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mendax [soylentnews.org] writes:

The ever-interesting El Reg published a story [theregister.co.uk] that tells the world that the FBI investigated the late, lamented science fiction author Ray Bradbury [wikipedia.org] because he wrote stories that were depressing and bad-mouthed the American way of life:

Their interest was apparently sparked by Martin Berkeley (Wikipedia) [wikipedia.org], an enthusiastic anti-Communist and testator to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), who told the FBI the author of Fahrenheit 451 was “probably sympathetic with certain pro-Communist elements”.

“He noted that some of Bradbury's stories have definitely slanted against the United States and its capitalistic form of government”, the report adds.

“Informant observed that Communists have found fertile opportunities for development; for spreading distrust; and lack of confidence in America [sic] institutions in the area of science fiction writing”, the FOI document states.

If they watched Ray Bradbury for 10 years over writing things like Fahrenheit 451, you would have thought they never stopped investigating Philip K. Dick [wikipedia.org]. But they apparently had little interest in him [wordpress.com].

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