New FBI files show wide range of Black Panther informant's activities
Newly released FBI records reveal that Richard Masato Aoki, widely revered as a radical hero in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s, had a deep relationship with the FBI, informing on his fellow Asian activists and on Black Panther Party leaders Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.
Going beyond previously disclosed FBI records that outlined his role as an informant, the documents show that while acting as a militant leader, Aoki covertly filed more than 500 reports with the FBI between 1961 and 1971 on a wide range of activists and political groups in the Bay Area.
Aoki, who grew up in West Oakland, was a well-known figure in the Bay Area's activist community and one of the earliest members of the Black Panthers who publicly acknowledged giving them some of their first guns. After he died in 2009 at age 70, he achieved new notoriety with the release of a feature documentary about him and a biography. Neither work mentioned his relationship with the FBI.
The records show that FBI agents considered Aoki a valuable informant with "top level" access to the Panthers. The bureau assigned him a "confidential source symbol number" to protect his identity -- SF 2496-S -- and took extra security measures. One document said disclosure that he was an informant could "have an adverse effect upon the national defense interests."
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http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_28277392/new-fbi-files-show-wide-range-black-panther
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