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Surreptitious Entries Black Bag Jobs — Part 4
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record, and which of the materials J have been shown in the last couple
of days are still under seal. So just out of memory I am going to sum-
marize certain activities which have been acknowledged that the
Bureau undertook, but without being specific with respect to location
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and names, I do it for this reason: it is right that the commities
and the press be worried about the treatment of a Nobel Prize win-
ner, Dr. King; but there are an awful lot of people who never got
close to a Nobel Prize whose names are Jones and Smith, that my
review of the files show had violence done to their first amendment
rights, Nobel Prize winners will always get protection, but Joe
Potatoes doésn’t, and the Committee should focus on him, too.
Included in these COINTELPRO activities were, anonymous
letters, drafted by Bureau offices in the field, sent to headquarters in
Washington, approved. and then put in the mail, intended to break
up marriages, not of Dr. King but of Mary and John Jones because
one or the other was thought to be a dissenter, might have dressed
strangely or showed up at meetings in company of others who dressed
strangely. Anonymous letters were sent to university officials and to
the several newspapers in that city to prevent university facilities from
being made available td a speaker of whom the Bureau disapproved,
and it was not a topflight, bigname speaker,
In that case, an anonymous letter was sent to me making protest.
Being an anonymous letter. it never occurred to me that it came from
the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The series of anonymous letters,
one with the spelling very poor. the grammar sloppy, and another more
sophisticated ; protesting the employment of a man by a city, alleging
that he was a Communist or came from a Communist family, and
there are loyal Americans out of work, what are you doimg. mayor,
And to the press, isn't this an outrage. And again the letter. the
anonymous letter sent to me saying what are you going to do about this.
There are loyal Democrats in this town who need work. And in that
case I happened to have known the man about whom the protest was
made, and the Bureau’s facts were wrong as hell on that man’s
loyalty. He was as loval as you or I. Now, yes or no, are those actions
regarded now by the Bureau as within bounds!
r. Apams. No, sir.
Senator Harr of Michigan. Why were they regarded as within
bounds when they were approved by the Bureau?
Mr. Apass. Well, I think even under the guidelines of COINTEL
PRO, as established. the programs were not designed for the purpose
of harassment of an individual, The memorandums indicate they were
designed to disrupt the organizations. Some of the turndowns were
turned down on this specific wording. This is mere harassment.
The rationale would have been—and of course, here, I say some of
these you mentioned wouldn't even appear to me to meet the criteria of
the program and should have been disavowed. even under the existence
of the program. However. in the total context of the program. activities
Were to he direstad toward tha arawanizatinn itesalf luv we da not
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do that‘at the present time.
Senator Harr of Michigan. Yes. But everything I have summarized
rather poorly. was approved by the Bureau at the time by headquarters,
not by the field office agents.
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