distinction is that we are in a post Civil Rights politics not a post race politics. So the new crop of black politicians like Booker and Obama say they are taking the Black Freedom Movement to the next level but it becomes a politics of the elite not the black working class majority. Previous Civil Rights and Black Power activists had to at minimum pay lip service to the people.

Q: Why is there less of a need for the post Civil Rights black politicians to reflect the masses of working class people?

A: Several reasons, first during the Cold War the anti-Communist McCarthyism destroyed the Black Left so discussion of class was cut from black political discourse. Second, the Counter Intelligence Program–COINTELPRO–of the FBI of the 60’s and 70’s sowed rivalry and violence in the freedom movement. Third our own mistakes caught up to us. We were ideologically unfocused and many of us saw race only. In the 80’s and 90’s segments of the Black Freedom Movement were influenced by Neo-Conservatives. Finally, the freedom movement was in part a victim of its own victories, which created a black middle class whose interests were often detached from the black working class.

Q: It seems the narrative that radicals offer the working poor demands they recognize the system’s rigged which competes against the narrative of “making it” as seen in popular imagery and celebrities like Russell Simmons, 50 Cent, BET’s Bob Johnson or NBA’s Michael Jordan.

A: Individuals can and do triumph. What is misleading is that when the masses identify with them it doesn’t offer them any explanation for why they didn’t “make it” and why their lives are getting harder. It leads to people blaming themselves. People can be ’screwed up’ but the problem is not in them; the problem rests with the way that the system operates. What you’re going through, millions of others are going through. It’s not that you don’t have a work ethic, it’s that there’s no work. The consequence of our focus on individual achievement is that the enemy becomes less clear and the enemy is a social system led by a sector of transnational capitalists. We have to re-focus people to see who the enemy is because at the most basic level the role of organizers is to gather people together to identify a problem and solve it.

Q: Do you see these contradictions reflected in the recent speech on race that Sen. Obama gave?

A: The irony of Obama’s speech is he ran a campaign where racial justice was not involved but he was forced to confront it after his pastor’s sermon became a media controversy. I thought it was a brilliant speech. He did not “diss” his pastor but the one problem in his speech is he framed the sermon as a relic of the past that did not reflect today’s America .

Q: Why was that a problem?

A: The rage expressed in the sermon is not a relic of the past; it is with us today. Hip Hop is full of anger. Black on black crime is anger unfocused and turned against our selves. It’s why the Nation of Islam could organize the Million Man March because it is linked to and articulates this rage.

U.S. | Government & Elections

In this informative newsletter sent as an e-mail yesterday evening, Cynthia McKinney describes her recent trip to a workers summit held in Mexico. She also describes her regret for a past mistake which has steeled her determination to take personal responsibility in these times of widespread distraction and global irresponsibility.

Although former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is a Green Party candidate running for president, she reveals herself here as a true global citizen who is deeply interested in a more productive and healthy forms of patriotism.

cynthia_mckinney.png

"We believe there is sufficient evidence right now to have law enforcement arrest and prosecute those suspects who are still living who were involved in the lynching at Moore's Ford bridge," Brooks said of the murders, when an angry white mob killed two young couples near the Walton-Oconee County line on July 25, 1946.

Brooks told reporters in Savannah on Thursday that "law enforcement officials are moving in on those five."
But on Friday, Brooks said he couldn't say whether any of the five identified in a 1946 FBI report will actually be prosecuted.

"I cannot guarantee anything," said Brooks, who is president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials, which is meeting in Savannah. "I am prayerful there will be arrests this year, just as I have been prayerful every year."

No one in law enforcement has told him if or when authorities will arrest anyone.
"Prosecution should have been imminent in 1946," he said. "There is sufficient evidence that exists right now to go round up those suspects that are living."

Brooks said the five living suspects are among 55 people the FBI named in the agency's 1946 investigation of the lynching.

Local law enforcement officials will never prosecute anyone in the crimes, he said.
Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and current FBI Director Robert S. Mueller announced in February 2007 that the agency would reopen investigations of about a dozen unsolved cases from the civil rights era, including the Moore's Ford lynching.

FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett, a spokesman for the agency's Atlanta office, declined to comment Friday.
Hattie Lawson, president of Moore's Ford Memorial Committee, said she doesn't know if there's enough evidence to prosecute.

But a pending federal bill might give investigators the money and time they need to make arrests in the 62-year-old-murders, Lawson said.

The bill would provide $100 million to investigate old civil rights murders and allow the FBI to assign agents full-time to investigate the old cases, she said.

'Mama Afrika' dies at Italian anti-Mafia concert

Nelson Mandela was among thousands of South Africans to pay tribute today to the singer and activist, Miriam Makeba, who died suddenly after taking part in a concert against the Italian Mafia.

Her death provoked shock and widespread mourning in a country enchanted by the sweetness and shining sound of her singing.

Mandela, now in his 91st year and who rarely makes public statements any more, led the tributes to Makeba. "She was South Africa's first lady of song and so richly deserved the title of Mama Afrika," he said.

"The sudden passing of our beloved Miriam has saddened us … For many decades, starting in the years before we went to prison, MaMiriam featured prominently in our lives and we enjoyed her moving performances. When she went into exile she continued to make us proud as she used her worldwide fame to focus attention on the abomination of apartheid. Her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us. She was a mother to our struggle and to the young nation of ours.

"It was fitting that her last moments were spent on a stage, enriching the hearts and lives of others - and again in support of a good cause."

Relatives and friends who first encouraged Makeba to sing compared her voice to that of a nightingale. Her distinctive style, which bewitched the world in the 1960s and 1970s, combined traditional African melodies, jazz and folk with the unique and dynamic rhythms of South Africa's black townships.

While she toured with Harry Belafonte and sang with Marilyn Monroe at John F. Kennedy's birthday party at Madison Square Garden in 1962, her music was banned in South Africa by apartheid governments. When she first travelled to New York in 1960 to perform with Belafonte, the Pretoria government refused to allow her to return home.

She lived in exile for the next 31 years. Mandela asked her to come home after his release from life imprisonment in February 1990 and when she arrived in Johannesburg she said: "I never understood why I couldn't come home. I never committed any crime."

Makeba collapsed shortly after a performance in the southern Italian town of Castel Volturno yesterday evening and died in hospital early today. She was paying homage to six Africans killed by the Camorra mafia two months ago and to the Italian journalist Roberto Saviano who exposed the murders and was himself threatened with death.

South Africa's foreign minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said in a statement: "One of the greatest songstresses of our time has ceased to sing. Throughout her life, Mama Makeba communicated a positive message to the world about the struggle of the people of South Africa and the certainty of victory over the dark forces of apartheid and colonialism through the art of song."

Makeba's body is being flown back to South Africa for a funeral and burial in Johannesburg.

Makeba's career soared in America and Europe until 1968 when she married the black activist Stokeley Carmichael, "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther Party. She was in immediate trouble with the FBI and all her American concerts and recording contracts were cancelled.

The couple moved to the West African state of Guinea-Conakry, ruled by a dictator, Ahmed Sékou Touré, who imprisoned political opponents in camps, such as the notorious Camp Boiro National Guard Barracks, and drove tens of thousands of dissidents into exile. Carmichael took the name Kwame Touré. Makeba was given the resources to develop a distinctive West African style of music while representing her new country at the United Nations.

During this period in Sékou Touré's state, Makeba virtually disappeared from international view. But after her divorce from Carmichael and the death of her only child, her daughter Bongi, in 1985 she settled in Brussels and began performing to international audiences again. She remained popular, but the sheer sweetness of her young voice was gone.

Makeba's publicist Mark Lechat said the singer had suffered from severe arthritis and had been unwell for some time, appearing at concerts with the aid of a stick. She was married four times. One of her husbands was the trumpeter Hugh Masekela.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Families claim sheriff didn’t probe ’64 slayings

JACKSON —                                                                         The families of two black teenagers abducted and killed in 1964 are suing Franklin County, claiming the sheriff there didn’t properly investigate the deaths.

The families are seeking damages for the county’s role for “flagrant violations” of the teenagers’ constitutional rights, including their wrongful deaths, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in August, alleges that then-Sheriff Wayne Hutto didn’t do enough to find out how the boys died. Hutto died in 1984.

Franklin County says the lawsuit should be dismissed because the three-year statute of limitations expired in 1967.

“After 40 years and the passing of most individuals with knowledge of the occurrences in issue, the statute of limitations must be upheld,” the county says in court papers.

On May 2, 1964, Klansmen reportedly abducted Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore before beating and killing them. On July 12, 1964, authorities fished Dee’s and Moore’s bodies from the Mississippi River.

In 2007, a federal grand jury named Hutto as a coconspirator in the Klan scheme when they indicted reputed Klansman James Ford Seale, now serving three life sentences in a prison in Terre Haute, Ind., for kidnapping and conspiracy in the case.

In May, the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on whether Seale’s conviction on kidnapping and conspiracy charges should be tossed out, as a three-judge panel of the court earlier ruled.

Michael Wolf of Jackson, who is representing Franklin County, says in court documents that “there is no genuine evidence which exists linking the sheriff of Franklin County to the events alleged.”

Franklin County says in court documents that Hutto made an honest investigation.

According to court documents, the families of Dee and Moore say they knew nothing of Hutto’s role until the 2007 indictment.

The lawsuit alleges that Moore’s mother went to Hutto about her missing son, only to be told he had gone to visit relatives in Louisiana when Hutto knew that wasn’t so.

When Moore’s mother she did travel there, she was told her son hadn’t been seen, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also alleges Hutto and a deputy also misled the FBI investigators in the case by saying they knew nothing about the disapperances.

The lawsuit claims Hutto never started an investigation into the disappearances even though he had promised family members he would.

February 18, 2009

J. Edgar Hoover used Omaha World-Herald as 'Whiteys newspaper' in FBI bogus letter against Ed Poindexter

By Michael Richardson

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 48 years, waged an illegal, clandestine war on domestic political activists and groups called Operation COINTELPRO.  Hoover declared the Black Panther Party the most dangerous of all and unleashed dirty tricks and illegal tactics with lethal ferocity.  In Omaha, Nebraska the two principal targets of COINTELPRO were Edward Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice). 

Ed Poindexter was the Chairman of the local chapter known variously as the National Committee to Combat Fascism, the United Front Against Fascism, and the Nebraska Committee to Combat Fascism.  Mondo we Langa was the Minister of Information and published the group's newsletter.  Both men were targeted for harassment and special attention after Hoover complained the Omaha FBI office was not getting results against the Panthers. 

On December 10, 1969, Hoover ordered the Omaha FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge to "give consideration to counterintelligence measures directed against these leaders to weaken or destroy their positions."  Hoover told Omaha FBI agents to make up a plan against the Panther leaders.  "Evaluate your approach to this program and insure that it is given the imaginative attention necessary to produce effective results." 

Heavily redacted COINTELPRO files, now archived at Political Research Associates, tell part of the Omaha story.  At least four COINTELPRO actions were planned and approved in 1970 against the Panthers.  One plan was to ambush the delivery of the Black Panther Party newspaper after it arrived at Eppley Airport aboard United Airlines Air Freight.  The FBI office was working with the airline to determine a pattern of newspaper pick-ups at the airport to 'disrupt' delivery of the papers. 

A second plan revealed in the PRA archive of confidential FBI documents was directed against Poindexter and involved sending a bogus letter to the Omaha Star and two other 'Negro publications'.  The plan used an anonymous letter accusing Poindexter of falsely soliciting for bail money after an arrest that purportedly never happened.  Poindexter had gotten into an altercation at a hospital with authorities and ended up on the wrong end of a billy club.  The FBI said the incident was never recorded and that was the basis for one of the agents drafting a bogus letter that was sent to the newspaper.  Hoover also allowed anonymous calls to the publisher, which also occurred. 

The third plan revealed in the COINTELPRO files involved another bogus letter and the Omaha World-Herald.  The FBI disruption plan was proposed to Hoover on August 15, 1970 in a three-page memo.  The proposal was to use an article published the day before in the Omaha World-Herald to discredit Poindexter and the Panther chapter with another bogus letter sent to Black Panther Party headquarters in California. 

The Omaha World-Herald article was titled 'Panthers Cut Omaha Link' and made reference to a notice in a July issue of the Black Panther newspaper announcing the suspension of the Omaha chapter.  The redactions of FBI censors prevent a clear understanding of the sequence of events and may cover up another COINTELPRO manipulation of the World-Herald or of the Panther publication.  An anonymous phone call to the Omaha Panthers was made on August 4th which would indicate prior approval by Hoover to create a disruption. 

What the August 15th COINTELPRO memo does reveal is that the Omaha FBI office wanted to send a copy of the clipping along with a bogus letter to David Hilliard, the Black Panther chief of staff.  The plan was to drive a wedge between the Omaha chapter and the national office of the party. 

The FBI had an informant in the local group who reported that they had not received the Black Panther newspaper "in the last three or four weeks" and thus were not aware of the July notice about the Omaha chapter.  That information led to the anonymous call.   

"It appears [REDACTED] misunderstood the phone call.  In a newspaper article appearing 8/14/70, in the Omaha World Herald, a daily Omaha, Nebraska, newspaper, [REDACTED] states that a letter recently appeared in the BPP newspaper stating that the local NCCF was ending its affiliation with the panthers and that this letter was attributed to [REDACTED] and NCCF member, Raleigh House." 

The Omaha FBI office requested permission to send copies of the letter to Hilliard at the national party headquarters, to the Omaha chapter, and to affiliate chapters in Kansas City and St. Louis. 

A copy of the anonymous letter is included in the PRA archive.  The letter targeted Ed Poindexter and although his name is redacted three times, the FBI censor missed one use of Poindexter's name revealing he was the subject of the bogus letter. 

The fabricated letter was addressed to Hilliard.  The letter covered the notice of expulsion and misunderstanding of the Omaha chapter's status with the Black Panther Party.  The FBI letter also called the Omaha World-Herald newspaper "Whiteys newspaper". 

"[Poindexter] has been rapping to the people, that the guys in California don't know what in the hell they are doing.  In fact [Poindexter] said the same thing to Whiteys newspaper the Omaha World herald.  I am sending you copies of this jive to show you who Poindexter thinks he is." 

On August 17, 1970, two days after the Omaha FBI office asked for Hoover's permission to mail the letter about Poindexter and the World-Herald, a dispatcher at police headquarters received an anonymous phone call about a woman screaming in a vacant house.  Four squad cars were sent to investigate the early-morning emergency call. 

As eight officers searched the house and yard, one of them approached a suitcase near a doorway.  A powerful explosion instantly killed officer Larry Minard, a 29 year-old father of five young children.  In the hours following the deadly blast Omaha uniformed officers searched frantically for Minard's killers. 

The FBI immediately joined the investigation and offered to analyze the 911 recording of the killer's voice that had lured Minard to his death.  However, acting under COINTELPRO directives to "destroy" Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa's position as leaders of the Omaha Black Panthers, the FBI offer of help was tainted. 

As day broke on the crime scene and investigators sifted through the bombing debris looking for clues, a new COINTELPRO action was being planned by Omaha FBI agents.  Assistant Chief of Police Glen W. Gates met with the FBI and agreed that it was more important to stop the Black Panthers than find Minard's killers.  An urgent COINTELPRO 'airtel' memo was drafted for FBI headquarters. 

"By airtel 8/17/70 the Omaha Office has advised that the Omaha Police Department has requested laboratory assistance in connection with a bombing which took place in Omaha 8/17/70.  This bombing resulted in the death of one police officer and the injuring of six other officers and is apparently directly connected with a series of racial bombings which Omaha Police have experienced.  The Police were lured to the bomb site by a telephonic distress call from an unknown male." 

"[REDACTED] of the Omaha Police has requested [REDACTED]." 

"The SAC, Omaha strongly recommends that the assistance requested by the Omaha Police Department be conducted." 

"[REDACTED] It is felt, in view of the SAC's recommendation and the significance of this case, an exception should be made in this case in order to assist the Omaha Police in developing investigative leads.  The results of any examination will not be furnished directly to the Police but orally conveyed through the SAC of Omaha." 

"If approved, the results of any examinations will be orally furnished the Police on an informal basis through the SAC, Omaha." 

When the COINTELPRO memo reached the FBI Crime Laboratory two days later on August 19th the lab director, Ivan Willard Conrad, spoke by phone with Hoover over the unusual request to withhold a report on the killer's voice analysis.  Conrad was given the go ahead to withhold evidence about the identity of the anonymous 911 caller.  Conrad initialed the memo noting, "Dir advised telephonically & said OK to do."   

The fix was in, Minard had not yet been buried and J. Edgar Hoover had already given the order to abandon the search for his killer to make a case against Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa. 

On August 24th Hoover gave written approval to the earlier FBI bogus letter request about "Whiteys newspaper".  At that point, Poindexter was already in custody and the search was on for Mondo we Langa.  Both men were tried for Minard's murder. 

Conrad followed orders and issued no report on the 911 tape.  The jury that would convict the two Panther leaders never got to hear the recording of Minard's killer.  Nor did the jury know about the existence of Operation COINTELPRO or that Poindexter and Langa had been targeted by the clandestine operation. 

Raleigh House, named in the August 15th COINTELPRO memo, was identified at the trial as the supplier of the dynamite that killed Minard.  A suspected informant, House faced no formal charges for supplying the explosives and only spent one night in jail before being released on his own signature by order of Arthur O'Leary of the county prosecutor's office. 

Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.  Both are confined at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary where they continue to deny any involvement in Minard's death.

A new trial request over the withheld evidence and conflicting police testimony is pending before the Nebraska Supreme Court.  No date for a decision has been set.

Nikki Giovanni: Poet, writer, activist addresses plight of blacks then to now

Murali Balaji, The Professor and the Pupil: The Politics and Friendship of W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson, New York:  Nation Books, 2007.

W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson have been poorly served by their biographers.  David Levering Lewis and Martin Duberman found these two US communist revolutionaries about as congenial as Philip Foner would find Frick and Rockefeller.  They employed all the usual snide dismissals and overrulings-in-hindsight of the labor movement and its Marxist vanguard, and summed up their subjects as quixotic.

Nearly all the historians and biographers of the US communist movement find their subject perplexing and uncongenial.  Academic scholars who build their careers on merciless competition for pelf and place have no experience of democratic discussion, collaborative work, and collective leadership.  They have no appreciation of the daily rhythm of life for members of a Leninist party; their pulse does not quicken when bruiting phrases like "spring subscription drive" or "all out on Saturday" or "tabling on campus."  They view life-or-death questions of party trade union fraction work as fruitless eccentricity.  Communists building Black rights organizations can only be opportunists since they could never feel any real emotion about such a struggle, only "cold Bolshevik calculation."

The prospect of a dual biography of W. E. B Du Bois and Paul Robeson, focusing on their political work, and published by Nation Books (whose logo features red flames rising from a manual typewriter) could not help but excite all those who respect and seek humbly to continue Du Bois and Robeson's work.  There were no smarter or more principled communist revolutionaries produced in the US.  They came to the working class movement from different directions at different speeds and from different traditions.  Their allegiance first and foremost to the Russian Revolution won them to the cause of building a communist party in the "belly of the beast."

Does The Professor and the Pupil by Murali Balaji measure up to the moral grandeur and intellectual authority of its subjects?  Alas. . . .   Balaji, while acquainted with the shifts in fortune of his subjects over time, seems to be of at least two minds about them, what they did, and even some facts.  It is one thing to misspell the words Labour Party as "Labor Party" (p. 36) or to refer to "playwright Rockwell Kent" when discussing that fine painter and visual artist (p. 202), but can any scholar of 20th-century US communism afford to refer to the Palmer Raids as the "Palmer riots" (p. 324)?

Instead of the clean, clear communist vocabulary of Du Bois and Robeson themselves, from the start Balaji deploys a series of hopelessly vague and ultimately meaningless euphemisms.  Balaji uses the word globalism to describe Robeson's political thought (p. xviii), but surely it is a mistake to use such a loaded modern word when describing the thinking of one of his subjects, when they themselves used the terms internationalism and communism.

Throughout, Balaji's vocabulary is both confusing and misleading.  He refers to the anti-apartheid movement as a "political suffrage struggle in South Africa" (p. 160).  At one point he even refers to Du Bois as a "class suffragist" (p. 44).  This is taking prevarication to new heights.

The organizing principle of the book is that Robeson was Du Bois' pupil.  The book itself, however, cuts against this thesis.  Robeson was, in fact, far ahead of Du Bois in seeing the USSR's existence as a step forward for toiling humanity and US communists as the best allies in the Black liberation struggle.  Du Bois was always a consistent supporter of the USSR, but found the early US Communist Party wanting.  "Du Bois wrote that the Communists were led by 'a number of unprincipled fools' who used the Scottsboro case as a publicity tool to hinder the NAACP legal defense" (p. 53).  Though unmentioned by Balaji, it was the sacred NAACP national leadership who initially refused to join the Scottsboro united front for fear the defendants might be guilty.  The Communist Party and the International Labor Defense initiated the nationwide Scottsboro campaign and gave it authority through mass mobilizations that the NAACP leadership was compelled to respect.

A strength of Balaji's book is the clear picture it paints of the NAACP as an organization suffering under a leadership completely at odds with any advancement for "colored people."  Cop-loving stool pigeons like Walter White and Roy Wilkins fought a war not against Jim Crow and the lynchocrats that ran the Democratic Party and the New Deal, but against any grassroots organizations or direct action programs for Black liberation, no matter how small the scale.  Funded almost entirely by white philanthropists, the NAACP helped witch hunt and destroy both the Civil Rights Congress and the anti-imperialist Council of African Affairs, groups that sought to link the US Black struggle to the world anti-colonial upsurge that gained its greatest victories after World War Two.  Du Bois first resigned and was later expelled from the NAACP over precisely the question of imperialism's relationship to Black oppression.  Even while referring to US Communist Party leaders as "brazen jackasses" (p. 64) Du Bois fully endorsed their fightback program, castigating Walter White for ignoring tenants' rights, medical care, and Black economic independence (p. 74).

The Professor and the Pupil makes it clear that both Du Bois and Robeson's early radical sentiment was transformed into allegiance to Leninism both by the example of the USSR and the loyalty won by the Communist International among the best anti-colonial fighters of Asia and Africa.  While never mentioning the central place communists, aided by the Comintern, came to give the US Black liberation struggle, Balaji does attempt to breathe life into revolutionaries now virtually erased from history.  C. L. R. James, Benjamin Davis, William Patterson, Cyril Briggs, and Richard Moore are just a few of the communists from different traditions who made their presence felt in the lives of Du Bois and Robeson.

Labor Movement Slandered

Much of the characterization of Black revolutionaries in The Professor and the Pupil relies on vulgar anti-communism.  Often the author's perspective indicates ignorance of the subjects themselves.  He refers to Claude McKay, George Padmore, and C. L. R. James, who all rejected Stalinism as objectively counterrevolutionary, as "disenchanted Russophiles" (p. 105) as though questions of principle were not involved in their political evolution.  (It is not hard to imagine what C. L. R. James might say to a scribbler who attributed his long life of scholarship and activism to "Russophilia."  I am sure a cricket metaphor would be employed.)

There are a few salutary quotations that do offer political clarity.  Du Bois in 1937 noted, in fact, that "the Russian people . . . need more (Karl) Radeks and fewer Stalins" (p. 110).  But at the same time we suffer under Balaji's own brand of historical analysis: dwelling in his own voice on something he calls "Stalin's genocide" (p. 111) while never referring in that same voice to the real US-organized genocide against the Black nationality in North America and within the borders of Washington's growing world empire.  However one sums up the Stalin leadership's legacy, the word "genocide," correctly defined, does not pertain.  This is the kind of rhetorical inflation that has long made the Black Book of Communism school a laughing stock, cheapening powerful words through intemperate axe-grinding.

The CIO's central role in the 1930s in the anti-racist struggle is minimized in The Professor and the Pupil.  Balaji writes: ". . . labor groups have long struggled with social chauvinism and in recent years many whites have left unionized jobs altogether, leaving a marginalized base of mostly minority workers with little political clout" (p. 133).  Each word of this sentence expresses such breathtaking ignorance that it beggars reason.  To begin with, trade unions have not shrunk in size because white workers left them; they shrank in numbers because of an unprecedented post-1975 union-busting drive by the US capitalist class and the dead-end class collaborationist political line clung to by union leadership at all levels.  Second, trade unions have historically been the most integrated and least chauvinist institutions in class society.  They were always one or two generations ahead of churches, universities, and all forms of media.  To workers of all nationalities the phrase "an injury to one is an injury to all" is not a liberal moral abstraction: it is a question of life and death solidarity.  Those who live in the bat's belfry of the capitalist superstructure's ivory towers might reflect on this from time to time.

Robeson: Vanguard Artist and Organizer

Paul Robeson was the greatest communist artist the United States produced.  Spirituals, labor ballads, Soviet music, and Shakespeare were all part of his arsenal.  As an actor, he knew playing Othello was a revolutionary act.  As an activist, he knew Marxism was the strongest tool for the liberation of the Black nationality in the US and all workers and oppressed peoples of the world.  He thrived within a developing US Marxist culture primarily centered on the CPUSA and was a consistent supporter and builder of that party.  The main enemy, he knew, ran the land of his birth.  One of that enemy's central supports, Jim Crow, it was his especial pleasure to help destroy.

Balaji acknowledges that for both Du Bois and Robeson nationalism was not an obstacle but a fuel for their work as revolutionaries.  Historians drunk on the pragmatic politics of Wall Street's Tammany Hall-style Washington regime have never found the unity of working class and oppressed peoples' struggles permissible.  "By early 1942, Du Bois was an admitted nationalist, at the brink of shunning any idea of Black advancement via white philanthropy" (p. 135).  Both Du Bois and Robeson saw that the Black US "battle for freedom and equality is part of the battle of colored colonial peoples in Asia and Africa and the battles of serfs in Eastern Europe against feudalism" (p. 144).

Anti-communism with a Liberal Face

At the end of The Professor and the Pupil author Murali Balaji sums up his subjects.  "Politics made both men, and ultimately destroyed them" (p. 435).  This absurd statement is, for anyone who has read Du Bois and Robeson, studied their lives, or simply read the preceding pages of Balaji's own book, something on the order of a blood libel.  Despite what he may conclude, the author has presented a picture of two men who died as their politics was achieving its greatest victories.  Du Bois died a partisan and comrade of Mao and Nkrumah.  Robeson, though not politically active in the last 10 years of his life due to poor health brought on in part by the witch hunt, was acknowledged by Black nationalists and communists at that time as a founding father of their work in the US working class.

Balaji reduces all politics to History Channel-style impressionism.  He chalks up the FBI campaign against Du Bois and Robeson to J. Edgar Hoover's "growing paranoia" (p. 128).  Regarding the barbaric bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he writes: "Truman's atomic statement would be an emphatic start to the cold war and a dramatic reversal of Roosevelt's anti-imperialism" (p. 169).  Has Balaji read what his own subjects wrote about Roosevelt's supposed "anti-imperialism"?  The Professor and the Pupil is filled with this kind of obscurantist double-talk.  Why else refer to an "atomic statement," or dismiss Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela as "aggressive nationalists" (p. 175)?  Balaji tells us Du Bois and Robeson dreamed of something he calls "class parity" (p. 31) when in fact they fought for a dictatorship of the proletariat without balk or apology.

Regarding the Council of African Affairs, Balaji writes it off as "increasingly pro-Soviet and irresponsible in its advocacy" (p. 176) as the Cold War developed.  He seems to think that Ralph Bunche finding a place in the US State Department is a more important step for the Black liberation struggle than independent Black political action free of the shadow of Jim Crow supporters like Franklin Roosevelt.

Inflated death tolls of the "victims of communism" so beloved of reactionary writers of the David Horowitz-Michael Savage-Jeanne Kirkpatrick axis of evil are presented here as fact.  "Du Bois began to view China as a success story in implementing Soviet-style socialism, unaware that Mao's Great Leap Forward would eventually kill millions in Stalinized collectivization.  The Doctor would even excuse China's occupation of Tibet, dismissing the Dalai Lama's right to rule" (p. 187).  To begin with, Balaji gives -- and can give -- no documentation to his statement that "Mao's Great Leap Forward killed millions. . . ."    There is no citation, and the figure itself has become a traditional piece of prop scenery in the theater of anti-communist mummery.  Balaji is strangely quiet on statistics for the devastating human toll of racism, Jim Crow, and colonialism in this book.  But he always has a body count ready to smear socialist countries.

Phrases like "the Dalai Lama's right to rule" (p. 187) also beg belief.  The Dalai Lama had and has no more right to rule than any czar or Kaiser ever did.  The reason the people of Tibet do not demand the return of the Dalai Lama is because they remember his rule and that of his predecessors: grinding down the populace in near-slavery and profound poverty.

Readers of The Professor and the Pupil may wonder how Balaji handles the Peekskill, New York anti-Robeson lynch mob riots of 1949.  According to Balaji, there would have been no riots but for Robeson's "stubbornness in the face of pressure" (p. 275).  It was all about ego, you see, not about building a united front to out-mobilize the lynchers and witch hunters.

Balaji calls Du Bois and Robeson "increasingly irrational" and "sentimental" (pp. 287, 381) for continuing their support of the USSR and communism into the 1950s.  One almost feels that Balaji himself has become infected with the witch hunter's poison to try to police his subjects this way.  He presents cooperation and capitulation to the witch hunt by Jackie Robinson and Langston Hughes free of such editorializing.  Perhaps Robinson and Hughes will be the subject of Balaji's next dual biography?

Cuban Revolution Slandered

The lowest scholarly point in The Professor and the Pupil is reached with author Murali Balaji's unconscionable slander of the Cuban revolution.  It epitomizes Balaji's slip-shod second-hand knowledge about the communist movement and anti-colonial struggles that were the central political reality of Du Bois and Robeson's lives.

"Marxists Che Guevara and Fidel Castro commandeered a seemingly improbable bloody revolt against the American-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista" (p. 381).  Just let that summing-up of the Cuban revolution linger for a moment.  And let me quote again the part of the sentence that all history and scholarship refutes: "Marxists Che Guevara and Fidel Castro commandeered a seemingly improbable bloody revolt. . . ."

There are no citations to support this astounding example of ignorance.

Has Mr. Balaji read any books about the Cuban revolution?  Even the most reactionary gusano would tell him Che and Fidel commandeered nothing; they and the July 26th Movement cadre initiated the Cuban revolutionary war.  Even the CIA would tell Mr. Balaji that these revolutionaries did not become Marxists until well after January 1, 1959.  Only when confronted with the impossibility of having a truly independent post-colonial country under the economic and political aegis of US imperialism did they realize that Marxism, and Marxism alone, offered them the chance of a free homeland.

Two Good Men

The class enemy Du Bois and Robeson fought and organized others to fight continues to enslave, exploit, and destroy in its search for greater and greater profits.  Du Bois and Robeson were not the last of the great Black freedom fighters to be won to communism as the science of their struggle.  They were among the first.  Every accommodation with capitalism, every third-way fantasy, has left us further from the rebirth of our own power.

The liberal pragmatism and shallow instrumentalism of Murali Balaji and his ilk has not stopped one police shooting, one Jena, one eviction, one layoff, or the death of one child of color on this planet of slums.  Du Bois and Robeson could not have been clearer: only independent Black political action, free of the Democrats, and free of the bourgeoisie and its night-riders, will lead to liberation.

Gang Stalking = COINTELPRO = STASI decomposition

The FBI and all law enforcement agencies are currently using a psychological warfare protocol like "COINTELPRO" which is almost identical to the STASI "decomposition". This is what people are referring to as Gang Stalking.

The earliest forms of this that I know of are from Egypt, Greece and Rome. Each of these societies had pervasive spy/informant networks that were spying on each other as well as looking for spies inside of their own empires. Anyone who did not feel that their own respective empire was the most perfect society could be considered a traitor. In other words they were looking for anyone who had thoughts beliefs and attitudes that were not approved of by the state that could instigate revolt or subversive activity or otherwise make them a danger to the empire. This obviously created a snitch culture and there were bound to be abuses. If a person was not liked by another then it was easy to persuade others to make a complaint and get that person killed or exiled. No one dare say or do anything that was politically incorrect and thus the rulers were able to maintain power and control over the people. Blatant execution or exile is common in an empire but in a democracy it is not as easy to accomplish these punishments so modern psychological operations were developed to accomplish these goals and in this way an empire can masquerade as a democracy.

The STASI decomposition protocol is an excellent example of how these modern psychological operations work. The STASI decomposition is almost identical to the FBI’s COINTELPRO. Here is a link to a document that shows an overview of the STASI decomposition.

·         http://www.scribd.com/doc/71863415

·         http://www.mediafire.com/?5w80dni99qc1c8w

Law enforcement agencies in concert with government and corporations are using bribery, deception, coercion & blackmail to create an informant & saboteur network out of criminals of all kinds, extremist groups, cults, patriotic zealots, the poor, the homeless, friends, family, neighbors, repair men, fire men, police, military personnel and agents to target individuals and groups that have beliefs and attitudes (such as civil rights and animal rights.) that may cause them to commit acts of terrorism at some future time or motivate others to commit terrorist acts or incite revolt. This pre-crime approach has existed numerous times throughout American history but has reared its ugly head again due to 9/11.

Unfortunately, according to former FBI agent Mike German, many post 9/11 targeted individuals are nothing more than a training exercise.

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·         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

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Here is a lecture by Noam Chomsky that uncovers the root mindset in America that predicates the targeting of groups and individuals.

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