FBI Kept Dozens of Top Authors Under Surveillance, Articles Say

Dozens of America’s most prominent authors were kept under surveillance by the FBI and other government agencies because their writings were considered subversive, according to articles appearing in two magazines.

Herbert Mitgang, writing for The New Yorker, and Natalie Robins, whose article appears in The Nation, both did extensive research into FBI files they obtained separately under the Freedom of Information Act.

Mitgang’s article in the Oct. 5 issue said writers under surveillance by the federal agency included: Ernest Hemingway, labeled a drunk and a Communist; Sinclair Lewis and Pearl Buck, criticized for promoting black civil rights; John Steinbeck, accused of tarnishing the nation’s image; and Truman Capote, targeted as a “supporter of the (Cuban) revolution.”

Others included Carl Sandburg, Nelson Algren, John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, W. H. Auden and Thomas Wolfe, Mitgang wrote.

The Nation article includes a list of 134 writers whose files were released to Robins, who is preparing a book on the subject. Several of the writers on her list are still alive and include E. L. Doctorow, Norman Mailer, Elizabeth Hardwick and Howard Fast.

Robins’ article will be released in the Oct. 10 issue of The Nation.