Spooked By His Sci Fi, FBI Looked Into Asimov As Possible Communist Tipster

v3rgEz writes "By September 14, 1960, Isaac Asimov had been a professor of biochemistry at Boston University for 11 years, and his acclaimed "I, Robot" collection of short stories was on its seventh reprint. This was also the day someone not-so-subtly accused him of communist sympathies in a letter to J. Edgar Hoover. They ominously concluded that "Asimov may be quite all right. On the other hand . . . . ." The "tip off" wasn't given much credit, but it didn't matter since Asimov's science fiction writing alone was enough to warrant FBI monitoring, particularly as the FBI hunted for the mysterious ROBPROF, a communist informant embedded in American academia. MuckRock has Isaac Asimov's FBI files in full, and a write up of the more interesting bits."

Comments

Used to this yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

See this, then remember that the NSA is currently monitoring us all. Your phone is a gps tracker. They have access to your mail. They are reading your personal papers without a warrant (Google Drive). Orwell's vision of the future seems more accurate.

Re:Used to this yet?

[houstonbofh]

Yep. Today's NSA makes J. Edger look like an amateur.

Re:Used to this yet?

[meerling]

At least J.E.H. wore relatively clean panties and garters.

Re:Used to this yet?

[mi]

Yep. Today's NSA makes J. Edger look like an amateur.

Compared even to his contemporaries — on the other side of the Iron Curtain — he has always been an amateur. Same goes for the much-despised Joe McCarthy as well.

Maybe, a total of 200 people (Asimov not among them) have lost their jobs unjustly because of those two gentlemen. Compared to the roughly 20 million losing their freedom and lives in USSR due to Stalin's (and post-Stalin's) repressions, that is, well, incomparable.

Re:Used to this yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point is both correct and of limited use.

First of all, we'll never know how many people were intimidated into silence by Hoover. It is widely believed to be a lot, and Hoover himself was virtually untouchable because of the dirt he knew about and the dirty tactics he was willing to employ. Even the President would have thought twice (or more) before tackling J. Edgar.

Second, the U.S. set a higher standard for itself. The consequences of McCarthyism and Hoover were more disappointing and jarring because that stuff wasn't ever supposed to get as far, rise as high, or last as long as it did. The Soviet Union had little illusion about itself and the thuggery and repression there wasn't terribly surprising.

Third, calling some of the worst-behaving government insiders in U.S. 20th century history amateurs, isn't just inaccurate. It belittles the threat they held to freedom, democracy and human rights. If they were 'amateurs', why take them on? The people who risked careers, futures, safety and security, did their actions mean so little?

Re:Used to this yet?

[shutdown -p now]

Stalin's political repressions have a direct death toll of roughly 1 million. When GB archives were declassified with the fall of the USSR, the numbers turned out to be quite a bit lower that people who were all hyped up by Solzhenitsyn expected them to be. For the period of 1921 to 1953, the records show:

Total convictions for political ("counterrevolutionary" - Article 58) crimes: 3,777,380
- sent to prison or gulag: 2,369,220
- executed: 642,980

Quite a few of those send to gulags have also died - which is also recorded in the 1 million total figure that is the consensus at the time.

Of course, this does not count famines like Holodomor, and various other policies which resulted in deaths. But those were not witch hunts for "enemies of the proletariat", which is the Soviet analog to the activities of Hoover and McCarthy.

You obviously still have a point - a million is still a very large number compared to a few hundred - but it's worth putting the correct figures in place, now that we know them.

Typos

[Princeofcups]

Typos in both headline and submission. Well done slashdot, well done.

Same story, different time

[surfdaddy]

In those days, everybody was in danger of being a "Communist" and the government went crazy against civil liberties.

Today, it's all about being labeled a "Terrorist", and the government continues to go crazy against civil liberties -- only with much more ability to snoop.

What the FUCK is going on with this country?

Re:Same story, different time

[houstonbofh]

What the FUCK is going on with this country?

As much as we let them get away with.

Re:Same story, different time

[Aguazul2]

What the FUCK is going on with this country?

It has made so many enemies, it doesn't know where the next attack may come from. So universal surveillance is necessary. Maybe make less enemies next time?

Re:Same story, different time

[asmkm22]

Same thing that happens with any form of government. Freedoms and information begin to erode their grip on power (which is what the individuals in charge live for), and the government has to do what it can to limit the bleeding. Some governments will outright make the dissenters disappear, others just make sure that there are so many layers to the bureaucracy that nothing short of a concerted, long-term effort to bring about change will make a dent. Syria would be an example of the former, and the US (and many allies) the later.

Look back at any civilization throughout history and you'll see the same patterns. The tools may be different (money, oppression, religion, etc), but the results are always the same.

Re:Same story, different time

[Joining Yet Again]

It's all in the name of fighting evil.

Unless you're on the other side, then you are the evil.

If you ever find yourself uttering:

"We are the free ones."
"We are the good ones."
"We are the peaceful ones."

Remember that you're saying exactly what the other team believe about themselves. And I'm sure you'll be able to explain how that's not true, and in fact you REALLY ARE the Chosen Team. Just like the other team will be able to explain that. But you're wrong. Because it's the same as it's always been, no matter which side you're on: man exploiting man, with the powerful minority fucking over everyone else.

And, if you're part of the powerful minority, you're the problem, and you're the cunt - no matter where you are. No, being part of "this team" doesn't mean that your power is more legitimate than if you were part of "that team".

Re:Same story, different time

[meerling]

Not really. It's either elect fuckwit A or fuckwit B, or don't vote for any of them and let some deluded idiot choose the fuckwit of the term.

Blaming the person caught in that trap since before they were even born, is rather insensitive.
(There are other things I would say, but I'm assuming you just really haven't thought about what's actually going on. Here's your chance.)

Re:Same story, different time

[Charliemopps]

everyone's a loser in a two party system

Re:Same story, different time

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, the simpler answer is that most Americans are completely ok with this shit.

Of course history doesn't repeat; but it rhymes. IMHO we've nailed down that aspect of the 1950s. Most Americans didn't care who got blacklisted; but there were rumblings beneath the surface. The 50s had "the beat generation". So far all we have is "occupy" on the Left and Tea Party on the right. There hasn't been any really interesting literature coming from the Left, no Ginsberg or Keroac; but it's a bit early to tell, or it might be missing this time. Those guys had the GI bill that allowed them to persue writing. This generation is coming back from war with debt...

Re:Same story, different time

[OhANameWhatName]

What the FUCK is going on with this country?

"Communist" and "Terrorist" are just labels used as excuses to exert control over the population because the leadership is fundamentally afraid of the populace. The Nixon tapes clearly demonstrate Nixon's paranoid fear. Other leaders share the same fear, though not the same paranoia hence there is no public demonstration of said fear. The new leadership (the wealthy business oligarchs) are afraid because if people recognized the level of control under which they live, they would likely revolt.

The US has taken and used the Nazi propaganda model of polarizing the population in opposition to something and using this for the benefit of the nation as a whole. It was during the second world war that the US discovered the productive power of focussing the populace on a common enemy. The NEOCONs have just taken this to a whle new level by controlling all forms of mass media and religious discussion in conjunction with political ideology. By controlling the information, the terms "communist", "terrorist", "pirate" and hosts of others can gain traction as a mechanism for the production of fear driving the populace to fight in common need for a goal suiting those promoting the fear.

Ignoring the harm this causes to the global view of the propagandists, you can say that the mechnism is a sound motivator. What has happened in modern America (which has happened countless times previously in failed dictatorships) is that the wealthy continue to accumulate unreasonable amounts of wealth at the expense of the poor. The poor rarely notice the problem until they're unemployed, lost their homes and are starving whilst being increasing oppressed by unreasonable regulations imposed by the leadership.

Re:Same story, different time

[ultranova]

What the FUCK is going on with this country?

Well, I believe nurb432 below summed it up best in his tag (emphasis mine):

---- Booth was a patriot ---- If you dont agree with me, dont bother replying as i dont care what you have to say ----

Politics in USA are based on the idea that those who disagree can always leave and go West to find a new community that embraces their ideas, rather than trying to negotiate a compromise that everyone can live with. Well, they can't anymore since that pesky Pacific Ocean blocks the way. So now you have people who's mythology prices independence and individuality forced to live and work together. It worked somewhat as long as the Soviet Union provided a boogeyman of external threat, but now that it's gone and Al-Qaeda being too pathetic to provide a serious threat it's breaking down.

So, what's happening is that US is finally being forced to confront the fact it has no frontier anymore. It has no land that could be settled or virgin resources to be tapped for quick economic growth. This also means that most people will never be economically independent, no matter how hard or smart they work. The political machine is breaking down as its assumptions break, the budget circus being a symptom of that, and everyone who can is trying to grap as much power as possible to control the direction the country takes. And of course there's always the possibility that the union falls apart entirely, which is reason enough for the federal government to grab as much power as possible.

It's just the death struggles of the American Dream. We shall see what replaces it, and whether the country can avoid a slide to either dictatorship or break-up. It's not going to be easy, and depends on how much shared culture still exists between the states - and the Federal government isn't exactly helping by constantly wiping its metaphorical body opening with the US Constitution, thus illegitimazing itself and discrediting the document.

I'm thinking...

[the_skywise]

L. Ron Hubbard was the accuser...

Stop... Clenching, Err, Resisting

[Flere Imsaho]

The war on drugs appears to be escalating, too http://www.policestateusa.com/2013/innocent-man-given-anal-cavity-search-colonoscopy-after-rolling-through-a-stop-sign/

Re:In those days

[dkleinsc]

But today you are actually rewarded for being a socialist.

This is only true if you think the statement "The government should promote the general welfare" immediately makes you a socialist.

The number of people able to make a living because they are socialists is (being generous) around 1000, and most of them not a particularly good living. There are some people that hold good jobs and also are socialists, but typically they hold those jobs because of their skills unrelated to their politics. What absolutely doesn't exist is a well-established and well-funded set of organizations with media outlets, think tanks, etc hiring bunches of people making well over $250,000 a year promoting socialism, whereas such organizations do exist for movement conservatism (some talk radio, Fox News, Heritage Foundation, Chamber of Commerce, etc), libertarians (some talk radio, Cato Institute, some Tea Party organizations), and to a lesser degree for the Democratic Party (MSNBC, Brookings Institution, AFL-CIO). But there's a giant gap between the Democratic Party and actual socialists: The Democrats want to keep getting their nice big donations from big corporations, so they shy away from doing anything that smacks of bona-fide socialism.

If you're thinking that the people receiving welfare are being rewarded for being a socialist, that doesn't make any sense, because welfare recipients receive their benefits regardless of whether they're a socialist or not. They are arguably benefiting from the majority of voters believing that a bit of socialism in the name of preventing people from starving or freezing to death is a good idea, but that's different from they themselves being socialists.

What is true is that being a socialist no longer destroys your career like it did in the 1950's.