As long as they do not target white people, federal agencies canrnpretty much get away with murder; and in a powerful gesturerntoward equal opportunity, open season now appears to havernbeen declared on white supremacists and “cultists,”rnIt would be nice if liberals werernto criticize the investigation ofrnrightist and fundamentalistrnchurches and compounds, just asrnconservatives should have protestedrnthe disruption of liberal churchrnactivities in the 1980’s.rnWhen Congress discovered COINTELPRO and relatedrnschemes in the aftermath of Watergate, its reaction might berncompared to that of the police officer in Casablanca who wasrnshocked—shocked—to find what had been going on. That thernFBI, of all agencies, had been violating legality in order to pursuernradicals! In retrospect, we might ask cynically what elsernthey had expected. However, the worst abuses of the antiradicalrncampaigns did not involve acts of burglary or wiretapping orrneven the systematic character assassination of Martin LutherrnKing. The most insidious perils lay in the whole culture of infiltrationrnand provocation, which threatened to make officialrnagencies accomplices to violence and even murder. The lawsrnpassed to control federal agencies in the mid-I970’s laid downrnapparently strict constraints on the circumstances under whichrnan investigation could be begun, but placed no effective limitsrnon the nature of a countersubversive campaign once under way.rnUnder the Reagan administration, domestic countersubversivernoperations were regulated by Presidential Order numberrn12333 (1981) and the 1983 Attorney General’s guidelines. Together,rnthese rules permitted investigation and infiltrationrnwithout specific suspicion of a crime in cases where evidencern”reasonably indicates” that a group is connected to foreign espionagernand international terrorism. A group also qualifies if itrnaims to achieve its “social or political goals wholly or in partrnthrough activities that involve force or violence.” The wordsrnare branded on the souls of all federal agents to this day, but thernwalls of protection which they erect are paper-thin. 1 sometimesrnquote the passage to undergraduates and ask them how arnfederal agency can target anyone it pleases while still remainingrnwithin the “A. G.’s guidelines.” A forest of hands goes up, andrnthe correct answer shortly emerges: get someone, anyone, to sayrnthat group X is plotting violence, and you can do what you like.rnAny American concerned with the protection of civil libertiesrnshould have on his or her desk a photograph of a wellintentionedrnBaptist pastor named Frank Varelli, who becamernthe storm center of FBI attempts to suppress leftist critics ofrnUnited States policy in his homeland of El Salvador. In the earlyrnI980’s, the Reagan administration was deeply concernedrnabout left-wing activities in Central America and possible connectionsrnbetween these movements and radical counterparts inrnthe United States. As in the Hoover years, the Reaganautrnworldview saw public concern over conditions in that region asrnSoviet-inspired, and therefore likely to fall within the ambit ofrnUnited States counterintelligence. Suspicions focused on thernCommittee for Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, CISPES,rna coalition of leftist, liberal, and pacifist groups, with arnhefty contingent of clergy and religious workers, mainlyrnCatholics influenced by liberation theology. Varelli’s sincerernanticommunism led him to become an informant for the FBIrnin 1981, and he penetrated CISPES. Over the next two years,rnhe found himself pushed to provide ever more damaging informationrnabout the group, specifically about violent actions thatrncould justify a charge of terrorism. The accusations were forthcoming,rnapparently including a bogus account of an assassinationrnattempt on President Reagan in Dallas. As former FBI DirectorrnWilliam Sessions declared, “The case pivoted on therninformation Varelli provided During much of the investigation,rnthe accuracy of Varelli’s information was not adequatelyrnverified.” Between 1983 and 1985, neariy all the bureau’s fieldrnoffices became deeply involved in investigating CISPES and itsrnallies, acting on the false charge that it was a terrorist frontrngroup. By 1987, a disgusted Varelli exposed the whole affair tornCongress, which began a thorough investigation into what hadrnin effect been a heavy-handed attempt to intimidate opponentsrnof United States foreign policy.rnThe consequences of the FBI war on the Central Americanrnmovement were devastating. Several thousand individualsrnwere investigated, photographed, and wiretapped, their licensernplates recorded, their neighbors interrogated about their subversivernleanings. There were hundreds of break-ins, acts of sabotagernand disinformation, and numerous people were deportedrnback to El Salvador as likely “subversives.” On their return, perhapsrn50 were duly killed either by police or death squads, anrnoutcome that could have surprised no one. The bloodshed resultingrnfrom this affair was augmented by the free sharing of informationrnbetween United States agencies and the SalvadoranrnNational Guard, a body hopelessly tainted with torture, rape,rnand mass murder. As with the “Defenders of Democracy,” thernaffair sounds like an outpouring of left-wing conspiracy theory,rnbut the factual bases of the case are beyond question. (There isrna partisan but amply documented account of the whole mess inrnRoss Gelbspan’s 1992 book Break-ins, Death Threats and thernFBI, published by South End Press.)rnIt is possible to imagine a conservative reading this in thern1990’s with little sympathy; whether or not they were really involvedrnin terrorism, CISPES were naive dupes, conscious or unconsciousrnallies of communist tyranny in the Americas andrnelsewhere. Let us for the sake of argument assume that all thisrnis true. What the Varelli ease showed was the utter ineffectivenessrnof any congressional restrictions on the internal securityrnempire. (These events, of course, occurred under the “restrictive”rnpolicies that the 1995 Anti-Terrorism Bill sought to repealrnin order to “unshackle” federal law enforcement.) It also illustratedrnhow that machinery works against any perceived dangerrnto national security, and the shape of that threat will naturallyrnchange according to the political color of the administration.rnWe obviously cannot know the steps which the FBI and otherrn14/CHRONICLESrnrnrn