Ernie Lazar FBI FOIA Files on Anti-Communism and Right Wing Movements
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Abstract
Ernie Lazar is an independent scholar of U.S. right wing movements and anti-communism. Over the past decades he has obtained numerous FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). This collection currently consists of websites and digital subject files containing information on various FBI informants or government employees involved in domestic intelligence work gathering information on both left- and right-wing movements and organizations. In addition to agent reports and FBI monographs, there is biographical, career, and personnel information related to individual informants and government employees.
Historical/Biographical Note
Ernie Lazar is an independent scholar of U.S. right wing movements and anti-communism. Over the past decades he has obtained numerous FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Arrangement
The collection is arranged into two series:
Series I: Digital Subject Files
Series II: Archived Websites
Subject files in Series I are listed in alphabetical order.
Scope and Content Note
This collection currently consists of digital subject files containing information on various FBI informants or government employees involved in domestic intelligence work. These individuals gathered information on both left- and right-wing movements and organizations. In addition to agent reports and FBI monographs, the subject files contain biographical, career, and personnel information related to individual informants and government employees.
Organizations found in the collection include the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, the Ku Klux Klan, the American Security Council aka Midwest Research Library (Chicago), Citizens Council Movement, and States Rights Organizations. The monographs include Purge Victims of the CPUSA, the Communist Party Line, and Reasons Why People Accept and Reject Communism.
A notable informant was conservative syndicated columnist George Ephraim Sokolsky. The collection also contains the websites that Lazar created as part of his research on anti-communism and right wing movements and the John Birch Society.
Some subject files are accompanied with notes that were derived from an inventory and research notes held in the collection file from the donor.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicty and privacy) held by Ernie Lazar were transferred to New York University in 2011 by Ernie Lazar. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu.
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Ernie Lazar FBI FOIA Files on Anti-Communism and Right Wing Movements; TAM 576; box number; folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; Ernie Lazar FBI FOIA Files on Anti-Communism and Right Wing Movements; TAM 576; Wayback URL; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated to Tamiment by Ernie Lazar in 2011. The accession number associated with this gift is 2011.038.
https://sites.google.com/site/ernie124102/ was initially selected by curators and captured through the use of The California Digital Library's Web Archiving Service in 2011 as part of the Communism, Socialism, Trotskyism Web Archive. In 2015, these websites were migrated to Archive-It. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website. In 2016, https://sites.google.com/site/xrt013/ was added. In 2019, https://sites.google.com/site/aboutxr/, https://sites.google.com/site/jbs9005a/, https://sites.google.com/site/jbs9004/, https://sites.google.com/site/ernie1241b/, https://sites.google.com/site/ernie1241a/, and https://sites.google.com/site/ernie1241/ were added. The accession number associated with thsese websites are 2019.127.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. Original physical digital media is restricted. Born-digital materials have not been transferred and may not be available to researchers. Researchers may request access copies. To request that material be transferred, or if you are unsure if material has been transferred, please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Take Down Policy
Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.
If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.
If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to the repository email.
Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Processing decisions made prior to 2014 were not recorded.
In 2014, archived websites were added as Series II. Additional websites were added to the series in 2019.
In December 2024, the collection was rearranged by an archivist. Prior to re-arrangement, the collection was arranged where each series correlated to one of the five optical discs found in the collection and within each series, the subject files had correlating track numbers listed. After rearrangement, Series I-V were consolidated into Series I: Digital Subject Files and these files were listed in alphabetical order. Series VI was renamed Series II: Archived Websites.
New York University Libraries follow professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity of the content. Five optical discs had previously been imaged and in December 2024, the subject files found on these discs were rearranged in Forensic Toolkit and grouped thematically. Each file was assigned an electronic record number, which was added to ArchivesSpace. Four previously unlisted subject files were also added to the colleciton at this time. Digital file extents were also added to the collection.
