The FBI's secret counterintelligence program against the New Left Antiwar Movement

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,5 (A), University of Potsdam (Anglistics/ American Studies), course: PS The 1960s: An Age Of Turmoil, language: English, abstract: In the 1960s and 1970s one of the most controversial policies of the American

government was its intervention in the Vietnam War. A whole nation was divided into so

called doves and hawks, the former were fighting and demonstrating for peace whereas

the latter supported the government¿s policies concerning Vietnam.

A very influential and large group of the Antiwar Movement was the New Left, the main

platform of the white students.

In the following, the author will give some information about this group and examine the

actions of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) taken to harm or even destroy that

part of the Antiwar Movement. These actions were manifested in the so called

Counterintelligence Program, which was shortened to the abbreviation Cointelpro.

As there is just one source on which all the literature concerning this topic is based its not

that easy to evaluate in how far all the published material is really true or just serves some

conspiracy theories, which were very common in that time. Especially in the Sixties, when

the Cold War reached its climax in the Cuban Missiles Crises in 1963 and the

assassination of famous people like John F. Kennedy in the same year and Martin Luther

King five years later supported the offspring of many conspiracy theories. So in the

aftermath of that turbulent decade these theories continued to spread and were seen as true

by the majority of the American people because of the Watergate Affaire in 1972 and

other revelations of scandals by the press. Even today after September, 11th 2001 a lot of

conspiracy theories arose. [...]