In 1961 the FBI opened a formal SWP Disruption Program — the only COINTELPRO aimed at a group for its "open espousal" of its doctrines through running candidates for public office. Over fifteen years the Bureau conducted at least 204 burglaries of party offices, photographing some 9,800 documents; paid some 1,300 informers inside the party; wrote anonymous letters to members' employers and landlords; and worked to wreck the party's role in the antiwar coalitions it helped lead.
Members lost jobs, faced deportation proceedings, and were harassed through six presidencies — all without a single successful prosecution for any crime, since there was none to prosecute: the program's own files conceded the party was engaged in lawful politics. Those files became the ammunition for the counterattack that followed.