I have to confess that I didn't really have any idea who he was when I signed up for one of his courses ca. 1959, but one of the "other instructors" pointed out to me that it wasn't exactly "healthy" for someone who might eventually work on "military secrets" to be associated with him. I assured them that it was an "elective low-level course" where the Prof in charge was unlikely to ever show up in class, and it wasn't about politics.

Mr. Chomsky did show up briefly in one classroom session just as a "courtesy call," but he didn't talk about anything that we hadn't already not learned. (It was interesting, but not a particularly useful - brief - class.)

My recollection is that only one of the "interrogators" examining an SPH for a security clearance ever demanded an explanation for my "association with a known pinko-radical-commie-anarchist¹" among the dozen or so times they investigated me. At least three of them wanted details about my membership in that subversive organization called "the Boy Scouts," so I guess they were a little more suspect than Noam. Or maybe it was just obvious that I didn't learn anything in his class.

¹ 60s era pronunciation for "liberal" in the "establishment."

John