Stuff You Missed in History Class · iHeartPodcasts
SYMHC Classics: COINTELPRO 1
February 14, 2026·39 min·3 clips
The FBI sent Martin Luther King Jr. a letter urging him to kill himself before accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.
As heard by us
A clear primer on how anti-communist fear helped turn FBI counterintelligence into formal disruption campaigns.
COINTELPRO 1 follows the FBI's counterintelligence work as it hardened into a formal program of surveillance and disruption. The episode's sharpest thread is institutional: scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee reduced that committee's public activity, but the…
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