Alien Ink: The Fbi's War on Freedom of Expression

by Natalie Robins

Alien Ink is the most comprehensive book written on how the FBI warred against American writers & readers. Robins reveals assaults on freedom of expression began before J. Edgar Hoover joined the Justice Department & made his name synonymous with that of the FBI for over 40 years. The war carried over into the 80s, when librarians, as part of a Library Awareness Program, were recruited to spy on readers.

Drawing on nearly 150 files released under the Freedom of Information Act, her narrative offers documentary evidence about the hounding & intimidation of writers ranging from John Reed to Allen Ginsberg, from Edna St Vincent Millay to James Baldwin, & from Walter Winchell to Robert Lowell--a virtual Who's Who of American letters.

Alien Ink is the story of hidden agendas & powers, & contains many surprises--among them, that Hoover, known for rightist sympathies, not only inhibited left-wing expression, but harassed right-wingers as well. Robins shows how the FBI combed papers, books, plays, films & radio broadcasts for "alien ink"--anything "anti-American" or "anti-FBI"--& describes how those incriminated endured phone taps, mail searches & character assassinations. She reveals the pressure tactics FBI agents employed to make them toe the line, as well as the astounding criminal lengths (including extortion & entrapment) that the FBI went to in order to "get something" on those writers who wouldn't capitulate. She explains the FBI's attitude toward the group of writers it considered the most threatening: journalists. Confirming her findings are dozens of interviews--dramatic dialogs--with living writers & others of all ideologies, who bear witness to the FBI's investigative crusade.

Genres: History, Politics

496 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1992

About the author

Natalie Robins has published nine books, four of which are volumes of poetry published by the legendary Alan Swallow Press. Her first nonfiction book, Savage Grace, coauthored with Steven M.L. Aronson, won an Edgar Award for the best fact-based crime book published in 1985, and was made into a movie starring Julianne Moore. Alien Ink: The FBI's War on Freedom of Expression was the winner of the 1992 Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award, as well as a New York Times "Notable Book of 1992." Sherwin B.Nuland, MD called The Girl Who Died Twice: The Libby Zion Case and the Hidden Hazards of Hospitals, published in 1995, a book that "will bring new reportorial and literary standards to its genre." Copeland’s Cure: Homeopathy and the War between Conventional and Alternative Medicine, was published in 2005. The Washington Post called it “an absolutely dazzling account.” Robins, also the author of Living in the Lightning, which won the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society's 1999 Chairman's Citation Award, lives in Riverdale, the Bronx, New York, with her husband, the writer Christopher Lehmann-Haupt. They have two grown children. She is working on a biography of the literary and social critic Diana Trilling, to be published in 2015.

- from her website