MEMORABLE SITE
Edited by: Ron Bel Bruno
A National Vault of Fame--and Shame
THE FBI FOIA ELECTRONIC READING ROOM
[http://foia.fbi.gov/index.html]
In the midst of America's love affair with its favorite redhead, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was asking just how "red" Lucille Ball was in the late 1930s, when she registered as a Communist. (Her leftist grandfather pressured her to do so.) Ball's appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1953 made headlines. But only in the FBI reading room can you view the actual, recently declassified records on this very touchy matter. Ball's is just one of the many celebrity dossiers here, presented in their original, sometimes difficult-to-read format, with no annotation. John Lennon's contributions to a potential uprising at the 1972 Republican National Convention also make the archive, as do several investigations of Errol Flynn. The feds' meticulous, workmanlike snooping makes for a most unusual, and slightly unsettling, history lesson. Here's to the FBI's continued glasnost.
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