They Huey P. Newton Reader

3481 The Hue. P. Newton Reader
trial, and :ubsequent employment by the administration of an eastern
university, raises serious questions. In any event, the use of snitch-jackets
by the bureau was widespread. The Senate Select Committee
reports several instances of this technique without any apparent follow-up
as to the consequences to the persons wrongly jacketed. Among
the instances cited was one in San Diego where a Black Panther leader
was arrested by the local police with four other members of the EPP.
The others were released, but the leader remained in custody. Headquarters
authorized the field office to circulate the rumor that the leader
"is the last to be released" because "he is cooperating with and has made
a deal with the Los Angeles Police Department to furnish them information
concerning the BPP." The target of the first proposal then
received an anonymous phone call stating that his own arrest was
caused by a rival leader.
Leaders of the BPP were frequently targeted as snitches or sell-outs
by the FBI in an effort to discredit or bring harm to them, especially
Huey Newton. Upon Newton's release from prison in 1970, for
instance, after a court of appeal reversed his conviction for manslaughter
in the alleged shooting of an Oakland policeman, a memorandum
from the FBI director instructed FBI field offices across the country
to formulate COINTELPRO actions directed against Newton. FBI
headquarters would direct the campaign; its contours were defined as
follows :
To demythicise [sic] Newton, to hold him up to ridicule, and to
tarnish his image among BPP members can serve to weaken BPP
solidarity and disrupt its revolutionary and violent aims. [COIN­
TELPRO actions] should have the 3-pronged effect of creating divisiveness
among BPP members concerning Newton, treat him in a
flippant and irreverent manner, and insinuate that he has been cooperating
with police to gain his release from prison.
Within a week, the New York FBI field office had drawn up three
phony letters, which attempted to discredit Newton. One message, to
be mailed to the New York office of the Black Panther Party by the
San Francisco FBI field office, read as follows: