Historian Howard Zinn's FBI File: 3 Highlights

(July 30) -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation today released 423 pages of its file on leftist historian Howard Zinn.

The FBI started its file on Zinn in 1949, during the McCarthy era, over the author's suspected ties to the Communist Party of the United States. The feds interviewed Zinn, who died last year, in the 1950s and 1960s, and they eventually stopped tracking his activities in 1974.

Surge Desk has been reviewing the redacted documents the FBI released today and has come upon the following highlights:

1. Zinn repeatedly denied being a member of the Communist Party.
Was he or wasn't he? This seems to be the central question of the voluminous file. Zinn admittedly associated with numerous groups that the FBI considered to be communist, and the bureau cited several informants who identified Zinn as a member of the Communist Party. When Zinn spoke to FBI agents, however, he repeatedly denied the charge. As the file states:

According to Zinn, he was not ashamed of his past activities and did not believe that he or his activities constituted a threat to the security of this country or our government.

2. Zinn repeatedly disavowed violence, but also pledged to go to war for the U.S.

"He advised that he would defend his country in the event of war against any enemy, including the Soviet Union," the report says.

3. The FBI renewed its interest in Zinn after he wrote an article critical of Bobby Kennedy and the FBI.
"Zinn also cited a case in Selma, Alabama, last October alleging that FBI agents and Justice Department attorneys stood by on the steps of a federal courthouse and watched as local officials arrested two negro students on federal property, then dragged them through the streets because they sought to register to vote," the report says.

The author of "A People's History of the United States," Zinn served as an Air Force bombardier in World War II, an experience that haunted him. Here was Zinn in 2006, speaking on the topic of whether war is a part of human nature.