In part one of Ernesto B. Vigil Freedom of Information Act papers (WH2496), we looked at some of the early actions the FBI took to surveil the civil rights movement. In part two, we will look at how such actions would escalate and even some cross-border actions taken by J. Edgar Hoover.
In addition to its focus on anti-war activists, the FBI was sharing information on the National Lawyers Guild claiming that they included active members involved in espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. By August of 1969, they were also warning of potential violence regarding school integration, but appeared to put their focus on those opposed to a segregated school system.
“Racial-integration of schools in Denver is being pushed by minority representatives, including Black Panther Party, Crusade for Justice, and United Mexican-American Students.” Teletype to Director 8/27/69 - (WH2496 Box 1 Section 4)
It should be noted that a week prior to this assertion of potential violence, Director Hoover sent a letter to the Denver field office demanding that a closed case against Crusade for Justice be reopened due to Crusade’s “association with such notorious subversive organizations as the Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Panther Party.” (WH2496 Box 1 Section 4)
On February 5, 1970, in the wake of a court order requiring busing to end school segregation in Denver, a series of explosions destroyed 30 buses in the Denver Public Schools bus lot. The primary suspect loudly promoted by the police and media was Baltazar Martinez, but police eventually declined to charge Martinez. A 1970 FBI report also stated that the fact that Martinez had no injuries on his hands indicated that he could not have been responsible for the bombings. One year later, a memorandum stated,
“Bureau has instructed intensive efforts be made to develop further informant coverage of the Crusade for Justice.” (WH2496 Box 1 Volume 8)
In 1971, the FBI created a new “administrative index” that included various types of threats. This included the agitator index, reserve index, and security index. This system would be in place until 1978. A memo from 1972 (the year FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was replaced by Clyde Tolson) makes mention of Gonzales being ADEX, Category 1.
On March 17, 1973, an urgent teletype was sent to the acting FBI director including in the subject, “Attacks on Police - Extremist Matter.” A Denver police car had arrived at 1545 Downing Street to respond to a reported disturbance. According to the teletype, they were met with gunfire, one officer was injured, and the civilian shooter (Luis Martinez) was dead. An updated report to the director three days later states that arrests were made, but that it was a completely spontaneous attack and not “the result of any urban guerilla warfare activity.” The bureau likewise found that the series of explosions following the event may have been retaliatory, but they were likely not coordinated. That said, an FBI informant went along with a group of Crusade members to San Cristobal, New Mexico for the burial of Martinez.
A January 23, 1976 filing shows that numerous homes of Crusade for Justice activists were being surveilled, including Ernesto Vigil. Late that year, the FBI files contain a slew of newspaper clippings from the Crusade paper and the Socialist Workers Party papers detailing a feud between several groups, including the Young Socialist Alliance and the Metropolitan State College Chicano Group (MEChA). Vigil and another unknown member of Crusade were accused of beating up two members of the SWP after the latter said they were attempting to ask Corky to end the violent rhetoric against other activist groups. Oddly, we were unable to find any evidence of this feud in mainstream newspapers and the FBI files obtained by Vigil included no comments or informant documentation of what actually happened.
In 1977, the local FBI office appears to have put a great deal of effort into surveilling Albert Conrad Mares who the Bureau suspected of committing several bombings of businesses in Chicago before moving back to Denver and going to work at Crusade’s Tlatelolco School. He had been convicted of a bank robbery in 1966 and the FBI came to suspect him of a similar robbery of a savings and loan in 1977. They claimed to have incriminating fingerprints from the scene of the crime. He was arrested in 1977 and let out on bail before missing his 1978 trial date and going on the lam. It was not until 1981 that another bank robber was caught for and confessed to the crime for which Mares had been accused. No more recent materials were found beyond this 1981 entry. Soon after, investigations would come to a close with Crusade for Justice being dissolved in 1983.
While most of the Vigil files deal with civil rights activism within Colorado, some others shed light on more national and even international interests to the bureau. Among the earliest documents is a memo from January 18, 1961, that indicates that the El Paso FBI office, as well as the Foreign Liaison Section, was very interested in communist groups within Mexico, including one in Juarez that contained a total of 15 members. FBI agents suggest, in classic Cold War terms, that the communists were infiltrating Mexican labor unions. They even suggest the possibility of bringing internal strife to these groups through counterintelligence operations.
An October 25, 1968 memo between the San Diego Field Office and Director Hoover, states that there was an active counterintelligence operation involving a “penetrative informant” within the Mexican Communist Party distributing handbills produced by the FBI. A sample handbill, written by the Bureau, is included in the files and denounces a Mexican doctor, Julio Prado Valdez, as a fake communist who does not care for the people. A May 1971 memo states that the San Diego Field Office even had an interest in taking part in counterintelligence actions should the Mexican Communist Party attempt to participate in the Baja California elections. It appears Hoover was trying to shape elections beyond US borders.
The FBI also had informants working inside the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (the same organization Lee Harvey Oswald was handing out fliers for in New Orleans) along with the Socialist Workers Party. The SWP had been labeled a subversive group under Eisenhower’s new Executive Order 10450, which expanded “subversives” banned from government employment, including the LGBTQ community. We now know of J. Edgar Hoover’s attempts to pressure Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide and even his attempts to blackmail President John F. Kennedy, but we are continuing to learn more about how this agency left a mark upon the civil rights movement within our own state. The files reviewed here are open to any member of the public with an interest in this subject.
Further Reading:
Ernesto B. Vigil Freedom of Information Act papers (WH2496)
The crusade for justice : Chicano militancy and the government's war on dissent / Ernesto B. Vigil
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