As promised, the second in our series of writers’ FBI files. This time the subject is George Orwell (Eric Blair).

Click here to download the PDF file [84 pages | 2.5 meg]

The FBI’s website notes:

The English political satirist was never investigated by the FBI; however, FBI records contain correspondence in 1949 between Orwell’s publisher and J. Edgar Hoover, as well as miscellaneous information regarding him and his published works.

Really, I should say that the FBI’s site did note that back when it contained Orwell’s file, but, like it’s done with more than 50 documents, the FBI has pulled the file off of its website with no notice or explanation. (You can still see it listed here, but it is no longer linked to the file itself.) Let’s stop to bask in the unbearable levels of irony and chutzpah here: The FBI has quietly deleted its online file on the man who wrote 1984.

—————————————

On a related note, the website for MI5 (basically, the British FBI) has information on its file on Orwell (though not the file itself), plus his passport photo:

I’m starting a new series on Books Are People, Too - FBI files on famous writers. First up is Thomas Mann.

Click here to download the PDF file [100 pages | 4 meg]

The FBI summarized the file when it was posted on its website:

Thomas Mann, German author, Nobel prize winner in literature, and naturalized American citizen, was investigated from 1927 through 1955. The security investigation gathered information showing Mann’s affiliation with communist causes and associates.

For more info on the FBI and Mann, see Communazis: FBI Surveillance of German Émigré Writers by Alexander Stephan.

Mann’s file is one of several dozen files that used to be available on the FBI’s Freedom of Information Act website but have been quietly removed. I have no idea why the feds yanked these files, but I’ll be posting all the ones I can recover at my other main website, The Memory Hole. Meanwhile, look for more writers’ files to be posted here in the future.