Stuff You Missed in History Class · iHeartPodcasts

SYMHC Classics: COINTELPRO 2

February 21, 2026·41 min·3 clips

J. Edgar Hoover's memo targeted Martin Luther King Jr. as a potential 'Messiah' who needed to be neutralized by the FBI.

It's COINTELPRO. The excerpt comes at the end, as the host pulls the pieces back to the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI and the public record that followed. The tone stays brief and steady. Several members of the commission, we are told, came forward in 2014, which moves the ending out of secrecy and into later public accounts of the story. Some uncertainty remains. The host notes speculation about why law enforcement may have decided it had little chance after two citizens had already been tried and acquitted in another matter. That caveat earns its place. The episode does not pretend the archive is clean or complete. It closes by naming the sources that helped bring this corner of FBI history back into view. Betty Medsger is central. Her book, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI, is given as one account of the Citizens Commission's story. So is her reporting. The host also ties Medsger to a front-page Washington Post story mentioned earlier, so the paper trail does not vanish. Then another source appears. The 2014 documentary 1971 is named as another way into the same story, while the host admits to having watched it rather than read the book. Small detail, but it matters. It sounds like the show being honest about its footing: name the source, say what was used, and avoid pretending to know more than it does. The ending does not puff itself up. It admits COINTELPRO is a lot, then lets the surveillance, secrecy, and late disclosure hang there. The ads around it are noise. The useful part is the closing map of sources, names, and loose ends. If the episode makes you want the documents behind the story, it points you toward Medsger, the Washington Post, and 1971.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Stuff You Missed in History Class