Crucible of Antiterrorism: Political Violence and Backlash Against U.S. Intelligence Reform

In the mid-1970s, following the Watergate scandal and U.S. defeat in Vietnam, a powerful coalition of intelligence operatives, conservative politicians, and rightwing activists mobilized to oppose government reforms to the FBI and CIA. Amid a backdrop of bombings and other political violence, members of this coalition called for reviving covert operations and broad surveillance powers in the name of fighting leftwing and nationalist terrorism. In this lecture, Dr. Daniel S. Chard will explain how the politics of antiterrorism forged in this era laid a foundation for the revamped national security state established a quarter century later by President George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.