The Fall of J. Edgar Hoover

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From 1956 to 1971, J. Edgar Hoover ran COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program). A series of covert and illegal FBI operations aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting political organisations in America. The leaders of pro-civil rights, anti-Vietnam war and pro-choice groups were among those targeted. When the programme was uncovered, it revealed the paranoia that consumed Hoover in his last decades in power and would change his legacy forever.

Produced by Benjie Guy. Mixed by Thomas Ntinas. Senior Producer: Charlotte Long.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	In his office in Washington, D.C., J. Edgar Hoover is listening to secretly recorded
0:11.1	tapes of a Black Panther Party meeting in Chicago.
0:14.8	It is 1967 and Fred Hampton, deputy chairman of the Black Power political organization,
0:20.3	has been identified by the FBI as a radical threat to U.S. national security.
0:25.0	Two years later, Hampton will be shot and killed in his apartment,
0:29.0	in what many believe to be an assassination orchestrated by the FBI.
0:38.1	As Hoover listens in to the Panthers, the audio recorded by an FBI mole within the organization, the conservative FBI chief hears the sound of an America from which he has grown ever more distant.
0:45.5	The voice of liberal America, pro-civil rights, anti-Vietnam war, pro-choice, left-wing. In America, J. Edgar Hoover does not trust. The targeting of Hampton
0:57.0	and the Black Panthers was one example of Coantel Pro, the counterintelligence program that Hoover ran from 1956 to 1971, a series of covert and
1:07.4	illegal FBI operations, surveilling, infiltrating, and disrupting domestic American political organizations.
1:16.3	When Coantel Pro was uncovered, it revealed the lengths to which Hoover and the FBI would
1:20.9	go to subvert progressive politics in America and the paranoia that consumed
1:25.6	Jaeger Hoover, changing his legacy and the reputation of the FBI forever. Hello and welcome to another episode of American history, yet I'm Don Wildman.
1:46.0	Today we're picking up my conversation with Beverly Gage, author of G-Man,
1:51.0	J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century.
1:54.2	In a previous episode we tracked the first part of Hoover's story, The Rise, as he became
1:59.6	director of the most infamous crime-fighting agency in the land, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
2:05.3	the FBI, shaping it into a proper and effective bureaucracy for a modern superpower.
2:11.5	Today's episode is more about the 1960s and beyond, as Hoover chooses to remain
2:16.8	perhaps too long in power and sees the country and his beloved agency strain under the pressure of greatness.
2:23.6	I welcome back to the show, Beverly Gage.
2:26.2	Beverly, a whole new America is beginning to dawn,
	...

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