You know the Coantel Pro was started to target the Communist Party that actually matters

and it's largely left out of a conversation. I know my friend and colleague Connor Gallagher is pursuing research on that more, but the biggest

element of the counterintelligence program was aimed at the Communist Party.

It was started in the mid-50s and it was aimed to, you know, disrupt and neutralize the

influence of the CP in the United States.

And you know, that was always central to its mission so you know you can't understand

co and tell pro without understanding mainly what it was doing first and

foremost I mean look the black panthers were a force they were interesting they were significant but they are not they are not

That's not where all the repression lay it got pretty extreme there for a year or two

but there's an awful lot of other things that happen and the Black Panthers existed within an overall upsurge.

You know, I mean, my second article with Connor on Fred Hampton talks about the way the FBI went after students for a Democratic society vis-à-vis

their relationship with the Black Panther Party. You know, it's like one group doesn't exist without the other in those times they're

mutually reinforcing and influencing so I'm sorry I'm losing actually the

could you put the question again to me because I kind of want to get back a little bit back and hit this head on

yeah just there's this interpretation of Coantel Pro, which is that every,

everything that seems off or seems counterproductive in the left is the product of state meddling or might as well be

So somebody sees like a strange tendency like black hammer for instance. They say, oh, these are obviously feds.

But that's kind of what Co Intel Pro wanted.

It's like you've got to understand these things in specific.

The first off, the FBI is not doing national security investigations the way they were in the late 60s

into the early 70s.

They really got kicked in the butt. You know, they got exposed and they had to

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