COINTELPRO

The FBI ran a secret decades-long program to spy on, infiltrate, and actively sabotage civil rights leaders and anti-war activists — and its own internal files, stolen and leaked, prove it.

COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert, and at times illegal, FBI operations from 1956 to 1971 targeting American political organizations, including civil rights groups, anti-war activists, and Black nationalist organizations, using surveillance, infiltration, and deliberate disinformation to disrupt them. The program's existence and tactics are fully documented through stolen and later declassified FBI files.

✓documented

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Quick facts

→COINTELPRO ran from 1956 to 1971, targeting groups including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Panther Party, and various anti-war organizations.
→The program's existence became public after a group of activists broke into an FBI office in 1971 and stole files, which were then leaked to journalists.
→Tactics documented in the files included planting false rumors, forging letters to create conflict between activists, and coordinating with local police against target organizations.
→A 1976 Senate committee, the Church Committee, formally investigated and confirmed the program's scope, concluding it had violated the constitutional rights of American citizens.

Entities on file

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COINTELPRO (event)

Secret FBI program (1956-1971) that surveilled, infiltrated, and disrupted American political organizations; exposed by stolen documents and confirmed by Senate investigation.

No outgoing connections on file.

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J. Edgar Hoover (person)

FBI Director who launched and oversaw COINTELPRO from 1956 until his death in 1972.

→ launched and oversaw → COINTELPRO✓documented

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