FBI Involvement in the Civil Rights Movement
During the Civil Rights Movement the FBI and Director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover took a special interest in the actions of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, The FBI during these times believed that King was being aided by communists and that he was very dangerous to the country, so in order to find out more information they placed secret recorders and wire taps in all personal phones, and all throughout King's life. Robert Kennedy, who was working as Attorney General at the time, allowed for FBI director Hoover to do this as long as they did not get caught and understood the "delicacy of this particular matter". He also wanted to be personally informed over any important information regarding the matter. Through these FBI documents regarding the tapping and what was heard, it is shown that the FBI attempted to derail almost all of King's civil right's attempts. Along with listening to almost every conversation Dr. King had, the FBI also sent very demeaning letters to him anonymously in an attempt to get him to kill himself to end his quest for racial equality. All throughout the civil rights movement the FBI attempted to gain evidence of communism involving Dr. King, but they did not find anything that resembled the slightest inkling of King even toeing the line of the political party.
FBI Involvement in the Cold War
Fresh off of World War II the FBI was given the task of locating and detaining Soviet spies in the country that had been placed there during the time while we were "allies". The Soviets had used the time we spent as allies to sneak spies into sensitive positions in our government. By doing this the Soviets tried to undermine some of our policies regarding foreign affairs as well as influence what our intelligence policies were to be. In order to locate the spies present in our country a project involving the Army Signal Corps, later code named Venona, was created to acquire intel about where these spies were located and who they worked for. This project lasted from 1943 until 1980 and led to the discovery and arrests of over 350 persons connected with Soviet intelligence. Along with this the FBI continued their usual work in domestic crimes, but the work that the FBI did to round up foreign spies proved crucial to protecting our nation as a whole.