Schwartz who was the committees chief counsel. And here in our studio in washington is Elliot Maxwell who was counsel to the committee as Pennsylvania Republican senator richard swiekers designee. Thanks to both of you. In this our third installment in this series were looking into the Church Committees hearing on possible excesses by the federal bureau of investigation. Rich schwartz former chief counsel for the Church Committee, on november 18, 1975, you testified before the Senate Committee to share the staffs findings in an investigation of fbi intelligence activities. Were good to show a clip of you reading anonymous letter that the fbi sent to Martin Luther king. Lets watch. The bureau went so far as to mail anonymous letters to dr. King and his wife which were mailed shortly before he he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and finishes with this suggestion. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do it. This exact number has been selected for a specific reason. It has definite practical significance. It was 34 days before the award. You are done. Give us some context for what we just saw. Why was the fbi looking into the activities of Martin Luther king . Well, right after i made that statement, Fritz Mondale who was really the hero of the committee on the fbi side, everybody was a hero but he was a special one, he asked me a question. If i could interrupt. That was taken by dr. King to mean a suggestion for suicide, was it not . Thats our understanding, senator. And the answer was, it was intended and it was taken as an effort by the king family and the King Associates like andy young to get him to commit suicide. Hoover hated king, j. Edgar hoover hated king. A. Hoover had a negative view of what were then called negroes, indeed on the very afternoon of kings i have a dream speech in washington, d. C. , in the bowels of the fbis office, they resolved to destroy Martin Luther king. And they set out to do that in lots of ways. They persuaded the kennedy brothers to agree to wiretapping of king and kings close associates. They did that, we later discovered, by exaggerating the role of an adviser to king, his closest white advise her, stanley leave levison who had been part of the kmcommunist pay but left the party and the party left him. But what he told kennedys was that he was a member of the communist party and a close adviser of king and they wanted to get the wiretaps. They then obtained they didnt have to obtain permission. Under the rules then, the fbi could put a bug in anybodys house, in anybodys bedroom, and they put bugs in hotel rooms that king was going to use, and they made recordings from that and then sent those to king with the letter. Just one final thought that may be helpful. We obviously focused very much on the cia and very much on the fbi and a lot on other institutions like the nsa. My own view and i remember mentioning this to the committee at some time was that the cia was a danger to the country because its successes undermined the reputation of the United States in the world but that the fbi was a danger to the country because its efforts undermined democracy in america. And both of those things one should be worried about, but i thought that the effort to undermine democracy in america was the more dangerous. And so my personal view is that our hearings on the fbi were the most important work we did. Other people might not agree with that. But they certainly were enormously important. William maxwell, watching that video 40 years later, what kind of emotions does it bring to bear in you . Well, i think that the hearing about the tapping of Martin Luther king had a profound effect on me in part because of a statement that senator hart, phil hart , made. And i think the gist of it was, in response to all of the senators and their Opening Statements talking about Martin Luther king and his impact on america and the qualities of the man, the importance of what his work, and what phil hart said was, there will always be protectors for people like Martin Luther king, but what we need to worry about are the actions of the government about people who will have no protectors, the socialist workers party, representatives whose neighbors were talked to by the fbi and were told not to have their Children Play with their children, the employers who were told not to employ them. On the ground thats these people were a threat to the United States. These people were not a threat to come out of a paper bag if they were in a paper bag. But phil hart recognized that it is the powerless who are most at risk, and i remember that profoundly as the, for me, high point ever the hearing, was that if the government acts against the powerless, we should be terrified because its not only the powerless but who will be next . And it was in those hearings that i think for me crystalized the kind of concern that you need to have with the exercise of secret power. As we learn about the work of the Church Committee 40 years ago, now from november 18, 1975, here is Senator Frank Church the Committee Chairman opening up a hearing on the fbi and its abuse of power. There has never been a full Public Accounting of fbi Domestic Intelligence operations. Therefore this committee has under taken such an investigation. Its purpose is not to impair the fbis legitimate Law Enforcement and counter espionage functions but rather to evaluate Domestic Intelligence according to the standards of the constitution and the statutes of our land. If fault is to be found, it does not rest in the bureau alone. It is to be found also in the long line of attorneys general, president s, and congresses who have failed, who have given power, rather, and responsibility to the fbi but have failed to give it adequate guidance, direction, and control. Information is a powerful resource. One of the fbis most significant features is its system for efficient processing, filing, and retrieving of the data it gathers. The potential dangers in this system are obvious. Today we are here to review the major findings of our full investigation of fbi Domestic Intelligence including the cohen tell program and other programs aimed at domestic targets. Fbi surveillance of law abiding citizens and groups, political abuses of fbi intelligence, and several specific occasions of unjustified intelligence operations. These hearings have one overriding objective, the development of sufficient information for congress to legislate appropriate standards for the fbi. After the senators option statement, had schwartz and smudgers began their presentation detailing the broad surveillance activities of the bureau mainly in the 1960s and giving some notable examples. In the area of what they characterize as the new left, an example of the overbreadth of the requirements for information laid on the field can be found in the document thats at 131 of your books. And in this document the director of the fbi issued an instruction to all special agents of the bureau as to the kind of information that he wanted them to collect and report on. Now, the number of items in the report are in letters from a through r and numbers under each one of those ententries. I will just refer to a couple of the specific examples of what the fbi agents are required to report into the field. In the area of finances, who are the socalled angels for the group . In the area of publications, describe all the publications. In the area of religion, the policy of what the organization relating to its approach to religion, and any vehement statements made against religious bodies by leaders. Conversely, any statements of support for the movement by religious groups or individuals. In the area of Political Activities, any and all Political Activities in which socalled new left leaders are involved. And details relating to their position taken on political matters including efforts to influence Public Opinion the electorate and government bodies. In the area of education, all information concerning courses given together with any educational outline and together with what is the assigned or suggested reading. In the area of socalled social reform, all information on activities in connection with demonstrations aimed at social reform, whatever that may be. In the area of labor, all information including all activity in the labor field. With respect to the public appearance of leadersor, the identity of any leader who makes a public appearance on radio and television and who appears before groups, for example, labor church and minority groups and in connection with such appearances the identity of the Group Sponsoring the speaker and a succinct influence of the new left of the new left by the mass media. A wholly comprehensive listing of everything those people thought or did on any subject you can imagine theyre having a concern with. Taking the as the next example of how the intelligence desire seeks out information of scarcely relevant to subjects that we had thought the bureau was concerned with. In the area of womens liberation, report after report about meetings of women who got together to talk about their problems. You now, how the bureau got this information is not entirely clear, but its apparently by informants. So we have informants running all over the country checking up upon what housewives are talking about in their efforts to decide whether women should have a different role in this society. Reports on particular women who said why they had come to the meeting and how she felt oppr s oppressed sexually or otherwise. Reports on such important matters as the release of white mice by women at a protest demonstration. Reports on such other important matters as the Womens Liberation Movement is interested in zapping the miss America Pageant in Atlantic City by protesting the standards and well, whatever they protest in Atlantic City. And my favorite example in the baltimore Womens Liberation Movement in a document which was sent not only to the fbi this one is at tab 5. 4 not only to the fbi but to three military agencies for some reason a document in which theres a long discussion of the origins, aims and purposes of the group, its location, its pamphlets and in concluding on the purposes of the group comes up with such important findings as they wanted a purpose and that was to free women from the hum drum existence of being only a wife and mother. They wanted kwafl opportunities that men have in work and society and so forth. Nothing to do with violence. Nothing to do with these labels of subversion and extremism. And whats the conclusion on the document . Quote, well continue to follow and report the activities of the Womens Liberation Movement. Not all of the information collected by the agency was stashed away in some musty file. Much of it was turned over to white house aide and much of it was used for political purposes. There was an indication in the 64 Democratic Convention that violence may erupt. The bureau was called upon to supply information regarding the potential for violence. Assumingly both on a federal level and to assist local Law Enforcement officials. In addition to that, after infiltration of various groups, the challenge plan of the mississippi convention, the plans of those who were challenge pg the official delegation were developed by the fbi and submitted to the white house through a white house staffer. The plans of dr. King, the be plans of core, the plans of snik with respect to activities at the convention were also communicated both as they related to efforts to disrupt as well as general political strategy at the convention. This was accomplished really through a complete infiltration of these groups and when it became apparent as in the case of the mississippi challenge that it might be politically expedient to have some information to discredit the group, the fbi provided that also by providing some bookkeeping data on the organization and its funding sources. We see the same kind of unofficial dissemination occur after the critics of the Warren Commission begin to surface and the white house is a bit concerned about these persons who are criticizing the Warren Commission. The fbi is directed here to gather information on those persons, information which extended to their personal lives indeed down to and including sex activities. The name check process where its often used as a basis of getting a clearer fix on people who had begun to criticize the administration. In several cases weve identified news correspondents of Major Networks or apparently at one point or another earned the white houses ire or the subject of name checks. The number of reporters from major newspapers many of the names there pop up immediately after revelations or accusations about misconduct or other activities of the white house. We even got to the point with the name check process was used as a basis to dpagather the vie or information on private citizens who objected to vietnam policy and this information was subsequently distributed to persons who may be in a position to point out adverse information in the individuals background. This took the form, for example, to going to political figures and saying to those figures, if you have an occasion to comment upon soandso, you might want to have this information. We will talk a little bit more about that when we come to cohen tall activities. The use in a political arena virtually covered the spectrum. In one case we deduce information regarding the fbis reported efforts to influence the speaker of the house regarding a prominent civil rights figure y s using informa had been gained through various investigative techniques and accomplishing this unofficial over lunch kind of dissemination. A footnote on the 1964 Democratic Convention, a technique which was used there was the furnishing to the fbi of false press credentials by one of the Major Networks which the fbi then used in order to insert itself as a bogus newsman into legitimate discussions of political persons and protest groups and acquire information concerning their plans pretending to be a reporter and in fact acquiring it for the purposes of the bureau and transmission to higher authority. Now, turning to cohen tell pro, cohen tell pro an abbreviation of the words Counter Intelligence program. Cointelpro is the name for the effort by the bureau to destroy people and to destroy organizations or, as they use the words, disrupt and neutralize. And in pursuit of this goal, fbi agents used a wide range of weapons disseminating this information creating animosities and generally spreading havoc among the target groups. One of the other techniques utilized was to destroy the job of family life. And family life was a particularly opportune target in the bureaus view and played on sensitivities. Without mention of the name reflected therein, if you look to tab 94 of your books, you will see the bureaus report on a cointelpro effort against a white female who was involved as an officer in what is defined as a local black activist group. The way to discredit or neutralize this leader was to take attention away from activities of the group by creating another kind of distraction. The distraction read as follows, dear mrs. Blank, look man, i guess your old lady doesnt get enough at home mr. Blank, sorry, letters to her husband. Or she wouldnt be shucking and jiving with our black men in action. You dig . Like all she wants to integrate is the bedroom and us black sisters aint going to take no second best for our men. So lay it on her, man, or get her the hell out of blank. Its signed a soul sister. Particularly effective technique as reflected by the memorandum, it did succeed in distracting her. Bureau agents were told to attack the new left by disinformation and misinformation. And i will give you six quick examples of what was done pursuant to that program. There was a body called the National Mobilization committee to end the war in vietnam. At the time of the Democratic National convention in 1968, that body attempted to obtain housing in chicago for a demonstrator who would come to the convention. The fbi local office in chicago obtained 217 of those forms and filled them out with fictitious names and addresses to people who purported falsely to have houses in which the demonstrat r demonstratodemonstrato demonstrators could say. The tactic had its designed effect because according to final documents the persons who went out to look for these houses made, quote, long and useless journeys to locate the addresses and the effort to find housing was canceled. What effect that had upon the attitude of the persons who were there in chicago and what contribution that made to what happened thereafter i suppose well never know. Precisely the same tactic and program was carried out by the bureau with respect to the 1969 president ial inauguration where they again filled out false housing forms to confuse and disrupt efforts by persons coming to washington to find places to stay