Hi there, Gray Wolves. This is Amber Leif Ross here with a very special episode of Chopped

Trap House. We have here with us Aaron J. Leonard, one of the authors of a threat of the first

magnitude FBI counterintelligence and infiltration from the Communist Party to the Revolutionary Union

1962 to 1974. Aaron, thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thanks for having me, Amber. It's great

to finally get to talk. So this is, first of all, an incredible book because it's just an

incredible story. I think most people who are familiar with left politics know something about

Cointel Pro. They know a little bit about counterintelligence. I'm not sure if people know the exact

scope and comprehensiveness of the sort of government interference in left organizing from the

very beginning. So I was wondering if we could start out with just a definition. What is counterintelligence

and what is Cointel Pro and what is the difference between the two? Well, counterintelligence is a

doctrine based essentially a military doctrine where you're trying to undermine your enemy. You

know, your enemy is operating kind of, you know, in the United States, you could have forces

operating as a foreign agent or as domestic subversion and counterintelligence is trying to

undermine that. You know, through secret means, you know, it's not a, you know, not a declared

adversarial relation. It's operating in the back. Cointel Pro itself was a program that began in

the 50s by the FBI aimed at the Communist Party, USA. And it was a, it was a discrete program aimed

at really undermining and destroying the party. It evolved as the 60s kind of, you know, started to

get more dynamic and more threatening to the standing authority to be, there was a counterintelligence,

black extremist aimed at groups like the black panthers, student nonviolent coordinating committee.

It individuals like Martin Luther King and James Forman. There was also a counterintelligence

new left aimed at groups like SDS and later groups in the new communist movement. Another aimed at

Puerto Rican independence advocates. I think it ended up being like six or seven different

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