Data Gathered During The Wolfe Pack Expedition to the Rex Stout Archives at Boston College
July 6, 7, 8, & 9, 2011
In 1965 Rex Stout and Viking Press published the controversial book, The Doorbell Rang, in which Wolfe (and Stout and Viking) take on the FBI. A key plot point features an actual book published in 1964, The FBI Nobody Knows by Fred J. Cook. As a result, Rex Stout was put on the FBI's watch list.
The file folder "Miscellaneous Correspondence -- 1965" in the Rex Stout Archives at Boston College was enormously fat compared to other folders -- filled with adverse reactions to Stout's portrayal of the FBI. His and Fred J. Cook's assessment of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was proved to be justified years later.
From the West Coast Archives of Rebecca Stout, we have a copy of the NY Herald Tribune's article "Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe and The Big Fish" from October 10, 1965.