CIA Gathered Records on Noam Chomsky
May have illegally destroyed them
The Central Intelligence Agency compiled — and may have illegally destroyed — records on anti-war activist Noam Chomsky, according to a Freedom of Information Act response obtained by Foreign Policy.
The intelligence agency had previously denied gathering information on the MIT professor, a leading critic of the Vietnam War. But a new memo obtained by attorney Kel McClanahan shows that the CIA was monitoring Chomsky's anti-war activities and investigating a trip by fellow activists to North Vietnam.
The document, sent from the director of the CIA to the director of the FBI, asks the law enforcement agency to help confirm which activists planned to travel on the trip, which carried "the endorsement of Noam Chomsky."