CREATING CRIMINALS: LAW ENFORCEMENT CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION’S COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAMS by Jenel Carpenter Cope A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History The University of Utah May 2013 Copyright © Jenel Carpenter Cope 2013 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of Jenel Carpenter Cope has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Elizabeth Clement , Chair 11/15/12 Date Approved Matthew Basso , Member 11/15/12 Date Approved W. Paul Reeve , Member 11/15/12 Date Approved Susie Porter , Member 11/15/12 Date Approved Ronald Coleman , Member 11/15/12 Date Approved and by Isabel Moreira , Chair of the Department of History and by Donna M. White, Interim Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT In the 1960s and 1970s, J. Edgar Hoover and the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were on the hunt for subversives - but what, beyond political considerations, made someone a "subversive" and why were they so determined to find them? This dissertation examines why the FBI targeted groups based on categories such as age, race, and personal expression. It argues that the FBI investigated individuals and groups to perpetuate their idea of what it meant to be a respectable American worthy of the privileges of citizenship. This dissertation first examines the unique culture of the Bureau and the way in which FBI officials and agents saw themselves as defenders of white middle-class values. It then examines the way the FBI used racial stereotypes and tensions to interfere with groups such as the Black Panthers and ultimately argues that class distinctions often meant more to the FBI than racial distinctions. Next, it analyzes the FBI’s interaction with the Students for a Democratic Society and reveals the way groups were explicitly targeted due to forms of personal expression. Fourth, it analyzes the Bureau’s investigation of the American Indian Movement, and argues that these interactions demonstrate that even while the Bureau changed its practices 1970s, its desire to police particular definitions of “American” continued to influence their interaction with social movements. The FBI's focus on respectable behavior resulted in the investigation of law-abiding individuals and diverted the FBI's manpower and resources away from those who presented a real threat to the safety of the United States. Throughout American history, the federal government has often justified unconstitutional actions by claiming that they protected American citizens. However, the FBI’s narrow view of who could claim “citizenship” actually served to harm, in very direct ways, a great number of the citizens they were charged to protect. For my grandfather, Roy Wallace Logan CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………….………………………. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………..………………………………………..….vii INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………...…………... 1 1 J. EDGAR AND HIS G-MEN: FBI CULTURE IN THE 1960s AND 1970s……………………………………………………………………………………. 16 2 BLACK EXTREMISTS AND DIE-HARD REDNECKS: RACE AND CLASS IN THE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAMS………………………………........... 52 3 “IRRESPONSIBLE YOUTH”: AGE AND THE STUDENTS FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY……………………………………………………………………………….. 93 4 NOT JUST BLACK AND WHITE: THE AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT AND THE CONTINUATION OF COUNTERINTELLIGENCE………………………….. 128 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………....... 156 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I owe a great deal of gratitude to many people and institutions for their help with this dissertation. The Department of History at the University of Utah provided financial assistance through the Dean May Fellowship for American West and Utah History, Graduate Teaching Assistantships, a Travel Grant and the opportunity to teach as I finished my dissertation. The American West Center provided me with Graduate Research Assistantships and the Floyd O’Neil Scholarship for Western American Studies. The University of Utah Graduate School provided support through the Marriner S. Eccles Graduate Fellowship in Political Economy. The staff of a number of archives and libraries provided assistance to this research. I would like to especially thank Mary Curry of the National Security Archives, who provided me access to critical resources and the Society of Former Agents of the FBI for allowing me the use of their Oral History Project. I am grateful to a number of faculty members, foremost among these my committee chair Dr. Elizabeth Clement, who not only guided me through finishing this dissertation, but also helped me develop as both a scholar and a human being. My committee, Dr. Matthew Basso, Dr. W. Paul Reeve, Dr. Ronald Coleman, and Dr. Susie Porter each provided critical encouragement and direction. I would like to thank Dr. Robert Goldberg and Dr. Eric Hinderaker, who provided advice about various aspects of this project. I would also like to thank my fellow graduate students, especially my friend Michaele Smith. Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to my friends and family for their patience and encouragement, especially my husband Tracy Cope, who provided critical feedback and support and without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. INTRODUCTION When the Federal Bureau of Investigation transferred Agent Billy Bob Williams to the newly opened Jackson, Mississippi office in 1964, he quickly came into contact with the civil rights groups working in the area, including the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In his first encounter with the group, Williams described them as “hostile” and said that because of their “uncooperative” attitude, he made no attempt to help them. In fact, Williams admitted that one of his duties in Mississippi involved “funneling the information about the troublemaking …SNCCs” to his FBI superiors.1 However, Williams’s description of civil rights activist Charles Evers, a member of the NAACP (and brother of murdered activist Medgar Evers) stands in direct contrast to his description of SNCC. Williams describes the work of Evers and his colleagues as “dignified” and Evers as friendly and easy to work with.2 Agent Williams’s attitude toward SNCC echoed a sentiment expressed by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover six years earlier. Speaking to the FBI National Academy on November 4, 1957, Hoover declared, “Crime has multiplied, not because people no longer respect the law, but because they no longer respect respectability.” According to Williams, the young people of SNCC were undeserving of the FBI’s help not because 1 Billy Bob Williams, Interviewed by Brian R. Hollstein, Society of Former Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Oral History Project, National Law Enforcement Memorial Museum, February 13 and February 16, 2007. 2 Ibid., 66 -67. 2 they were black or because they were breaking the law, but because they were “troublemakers,” or as Director J. Edgar Hoover might have said, the kind of people who had “no respect for respectability.” Clearly, Williams did not view Evers as being in the same category as SNCC, even though he was black and was advocating similar kinds of social change. In this case, SNCC serves as an example for a number of individuals and groups whose tactics, attitude, age, style of expression, and/or appearance fell outside what the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and a portion of the American people, viewed as acceptable. As a result, the FBI targeted and punished these groups regardless of the level of unlawful behavior in which they engaged. While issues of race cannot be dismissed from the equation, the importance of the construction of a “troublemaker” or “subversive” other, based not on criminal activities but on forms of expression, is a key factor in understanding the behavior and policies of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and their actions against particular social movements during the infamous years of the domestic Counterintelligence Programs. The FBI initially focused these programs, known as COINTELPRO, to investigate and punish those groups associated with the perceived communist threat. Later, the FBI expanded these programs to surveill and punish groups they felt were “subversive.” Those people who by their class, race, age, and/or behavior fell outside of the FBI’s definition of the legitimate American citizen and were, in the Bureau’s, eyes unworthy of the same rights and protections as more “respectable” citizens. More broadly, this research highlights a debate in American society since the foundation of the United States, namely the conflict between liberty and security in a free society. In 1798, President John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition acts to protect the 3 Federalist Party, and in many minds the nation, from what his party felt were dangerous forms of expression. During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the order for American citizens of Japanese descent to be unfairly imprisoned. In recent years, President George W. Bush signed into law the Patriot Act and justified forms of torture as a way of dealing with a terrorist threat. Throughout American history, Presidents and other governmental powers have, especially during times of war, overlooked constitutional protections such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press in favor of national security. During the late Cold War years, this tendency was magnified by a belief that this threat came