Truth ｜ ＂Who is the biggest disseminator of false information？ It is the US government. ＂

Martin Luther King, one of the victims of the "Anti-Spy Program" (Source: BBC)

　　Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the United States has repeatedly smeared and framed China, and even claimed that "China assisted Russia in spreading false information". It’ s not surprising that it’ s like this. It is no longer news for the United States to spread false information to attack other countries, from "incubator" to "white helmet", from robin plan to "washing powder" incident … … Even for its own citizens, the U.S. government is not soft-handed, and it has done a lot of smearing and slandering. The cointelpro (or Counter Intelligence Program) is one of them.

　　The "Anti-Spy Program" is a series of secret and illegal activities carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the 1950s and 1970s. It is called Anti-Spy, but in fact it is aimed at black civil rights groups, Indian civil rights groups, feminist groups, anti-Vietnam War organizations, communist party and other political groups regarded as "radical" by the FBI, and it uses various means to destroy them.

　　How does the FBI manipulate the "false information"? Taking black civil rights groups as an example, an FBI document shows that one of the purposes of the "anti-espionage plan" is to disclose, disturb, mislead, vilify or otherwise offset the influence of black nationalist activities. Among them, what they did to the black civil rights group "Black Panther Party" was the most representative. According to the book COINTELPRO Document: Materials for the FBI’s Secret War against Domestic Dissidents, the FBI believed at that time that the Black Panthers Party was most likely to be the catalyst for the American black liberation movement. According to the American Public Television Network (PBS), the Black Panther Party suffered the most in the "anti-spy plan". Of the 295 recorded actions taken by the "Anti-Spy Program" to disrupt black groups, 233 were aimed at the Black Panther Party.

　　In order to smear, the FBI used a trick called "informer jacket", that is, spreading false information, claiming that a member was an informant of the FBI. This will not only damage this person’s reputation, but may even threaten his personal safety. According to a Senate report, in San Diego, the police arrested four members of the Black Panther Party and a leader. Later, four members were released first and the leader was still detained. With the authorization of the FBI, rumors spread that the leader was a government informant, claiming that the leader was not released because he was cooperating with the police and would continue to provide information. The "Whistleblower Jacket" was also applied to Huey Newton, one of the founders of the Black Panther Party. In his doctoral thesis, he revealed that when he was released from prison, the FBI forged three letters in one week. In one of the letters sent to the new york office of the Black Panther Party, the FBI pretended to be Newton’s cellmate, claiming that Newton seemed to be cooperating with the authorities, that he enjoyed preferential treatment in prison, and that there were many "suspicious" private meetings, and advised other members of the Black Panther Party not to communicate with Newton.

　　In addition to the "whistleblower jacket", other smearing methods are also full of tricks. For example, spreading false news to create contradictions within the party, the FBI authorized forging the signatures of members of the Black Panther Party and sent a letter to the leaders of the Black Panther Party, accusing Newton of wasting party funds to buy luxury apartments. When the FBI arrested another Black Panther leader, angela davis, they forged several handwritten letters again, trying to prove that Newton was behind the scenes. In addition, the FBI’s false information attack also targeted the public welfare activities carried out by the Black Panther Party. For example, the Black Panther Party once launched a project to provide free breakfast for children in black communities. In order to undermine this project, the FBI secretly obtained a political propaganda cartoon that was rejected by the Black Panther Party, in which the police were portrayed as pigs. The FBI added the title of advocating violence to this cartoon, and issued thousands of copies in the name of the Black Panther Party, especially to those businesses that supported the breakfast project, rendering the violent image of the Black Panther Party, which led many suspicious businesses to withdraw from the project. According to the British "Guardian" report, the FBI issued a batch of children’s books under the guise of the Black Panther Party. The content was that blacks killed whites in order to instill the cruelty of the Black Panther Party in children. The mainstream media in the United States has also become a battlefield for the FBI to attack the Black Panther Party. According to a Senate report, the FBI encourages mainstream media to report stories that are unfavorable to the Black Panther Party and restricts people who sympathize with the Black Panther Party from expressing their views. In 1970, the FBI sent instructions to nine foreign offices.Ask them to broadcast news programs that denigrate the Black Panther Party.

　　The attack on the Black Panthers is a typical example of the FBI obstructing the black civil rights movement, and the FBI also persecuted Martin Luther King. From December 1963 until his assassination in 1968, Martin Luther King was the target of the "counterintelligence plan". An agent testified: "There is no limit to the means. We used similar technology to deal with Soviet agents, and now we use the same method to deal with any target we are eyeing. We don’t treat it differently. " According to the National Public Radio, as Martin Luther King became more and more famous, the FBI’s activities to discredit him increased. According to the Guardian in 2019, an American historian claimed that Martin Luther King’s friend raped a woman in front of him, based on the note left by the FBI when it was listening to Martin Luther King, and he just watched, smiled and gave advice to this friend. Many scholars criticized the evidence used by the historian as "irresponsible". Washington post reported that this FBI record happened at a time when the FBI was conducting a false propaganda campaign for several years to undermine Martin Luther King’s status.And once encouraged him to commit suicide.

　　The "anti-spy plan" has been going on for a long time, and the end is quite dramatic. According to Washington post, in 1971, a group of people sneaked into the FBI building and stole a large number of documents, including the "counterintelligence plan". As these documents were sent to the media one after another, the truth finally came to light.

　　According to the Guardian, the U.S. government spent about $100 million on the anti-espionage program. Washington post quoted Carl Stern, a veteran journalist who investigated the "counterintelligence program", as saying that the surveillance and harassment of the FBI had ruined countless lives. Another reporter, Betty Metzger, said that many blacks were falsely accused of going to prison because of the FBI’s perjury.

　　Spending so much manpower and material resources has caused so many tragedies, and the American government’s campaign of false information has left an indelible reputation. The Biden administration recently announced the establishment of the "False Information Governance Committee", claiming to combat and refute false information about American homeland security. As soon as the news came out, it immediately attracted criticism. On May 4, local time, Senator rand paul, a Republican of the United States, bluntly said in front of Secretary of Homeland Security Mayokas at a congressional hearing: "Do you know who is the biggest disseminator of false information in the history of the world? The US government. "

　　(Text/What Memory)