David Cunningham. There's Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, and FBICounterintelligence .There's Something Happening Here: The New Left, The Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence byDavid CunninghamReview by: By Shawn LayThe American Historical Review, Vol. 111, No. 1 (February 2006), pp. 228-229Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/ahr.111.1.228 .

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ments of academic freedom and at the injuries done tomany careers and to the development of anthropologyin the phenomenon he has studied. After Ellen Schre-cker’s exposure of the weak behavior of the AmericanAssociation of University Professors during the Mc-Carthy period, it is no surprise to find that the AmericanAnthropological Association did not cover itself inglory either. Similarly unsurprising, if no less dispirit-ing, is the revelation that a number of prominent an-thropologists served as informers for the FBI or for theproliferating loyalty committees. Price also takes a potshot at modern-day anthropologists who lose them-selves in postmodernist posturings rather than engag-ing in activist causes, hinting that McCarthyism hadtaught them to seclude themselves in their studies.

But if Price provides depth and detail, he is not onefor nuance, and his story is largely one of collisions be-tween black hats and white hats. He does little to ex-plore the larger dynamics of McCarthyism, which heseems to regard as serving the interests of America’sbusiness class. This is not a view that has received muchsupport in other recent studies of McCarthyism, evenif several of them do stress its “top down” quality. Busi-nessmen are not the only elite, and many top business-men saw little to be said for the crude antics of the jun-ior Senator from Wisconsin. There are occasionalmistakes in the book, as when Price dates WinstonChurchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri,to March 1945. But he also coins a wonderful new term.Anthropologists who were publicly investigated, hesays, were so thoroughly “lanted” that their colleaguescarefully avoided them. Lant, it is explained, is staleurine once used in farming circles in the Sheffield areaof England to coat something to keep animals at bay.A graphic expression, but will it catch on?

M. J. HEALE

Lancaster University and Rothermere AmericanInstitute,Oxford

DAVID CUNNINGHAM. There’s Something HappeningHere: The New Left, The Klan, and FBI Counterintelli-gence. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali-fornia Press. 2004. Pp. xvi, 366. $27.50.

In the spring of 1971, after radical activists burglarizeda Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Penn-sylvania and released confidential information to themedia, the public learned that the FBI had for yearsemployed an extensive program of counterintelligence,COINTELPRO, against American citizens. Initially es-tablished to undermine the Communist Party USA(CPUSA), COINTELPRO later targeted groups as di-verse as the Socialist Worker’s Party, the Ku Klux Klan,Students for a Democratic Society, and the Black Pan-ther Party. In this provocative and thoughtful study, so-ciologist David Cunningham examines this notoriousepisode of state-sponsored political repression, makingextensive use of FBI memos and reports released underthe Freedom of Information Act.

Counterintelligence—actions such as the mailing ofanonymous letters, the use of undercover informants asagents provocateurs, the planting of evidence, and themanipulation of the news media to discredit targetedindividuals and groups—was used by the FBI prior tothe founding of COINTELPRO, most notably againstprocommunist and profascist organizations in the 1930sand 1940s. The rationale for counterintelligence wasthat these groups were linked to foreign governmentsand thus preemptive measures were needed to insurenational security. This justification was again profferedin 1956 when the FBI, with the full acquiescence of theEisenhower administration, organized COINTELPROto counter and neutralize CPUSA.

In 1964 COINTELPRO expanded in an unantici-pated direction. Following the brutal murder of civilrights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman,and James Chaney by members of the Ku Klux Klan inMississippi, liberal leaders demanded that the FBI—which had been consistently apathetic and even hostiletoward the civil rights movement—take forceful actionagainst white supremacists. Recognizing an opportu-nity to expand the FBI’s power and influence, DirectorJ. Edgar Hoover initiated COINTELPRO/White Hate,the bureau’s first formal effort to repress organizationsthat clearly had no links to foreign governments. Cun-ningham stresses that COINTELPRO/White Hate wasnot, as some critics of the FBI have asserted, a tokeneffort to appease liberals. Eventually the bureau hadthousands of informants reporting on Klan activities,and FBI headquarters continually pressed field officesto devise new ways to disrupt and discredit white hategroups. Based on his close examination of thousands ofpages of COINTELPRO/White Hate correspondence,the author concludes that the FBI’s main goal was notto eradicate the Klan and similar groups but only tobring an end to their violent activities. This, he argues,was because the FBI and white supremacists actuallyshared much “common cultural ground” (p. 156), es-pecially a general commitment to preserving the racialstatus quo.

The precedent of using counterintelligence againstpurely domestic groups like the Klan helped give rise in1967 and 1968 to COINTELPRO/Black Nationalist/Hate Groups, which focused on the ruthless suppres-sion of the Black Panther Party, and COINTELPRO/New Left, which targeted Students for a DemocraticSociety and other radical political organizations. Cun-ningham believes the anti-New Left effort was partic-ularly revealing of the FBI’s guiding values and prior-ities. Although the bureau routinely (and incorrectly)claimed that the New Left was connected to CPUSA,the author asserts that it was the New Left’s counter-cultural ideas, its increasingly popular challenge to tra-ditional American values and the legitimacy of estab-lished authorities, that was the chief source of concern.Overall, COINTELPRO/New Left proved ineffective,largely because the FBI failed to develop an adequatenetwork of informants and because New Left radicalsanticipated most counterintelligence efforts. Ironically,

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COINTELPRO/New Left’s main impact was that itprovided the New Left with a stronger sense of purposeand validation than probably would have been the caseif no counterintelligence action had been taken.

The bulk of Cunningham’s book is dedicated to acomparison of COINTELPRO/White Hate and COIN-TELPRO/New Left, with an emphasis on how the in-ternal bureaucratic dynamics of the FBI shaped effortsat political repression. Although COINTELPRO wasofficially ended in 1971, Cunningham details how thebureau continued to use counterintelligence measuresagainst dissident groups in the 1970s and 1980s, and hewarns that the current campaign against internationalterrorism may result in new high-tech versions ofCOINTELPRO. Ultimately, the book is a cautionarytale, one that significantly advances our understandingof the FBI and deserves the attention of all concernedcitizens.

SHAWN LAY

Coker College

JOSH SIDES. L. A. City Limits: African American Los An-geles from the Great Depression to the Present. (TheGeorge Gund Foundation Imprint in African AmericanStudies.) Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cal-ifornia Press. 2003. Pp. xiv, 288. $39.95.

In a provocative exploration of the black experience inLos Angeles from the Great Depression to the present,Josh Sides argues that, for African Americans, Los An-geles was both a destination and a dream. AfricanAmericans flocked to the city in search of escape fromthe bigotry and racism of the South. What they foundwas not the promised land. L.A. city limits, like thoseof the South, were geographical, political, and socio-economic.

Drawing on census data, local periodicals, and oralhistories, Sides assesses the motivations and expecta-tions of southern emigrants in light of the reality theyfound in Los Angeles. He notes that most came resent-ful of southern bigotry and brutality, “enticed by well-advertised job opportunities” in defense industries, and“cautiously optimistic about the potential for racialequality in America’s big cities” (p. 2). In the processof migration, they transformed the city and were trans-formed by living outside of the South.

Sides traces the evolution of the African-Americanexperience in Los Angeles from the 1930s to thepresent, with emphasis on the period from 1945 to 1964.He argues that the black experience in Los Angeles wasfar more representative of America’s urban historythan black experiences in northern and northeasterncities like Detroit. Because Los Angeles developmentwas shaped by at least three distinctive historical fea-tures—racial diversity, dynamic economic growth, anda dispersive spatial arrangement—it provides insightinto issues facing America’s cities today. For AfricanAmericans, these three characteristics have been botha blessing and a curse. They mitigated the harshest ef-

fects of segregation, but they also led to increased com-petition for entry level jobs and housing.

World War II was the watershed for African Amer-icans in Los Angeles as new and young migrants floodedthe city in search of opportunity. Federal prohibitionson discrimination in the workplace emboldened Afri-can Americans to challenge the status quo. In addition,their sheer numbers forced the city and county of LosAngeles to confront the racial divide. Positive changesfor blacks that grew out of this period included in-creased employment opportunities, a rise in home own-ership, and executive, judicial, and legislative assaultson segregation, all culminating in passage of the CivilRights Act of 1964. In 1964 the National Urban Leagueranked L.A. the most desirable city in America forblack people.

Despite these positive changes, legal desegregationdid not produce racial equality in Los Angeles, or inAmerica at large. Sides argues that previous historianshave not been able to address this issue adequately be-cause they have focused predominantly on cities likeDetroit, which do not represent the multiracial andmulticultural reality of urban America. Place, he says,plays a critical role in shaping postwar opportunities forblacks. Blacks clearly affected the evolution of L.A.through their choices and their use of public space.Their presence forced civic leaders to react in publicpolicy and political behavior. Blacks were importantshapers of urban destiny.

Sides concludes that racial analysis should set theagenda for American urban history. “Race is not simplya category of analysis that can be applied or removedfrom a map of the ‘real’ urban landscape like a thematicoverlay. Rather, it is a concept that has been integral tothe way American cities have developed and the wayurbanites of all backgrounds have made decisions” (p.8). His study of L.A. is no mere corrective to the over-reliance on rustbelt studies of the African American ur-ban experience. It is, instead, a look at the future, forL.A. is the model for twenty-first-century urban devel-opment.

One of the few areas to criticize this work can befound in the title and claim that this is a history of LosAngeles to the present. Indeed, a simple exploration ofthe table of contents indicates that the vast majority ofthe book focuses on the period from 1945 through the1960s. Only twenty-five pages are dedicated to prewarLos Angeles and twenty-one pages to the Great Migra-tion. A brief ten-page epilogue covers the period fromthe 1970s to the present. Despite this flaw, Sides makesa convincing argument that L.A. should be looked at asthe model for understanding race relations in the sec-ond half of the twentieth century.

LEE M. A. SIMPSON

California State University,Sacramento

ROBERT O. SELF. American Babylon: Race and the Strug-gle for Postwar Oakland. (Politics and Society in Twen-

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