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View Full Version : COINTEL, CHAOS, & The Church Committee



ehnyah
07-23-2005, 09:31 AM
COINTELPRO is an acronym for a series of FBI counterintelligence programs designed to neutralize political dissidents. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO's of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against radical political organizations. In the early 1950s, the Communist Party was illegal in the United States. The Senate and House of Representatives each set up investigating committees to prosecute communists and publicly expose them. (The House Committee on Un-American Activities and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy). When a series of Supreme Court rulings in 1956 and 1957 challenged these committees and questioned the constitutionality of Smith Act prosecutions and Subversive Activities Control Board hearings, the FBI's response was COINTELPRO, a program designed to "neutralize" those who could no longer be prosecuted. Over the years, similar programs were created to neutralize civil rights, anti-war, and many other groups, all said to be "communist front organizations."

http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/cointel.htm

The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, known as the "Church Committee" after its chairman Frank Church, conducted a wide-ranging investigation of the intelligence agencies in the post-Watergate period.

The Church Committee took public and private testimony from hundreds of people, collected huge volumes of files from the FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS, and many other federal agencies, and issued 14 reports in 1975 and 1976. Since the passage of the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act in 1992, over 50,000 pages of Church Committee records have been declassified and made available to the public. These files contain testimony and information on U.S. attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, on the Church Committee's investigation of the intelligence agencies' response to the JFK assassination, and related topics.


These 14 published reports of the Church Committee contain a wealth of information on the formation, operation, and abuses of U.S. intelligence agencies. They were published in 1975 and 1976, after which recommendations for reform were debated in the Congress and in some cases carried out.

The Interim Report documents the Church Committee's findings on U.S. involvement in attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, particularly Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Cuba's Fidel Castro, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, the Diem brothers of Vietnam, and General Rene Schneider of Chile. It also contains findings on the development of a general "Executive Action" capability by the CIA.

The remaining reports are split into 7 volumes of public hearings and exhibits and 6 books which contain the Committee's writings on the various topics investigated. These 14 reports are the most extensive review of intelligence activities ever made public.

Interim Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders

Volume 1: Unauthorized Storage of Toxic Agents

Volume 2: Huston Plan

Volume 3: Internal Revenue Service

Volume 4: Mail Opening

Volume 5: The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights

Volume 6: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Volume 7: Covert Action

Book I: Foreign and Military Intelligence

Book II: Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans

Book III: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans

Book IV: Supplementary Detailed Staff Reports on Foreign and Military Intelligence

Book V: The Investigation of the Assassination of President J.F.K.: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies

Book VI: Supplementary Reports on Intelligence Activities

http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/contents.htm