Fear and Surveillance

Most Oklahomans feared that the Civil Rights Movement and antiwar protests would lead to violence in the state. They were frightened by the idea of communism spreading and by the increase in violence in other parts of the country. They recalled what had happened in America’s big cities the summer after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968. There were race riots in over 130 cities across the country, and into 1969 and 1970 many Oklahomans feared their cities would be next. Not long after King’s death, fear of violence in the wake of ongoing antiwar demonstrations (which up to this point had been small and nonviolent in Oklahoma) led Governor Bartlett to create a secret government agency called the Office of Inter-Agency Coordination (OIC) to spy on suspected radicals. The agency was housed in the Oklahoma Military Department and was paid for with money set aside for the National Guard. Governor Bartlett did this without telling the state legislature. Legislators were not happy when they found out about the OIC two years later by reading a story in a Tulsa newspaper. Between 1968 and 1970, the OIC collected files on over six thousand Oklahomans. Some were student activists, but others were politicians, business leaders, Indigenous leaders, and other people not involved in protests of any kind. For example, one OIC report about possible unrest identified a meeting of the Five Tribes Council scheduled to take place in OKC. There was no reason to think this meeting would lead to a riot, or unrest of any kind. The OIC had a file on Oklahomans for Indian Opportunity (OIO) and its founder, LaDonna Harris (Comanche). Neither Harris nor OIO were involved in radical protests. One national news story about the OIC called it the “Sooner CIA” and criticized the agency for spying on Oklahomans.

Oklahomans did not learn about the OIC until just a few months after the unrest at OU following the Kent State deaths. Many Oklahomans did not like protests, but they also did not like learning that their governor had used money for a secret surveillance agency without telling the legislature or getting its approval. The timing of the news story did not work well for Bartlett. It was an election year, and his opponent, Democratic candidate David Hall, made the OIC an important issue in the election. Hall accused Bartlett of snooping on Oklahomans. Hall also promised to destroy the OIC files and get rid of the agency if he won the election.

FIG. 12.15

“Hall Promises He Will Abolish OIAC”

“Hall Promises He Will Abolish OIAC.” After Governor Bartlett’s activities with the OIC came to light, his main election opponent David Hall made the secretive agency a central campaign issue. This article in the Altus Times-Democrat reports on Hall’s promise to Oklahomans to abolish the OIC and destroy its files if elected.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

FIG. 12.16

Governor David Hall

David Hall served as governor of Oklahoma from 1970 to 1974. After defeating incumbent governor Dewey F. Bartlett in the 1970 gubernatorial election, Hall abolished the OIC and destroyed the files it had collected on more than six thousand Oklahomans during Bartlett’s term. However, he was under investigation himself for most of his term and after leaving office was convicted of misusing campaign funds.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

And so he did. Hall defeated Bartlett in a close election and quickly abolished the agency. After looking at some of the files and seeing that lots of them focused on people who were not involved in radical protests, including Hall himself, and attorney Stephen Jones, he ordered his staff to destroy the files. They obtained two 55-gallon drums and used them to burn the more than 6,000 files the OIC had collected.

Corruption and Disillusionment

Soon Governor Hall had his own political and legal problems. A federal corruption investigation began almost as soon as he took office, and the investigation lasted the rest of his one term as governor. For example, among other things, Hall was accused of using campaign money to pay for his daughter’s piano lessons. Shortly after he left office in January 1975, he was found guilty on four counts of extortion and bribery. Hall was sentenced to three years in federal prison in Arizona. He served eighteen months of his term before being released. For the rest of his life, Hall said he was innocent and that he had been framed by Bartlett and by supporters of President Nixon.

Whatever the case, the impact on Oklahomans was not good. The investigation into Hall was similar to other corruption investigations going on in the state during the 1970s. The main issue was that some elected and appointed officials were using state money and property for personal gain. Officials at Cameron University in Lawton, for example, were accused of using employees to work on privately owned projects and using food from the cafeteria for personal parties. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) also discovered a number of financial problems at Cameron University. In the early 1980s, two Cameron employees were convicted of embezzlement.

The events at Cameron University were overshadowed, however, by a much larger corruption scandal at the time. At least 240 county commissioners and suppliers either admitted guilt or were found guilty of misusing state money and equipment or accepting bribes. Government corruption was not unique to Oklahoma, though. There were similar problems in other states, and a national scandal led to President Nixon’s resignation in August 1974. If he had not left office, Nixon would have faced federal charges for his role in crimes related to the Watergate break-in and cover-up.

Between student unrest and corruption scandals at the state and national level, Oklahomans had plenty of reasons to be worried about government at all levels. And they responded to these issues in a variety of ways. In 1974, David Boren ran against David Hall for the Democratic nomination for governor. His campaign, “Boren’s Broom Brigade,” promised to “sweep out the old guard” and get rid of corruption in government. Some Oklahomans thought all that was needed was new leadership, and they helped elect Boren as the next governor. Others decided that politics was too corrupt to be fixed. One popular bumper sticker from the time period resonated with many Oklahomans: “Don’t vote. It just encourages them.”

FIG. 12.17

Carl Albert

by Charles Banks Wilson, 1977

Carl Albert by Charles Banks Wilson, 1977. At 5 foot 4 inches tall, Carl Albert was known as the “Little Giant from Big Dixie.” He served in the US House of Representatives from 1946 to 1976. In 1971, Albert became the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the highest elected office ever held by an Oklahoman.

Courtesy of the Capitol Art Collection, Oklahoma Arts Council.

Carl Albert, Speaker of the House

Carl Albert was born into a mining family in McAlester, Oklahoma. He served as student body president and class valedictorian at McAlester High School and graduated in 1927. Albert attended the University of Oklahoma and received a Rhodes Scholarship to study law at the University of Oxford in England. After completing his education, Albert spent several years working as a lawyer. He then served in the US Army as an officer in the Judge Advocate General’s Office during World War II.

Following the war, Albert ran for the House of Representatives seat for Oklahoma’s Third District in 1946. His slogan was “From a Cabin in the Cotton to Congress.” He kept his seat for thirty years until he retired in 1976. In 1949, Albert accepted a position on the Committee of Agriculture. He helped pass laws that helped farmers in Oklahoma.

During Albert’s time as Speaker of the House, he aimed to reform Congress. He tried to do this through the committee structure and the appropriations process. Unfortunately, it was during his tenure that the Watergate scandal came to light. This left him the challenge of presiding over Congress during the investigations. During the Watergate scandal, Albert was second in line for the presidency twice. The first time was when Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973. The second was when President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974. Albert never became president though. Congress appointed Gerald Ford to replace Agnew in 1973, and it appointed Nelson Rockefeller to serve as Ford’s vice president. After Albert retired from Congress in 1976, he returned to McAlester.

Still others decided to retreat from society as much as they could, believing that the system was too infected with greed and hate to be workable. Some of these people were part of the Oklahoma counterculture movement. This 1960s movement included a range of young people. Some were disillusioned by racism and war. Others were concerned about the environment and materialism. Many of them decided that they wanted to “drop out” of society instead of trying to change it. They were small in number compared to those in some states. They saw themselves as trying to have a more genuine or authentic life by growing their own food and working with their hands. Ethan Walker described what it meant to him to be a hippie in Oklahoma: “It was about, peace, love, and dropping out.”

FIG. 12.18

Pop Music Festival at Fair Park, 1969

Pop Music Festival Sunday at Fair Park in Oklahoma City, October 4, 1969. Music was a powerful tool of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture movement. For both musicians and audiences, it served as an important outlet for cultural expression during a difficult time. Song lyrics from this period often spoke to the concerns of young people about war, poverty, and social unrest.

Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Counterculture and Music

The 1960s and 1970s saw the rise of countercultural views among young, mostly white, middle-class college students. The counterculture grew alongside the expanding Civil Rights Movement. It grew in response to social injustice, mass consumer culture, and the Vietnam War. Young people stopped liking the lifestyle of their parents. Many in the older generation focused on gaining material goods. Their materialism arose largely from their growing up in the Great Depression era, when they had so little to call their own. Counterculture participants came to be known as “hippies.” They saw themselves as fighting for peace and love. These so-called hippies rejected violence and railed against US involvement in the Vietnam War. One of the biggest priorities for counterculture participants was free expression of love and sexuality. Another was experimenting with recreational drugs. A third was protesting against war and in favor of social injustice. Two popular forms of music during this era, folk and rock and roll, expressed the ideas of the counterculture movement. The two genres are distinct musically. Yet they both represented common attitudes among young people. They also brought counterculture into mainstream society.

Rock and roll and psychedelic rock captured the mood of counterculture. Prominent rock artists and bands were Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and The Doors. Rock music performances led to some of the most iconic moments in pop culture history. In 1969, the Woodstock Music Festival attracted a crowd of 500,000 young people. It featured a line-up of household-name counterculture artists, including Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, and The Who. The festival environment ended up turning chaotic and unsafe, but Woodstock, and the music it produced, remains legendary to this day.

Folk artists like Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, and Janis Ian made protest songs popular. We first learned about Oklahoma native Woody Guthrie in chapter 9. During World War II, Guthrie released such songs as “Tear the Fascists Down.” This track railed against Nazi Germany. It encouraged the United States to become involved in the war. His political ballads inspired later protest songs of counterculture figures. These included Phil Ochs, Joan Baez, and Bob Dylan. Ochs’s song “Draft Dodger Rag” focused on the issues that counterculture participants cared the most about. It describes a young man detailing made-up ailments and excuses for why the military cannot draft him. The man is doing these things to avoid going to war. Ian’s song “Society’s Child” describes a white teenage girl who was discouraged from pursuing a romantic relationship with a Black teenage boy due to interracial stigmas of society.

The 1960s and 1970s were tumultuous decades in the United States. Counterculture helped spark the Civil Rights, New Left, and Women’s Rights movements. Countercultural music brought ideas from small groups of young people to the public eye. It cemented the movement as a significant cultural phenomenon. The era continues to influence pop culture and politics today.