Editing Isaac Asimov (section)

=== Politics ===
Asimov became a staunch supporter of the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] during the [[New Deal]], and thereafter remained a political [[Modern liberalism in the United States|liberal]]. He was a vocal opponent of the [[Vietnam War]] in the 1960s and in a television interview during the early 1970s he publicly endorsed [[George McGovern]].<ref>Asimov, I. ''In Joy Still Felt'' (Avon, 1981), p. 503.</ref> He was unhappy about what he considered an "irrationalist" viewpoint taken by many radical political activists from the late 1960s and onwards. In his second volume of autobiography, ''In Joy Still Felt'', Asimov recalled meeting the counterculture figure [[Abbie Hoffman]]. Asimov's impression was that the [[Counterculture of the 1960s|1960s' counterculture]] heroes had ridden an emotional wave which, in the end, left them stranded in a "no-man's land of the spirit" from which he wondered if they would ever return.<ref name="joy">{{cite book|title=In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1954–1978 |last=Asimov |first=Isaac |date=1980 |publisher=Doubleday |location=Garden City, NY|isbn=0-385-15544-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/injoystillfelt00isaa/page/574 574] |url=https://archive.org/details/injoystillfelt00isaa/page/574 }}</ref>

Asimov vehemently opposed [[Richard Nixon]], considering him "a crook and a liar". He closely followed [[Watergate]], and was pleased when the president was forced to resign. Asimov was dismayed over the pardon extended to Nixon by his successor [[Gerald Ford]]: "I was not impressed by the argument that it has spared the nation an ordeal. To my way of thinking, the ordeal was necessary to make certain it would never happen again."<ref>Asimov, I. ''In Joy Still Felt'' (Doubleday, 1980) chapter 39.</ref>

After Asimov's name appeared in the mid-1960s on a list of people the [[Communist Party USA]] "considered amenable" to its goals, the [[FBI]] investigated him. Because of his academic background, the bureau briefly considered Asimov as a possible candidate for known Soviet spy ROBPROF, but found nothing suspicious in his life or background.<ref name="skelding20131107">{{cite web |url=https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2013/nov/07/isaac-asimov-fbi-file-ROBPROF/ |title="Inimical to the best interests of the United States." Isaac Asimov's FBI File |last=Skelding |first=Conor |website=MuckRock |date=November 7, 2013 |access-date=January 1, 2017 |archive-date=January 2, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170102171808/https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2013/nov/07/isaac-asimov-fbi-file-ROBPROF/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Asimov appeared to hold an equivocal attitude towards [[Israel]]. In his first autobiography, he indicates his support for the safety of Israel, though insisting that he was not a [[Zionist]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Asimov |first=Isaac |title=In Memory Yet Green |quote=<!--None-->}}</ref> In his third autobiography, Asimov stated his opposition to the creation of a [[Jewish state]], on the grounds that he was opposed to having [[nation-states]] in general, and supported the notion of a single humanity. Asimov especially worried about the safety of Israel given that it had been created among Muslim neighbors "who will never forgive, never forget and never go away", and said that Jews had merely created for themselves another "Jewish ghetto".{{efn|{{cite book |last=Asimov |first=Isaac |title=I, Asimov: A Memoir |publisher=Doubleday |location=New York |date=1994 |page=380 |quote=When Israel was founded in 1948 and all my Jewish friends were jubilant, I was the skeleton at the feast. I said, "We are building ourselves a ghetto. We will be surrounded by tens of millions of Muslims who will never forgive, never forget and never go away."... But don't Jews deserve a homeland? Actually, I feel that no human group deserves a "homeland" in the usual sense of the word. ... I am not a Zionist, then, because I don't believe in nations, and Zionism merely sets up one more nation to trouble the world.}}}}