FBI killed by the Klan

In the post-WWII period the FBI made a number of investigations into Klan activity (and while more often then not had to select overlooking major cases to ensure a working relationship with local law enforcement) did a number of actions to protect, and look into racist actions in the South.

Now WI the Klan decided that the FBI was not only fair game but could be targeted? Sound odd? Well let us not forget there were radical amongst radicals in the post-WWII south. For the sake of argument let us say between 1946 and 1956 a group of FBI agents are killed by the KKK. What happens?
 
Disaster for the KKK. J Edger Hoover suddenly puts the KKK on the top of his list. Racist as he was he would NOT take the killing of his people lightly, at all!!
 
Disaster for the KKK. J Edger Hoover suddenly puts the KKK on the top of his list. Racist as he was he would NOT take the killing of his people lightly, at all!!

Yeah, considering that IOTL, when the KKK just burned a cross in the yard of the house a few agents investigating the murders of some civil rights workers were staying in, Hoover turned COINTELPRO on the Klan full-force, & had his agents essentially assassinate a couple KKK members suspected of violent acts by deliberately creating a situation where'd they'd be justified in shooting them essentially as a lesson in the price of lese majeste, if the KKK declared war on the FBI like that & started targeting his agents, the Klan would be going down as hard as Hoover could manage to arrange
 

katchen

Banned
Ah, but what if Klan agents kill Hoover and Tolson? Who takes over? What then? Or KGB agents false flagged as KKK?
 
Ah, but what if Klan agents kill Hoover and Tolson? Who takes over? What then? Or KGB agents false flagged as KKK?

Nah. Klan never acted outside of their safe zone. Hoover never really left DC less... well he never really left once he was in charge.

So if we have a FBI-Klan war how does this effect the south overall? We had racial based reforms done via legal means, the FBI active in combating Klan terrorism in many ways was targeting the most staunch of Southern states secret power structures. More over this means that almost anyone from Marshall to MLK are now open targets.
 
(snip) Or KGB agents false flagged as KKK?

That's unlikely if not quite ASB, as the KGB didn't do operations like that in the US for a very good reason- a terrorist act carried out by a government's operatives in another country, especially ones targeting that second country's government is an act of war. If they got found out, well imagine just how badly the mid to late-50s US would have taken that....
 

NothingNow

Banned
Nah. Klan never acted outside of their safe zone. Hoover never really left DC less... well he never really left once he was in charge.

So if we have a FBI-Klan war how does this effect the south overall? We had racial based reforms done via legal means, the FBI active in combating Klan terrorism in many ways was targeting the most staunch of Southern states secret power structures. More over this means that almost anyone from Marshall to MLK are now open targets.
Honestly, if the Klan managed to survive COINTELPRO and a spate of assassinations in good enough shape to keep fighting the FBI, it'd also mean the National Guard would probably be called up, and used as extra muscle for FBI operations, and providing law enforcement in certain areas. It might even get serious enough (with enough problems involving unreliable state and local authorities) that Regular Army units would be deployed under the authority granted to the president under the Force Acts, as had been done in Little Rock IOTL.

That of course, would not go well, but in the 50's there should still be a decent amount of institutional memory left over from the Banana Wars in the USMC, and someone should remember the Small Wars Manual, so within a couple years, the Klan is shattered and impotent, and power structures in the deep south are once again fixed.

Considering all of that, I could actually see Law Enforcement in the affected states be completely replaced by a Federal/National Police Agency or Gendarmes (like the RCMP, either way) for a good decade or so, until new police departments can be established and staffed with reliable (and often black) officers. The Justice Department would probably also start vetting candidates for Sheriff and Police Commissioner offices in the affected region as well.
 
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