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In 1971, #MuhammadAli Helped Undermine the #FBI’s Illegal Spying on #US People - The Intercept #Hero #History #surveillance
June 6 2016, 8:15 p.m.
SINCE HIS DEATH a few days ago, countless tributes to Muhammad Ali have brought to life the memories of his extraordinary accomplishments inside and outside boxing. But one thing has gotten little attention: Ali provided cover for a burglary that changed history.
It was March 8, 1971, the night of Ali’s first fight with Joe Frazier, and the noise from that epic battle provided cover for the break-in of an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania. The burglary, by eight activists who stole every file in the office, revealed the illegal spying operations that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had organized against a broad swathe of Americans, including Martin Luther King, Jr. The revelations led to congressional investigations and major reforms of all intelligence agencies.
In the annals of break-ins, this may be the only time the perpetrators purposely chose the night of a boxing match. During their planning, one of the Media burglars remembered that a boxing match that was predicted to be – as it was – the fight of the century would take place March 8 at Madison Square Garden. The burglars thought the buzz of radios and televisions tuned to the fight might serve as a distraction from noises they would make while breaking into the FBI office in Media, a small town near Philadelphia. They also thought that every police officer in the area, not to mention FBI agents, might be totally absorbed in the fight that night.
They were right. Days later, when FBI agents interviewed people who lived on the floors above the office, some said they heard nothing because they were listening to the fight. The distraction of the fight helped the burglars, who called themselves the Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI, walk away with more than 1,000 documents, including one that revealed the FBI’s secret COINTELPRO operations. These operations involved a panoply of dirty tricks that ranged from planting disinformation about antiwar activists, to planning the murder of a member of the Black Panthers, and sending innocent people to prison on the basis of false testimony by agents and informers.
It almost didn’t happen this way. The burglars — who were never caught and did not break their silence until 2014, for a book I wrote and for a documentary by Johanna Hamilton — thought the fight would start at about eight o’clock, so they planned to start at about that time. Actually, the fight didn’t start until 10:40 p.m. B
