Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI 15 COINTELPRO Hovers ONE OMINOUS “message in a bottle” from the Media burglars remained a secret—COINTELPRO. Despite having demonstrated inside the bureau in September 1971 that he was still a master at subterfuge, it was not possible for the director and his top aides to rest easy that fall. They were determined to stay the course, but they also feared daily that the worst was yet to come. What if someone was able to figure out what COINTELPRO was? COINTELPRO hovered over the FBI. The possible exposure of the program was regarded inside the bureau as the most dangerous bureau operation that could be exposed. It was assumed by bureau officials that the public’s reaction to it would be much more explosive than the reaction to the Security Index had been. As threatening as the Security Index was, people inside the FBI realized that if COINTELPRO became known, people would realize that the bureau conducted operations far more controversial and damaging to Americans’ rights than creating lists of alleged subversives to be arrested during a national emergency.
