Geoffrey Rips, Anne Janowitz, Editor
In the mid-1970s, Allen Ginsberg, a member of PEN American Center's Freedom to Write Committee, suggested that it look into rampant government sabotage of the underground press movement. Most of PEN's 1500 members were aware of intelligence agency abuses but not of their extent. Because the Freedom to Write Committee works on behalf of imprisoned writers and censored writing around the world, it agreed to investigate if Ginsberg 'would provide the evidence he had amassed. Between 1968 and 1972, he had been collecting newspaper clippings, letters, and sworn affidavits from those who had been harassed, as well as files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. People sent him reports of incidents, which they sometimes regarded as curious, sometimes as sinister; however, when assembled, they formed a pattern of systematic abuse. Ginsberg put this information at the disposal of the Freedom to Write Committee, which asked me, in 1979, to gather more information and write this report.
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