Watergate and Cointelpro

The Watergate scandal of 1972 is generally assumed to be the classic example of a vigorous and feisty free press defending the constitution and bringing down a corrupt regime. What is still virtually unknown is that another huge campaign of political subversion came to light at the same time. This was the FBI Cointelpro program of bugging, theft, sabotage and political assassination under four presidents.

The reason Watergate was headline news was that one half of US political power, the Republicans, took on the other half, the Democrats. The scandal demonstrates that powerful interests in the US are capable of defending themselves against attack. By contrast, the targets of the FBI Cointelpro (Counterintelligence Program) were leftists, feminists, Communists, the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panther Party. When minority movements without power are attacked, the facts go unreported.

Notes

Watergate

The Watergate scandal began with the burglary in June 1972 of the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate building in Washington DC, which was followed by the Nixon administration's attempt to cover up its involvement, and ended with the resignation of President Nixon in August 1974.

Political assassination

At dawn on 4 December 1969, 21-year-old Fred Hampton, a leader of the Illinois Black Panther Party, was shot dead in his bed at home in Chicago by armed police.

www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-rutberg/nothing-but-a-northern-ly_b_355670.html

www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhamptonF.htm

FBI Cointelpro program

“The FBI began COINTELPRO—short for Counterintelligence Program—in 1956 to disrupt the activities of the Communist Party of the United States. In the 1960s, it was expanded to include a number of other domestic groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panther Party.” http://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro

Further reading and viewing

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (Pantheon, 1988), by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, concluding chapter.

Video of BBC2's The Big Idea, 14 February 1996, one of a series of thirty-minute interviews – http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4827358238697503# (Start at 16 minutes for section on Watergate and Cointelpro.) 
Where Egos Dare: Andrew Marr meets Noam Chomsky – www.medialens.org/articles/the_articles/articles_2001/de_marr_chomsky.html