Alien Ink is the most comprehensive book yet written on how the Federal Bureau of Investigation waged war against American writers and readers from the early years of this century. As Natalie Robins reveals for the first time, this assault on freedom of expression began long before iron-fisted J. Edgar Hoover joined the Justice Department and made his name synonymous with that of the FBI for over forty years. The war carried over into the 1980s, when librarians, as part. Of a Library Awareness Program, were recruited to spy on readers. Drawing on nearly 150 files released to the author under the Freedom of Information Act, Natalie Robins's absorbing narrative offers compelling new documentary evidence about the hounding and intimidation of writers ranging from John Reed to Allen Ginsberg, from Edna St. Vincent Millay to James Baldwin, and from Walter Winchell to Robert Lowell--a virtual Who's Who of American letters. Alien Ink is the. Story of hidden agendas and hidden powers, and contains many surprises--among them, that Hoover, known for his right-wing sympathies, not only inhibited left-wing expression, but harassed right-wingers as well. Robins shows how the Bureau combed newspapers, books, plays, films, and radio broadcasts for "alien ink"--Anything "anti-American" or "anti-FBI"--and describes how those incriminated endured phone taps, mail searches, and 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 and entrapment) that the Bureau went to in order to "get something" on those writers who wouldn't capitulate. And she explains the FBI's attitude toward the group of writers it considered the most threatening of all: journalists. Confirming Robins's findings are dozens of interviews--dramatic dialogues--with living writers and others of all. Ideological persuasions, who bear witness to the FBI's investigative crusade. They include Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr. , Murray Kempton, Arthur Miller, Kay Boyle, Jessica Mitford, and Howard Fast. Here, as well, are the testimonies of former and present FBI employees (including a current special agent who speaks on the condition of anonymity, and Cartha D. DeLoach, Hoover's third in command) and an interview with the controversial Roy Cohn, who spoke from his. Deathbed. Unequaled in its scope and depth, Alien Ink provides a crucial understanding of the FBI's covert war on writers and the First Amendment. It traces America's shifting cultural obsessions from the teens to the nineties, so that patterns and connections come into focus as never before. Make no mistake, the FBI tried to control opinion in America, and this provocative and penetrating work of investigative reporting tells how and why.