Zinn's FBI file.

• Author: Rothschild, Matthew
• Position: Editor's Note - Howard Zinn and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

In July, the FBI released a voluminous file on progressive historian Howard Zinn, who graced our pages with his columns over the last twelve years of his life. The FBI file, 423 pages long, takes you back to the creepiest days of McCarthyism, as neighbors and ostensible friends ratted Zinn out to the FBI, and as agents called up his landlords and employers seeking information. Even Zinn's postman served as an informant.

The first document, March 3, 1949, relies on information supplied by a "confidential informant" who said Zinn "is a Communist Party member and attends Party meetings five times a week in Brooklyn." It lists some of his activities, including that he was "picketing butcher shops" and that his "name appears on letterhead of Brooklyn Citizens' Committee for Right of Bank Workers to Organize."

It also says that "an inquiry was made of the subject's Sister, Doris Zinn, 926 Lafayette Avenue, under suitable pretext."

Zinn's daughter, Myla KabatZinn, is struck by this reference.

"My father never had a sister," says Kabat-Zinn, who perused some pages of the file. "It's just bizarre. If they thought he had a sister, I have to question a lot of what's in the file."

In the strangest part of the file, the FBI tried to recruit Zinn as an informant in 1953 and 1954. But he refused to play ball, and he refused to name names.

After that, the FBI continued to keep tabs on Zinn, his political activities, his attendance at Columbia, and his move to Atlanta to teach at Spelman College. It even noted that he "subscribed to the 'National Guardian ' in 1953."

For a few years, Zinn's time at Spelman didn't concern the FBI. But then Zinn wrote a report for the Southern Regional Council about race relations in Albany, Georgia. Zinn was harshly critical of the FBI in that report, noting that "the FBI has not made a single arrest on behalf of Negro citizens." 'The New York...