



Nixon's War at Home
The FBI, Leftist Guerrillas, and the Origins of Counterterrorism
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- $27.99
Publisher Description
During the presidency of Richard Nixon, homegrown leftist guerrilla groups like the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army carried out hundreds of attacks in the United States. The FBI had a long history of infiltrating activist groups, but this type of clandestine action posed a unique challenge. Drawing on thousands of pages of declassified FBI documents, Daniel S. Chard shows how America's war with domestic guerrillas prompted a host of new policing measures as the FBI revived illegal spy techniques previously used against communists in the name of fighting terrorism. These efforts did little to stop the guerrillas—instead, they led to a bureaucratic struggle between the Nixon administration and the FBI that fueled the Watergate Scandal and brought down Nixon. Yet despite their internal conflicts, FBI and White House officials developed preemptive surveillance practices that would inform U.S. counterterrorism strategies into the twenty-first century, entrenching mass surveillance as a cornerstone of the national security state.
Connecting the dots between political violence and "law and order" politics, Chard reveals how American counterterrorism emerged in the 1970s from violent conflicts over racism, imperialism, and policing that remain unresolved today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Chard debuts with an immersive and eye-opening account of how the Nixon administration's fight against the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army, and other insurgent groups gave rise to counterterrorism tactics and philosophies of "punitive policing" that reshaped American politics. Chard excels at taking an isolated incident, such as the 1970 takeover of a Marin County, Calif., courtroom by "Black radical prisoners," and exploring how its ripple effects resulted in the implementation of "extralegal" and morally dubious investigative practices, including warrantless wiretaps and the mailing of "anonymous, inflammatory materials intended to sow distrust and discord within organizations." Chard also tracks how increasing pressure exerted by the "celebrity status" of these leftist guerilla organizations led to tensions between the White House and the FBI, and contributed to FBI associate director Mark Felt's decision to leak information about the Watergate break-in to the press. Making excellent use of declassified FBI documents, Nixon's White House tapes, and other sources, Chard shines a light on this turbulent era, though the links he draws to the "war on terror," mass incarceration, and other contemporary issues are somewhat undeveloped. Still, this is an incisive and well-informed survey of the political struggles of the 1960s and '70s.