>At the risk of offending the moderator, I'm gonna ask a question
>(just one on this topic, Doug!). What's the average rate of
>infiltration by the FBI & the like of left-of-center outfits in the
>20th century? If none of you have an answer to the question, no
>problem. I'm just curious.
That's not offensive, that's an interesting question.
Doug
I'd think that the FBI and all the Red Squads in police depts. tried to get as many as possible of their agents squirrelled away *heh, "boring from within"* inside the CPUSA, SDS and hundreds of other left orgs, and "turning" disillussioned members like Jack Childs of the CPUSA. One figure I've heard repeatedly over the yrs. was that by the '56 crisis inside the CPUSA, a third of their members were FBI snitches. (This phenomenon, natch, had a Hollywood presentation as well, in the book made into a movie, "I Was A Communist For The FBI, " in the 50's. http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/commie-for-fbi.html http://www.pir.org/cgi-bin/nbonlin6.cgi?CVETIC_MATT_ Kewl Social Network Diagram, Enable Java http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0271020539/atriumA/107-0022516-735571 9 )
Some sources: Recently reissued, "Political Repression in Modern America, " by Robert Goldstein, Univ. of Texas Press, I think. Frank Donner book on Red Squads from Univ. of Ca. Press. Isaac Balbus book on the Panthers from the early 70's. Can't recommend the John Barron book on Jack Childs. Theodore Draper rubbished it in the NYRB. "Bringing Down America, " by an infiltrator into the Weather Underground, Larry Grathwoh, from a right-wing publisher, Arlington House. http://users.skynet.be/terrorism/html/usa_weather.htm (I should look in the index of the new Bill Ayers autobiography to see what he says about this book. In my long ago perusal looked trashy, like the book by Ellen Frankfort, "Kathy Boudin and The Dance of Death.") Michael Pugliese