powerhouse of greenwich village folk scene dave van ronk enjoyed telling people that his heroes work donald duck lenin and w.c. fields biographer robert shelton would say that wrong resembled an unmade bed strewn with books record jackets pipes empty whiskey bottles lines from obscure poets fingerpicks and broken guitar strings which. was accurate dave van ronk also believed that he was being surveilled by the united states government due to his political beliefs and his friendships with some of the most important names in the mccarthy era american folk scene and while many laughed at dave's assertion calling him paranoid it turns out he was right journalist aaron j. leonard was discovered has discovered through a freedom of information act request that the f.b.i. was indeed surveilling dave van ronk from one nine hundred sixty three intell at least one nine hundred seventy three informants were reporting membership in an offshoot organization of the socialist workers party which felt the party was not radical enough and should be saturating unions the newly released files show that the f.b.i. reviewe