C.I.A. REPORTEDLY RECRUITED BLACKS FOR SURVEILLANCE OF PANTHER PARTY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002000090042-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 42
• Publication Date: March 17, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2004/10/12: CIA-RDP81 M00980R002
THE NEW YORK TIMES
17 March 1978
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE-1"16
CIAReportedly Recri ti ted Blacks
"For 'Surveillance of Panther Party;
The Centrals Intelligence Agency re-'quently"recommended that the C I.A. be
cruited American blacks in the late 1960'x; directed not to perform "what are essen-
__ i ti.ally internal security tasks," in the
the Black Panther Party both, in,the Unit-
ed States and in Africa, according to for-
mer high-level officials of the agency who-
The Senate intelligence committee,
which -will. soon begin public hearings
into the ,proposed new charter for the
intelligence community? has recommend-
ed that the C.I.A. be compelled to obtain,
Details of these clandestine activities
.were considered among, the agency's
most sensitive and. closely. held.?informa-
tion, the sources said,. partly: because of
fears that disclosures about the program
ism in the intelligence agency.?'
Only ,iii the most :oblique references
,did-any. of. the. inquiries; in.-. recent, years
into C.I.A.- activities. ever ,uncover -the
.program of black spying.
At least some specific information
about the C.I.A.'s~ spying was provided
to the 1975 Rockefeller Commission-an
later to the Senate intelligence committee
in their inquiries into illegal C.I.A. activi-
ties, but those investigating groups;..did
not include_xany specific mention -pfthe
in thersubsequent..public reports.'
The -activities of the black agents
ranged .from .the. following and photo-
gr.- plying of suspected Black . Panther
,Party members: in'the United. States to
the infiltration.of-Panther groups in,Afri-
ca. One.?agent-managed to ? gain access
to the -personal' overseas. living quarters
of Eldridge Cleaver, the Panther leader
who :set, up.. a headquarters in. Algeria
'in itsfinalreporf,the?Rockefellbr Com-
mission,' a panel appointerl?:by:-President
,Ford-, to -,investigate , charges;. of C.I.A.
abuses.. concluded. that . the ggency's
n
-
spying i
this country exceeded; its au
thority. - The overseas efforts" to link the
Black Panther operations-to'foreign influ-t
ence theoretically' was, proper,.. the corn-i
misson said, although'- much' of- the mate-
rial in the C.I.A.'s files "was not directly
'related to the question' of the existence
of foreign connections:".'
The Rockefeller . Commission
taps or surveillance of American citizens
C.I.A. officials have said repeatedly that
the. goal of the agency's domestic spying
war activists and black extremists were,
being financed and directed by Commu-
nist governments. Agency officials have
declined. to discuss the programs further:
One longtime C.I.A. operative with di-
rect knowledge of the Spying said, how-
ever, that there was an additional - goal
in the case of the Black Panthers living
abroad: to "neutralize" them; "to try and
get?them.in trouble with local authorities?
ties could not be determined. r -
In his memoirs, "Honorable Men: My
Life in the. CIA," some of whose details
were published Tuesday in The New York
Times, William E. Colby; former Director
,of Central Intelligence, acknowledges
that he was unable to learn all there
was to know about the. C.I.A.'s domestic
spying operations..
One man whohad first-hand-knowledge
of the operation said, "If they-had gotten
exposed, then it would have .been the
C.I.A. versus the Black Panthers and all
black Americans-they've had -a lot of
.Americans against them. The -agency
would have been ;exposed, opens to ate
'.`I found it impossible to do much about
,righting whatever was wrong" with the
domestic'spying programs. "Its superse.
In his memoir, 'Mr. ;Colby did. not men
tion the spying by blacks -on. the, Black
Panther Party.
in interviews over the last.two months,
feller commission and the Senate commit-
tee were asked why their final reports
Approved For Rele; ~ u hn~s~Aar hf. i VINO
Some former high-level-officials of the
C.I:A. acknowledged that black Ameri-.I
cans had been used in Africa and else-1
where to spy on the Black Panthers. Full I
details of those activities, they said. were!
not disclosed to the Senate committee
or the Rockefeller Commission.
In interviews, -a few members of both
panels acknowledged that they had re-
' ceived some. information about - the
C.I.A.'s spying on blacks. Most staff
.-members, however, firmly denied that
there had been such spying.
"If that's the case, I'm 7astonished,"
.,one investigator for the Rockefeller Com-
mission said when' informed of the use
of American blacks, '.'If it were so,, it's
something I didn't know about and I'd
have to say I'd feel I'd been deceived."
A Senator who took a leading role in,
the committee's C.I.A. investigation alsol
.said he knew of the use of blacks domes
tically. But he said, "I think you're,:pretty
accurate in saying that we were not told
.of the use of American --blacks overseas,
-I never heard anything."
was directly involved in the Senate inves-
~~tigation said he was not surprised to
learn that some senior Senate officials
did not. know of the use of ? black agents.
'An Adversary proceeding
officiahsaid. - "We treated the Senate in-
;quiry. as att adversary proceeding. It was-
`n't a show' and tell program. lfad they
j'asked, we would have dug out the an,,
"There must, be a dozen comparable
.situations going on,y he said. "The fact
.is, no one asked?-' ?
to-understand that this was an adversary
proceeding," he said. "It was up to- the -
;committee to ask. They were "running
,the investigation."
"And that's why the-Hill' is such a
poor place to resolve these issues. The
?Senate intelligence committee was very
divided. its, chairman [Frank Church,
Democrat - of Idaho] was running ' for
President -and the minority and majority
staffs were divided and playing games."
IIG a~1ll
conducted at least two. major programs
involving the use ofAmerican blacks
when the Panthers, 'organized by young,
blacks in ..the mid '60s, ' were publicly
advocating reyglutionary change-,.:...._.?
CONTINUED
 Approved For Release 2004/10/12 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R002000090042-5
-"One program, run by the C.I.A. Officel
of Security, was operated in the Washing-
ton area ,and code-named Merrimac.
Internal C.I.A. documents supplied to
the Times show that black agents at-
tended rallies and other public occasions,
such as funerals, in hopes of identifying
members of the Black Panther Party.
The agents took photographs of sus-
pected party members and also filed nu-
inerous memorandums on automobiles ;
believed to belong to party members.
In its report, the Rockefeller Commis-
sion said that the program; which it said
had no more than 12 agents assigned
to it, had exceeded the C.I.A.'s -authority
by "photographing people, activities and
cars', and following people home." But
the report did not say that black agents
had been recruited for the mission.
Domestic Files. Destroyed
Similarly, a, commission. investigator
.acknowledged, the report did not mention
that between 150'and 200 C.I.A. domestic
files on black dissidents had be-en-de-
stroyed stroyed before the commission's inquiry.:
All of the files included photographs.
The destruction of the-files, which first
became known more than two years ago,
was not considered-.to be : a deliberate
attempt to destroy evidence, a commis-
sion official. said.
The C.I.A.' documents supplied` to the
Times also raise questions--about the
motivation for the agency's.' activities
against the Black: Panthers and other
black dissidents.
A Dec. 11, 1967, memorandum by How-
ard J. Osborne, diirector,of the Office of
Security, said that many.black dissidents,
among them Mr. Cleaver, had ? sought to
make the C.I.A. -a public `scapegoat"aid
were .claiming.that the: agency'liad-been
involved in, among other things,: the 1961
"assassination" of Patrice Lumumba, the
Congo leader.
;?=A subsequent report on-C.I.A. assassi-
'nation attempts filed by the Senate intel-
ligence - committee showed that-'Mr.
Lumumba had indeed been a repeated
target of C.Y.A. assassination efforts,
'which'may not have been-known to Mr.
Cited Series of Files
in another docun ent, 'dated Sept. 12,
1975-months after the -Rockefeller Comp
mission- issued its report--Mr. Osborne
noted that his office kept a series of files.
and memorandums "under the caption of
Alleged Illegal. Domestic -Activities.-' '
"The above memoranda. may or 'may
.not have been furnished in tot. to the
Rockefeller Commission,"' be said . -'? .
The second major C.I.A. spying.,, pro-
gram that.used black Americans was'cen-
tered.ip North and-',East Africa 'and "re-.
volved around a small,number of careful
.Iy recruited agents who were sent to AI
.geria, Kenya and Tanzania, among other
places, to keep close watch on American
black.radicals., ab~ ?'.., 2.k!
A key to the operation, a first-hand
source said, was Eldridge Cleaver's deci-
sion, after he was ordered to face charge
of parole violation, to leave the United
States in 1969 and move to Algeria. In
1970, the Black' Panther Party formally
opened an' international headquarters,
headed by Mr. Cleaver, in'Algiers.
Visits to Foreign Capitals
While in Africa, ivtr. Cleaver and his
colleagues- visited ? Peking; Hanoi and
Pyongyang,: North Korea, and visited with
Palestinian guerrilla leaders.
But despite years of intense spying.
the source said, the, agents overseas were
unable to develop any information linking
Mr, Cleaver and other American black
radicals to a foreign government.
As many as six American blacks were'
recruited as temporary contract employ-
ees by. the C.I.A. and sent under cover
to operate against the Black Panthers and
other.black dissidents visiting Africa, the
source said. One American emerged as
the-operator of a?small hotel in North
Africa that- catered' to ? black dissidents,
the source said, with the hotel's annual
deficit subsidized by the C.I.A. Another
posed as a poet and journalist who min-
gled with American radicals. -
"This was the kind of operation where
you just don't go out and recruit by the
shotgun approach," the source said. "If
you recruit 12 men, three of them- might
be insecure-they could, compromise the
operation and give it away."
One of the C.I.A. operatives later
boasted to . his colleagues, the Times's -
source said; that he had managed to
penetrate the Algerian headquarters 'of
Mr. Cleaver "and sat at. the table",.with
him.
All of the. C.I.A. men. involved were
aware that the operation, was, as a. for-
mer agency official said, "dicey" in terms
of the C.I.A's statutory prohibitiork
.against : conducting . internal security
investigations. . .
:"If an American happens to live in
Nairobi, the C.I.A. does not have a char-
ter to bug his home and to track him
down," said a .roan who-had first-hand
"knowledge of the operation. .'.'There's no
.charter giving it, the power to investigate
-Americans--even if they- live in Africa..
`It's supposed to turn over any informa-
tiori it ran across-to the F .B I
'The C.I.A:' set up'a special office, for
the black program in the 'basemantaof
its headquarters in McLean, Va., the
source : said, and the, operations were
linked either directly dr, indirectly-
with the agency's extensive.-CHAOS pro-
gram,, the six-year operation set up by
C.I.A. Director. RichardHelms to monitor
American dissidents in the,aUnited Statres.
An Agent's Transfer
Security was so extensive: that at one l
point the C.I.A. decided to. transfer a
black operative who was working in the:
agency's station in the United States Em-
bassy in Nairobi, Kenya. "There was too
much chance that the officer, in a small
office like the one in Kenya, would run
across the traffic dealing with the,
operations against the Black Panthers,"
the Times's source said: "If he found
out," the source added, "he'd have gone
crazy."
"We dummied up some excuse that ibe
was needed somewhere else and he got
transferred." -
A senior C.I.A., official said the
failure of the agency to reveal. the use
of American blacks -"doesn't bother me
at all."
"You wouldn't send a Chinese oiler
there to find out what happened, would
you?" he asked, rhetorically. -
A senior official of the Senate intelli-
genre committee acknowledged that ? he
and others did not know of the use Of
American blacks in the C.I.A.'s. overseas
spying program,
"But the essential point,!'-he added,
"is not whether we received information
about a specific program or not,', but did
we receive enough generic information
to be able to write permanent legislation
to guarantee the rights.of Americans atl
home and abroad."
In that regard, he said, the committee
r did successfully complete its work..
Approved For Release 2004/10/12 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R002000090042-5