Agents of Repression ( 1988 ) , co @-@ authored by Jim Vander Wall , describes what the authors claim was a secret war against the Black Panther Party and American Indian Movement carried out during the late 1960s and ' 70s by the FBI under the COINTELPRO program . The COINTELPRO Papers ( 1990 ; reissued 2002 ) , also co @-@ authored with Jim Vander Wall , examines a series of original FBI memos that detail the Bureau 's activities against various leftist groups , from the U.S. Communist Party in the 1950s to activists concerned with Central American issues in the 1980s .