Scoop: CIA releases docs on Latino civil rights-era surveillance
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Mexican American group the Brown Berets speak at a Denver press conference in August 1971. Photo: John G. White/The Denver Post via Getty Images
The CIA monitored Mexican American and Puerto Rican civil rights activists fighting for equal education and to honor the late Martin Luther King, Jr., — and against police brutality and the Vietnam War, newly released CIA documents show.
Why it matters: The documents confirm Latino civil rights pioneers' long-held suspicions that the federal government was monitoring — even disrupting — their activities.
- The documents from 1968 to 1983 were released in late December deep on the CIA's website at the request of Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) and Jimmy Gomez (D-CA).
The big picture: The cache of documents gives a glimpse into how the CIA viewed activists' work as threats.
- That includes Denver-based activist Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales and farmworker union leader Cesar Chavez.
- Documents also show how the CIA sought to keep tabs on Mexican American student activists in Arizona, California and Colorado, even having undercover agents infiltrate student groups.
- The documents primarily relate to Operation CHAOS — a CIA domestic espionage project targeting American citizens that operated under former Presidents Johnson and Nixon.
Zoom in: The CIA kept close tabs on Gonzales, a leader in the radical Chicano Movement of the 1970s, as he pressed for equal rights and called for "the potential formation of independent local, regional, and national Chicano political parties," documents show.
- Like the Black Power Movement, the Chicano Movement focused on racial pride, nationalism and fighting poverty.
- The CIA also was monitoring if Chavez would attend demonstrations organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in New York City on the 3rd anniversary of King's 1968 assassination.
- The CIA was following Salvatore H. Castro, a teacher and advisor in the 1968 Los Angeles high school walkouts over discrimination.
- The agency also tracked members of the Brown Berets, a Chicano militant group.
Documents show the CIA and the University of Arizona had an agreement to monitor students apparently making demands for Mexican American studies classes.
- University of Arizona spokesman Mieczyslaw J. "Mitch" Zak did not immediately have a comment about the newly released documents after Axios sent him a link.
What they're saying: "This document release is an important window into the government's efforts to surveil and disrupt peaceful Latino organizing in the 1960s and 1970s," Castro said in a statement to Axios.
- Castro praised CIA director William J. Burns for the transparency.
- "I'm hopeful that these documents will help us build a better record of past overreach and establish stronger guardrails to protect against unwarranted surveillance in the future."
Yes, but: The FBI has not released any documents on Latino civil rights leaders as requested by Castro.
Between the lines: Historians in recent years have uncovered quite a bit about FBI surveillance of Latino leaders through open records requests, Brian Behnken, an Iowa State University history professor, tells Axios.
- The FBI monitored the works of civil rights leader Héctor P. García; the New York-based Puerto Rican Young Lords Party; and later the activities of the Chicano Movement.
- Works by scholars and activists over the years have also uncovered that the FBI has monitored Chicano Movement leaders Gonzales, Reies López Tijerina, José Angel Gutiérrez, and Dolores Huerta.
Little was known about how active the CIA was involved in monitoring Latino civil rights groups and leaders.
- Some Latino leaders and their families may not even know about the FBI files and wouldn't know they needed to file open records requests.
The intrigue: Castro's mother, Rosie Castro, was monitored by the FBI for her activities in the Chicano Movement, files show.
- An FBI informant noted that Rosie Castro "was observed buying two small posters of Angela Davis for 50 cents each, which were mentioned by Rosie Castro as having been printed in Cuba," the San Antonio Express-News reports.
