FOIA request uncovers FBI file on David Halberstam

NY City News Service reported Thursday that the late David Halberstam, Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist and author, was monitored by the FBI throughout a portion of his career.

The news group, based at CUNY’s journalism school, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request 62 pages of previously sealed documents profiling the writer; another 36 pages were reportedly withheld for national security and privacy reasons. The file includes details of Halberstam’s work in the 1960s as a Times correspondent in Poland during the Cold War, the article said.  It also indicates the FBI was tracking Halberstam’s Polish wife.

The FBI also included in the file Halberstam’s phone records, and articles he wrote that were critical of the Vietnam War. The file was continually updated until 1987, according to the news report. 

Halberstam died in a car accident in California in 2007.