Somos en escrito The Latino Literary Online Magazine
The FBI Surveillance of
César Estrada Chávez
of the United Farm Workers
Union of America, 1965–1975
By José Angel Gutiérrez
From the Preface to the Book, pages xvii-xxii
The surveillance of Cesar Chavez was just one of the many FBIactions of surveillance of activists and dissenters in the twentieth century. SincetheinceptionoftheBureauofInvestigationanditsprogeny,theFBI, presidents, and U.S. attorney generals have permitted and encouraged the agency to conduct surveillance on dissidents and suspected subversives. FromFranklinD.RoosevelttoTruman,Eisenhower,Johnson,Kennedy, andNixon,allreliedonHoovertoharassanddisruptanyanti-government groupanditsleadership.Nothingwasputintowritingauthorizingsuchillegalandunconstitutionalactivitybypresidentsorattorneygenerals. Allof theminvolvedoverthedecades,however,knewHooverwasknee-deepinto busting civil rights activists and not as preoccupied with apprehending criminals.7 WilliamC.Sullivan, atopFBIadministratorinchargeofdomesticintelligenceduringmanyyearswithHoover,writesinhistell-allbook:
As far as I am concerned, we might as well not engage in intelligence unless we also engage in counterintelligence. One is the right arm, the othertheleft. Theyworktogether. Actually,thesecounterintelligenceprogramswerenothingnew;Iremembersendingoutanonymouslettersand phonecallsbackin1941,andwe’dbeenusingmostofthesamedisruptive techniquessporadicallyfromfieldofficetofieldofficeaslongasI’vebeen anFBIman.In1956,underAssistantDirectorBelmont,fiveyearsbeforeI cameintotakeovertheDomesticIntelligenceDivision,thedecisionwas madetoincorporateallcounterintelligenceoperationsintooneprogram directedagainsttheCommunistParty. Imerelyredirectedtheuseofthose techniquestowardinvestigatingtheKlan.8
Admittedly,notasinglereportinthedeclassifiedChavezfileisspecificallymarkedinthesubjectheadingasaCOINTELPRO(counterintelligence program), leading some scholars to infer that Mexicans and their progeny ofMexicanancestry,Chicanos,wereneverunderFBIorgovernmentsurveillance. My files have various code names for identifying the material ranging from Internal Security–Spanish American to Communist Infiltration,orCOMINFIL,andNewLeft,certainlyallCOINTELPROs.Thecode “Mexican American Militancy” has been found in documents by others, indicatingalinktothehugeCOINTELPROoperationstheFBIhadgoingat the same time aimed at other Mexican American groups andleaders.9 The firstFBICOINTELPROoperationwasdirectedattheAmericanCommunist Party in 1956, and the second in August 1960 against the Puerto Ricans strivingforindependence.10 JoThomasoftheNewYorkTimeswroteabout thisFBIharassmentofPuertoRicansontheisland,inNewYork,NewJersey,andelsewhereinthecountry.11 ThefirstCOINTELPROoperationthat targetedMexicansandMexicanAmericansdiscoveredduringmyresearch onFBIsurveillancewastheBorderCoverageProgram,orBOCOVbyitscode name. This FBI program was aimed specifically at Mexican and Mexican American organizations along the U.S. Mexico border to prevent their associationandcollaborationonmutualinterests.12
ThemethodsandtacticsutilizedagainstChavezparallelthoseoutlined in three “smoking gun” memos issued to special agents in charge (SACs) acrossthecountrybytheFBIDirector.“Smokinggun”isaprosecutor’s term for having incontrovertible evidence to convict an accused personof the crime in question (e.g., the accused arrested with the gun still smoking from the firing of bullets into the victim). These memos were the first timetheDirectorwroteoutthespecificorderstohisagentsonthegoals and targets of the COINTELPRO for African Americans—namely, the Black Panthers and the youth of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The targets were coded “Black Nationalist–Hate Groups” under the rubric of “Internal Security”—just like the first reports filed on various Mexican American groups and persons, including Chavez. And as FBI Assistant Director William Sullivan writes, he just used the instructions for one counterintelligence operation on another—all the same. The firstHoover “smoking gun” memowas issued onAugust25,1967,then expanded and clarified with much specificity in memos of February 29 and March 4, 1968.13
These memos clearly state the purpose of the new Black Nationalist Hate COINTELPRO: “to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder.” These specific instructions were followed by the field offices, SAC, and other agents investigating Chavez, per the declassified FBI documents analyzed in subsequent chapters. The March 4th memo expanded the counterintelligence program designed to neutralize militant black nationalist groups from twenty-three to forty-one field offices to cover the great majority of black nationalist activity in this country. This memo has underscored this instruction: “personal attention for all the following sacs.” For clarification purposes the FBI Director listed under “Goals” the five specific activities his agents should undertake to neutralize the targets. In summaryfashion:
FormaximumeffectivenessoftheCounterintelligenceProgram,and topreventwastedeffort,long-rangegoalsarebeingset.1.Preventthe coalition of black militant nationalist groups2. Prevent the rise of a“messiah”whocouldunify,andelectrify,themilitantblacknationalist movement 3.Preventviolenceonthepartofblacknationalistgroups
...4.Preventmilitantblacknationalistgroupsandleadersfromgaining respectability, by discrediting them in three separate segments ofthecommunity...theresponsibleNegrocommunity...thewhite community . . . to “liberals” who have vestiges of sympathy for militant blacknationalist[sic]simplybecausetheyareNegroes...5.Afinalgoal should be to prevent the long-range growth of militant, black nationalist organizations, especially among the youth” [capitalization in the originalmemo].14
I ask the reader to substitute the words “Chavez and UFW” for black nationalist, and “Chicano” or “Mexican” for Negro in the text of these COINTELPROmemos.ItisverydoubtfulthatanySAC,fieldagent,and FBI informant, particularly in the Southwest and major urban centers with large concentrations of people of Mexican ancestry, would make the distinction that the goals and specific instructions for each goal were to beappliedonlytoblacknationalistsandorganizationsandnottoChicano militantsandtheirorganizationsintheirfieldofficecities, suchasChicago, Denver,LosAngeles,SanAntonio,andAlbuquerque.AssistantDirector Sullivan of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division did not, and had not done so since 1941 by his own admission. Counterintelligence was part andparcelofintelligence/surveillance.Moreover,acursoryreadingofthe ChavezfiledocumentsrevealstheusebylocalpoliceandtheFBIofthevery tacticslistedandemphasizedintheCOINTELPROmemos.Inthe1960sall dissentinggroups—black,white,brown,yellow—wereviewedbytheFBIas constitutingtheNewLeft,thetargetofanotherCOINTELPRO.
The Declassified FBI File |
César Chávez in Delano, California, ca 1966 Photo by Armando Rendón |
WhatbecomesabundantlyclearinChávez’sFBIfileisthatafterHoover’s men wrapped-up their spying, bound up their foot-thickdossier, cross-referenced and indexed their material, and analyzed hundreds of reports,theycameupempty.TheyfoundnothinginChávez.Nocommunist leanings stained his reputation. No ugly incidents detracted from his reputation. No misappropriation of funds marred his union administration. No extramarital affairs undermined his reputation as a family man. Nosubversiveactivitiescastsuspiciononthemovementhechampioned. Inallofhisactions,andinallofhisassociations,Chávezneverdisplayed evenoneiotaofdisloyalty.AllthattheFBIwasabletoshowthroughits spying was a man with a single-minded devotion to farm workers and ever-presentvigilanceagainstthosewhowouldharmhiscausewiththeir self-servingideologyandpettypolitics.17
Street,likemanyofthesecondarysourcespublishedpriorto1996,was effusiveinpraiseofCesarandignoredtheFBIfiles.PerhapsifStreetwere to rewrite his conclusions now after the spate of critical books onChavez, make a closer examination of the content in the files, and review books availableonthedarksideoftheU.S.government’sabuse,repression,and illegal activity, he might retract his words. For example, Mike Yates, in a reviewofacriticalbookonChavez,writes,“MostaccountsofUFWhistory speculate that something happened to Chavez after the lost initiative, and hesomehowwentoffthedeepend.Certainly,bizarreanduglythingsbegan tohappen.”18
Indeed, if Chavez did go over the deep end after the defeat of Proposition 22 in California in 1974, were the “bizarre and ugly things” early manifestations of emotional and mental instability? Chavez had won and lost other electoral battles before; why was this one so life-changing? What other factors or events may have caused him to change his character and behavior? The declassified FBI files may offer new clues. The FBI files released to the public account for nearly a decade of monitoring Chavez and his union activities. These declassified FBI files on Chavez consist of seven parts arranged into seventeen packets beginning with a document dated October 8, 1965. They end with a document dated August 1, 1975. The notes on my methodology and research are in appendix1.
The surveillance of Chavez continued well past 1975 until his death in
1993. I have other FBI files on Chavez that are not posted on The Vault, the FBI website, including some dated December 2, 1977, and February 4, 1982 (seeappendices 2B and C).Obviously,the FBIfiles released to the public are what the FBI wanted made public regarding 1965 to 1975; but by no means aretheytheentiresetofFBIfilesonChavezortheunion.
Regardless of the surveillance time frame, does not the sustained and ubiquitouspresenceofpoliceagents—local,state,federal—andtheirinformants take a toll on the subject under surveillance? How about those around the subject? Is paranoia due to the surveillance a normal state of mentalaffairsforthetarget,family,andcorestaff?IfChavezwasnotfound to be a criminal by the FBI, as Street concludes, perhaps the surveillance was not intended for that purpose. Could it have been for strictly political purposes?ThiswouldbeanillegalactivityonthepartoftheFBI,wouldit not? Would not ignoring, derailing, suspending, ending, and notauthorizinginvestigationsbytheFBI, andtheU.S. Attorney’sfailuretoprosecutenot be obstruction ofjustice?
This book is about the government surveillance by the FBI of César Estrada Chávez, a migrant farm worker who founded the first successful laborunionforseasonalagriculturalworkersintheUnitedStates. Thefundamentalquestioniswhythesurveillance?IfChavezwassimplytryingto formalaborunion, howwasthatsubversiveorathreattonationalsecurity? And,ifanswerscanbefoundtothatfundamentalquestioninthefiles,then whydidtheU.S.governmentandtheFBIthwartthatgoalanddestroythe Chavezpersona?Thefileswillrevealsomeanswers.
José Angel Gutiérrez is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Texas at Arlington, where he founded the Center for Mexican American
![]()
Studies. He maintains a law practice and is the President of the Greater Dallas Legal and Community Development Foundation. The Eagle Has Eyes, from the “Latinos in the United States Series” by Michigan State University Press, is for sale through bookstores and at www.msupress.org.
