Foster and Whitewater, while conservatives shed few tears overrnthe horrors of Iran-Contra. If asked about the dirty tricks of thernfederal justice agencies, the right will turn to Waco and RubyrnRidge with the same infallible instinct that draws the left tornCOINTELPRO and alleged CIA drug dealing. Worse, eachrnside mav be unwilling to condemn the atrocities wrought uponrnthe other side. Randy Weaver was a white supremacist who gotrnwhat he deser’ed; antiwar protesters of the 1960’s were virtualrntraitors, who could not be treated with kid gloves.rnTlie faction in svmpathy with government thus demands everrnmore forceful action against its enemies on the familiar basisrnof “my cnem’s enemy is my friend.” Reagan-era conservativesrndemanded an iron fist policy against potential subversives onrnthe left, and the removal of restrictions that supposedly tied thernhands of the FBI. The recent debates over the Anti-TerrorismrnBill presented the surreal spectacle of liberals calling for sweepingrnfederal powers to fight white supremacists and militia extremists.rnWith an airheaded lack of historical perspective, bothrnsides appear to believe that the powers granted the federal governmentrnwill consistentlv be used for the exact purposes forrnwhich thev are requested and will never backfire against thernoriginal supporters. A vast body of precedent suggests that thisrnbelief is incredibly naive, that the real problem lies in the policernapparatus itself. To complicate the proverb, just possibly, “myrnenemv’s enemv is my enemy too.” Conservatives properly exercisedrnoer the persecution of the religious right should pausernto consider how far their grievances are in fact identical withrnthose of their bitterest ideological enemies. The problem, inrnshort, is the dirty tricks themselves, and not the direction inrnwhich they are aimed.rnAmerican history has many turning points, the dates whichrnnormally punctuate textbooks and college courses, butrnone of the least recognized is 1936. This was the year in whichrnPresident Franklin Roosevelt ordered the FBI to undertakerncovert surveillance of Nazi and communist subversion in thernUnited States. This can fairi) be seen as the start of the internalrnsecurit}’ apparatus in the Ihiited States.rnThe government was principally interested in the far right atrnthis time, in groups like the German-American Bund, the SilverrnShirts, and Father Coughlin’s anti-Semitic Christian Front.rnWhile these groups were both active and numerous, theirrnstrength was exaggerated out of all proportion by the organs ofrnthe left. The influential newsshcet The Week typically presentedrnthe fascist right as a vast menace millions strong, engaged inrnsystematic plots to sabotage the American war effort when thernUnited States finally entered the world conflict. The fascistsrnwere said to be planning the mass sabotage of factories or agriculturalrnproduction, the release of germ warfare, and the formationrnof secret armies. The “fifth column” was a nationalrnmenace, demanding urgent intervention by the FBI. Suchrncharges were music to the ears of the White House, which usedrnthe purported Nazi threat to justify interventionism on the Alliedrnside, and so media friends of the administration placed therncharges for all they were worth. The FBI gained abundant newrnpow ers and prestige from their war on subversion.rnOf the many ironies here, the most striking is the source ofrnthe fifth column charges, which were in fact taken from tlierncontemporary Moscow show trials, and which American communistsrnborrowed to stigmatize their domestic enemies. ThernStalinist charges created a “Brown Scare” in 1939-1941, whichrnm turn shaped public perceptions of foreign espionage. Butrnfrom 1946, the same themes and ideas were turned against thernleft in a new Red Scare, in which the newly invigorated FBIrnrooted out the communists and exposed their devilish schemesrnof sabotage and fifth column plotting. As in 1940, a vast superstructurernof myth and false accusation was erected upon arncore of genuinely treasonous activism, a process made possiblernby the Red media campaigns of the Roosevelt years. While thernpolitical right may ultimately have benefited from the workingoutrnof the cycle, the true beneficiaries were undoubtedly thernfederal police bureaucrats themselves. For the left, the lessonrnshould have been (in the words of the cliche): be careful whatrnyou wish for—you may get it.rnThe lesson, of course, was learned neither by the left nor thernright. For two decades after McCarthy, the right continued tornlend support to the secret police agencies in their clandestinernwar on supposed communist plotting. Initially, the assumptionrnwas that leftist activism in the United States was orchestratedrnfrom Moscow, and was therefore a subset of the foreignrnespionage problem. In reality, this became a justification to interferernwith any form of protest, however autonomous or constitutionalrnin character. The most notorious manifestation wasrnthe Counter-intelligence Program, COINTELPRO, which betweenrn1956 and 1971 undertook nearly 300 actions againstrnblack groups alone. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X werernboth targeted for surveillance and “destabilization,” countlessrnpetty acts of sabotage and rumormongering intended to destroyrntheir careers and reputation. While the bureau probablyrnhad no role in the assassination of either man, their conductrnover the previous decade was so devious and criminal asrninevitably to excite such suspicions, and thus to promote anrnatmosphere of public paranoia.rnAn advanced industrial power like the United States certainlyrnneeds some kind of internal security agency, to warn of possiblernsubversion and terrorism. The problem with the FBI inrnthe Hooer years was that surveillance and intelligence gatheringrnwere rareK considered adequate, and had to be complementedrnby active measures to disrupt and destroy the potentialrnsubversives. This meant, for example, using bogus statementsrnand rumors to excite rivalries within radical groups like thernBlack Panthers. Agents provocateurs were planted in civil rightsrnand antiwar groups with a view to creating violence that couldrnjustify the suppression of the troublemakers.rnThe FBI was not the only agency engaged in this practice inrnthe 1960’s and 70’s, as some of the worst provocation stemmedrnfrom police “Red Squads” in cities like New York, Philadelphia,rnLos Angeles, and Chicago. All used the same tactics, of employingrnindi’iduals who would penetrate activist groups withrnthrilling suggestions about undertaking sniping on MichiganrnAvenue or bombing police precinct houses in Harlem. Somernwent further and established their own bogus radical groupsrnwith the purpose of discrediting the authentic radicals, andrneven confronting them physically, a policy which caused severalrndeaths. In his widely read book Low Intensity Operations,rnBritish counterinsurgency expert Frank Kitson observes that thernAmerican Black Power movement of the 1960’s was actuallyrndestroyed by such “pseudo-gangs” or police front organizations.rnSo too was the American Indian Movement, AIM. Many radicalsrncharged that official hands were involved in the operationsrnof bizarre extremist and terrorist groups like the SymbionesernLiberation Army of the mid-1970’s. In Puerto Rico (which nobodyrncares about) federal agents organized bogus bombingsrnand probably killed the leftists presumed guilty of the deeds.rnDECEMBER 1995/13rnrnrn