Report: CIA Kept File on Noam Chomsky

The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged after years of denial that it kept a file on Noam Chomsky, though the file appears to have been destroyed.

Chomsky, 84, an American academic who works as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was an anti-war activist in the 1970s. He also is a vociferous critic of Israel.

Freedom of Information Act requests to the CIA over the years had not turned up Chomsky’s file, but a request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation by Chomsky biographer Frederic Maxwell turned up a memo between the CIA and the FBI confirming the existence of a CIA file on Chomsky, according to The Cable blog in Foreign Policy.

An expert contacted by the blog said the FBI memo confirms that a Chomsky file once existed, though it was likely destroyed.