The COINTELPRO Files: Vincent Bridges and Co. (8 of 22)

Three reports, each costing several hundred dollars, all leading nowhere. The guy almost doesn't exist... Again, as an attorney told us, this can be evidence of "sheepdipping," a CIA termn that refers to providing an operative with a believable cover story. Someone who has been "sheepdipped" is a person who does not openly work for the CIA or other intelligence agencies, but who, based on the evidentiary record, appears to be doing the bidding of those agencies. Note that any activity by the CIA and its agents designed to influence domestic politics is clearly illegal and that is the ostensible reason that COINTELPRO exists: so that agents can "influence" the public as the intelligence agencies want them to be influenced, without any possibility of this influence being traced back to the CIA. Several experts involved in this investigation were completely astonished to see a person who had, essentially, lived 50 years in the US and had NEVER left a trace. At least none that we could find up to that point. We do, however, have a number of personal affidavits from people who knew Vincent Bridges since the late 80s. But nothing, absolutely NOTHING prior to that time.