John Carlos BaezCheck out the FBI's files on the mathematician Paul Erdős! You may know him as the author of 1500 math papers, endlessly traveling and collaborating. But to the FBI he seemed suspicious, because he came from behind the Iron Curtain, got caught poking around a secret radio tower in 1941, worked with a mathematician from China, and refused to take a loyalty oath.
In 1954 he was barred from re-entering US after going to Amsterdam to address the International Congress of Mathematics. But 5 years later he was granted a visa after Hubert Humphrey intervened on his behalf.
The FBI eventually decided he was ”purely a mathematician with typical atmospheric mind as related to factual things.... a genius type who lives within his own mental scope".
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