Nixon's War at Home: The FBI, Leftist Guerrillas, and the Origins of Counterterrorism (Justice, Power, and Politics)

During the presidency of Richard Nixon, homegrown leftist guerrilla groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army carried out hundreds of attacks in the United States. The FBI had a long history of infiltrating activist groups, but this type of clandestine action posed a unique challenge. Drawing on thousands of pages of declassified FBI documents, Daniel S. Chard shows how America's war with domestic guerrillas prompted a host of new policing measures as the FBI revived illegal spy techniques previously used against communists in the name of fighting terrorism. These efforts did little to stop the guerrillas—instead, they led to a bureaucratic struggle between the Nixon administration and the FBI that fueled the Watergate Scandal and brought down Nixon. Yet despite their internal conflicts, FBI and White House officials developed preemptive surveillance practices that would inform U.S. counterterrorism strategies into the twenty-first century, entrenching mass surveillance as a cornerstone of the national security state. Connecting the dots between political violence and "law and order" politics, Chard reveals how American counterterrorism emerged in the 1970s from violent conflicts over racism, imperialism, and policing that remain unresolved today. "Drawing on thousands of pages of declassified FBI documents, Nixon's War at Home shows how America's guerrilla war prompted the FBI to institute a host of new policing measures while reviving illegal spy techniques previously used against communists in the name of fighting terrorism. These efforts did little to stop the guerrillas - instead, they led to a bureaucratic struggle between the Nixon administration and the FBI that fueled the Watergate Scandal and brought down Nixon. Yet despite their internal conflicts, FBI and White House officials developed preemptive surveillance practices that would inform U.S. counterterrorism strategies into the twenty-first century, entrenching mass surveillance as a cornerstone of the national security state"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Half title page 2 Justice, Power, and Politics series page 3 TItle page 4 Copyright page 5 Dedication 6 Epigraph 7 Contents 8 Illustrations 10 Introduction. The Making of American Counterterrorism 12 1. Nixon, Hoover, and America’s Homegrown Insurgency 26 2. Off the Pigs! 47 3. Covert Operations and Clandestine Radicals 88 4. The Huston Plan 110 5. Improvising Counterterrorism 131 6. The War at Home and the FBI’s Public Image 153 7. Police Killing 173 8. Deep Throat’s Secret Wars 195 9. Arab Scare 222 10. Implosion 240 Epilogue. The Politics of Counterterrorism 271 Acknowledgments 280 Notes 284 Bibliography 348 Index 368 A 368 B 368 C 370 D 372 E 372 F 372 G 374 H 374 I 376 J 376 K 377 L 377 M 378 N 379 O 380 P 380 R 381 S 381 T 383 U 383 V 383 W 384 Y 385 Z 385 Drawing on thousands of pages of declassified FBI documents, Daniel Chard shows how America's war with domestic guerillas during the Nixon presidency prompted a host of new policing measures as the FBI revived illegal spy techniques previously used against communists in the name of fighting terrorism.