COINTELPRO was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations. FBI records show COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals the FBI deemed subversive, including feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti–Vietnam War organizers, activists of the civil rights movement and Black power movement movements, environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers, independence movements, a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left, and white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the far-right group National States' Rights Party.
A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which are referred to by this name. The First Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War I, revolved around a perceived threat from the American labor movement, anarchist revolution, and political radicalism. The Second Red Scare, which occurred immediately after World War II, was preoccupied with the perception that national or foreign communists were infiltrating or subverting American society and the federal government. The name refers to the red flag as a common symbol of communism.
Political Research Associates (PRA), formerly Midwest Research, Chicago (1981–87) is a non-profit research group located in Somerville, Massachusetts.
The Christic Institute was a public interest law firm founded in 1980 by Daniel Sheehan, his wife Sara Nelson, and their partner, William J. Davis, a Jesuit priest, after the successful conclusion of their work on the Silkwood case. Based on the ecumenical teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and on the lessons they learned from their experience in the Silkwood fight, the Christic Institute combined investigation, litigation, education and organizing into a unique model for social reform in the United States. In 1992 the firm lost its non-profit status after having a federal case dismissed by the court in 1988 and being penalized for filing a "frivolous lawsuit". The IRS said that the Christic Institute had acted for political reasons. The case was related to journalists injured in relation to the Iran–Contra Affair. The group was succeeded by a new firm, the Romero Institute.
Western Goals Foundation was a private domestic intelligence agency active in the United States. It was founded in 1979 by Major General John K. Singlaub, the publisher and spy John H. Rees, and Congressman Larry McDonald. It went defunct in 1986 when the Tower Commission revealed it had been part of Oliver North's Iran–Contra funding network.
John Herbert Rees is a British right-wing journalist and government informant resident in the United States. He was active in the Western Goals Foundation and the John Birch Society.
Frederick Delano Newman was an American philosopher, psychotherapist, playwright, and political activist and the creator of a therapeutic modality, Social Therapy.
Michael Kahn is an American film editor known for his frequent collaboration with Steven Spielberg. His first collaboration with Spielberg was for his 1977 film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He has edited all of Spielberg's subsequent films except for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), which was edited by Carol Littleton. Kahn has received eight Academy Award nominations for Best Film Editing, and has won three times—for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Schindler's List (1993), and Saving Private Ryan (1998), which were all Spielberg-directed films.
Samuel Dickstein was a Democratic Congressional Representative from New York, a New York State Supreme Court Justice, and a Soviet spy. He played a key role in establishing the committee that would become the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which he used to attack fascists, including Nazi sympathizers, and suspected communists. In 1999, authors Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev learned that Soviet files indicate that Dickstein was a paid agent of the NKVD.
As early as the 1920s, the Soviet Union, through its GRU, OGPU, NKVD, and KGB intelligence agencies, used Russian and foreign-born nationals, as well as Communists of American origin, to perform espionage activities in the United States, forming various spy rings. Particularly during the 1940s, some of these espionage networks had contact with various U.S. government agencies. These Soviet espionage networks illegally transmitted confidential information to Moscow, such as information on the development of the atomic bomb. Soviet spies also participated in propaganda and disinformation operations, known as active measures, and attempted to sabotage diplomatic relationships between the U.S. and its allies.
Social therapy is an activity-theoretic practice developed outside of academia at the East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy in New York. Its primary methodologists are cofounders of the East Side Institute, Fred Newman and Lois Holzman. In evolution since the late 1970s, the social therapeutic approach to human development and learning is informed by a variety of intellectual traditions especially the works of Karl Marx, Lev Vygotsky and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Frederick Clarkson is an American journalist and public speaker in the fields of politics and religion. He is the author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy ; editor of Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America ; and co-author of Challenging the Christian Right: The Activist’s Handbook (1992) for which he and his co-author were named among the "Media Heroes of 1992" by the Institute for Alternative Journalism. They were described as "especially brave at taking on powerful institutions and persistent about getting stories out...journalists and activists who persevere in fighting censorship and protecting the First Amendment," and "understanding the Christian Right's recent strategy of stealth politics early on, and or doggedly tracking its activities across the U.S." He has also published articles with Salon.com, Ms. magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Public Eye, and other publications.
Clouds Blur the Rainbow: The Other Side of New Alliance Party is a non-fiction report by Chip Berlet, published in 1987 by Political Research Associates (PRA). Berlet presents his view that Lenora Fulani and her campaign manager and tactician Fred Newman "use totalitarian deception to manipulate social and political activists, and describe Newman and Fulani's therapeutic approach, Social Therapy, as "totalitarian cultism".
John Foster "Chip" Berlet is an American investigative journalist, research analyst, photojournalist, scholar, and activist specializing in the study of extreme right-wing movements in the United States. He also studies the spread of conspiracy theories. Since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Berlet has regularly appeared in the media to discuss extremist news stories. He was a senior analyst at Political Research Associates (PRA), a non-profit group that tracks right-wing networks.
This bibliography of Chip Berlet contains a list of articles, books, book chapters, book reviews, presentations and reports by activist and author Chip Berlet as well as articles about him and his works.
The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 (2004) is a book written by David Ray Griffin, a retired professor of philosophy at the Claremont School of Theology. It draws analogies between the September 11, 2001, attacks and the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The title is taken from the 2000 paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses" produced by the Project for the New American Century, which asserted that only a "new Pearl Harbor" would enable the military and defense policy transformations the group desired to rapidly take place.
Business nationalism is an economic nationalist ideology held by a sector of the political right in the United States.
The Public Eye Magazine is published by Political Research Associates in Somerville, Massachusetts. The magazine was founded in 1977 by the Public Eye Network. It currently contains investigative articles about "movements, institutions, and ideologies that undermine human rights." Its primary focus is on right-wing groups in the United States.
Russ Bellant is an American journalist, political activist, and author. He was an Associate of Political Research Associates.
Defending Rights & Dissent (DRAD) is a national not-for-profit advocacy organization in the United States, dedicated to defending civil liberties, exposing government repression, and protecting the right of political dissent. DRAD was formed as the merger of the Defending Dissent Foundation (DDF) and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC). DRAD is currently active in defending the right to protest, opposing political surveillance, and campaigning against the prosecution of national security whistleblowers.
