COINTELPRO 101 is a documentary film which premiered in 2010.
The topic is the FBI’s secret and illegal war against dissent in the US during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
COINTELPRO is an acronym which stands for Counter Intelligence Program.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Produced by the Freedom Archives
** Introduction by Liz Derias - CompassPoint
** Available on DVD and via Amazon Prime Video
** Subtitles: English (on Amazon Prime Video)
** Run time: 56 minutes
The purpose of the FBI Program was to monitor and “neutralize” radical movements for social, political and economic justice, because they were regarded as a threat, as enemies of the state.
The means used to do this were infiltration, surveillance, and (in some cases) outright armed attack on selected leaders of these movements.
The FBI targeted several movements for social, political and economic justice in the US. Here are the major victims of the program:
# 1. Puerto Ricans who were campaigning for the independence of Puerto Rico
# 2. The Native American movement
# 3. The Chicano movement
# 4. The civil rights movement (primarily African Americans)
# 5. The Anti-War movement (primarily white people)
# 6. The student movement (primarily white people)
# 7. Left-wing parties, for instance the Socialist Workers Party
# 8. The movement for women’s liberation
Important evidence for these secret and illegal activities was discovered in 1971, when a small group of activists broke into an office-building in Media, Pennsylvania.
The FBI had a field office where the activists found a lot of secret documents, including one which had the mysterious word “COINTELPRO.”
They collected all the documents they found and took them home. Later they made copies which they sent anonymously to five persons: two members of Congress and three reporters.
According to Liz Derias, the break-in took place in April 1971. But this is not quite correct. It took place on 8 March 1971. For details, see the PS below.
Several persons – mainly activists - are interviewed for this film. Here are their names of the participants (listed in the order of appearance):
** Bob Boyle – attorney
** Jose Lopez – Puerto Rican Cultural Center
** Lucy Rodriguez – Puerto Rican activist, former political prisoner
** Ward Churchill – Native American activist, author
** Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz – Native American activist, author
** Leonard Pelletier – Native American activist, political prisoner
** Ricardo Romero – Al Frente de Lucha, Greeley, Colorado
** Francisco “Kiko” Martinez – Chicano/Mexican activist, attorney
** Priscilla Falcon – Professor, Hispanic Studies, University of Northern Colorado
** Muhammad Ahmad / Max Stanford – Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM)
** Akinyele Umoja – Professor, African-American Studies, Georgia State University
** Geronimo Pratt (1947-2011) – Black Panther Party, former political prisoner
** Laura Whitehorn – activist, former political prisoner
** Wesley Sewaringen – former FBI special agent
** Kathleen Cleaver – Black Panther Party, attorney
The topic covered in this film is highly controversial. Some viewers may like it, because they agree with what is being said, while others may hate it, because they disagree with what is being said.
Whether you agree with the message or not, this film is important and it has to be said that the charges against the FBI are solid.
The charges cannot be denied, because they are based on evidence from the very organisation which planned and implemented this illegal program.
During the 1950s and the 1960s, many activists suspected that government agents were watching them. They were right. They could not know that things were worse than that, because there was an extensive and systematic effort to monitor and “neutralise” their movements.
The illegal activities of the FBI were investigated by the Church Committee in 1975. This committee, which was established by Congress, was named after its chairman:
Frank Church (1924-1984), a senator from Idaho
The final report of the Church Committee was published in 1976.
What do reviewers say about this film?
On IMDb it has a rating of 79 per cent, which corresponds to four stars on Amazon.
On Amazon there are at the moment 125 ratings of this product, 75 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.5 stars which corresponds to a rating of 90 percent.
If you ask me, the rating on Amazon is too high while the rating on IMDb is very appropriate.
This film runs for less than one hour, but it is packed with important information.
At the end of the film – during the last three minutes – there is a rap song about COINTELPRO, written and performed by D. Prosper.
This is, in my opinion, a most unfortunate way to end the film, because this song is simply horrible!
The person who decided this song should be played at the end of the film, made a very poor decision. Without this horrible song, I would have offered a rating of five stars.
But since the song is there, I have to remove one star. This is why I cannot offer more than four stars (80 percent).
PS # 1. As stated above, copies of the secret documents found during the break-in were sent anonymously to five persons: two members of Congress and three reporters.
Four of the five persons immediately returned the documents to the FBI. They were scared. They did not want to have anything to do with them.
But the fifth person, Betty Medsger of the Washington Post, decided to keep the documents.
Having studied the documents, she decided to write about them in the paper. Her editor supported her decision. And the story was published. This was a milestone in the history of US journalism.
PS # 2. J. Edgar Hoover was furious. He ordered the FBI to mount a huge investigation of this case, but his agents never managed to identify or catch the members of the small group.
Many years later, in 2014, five of the eight persons responsible for the break-in came forward.
For details, see the following book:
The Burglary:
The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI
by Betty Medsger
(2014)
PS # 3. 1971 is a documentary film about the break-in which took place in March of that year.
** Director: Johanna Hamilton
** Run time: 80 minutes
This film, which premiered in 2014, is available online.
PS # 4. For more information, see the following books:
** COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom by Nelson Blackstock (with an introduction by Noam Chomsky) (1976) (1988)
** The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars against Dissent in the United States by Jim Vander Wall & Ward Churchill (1990) (second edition 2015)
PS # 5. The following book places the secret Counter Intelligence Program in a historical context:
Freedom under Fire:
U. S. Civil Liberties in Times of War
by Michael Linfield
(1990)
*****
On this blog
My review of
MLK / FBI (2020)
My review of
1971 (2014)
My review of
The FBI’s War on Black America (1990)
*****
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