J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - Citizens Resistance | 6

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2019

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On March 8, 1971, seven ordinary Americans broke into a poorly guarded FBI regional office in Media, Pennsylvania. They called themselves the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI, and they had one purpose: to gather evidence that would prove the agency was engaged in a covert and illegal spying campaign against American citizens. For more than 30 years, Director J. Edgar Hoover had maintained an iron grip on the media, and with it, public perception of the Bureau. But as packages of stolen documents began appearing in newsroom mailboxes, followed soon after by front page stories, a very different narrative about the FBI’s activities began to emerge. It would forever shift the balance of public opinion against the Bureau, and signal the beginning of Hoover’s downfall.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon Music,
0:05.6	download the app today.
0:09.9	Imagine its 11 p.m. on March 8, 1971.
0:23.4	You're in the FBI's resident agency office in media, Pennsylvania, but you don't work
0:28.4	for the FBI.
0:29.9	And the office has been closed for hours.
0:32.9	With your flashlight in hand, you navigate the small suite of offices full of file cabinets.
0:38.5	You silently signal your associates, following closely behind each of you carrying two suit
0:43.8	cases.
0:44.8	There's no telling how much time we really have, so we can't waste a minute.
0:48.8	How do we know which files to take?
0:50.6	Take them all.
0:51.6	But how do we know what we're getting?
0:53.8	We won't.
0:55.1	Not until we get back to the safe house.
0:57.1	Just let's get to work.
1:00.4	You open the first suit case, place it on the floor, and indiscriminately start stuffing
1:04.7	files from the cabinet into the case.
1:07.2	There are five cabinets in the small file room.
1:09.6	Together you empty them one by one.
1:12.4	You work quickly, trying to stay quiet.
1:15.0	For now, the only sounds you hear is the Muhammad Ali Jo Frazier, fight of the century,
	...

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