
Nixon's War at Home
The FBI, Leftist Guerrillas, and the Origins of Counterterrorism
Daniel S. Chard(Author)
The University of North Carolina Press
Published on 28. September 2021
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-1-4696-6450-7 (ISBN)
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 guerillas 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.
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.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Chapel Hill
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
14 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 196 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4696-6450-7 (9781469664507)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Daniel S. Chard is visiting assistant professor of history at Western Washington University.