William C. Sullivan
William Cornelius Sullivan (May 12, 1912 – November 9, 1977) was an assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who was in charge of the agency's domestic intelligence operations from 1961 to 1971. Sullivan was forced out of the FBI at the end of September 1971 due to disagreements with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. The following year, Sullivan was appointed as the head of the Justice Department's new Office of National Narcotics Intelligence, which he led from June 1972 to July 1973. Sullivan died in a hunting accident in 1977. His memoir of his thirty-year career in the FBI, written with journalist Bill Brown, was published posthumously by commercial publisher W. W. Norton & Company in 1979.[1]
William C. Sullivan
November 9, 1977 (aged 65)
St. Michael Cemetery in Hudson, Massachusetts
Head of FBI intelligence
1941–1972
CPUSA and COINTELPRO investigations
Democrat
Marion Hawkes
Sullivan led[2] the highly controversial COINTELPRO aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations[3][4] which among other things, assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falsely charged American political opposition and civil rights movements with crimes.[5][6]
Background[edit]
William Cornelius Sullivan was born on May 12, 1912, in the small town of Bolton, Massachusetts. His parents were farmers in the area who worked a family farm there for fifty years.[1] Sullivan later recounted that growing up in Bolton was a life without modern conveniences, including public transportation, school buses, telephone, mail service, or even electricity.[1] Sullivan graduated from Hudson High School in neighboring Hudson and held advanced degrees from American University and George Washington University.