FBI Spied on Pulitzer-Winning Times Scribe
Cristina Alesci, of the CUNY J-School team that provided us with entertaining voter audio last week, has obtained via FOIL request the FBI's files on David Halberstam, Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter and author of The Best and the Brightest. A third of the pages are redacted, but the obtained files suggest that Halberstam's critical reporting of the Vietnam War -- which prompted President John Kennedy to complain to the Times management about him -- was of interest to the Bureau; also, that they received details on at least one of Halberstam's private phone calls from New York Telephone, and investigated at least one anonymous claim against him. The reporter's file appears to thin after the death of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI boss Halberstam called America's "worst public servant." Halberstam died in a car crash in 2007.
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