Volume 30, Number 5 · March 31, 1983
Wanted by the FBI!
By Jeffrey Meyers
The FBI file on Ernest Hemingway reveals that Hemingway organized a private spy network in Cuba during World War II; that the Bureau made unsuccessful attempts to control, mock, and vilify him; that it feared his personal prestige and political power; and that, in a pathetic episode, it tracked him to the Mayo Clinic, just before he died. The file contains 124 pages—fifteen withheld 'in the interest of the national defense,' fourteen blacked out except for the salutation, a few almost illegible because of the faded original typescript. It runs from October 8, 1942, to January 25, 1974 (thirteen years after his death), and much of it has to do with the first year of Hemingway's wartime activities in Cuba. The file is extremely repetitive, and becomes unintentionally funny, particularly when the solemn bureaucrats report the bizarre behavior of the writer.
Feature, 3380 words
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