[Ppnews] FBI agents that spied on MLK also ran COINTELPRO operation against 'Omaha Two'

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/FBI-agents-that-spied-on-M-by-Michael-Richardson-090115-516.html

January 15, 2009

FBI agents that spied on Martin Luther King also 
ran COINTELPRO operation against 'Omaha Two'

By Michael Richardson

[]


  In 1970, William Cornelius Sullivan, associate 
director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation 
and Charles D. "Chick" Brennan, his chief 
investigator, ran a clandestine and illegal 
operation code-named COINTELPRO that targeted 
domestic political activists for improper police 
attention and harassment.  Mark Felt, better 
known as "Deep Throat" of Watergate infamy, was 
head inspector of the FBI and oversaw all COINTELPRO operations.

The 'Omaha Two' were leaders of Omaha, Nebraska's 
Black Panther chapter and the main targets of 
Omaha's FBI office.  Sullivan was the Bureau 
spokesman for the COINTELPRO operation against 
the pair while Brennan approved and monitored 
reports from the Omaha office where he used to 
work.  Felt was on the distribution list for the 
Omaha memos and kept track of the case for the FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover.

Edward Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly 
David Rice) knew they were under surveillance and 
regularly experienced police harassment with 
frequent traffic stops.  Mondo we Langa was 
hauled before a federal grand jury investigating 
him but they were unprepared to be charged with 
the August 17th bombing murder of an Omaha police 
officer, Larry Minard.  Unfortunately for the two 
activists, Felt, Sullivan and Brennan were well 
experienced with breaking the rules and employing 
dirty tricks regardless of the legality or moral fitness of their actions.

Sullivan would later freely admit to a U.S. 
Senate investigating committee that COINTELPRO 
was a "no holds barred" operation and that the 
only rule was avoiding getting caught.

The three ranking FBI officials had perfected 
their technique waging Hoover's hidden, illegal 
wars against targets he deemed a threat to the 
national order.  The biggest target that Brennan 
and Sullivan had worked was Martin Luther King, Jr.

The illegal surveillance of King by the FBI 
lasted for years and covered three different 
phases authorized variously by J. Edgar Hoover, 
Robert Kennedy, and William Sullivan. Hoover 
first ordered the wiretaps and hidden microphones 
on King in the late 1950's before COINTELPRO was 
officially implemented under the rationale that 
Communist influences had to be rooted 
out.  Robert Kennedy ordered the second round of 
secret monitoring in the early 60's to keep tabs 
on the civil rights movement.  Sullivan ordered 
more surveillance in the mid-60's on his own 
initiative to obtain political 
intelligence.   The hidden world of FBI dirty 
secrets is occasionally revealed in oft-redacted 
confidential COINTELPRO memos that have emerged 
piecemeal through Freedom of Information requests and litigation.

After King's "I Have A Dream" speech at the March 
on Washington an indignant Sullivan wrote to 
Hoover the speech was "demagogic" and that "We 
must mark [King] now, if we have not done so 
before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future 
in this Nation."  Sullivan cautioned, "[I]t may 
be unrealistic to limit ourselves as we have been 
doing to legalistic proofs or definitely 
conclusive evidence that would stand up in 
testimony in court or before Congressional Committees."

As events progressed Sullivan kept up his 
drumbeat to Hoover calling King, "the most 
dangerous and effective Negro leader in the 
country" while "we are right now in this nation 
engaged in a form of social revolution."

King's home was wiretapped, King's attorney 
Stanley Levison's office phone was tapped, the 
Southern Christian Leadership Conference's office 
tapped and hidden microphones placed in King's 
hotel and motel rooms as he travelled the 
country.  Warrants were never obtained for the 
illegal entries to install listening devices.

In the fall of 1963, Brennan, always eager to 
please Sullivan, authored an 11-page monograph 
titled Communism and the Negro Movement--A 
Current Analysis.  Brennan pointed out that King 
was "an unprincipled man" and thus dangerous.

"As the situation now stands, Martin Luther King 
is growing in stature daily as the leader among 
leaders of the Negro movement.  Communist party 
officials visualize the possibility of creating a 
situation whereby it could be said that, as the 
Communist party goes, so goes Martin Luther King, 
and so also goes the Negro movement in the United States."

Brennan's memo to Sullivan about King was popular 
with Hoover who ordered copies sent to the White 
House, the Pentagon, the Attorney General and 
several cabinet members.  President Kennedy was 
angered that Brennan's memo had been sent to the 
military and considered it very unfair and 
one-sided.  Robert Kennedy ordered a recall of 
the memo although Hoover would later claim the recall was his idea.

In December 1963, Sullivan decided to accelerate 
the investigation of King and convened a 
headquarters meeting of various field offices and 
senior FBI staff to discuss King.  Sullivan's 
message to the gathered officials and special 
agents was, "We must continue to keep close watch 
on King's personal activities."  Sullivan 
declared that King was "unfit" to serve as a 
minister as a result of information obtained from 
the wiretaps that King had a "weakness in his character."

Sullivan wrote a memo declaring, "We will at the 
proper time when it can be done without 
embarrassment to the Bureau, expose King as an 
immoral opportunist who is not a sincere person 
but is exploiting the racial situation for 
personal gain."  Sullivan wanted to "expose King 
for the clerical fraud and Marxist he is at the first opportunity."

After King was named "Man of the Year" by Time 
magazine, Sullivan authorized bugging King's 
hotel room.  In another memo, Sullivan detailed 
that "trespass is involved" however "I authorized 
Washington Field Office to make effort to secure 
microphone coverage of King provided full security would be assured."

Emboldened by his own order of a bug for King's 
room, Sullivan mapped out a master strategy in a 
lengthy memo on Jan. 8, 1964.  Sullivan not only 
wanted to discredit King but replace him with a 
new national leader satisfactory to the FBI.

"King must, at some propitious point in the 
future, be revealed to the people of this country 
and to his Negro followers as being what he 
actually is--a fraud, demagogue and moral 
scoundrel.  When the true facts concerning his 
activities are presented, such should be enough, 
if handled properly, to take him off his pedestal 
and reduce him completely in influence so that he 
will no longer be a security problem and no 
longer will be deceiving and misleading the Negro people."

"When this is done
.The Negroes will be left 
without a national leader of sufficiently 
compelling personality to steer them in the 
proper direction.  This is what could happen, but 
need not happen if the right kind of a national 
Negro leader could at this time be gradually 
developed so as to overshadow Dr. King and be in 
the position to assume the role of leadership of 
the Negro people when King has been completely discredited."

According to Sullivan, the transcripts from 
King's hotel room surveillance were presented to 
Hoover and the FBI director stated, "They will 
destroy the burrhead."  The hotel bugs had 
captured evidence of King's marital infidelity 
and Hoover was more excited than he had been 
about supposed Communist influences.  While 
Hoover called King a burrhead, Sullivan would call King a beast or animal.

Sullivan began an aggressive bugging program 
sending FBI sound teams around the country as 
King travelled.  Soon King's critical remarks 
about Hoover could be heard on the hidden 
microphones enraging the director when he learned of them.

Sullivan arranged for a series of briefings on 
King and the hotel room tapes with political 
leaders like Nelson Rockefeller and Hubert 
Humphrey and a host of religious 
leaders.  Sullivan personally briefed the head of 
the National Council of Churches.

Sullivan next began working the media.  The 
Atlanta Constitution was a prime target and 
reporters had not been following the wishes of 
the local FBI office so Sullivan met on Jan. 20, 
1965 with the publisher of the paper to discuss Martin Luther King.

The FBI bugging of King continued until January 
1966 when Hoover ordered it discontinued for fear 
of exposure by a U.S. Senate inquiry into 
electronic surveillance.  However, Sullivan kept 
up his close monitoring of King and was 
coordinating physical surveillance of King in 
Memphis when King was assassinated.

After Martin Luther King's death, the FBI turned 
their focus to the Black Panthers and Brennan, 
Sullivan and Felt began coordinating and 
approving field actions against the 
Panthers.  However, George Moore, head of the FBI 
Racial Intelligence section, sent Sullivan a memo 
in January 1969 about efforts to make King's 
birthday a national holiday.  Moore urged 
Sullivan to have a information ready for the 
incoming Nixon administration about King from the 
wiretaps and bugging.  Sullivan passed on Moore's 
suggestion to Hoover and on January 23rd, just 
three days after the inauguration Hoover sent a 
Top Secret memo to Attorney General designee John Mitchell.

"The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 
found by Martin Luther King, Jr., held 
demonstrations on January 15, 1969, King's 
birthday, urging that his birthday be made a 
national holiday.  Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy, 
President of the Southern Christian Leadership 
Conference, has advocated national holiday status 
for King's birthday, according to press reports."

"In view of this, there is enclosed a document 
regarding the communist influence on King during 
his career and information regarding King's 
highly immoral personal behavior.  For your 
information, a copy of this document is also 
being furnished to the President."

The COINTELPRO team that spied on King and was 
continuing efforts to destroy his reputation was 
still in place in August 1970 when an anonymous 
caller lured Omaha police officer Larry Minard to his bombing murder.

The 911 tape recording of the killer's voice was 
sent to FBI headquarters for vocal analysis.  J. 
Edgar Hoover gave Ivan Willard Conrad, the Crime 
Laboratory director, the order to withhold a 
formal report on the tape.  The Omaha FBI office 
wanted to prosecute Poindexter and Langa for the 
crime and a troublesome lab report indicating 
their innocence would not help the case being made against them.

Brennan approved of the plan to go after the two 
Omaha Panther leaders and kept Sullivan briefed 
while Felt kept the entire operation on 
track.  The day after Minard's death in Omaha, 
George Moore sent a memo to Brennan about 
criticism of Hoover at the annual SCLC conference 
in Atlanta.  In response, Hoover approved 
providing yet another memo attacking King to a 
friendly media source.  Assistant FBI director 
Thomas Bishop, who was on the 'Omaha Two' 
COINTELPRO memo distribution list, acted on 
Hoover's order and supplied the information on King to a designated reporter.

Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa were convicted 
without the jury ever hearing the killer's 
voice.  The jury never knew of the FBI intrigue 
and withheld lab report.  Both men were sentenced 
to life imprisonment and are confined at the 
maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary 
where they continue to deny any involvement in Minard's death.

Poindexter has a new trial request pending before 
the Nebraska Supreme Court over the withheld tape 
recording and conflicting police testimony.  No 
date for a decision has been announced.

***

  Permission granted to reprint




Authors Bio: Michael Richardson is a freelance 
writer based in Boston. Richardson writes about 
politics, law, nutrition, ethics, and music. 
Richardson is also a political consultant.



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