FBI watched Mexican author Carlos Fuentes for two decades
The documents posted on the FBI's website last week show that the United States denied Fuentes an entry visa at least twice in the 1960s. In one of the memorandums Fuentes is described as "a leading Mexican communist writer" and a "well-known Mexican novelist with long history of subversive connections".
The FBI and the US State Department closely monitored Mexican author Carlos Fuentes for more than two decades because he was considered a communist and a sympathiser of Fidel Castro, recently released documents show.
The documents posted on the FBI's website last week show that the United States denied Fuentes an entry visa at least twice in the 1960s. In one of the memorandums Fuentes is described as "a leading Mexican communist writer" and a "well-known Mexican novelist with long history of subversive connections".
Fuentes died last year at the age of 83 after suffering an internal haemorrhage.
In the 170-page dossier of internal official documents and some newspaper articles, the FBI describes how it monitored Fuentes and denied him permission to enter the United States for having been a member of the Mexican Communist Party.
One of the 20th century's most influential Latin American authors and intellectuals, Fuentes backed Castro after he took over Cuba and also supported the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. But Fuentes' good relations with the Cuban government ended in 1971 when he joined protests over its treatment of poet Heberto Padilla, something that Cuban officials never forgave him for.
The first documents date from 1962, when Fuentes received an invitation to go to the United States for a televised debate with the secretary of state at the time, Richard Goodwin.