With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, MuckRock staff is declassifying their infatuation with figures from our FBI Files project.
Beryl C.D. Lipton
Favorite FBI Fact
The FBI was obsessed with him as well - his file is thousands of pages long. In Hoover’s Bureau, I’m pretty sure the extent of the investigation correlated to the intensity of the threat of your integrity.
Why he’s great:
A New England journalist committed to incisive, independent, fact-backed, witty investigation and exposition, a truth-telling terror to the Feds and a friend to other ideologies … come on now. The lack of a crush would require more explanation.
JPat Brown
Favorite FBI Fact
The Bureau looked into Arendt on the claim that she was something of a human thought virus, traveling college to college around the country infecting young minds with the desire to continue their fields of study. Proving that her influence could penetrate even the beige bulwark of the FBI, the field office decided that being a good teacher wasn’t grounds for a full-fledged investigation, and dropped the matter.
Why she’s great:
Besides the whole “most profoundly relevant political theorist of the 20th century thing,” pretty much everything you need to know about my feelings for Frau Arendt can be summarized in this amazing description included in her file, which incidentally doubles as a description of everyone I have ever dated.
Michael Morisy
Favorite FBI Fact
There were Feynman truthers who thought that his interest in film development, code-breaking, and lock picking meant he was a sleeper agent for Soviet - one letter even hinted that he had persuasive powers that bordered on the paranormal.
Why he’s great:
With roguish charm that won over classrooms and the public, Richard Feynman not only helped America build the atomic bomb, but also helped inspire a generation to approach life with an inquiring mind and a thirst for evidence. As a result (and maybe because he also was a student of lock picking), he was subjected to years of espionage and scrutiny as the Federal Bureau of Investigation trailed him and his associates, intent on rooting out communist sympathies from the man who helped make America the world’s first nuclear power.
Who’s your FBI crush? Let us know via Facebook or Twitter and we’ll write-up their file.
Image by Michael Morisy
