FBI files show bureau may have tried to get Zinn fired from Boston University for his political opinions

Those who knew of the dissident historian Howard Zinn would not be surprised that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI kept tabs on him for decades during the Cold War.

But in a release of documents pertaining to Zinn, the bureau admitted that one of its investigations into the left-wing academic was prompted not by suspicion of criminal activity, but by Zinn’s criticism of the FBI’s record on civil rights investigations.

‘In 1949, the FBI opened a domestic security investigation on Zinn,’ the bureau states. ‘The Bureau noted Zinn’s activities in what were called Communist Front Groups and received informant reports that Zinn was an active member of the CPUSA; Zinn denied ever being a member when he was questioned by agents in the 1950s.

‘In the 1960s, the Bureau took another look at Zinn on account of his criticism of the FBI’s civil rights investigations.’
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On Friday, the FBI released a 243-page file on Zinn, who died in January at age 87. The release describes the historian as ‘radical.’ The documents show the bureau taking an active interest in Zinn since the late 1940s, when […]