The inner life
COINTELPRO
Direct answer
COINTELPRO: COINTELPRO, short for Counterintelligence Program, was a series of covert FBI operations from 1956 to 1971 meant to disrupt and discredit domestic political groups in the United States.
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At a glance
- Also called
- counterintelligence program
- Found in
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Related
- MKUltra, Conspiracy Theory, Primary Source, Burden of Proof
COINTELPRO, short for Counterintelligence Program, was a series of covert FBI operations from 1956 to 1971 meant to disrupt and discredit domestic political groups in the United States.
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What does COINTELPRO stand for?
COINTELPRO is the FBI's own abbreviation for Counterintelligence Program. Under J. Edgar Hoover the Bureau ran it from 1956 against the Communist Party USA and later widened it to the Socialist Workers Party, Ku Klux Klan groups, Black nationalist organisations and the New Left. Agents sent anonymous letters, planted stories in the press, sowed quarrels inside groups and pressed employers and landlords.
The case is cited in the study of conspiracy belief because it was shielded by secrecy and then confirmed from the Bureau's own files. A Senate committee concluded in 1976 that many of the techniques would be intolerable in a democratic society even if every target had been involved in violence.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Conspiracies, examined.
What sets COINTELPRO apart
COINTELPRO differed from ordinary investigation in its stated purpose. An investigation gathers evidence for a prosecution; these operations set out to weaken groups directly, with no court involved. Each action was proposed by a field office and approved at headquarters in writing, and that paperwork is why the programme could later be reconstructed so fully. The Senate read the memos, counted the approvals and questioned the officials who had signed them.
- Full name: Counterintelligence Program, an FBI abbreviation
- Years: August 1956 to April 1971
- Five main programmes: Communist Party, Socialist Workers Party, white hate groups, Black nationalists, New Left
- Exposed: burglary of the FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, 8 March 1971
- Examined by: the Senate Church Committee, final report April 1976
Often mistaken for something else: Surveillance watches a group; COINTELPRO went further and acted on it, through anonymous letters, leaks to the press and efforts to set members against one another.
The story behind COINTELPRO
The programme was exposed on 8 March 1971, when a group calling itself the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into the Bureau's office in Media, Pennsylvania, and sent the files it took to newspapers. Hoover closed the programmes that April. The Senate committee chaired by Frank Church examined them in 1975 and 1976 and published, among much else, the anonymous letter the Bureau had sent to Martin Luther King Jr. in 1964.
Why COINTELPRO matters
COINTELPRO is a rare case where the disruption of lawful political activity was confirmed in an agency's own paperwork.
How to read COINTELPRO
Historians and students cite it as a benchmark for what proof of a covert domestic programme has looked like in practice.
COINTELPRO in practice: an example
Someone weighing a claim of state harassment can compare it with how this one was established: seized files, then sworn hearings.
Where readings of COINTELPRO go wrong
That this programme was real does not show that any other alleged one is; each claim still needs its own records.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Consciousness & Spiritual Psychology
- Aliases
- cointelpro meaning, fbi cointelpro, counterintelligence program, what was cointelpro, cointelpro fbi programme
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
What does COINTELPRO stand for?
It stands for Counterintelligence Program, the FBI's name for a set of covert operations it ran inside the United States between 1956 and 1971.
Who were the targets of COINTELPRO?
The first target was the Communist Party USA. Later programmes were aimed at the Socialist Workers Party, Klan and other white supremacist groups, Black nationalist and civil rights organisations, and the student and anti-war New Left.
How was COINTELPRO discovered?
Activists burgled an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, in March 1971 and posted the files to journalists. A document carrying the caption COINTELPRO led reporters and then the Senate to the wider programme.
