That time the FBI created a phony underground newspaper

Remember you will be faced with joining society upon completion of your academic training. Don’t do anything in haste today which could cause you embarrassment tomorrow.

— Warning to students in the Rational Observer, issue 2, December, 1969

In 1968, the Washington DC FBI field office was freaking out.

“Our nation is undergoing an era of disruption and violence caused by various individuals generally connected with the New Left,” stated an FBI memo dated May 9, 1968 to Domestic Intelligence director William C. Sullivan from his deputy Charles D. Brennan, proposing the “COINTELPRO: Disruption of the new left” program. “The New Left has on many occasions viciously and scurrilously attacked the Director and the Bureau in an attempt to hamper our investigation of it and to drive us off the college campuses.”

“The purpose of this program is to expose, disrupt and otherwise neutralize the activities of this group and persons connected with it. It is hoped that with this new program their violent and illegal activities may be reduced if not curtailed.”

***

First introduced in 1956 against the communist party, COINTELPRO’s operations utilized antagonistic strategies to “contain and disrupt” radical activists they perceived as…