The New Left was founded in 1962 and as a social and political protest movement it captured the attention of the nation in the Sixties By 1968 the New Left was marching in unison with hundreds of political action groups to achieve one goal the end of the war in Vietnam Under J Edgar Hoover s direction the FBI went from an intelligence collection agency during WWII to an organization that tried to undermine protest movements like the New Left Hoover viewed the New Left as a threat to the American way of life so in an enormous effort of questionable legality the FBI implemented some 285 counter intelligence COINTELPRO actions against the New Left The purpose of COINTELPRO was to infiltrate disrupt and otherwise neutralize the entire movement In truth the FBI intended to wage war on the antiwar movement