FBI Files Detail Investigation of Historian Howard Zinn's Relationship with "Communist Front Groups" and the Communist Party USA

From TPM:

The FBI today released a 423-page file on Howard Zinn, the radical progressive historian who wrote A People's History of the United States. Zinn died in January. We're digging through the file right now. Help us out -- leave what you find in comments or email us.

From Raw Story:

Those who knew of the dissident historian Howard Zinn would not be surprised that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI kept tabs on him for decades during the Cold War. . . .

"In 1949, the FBI opened a domestic security investigation on Zinn," the bureau states. The Bureau noted Zinn’s activities in what were called Communist Front Groups and received informant reports that Zinn was an active member of the CPUSA; Zinn denied ever being a member when he was questioned by agents in the 1950s. . . . The release describes the historian as "radical."

From The Other McCain:

Going through the PDFs and — wow! — Zinn’s file from the 1940s and ’50s makes for fascinating reading to anyone familiar with Communist Party history. Any innocent liberal might have unwittingly joined a CPUSA front group or two. But only a card-carrying Commie would have joined every front group that came along, as Zinn evidently did . . .

Links and more discussion at Memeorandum.