The FBI's Secret COINTELPRO Program They Tried to Bury Forever

On March 8, 1971, eight ordinary Americans broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania and exposed COINTELPRO — the Bureau's secret domestic-surveillance program — stealing nearly a thousand documents on the night of the Ali-Frazier Fight of the Century. This Buried Billions documentary tells the declassified true story of the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI — led by Haverford physics professor William Davidon — who risked decades in federal prison to expose infiltration, forged letters, planted rumors, and psychological warfare aimed at civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr., anti-war organizers, and activist groups across America. We follow the stolen files to the Washington Post newsroom, where journalist Betty Medsger helped publish the story that proved COINTELPRO was real; Hoover's shutdown of the program in April 1971; the 1975-76 Church Committee investigation that confirmed the abuses; and the burglars' 43 years of silence — until Medsger's 2014 book "The Burglary" finally revealed their names, a year after Davidon's death in 2013. Factual and neutral, sourced from declassified records — no invented claims. The human cost, the cover-up, and the ordinary citizens who refused to let the secret be buried forever. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Night of the Fight 1:06 The Citizens' Commission 1:39 Will Anyone Publish? 2:02 The Post Publishes — COINTELPRO Exposed 2:12 What COINTELPRO Was 3:08 The Letter to MLK 3:40 The Quiet Wreckage 4:22 Hoover Shuts It Down 4:43 The Church Committee 5:15 43 Years of Silence 5:49 "The Burglary" — 2014 6:29 What We Still Don't Know 6:51 The Human Cost 7:19 Eight People With a Crowbar 7:48 The Lesson 8:37 Subscribe for Daily Mysteries If you want more hidden-history investigations like this, subscribe to Buried Billions — a new documentary drops every day. 🔔 Subscribe to Buried Billions for daily treasure-hunting documentaries! #COINTELPRO #FBI #Declassified #TrueHistory #BuriedBillions