Youth and FBI Booked for Battle

--What began as a sixth-grader’s hopes of compiling his own international encyclopedia has led to a landmark suit against the FBI. Todd Patterson, now 17, of North Haledon, N. J., accuses the FBI of keeping tabs on him since he wrote to the Soviet Union and 168 other countries in 1983 for information for the encyclopedia. In 1984, lawyers said, an FBI agent visited Patterson at home, and over the years he has received several pieces of mail from the Soviet Union that show signs of having been opened in transit or otherwise tampered with. The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in federal court on Patterson’s behalf seeking to have his FBI file turned over to him and the record expunged on the grounds that his First Amendment right to freedom of speech has been violated. ACLU lawyers said that Patterson, now a junior at Don Bosco Preparatory School in Ramsey, seeks also to stop mail tampering and surveillance and wants unspecified damages. Eric Neisser of the ACLU in New Jersey said the case is the nation’s first seeking the right to erase FBI files on First Amendment grounds. James Knights, a spokesman for the FBI in Newark, said he could “neither confirm or deny” any investigation of Patterson.

--Actor Eddie Murphy had too close of an encounter with some fans. Murphy suffered minor injuries when a boat carrying enthusiastic fans collided with one on which he was riding in the Bahamas, his publicist said. Murphy, 27, was in the Bahamas working on his second music album, publicist Terrie Williams said. He was taking a break and boating with friends when “a boat operated by overzealous fans collided with Mr. Murphy’s boat, slightly injuring him and his three companions,” Williams said. All four were treated at a hospital in Nassau and released.

--Working in a hospital turned out to be just what the doctor ordered for an aspiring writer’s career. Marvin Goss, 24, an orderly at Baptist Hospital in Knoxville, Tenn., took Pulitzer Prize winner Alex Haley for X-rays during Haley’s hospital stay earlier this month for treatment of a bone inflammation. When he met Haley, the author of “Roots,” Goss said, he was composing a short story in his mind about a man who met one of his heroes but didn’t get a chance to talk to him. Goss said he planned to put his thoughts down on paper and send them to Haley. But Haley offered him a job on the spot. Goss said he has been interested in writing--short stories, songs and poems--since 1985. The details of the job have not been worked out, but Goss said Haley told him he would have a chance to meet other writers, producers and publishers, as well as study with Haley.