◆ SpookStack

10 Nos. 77-1698, 77-1210 & 77-1370 trial court’s Summary stated that the “purpose of the counterintelligence program, as it was implemented in hicago as to the Panthers was to prevent violence.” The plaintiffs, however, presented considerable evidence to compel a different conclusion.$ Perhaps the most dam- ning evidence indicating the COINTELPRO was intend- ed to do much more than simply “prevent violence” comes from the files of the FBI itself. An FBI memorandum from February 1968 described the goals of COINTELPRO as: 1. Prevent a _ coalition of ‘militant black nationalist groups... . 2. Prevent the rise of a messiah who could unify and electrify the militant nationalist movement.... Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and Eli- jah Muhammad all aspire to this position .... 8. Prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups... . 4. Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability by discrediting them .... 5. ... prevent the long-range growth of mili- tant black nationalist organizations, especially among youth. Senate Select “Committee to Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities, The BI’s Covert Action Program to Destroy the Black Pan- ther Party, S. Rep. No. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess., 187 (1976). These goals were incorporated into the various directives which Marlin Johnson, the special agent-in- charge of the Chicago FBI office, received instructing him to establish the program in Chicago. The national COINTELPRO program adopted a variety of tactics which Seemingly were aimed not at preventing violence, but at neutralizing the BPP as a political entity. These tacties included efforts to dis- ° Further, the trial court’s restrictions on discovery and its questionable evidentiary rulings hampered the plaintiffs’ ability to marshall evidence to substantiate their contentions. See infra, pp. 68-73.