John Steinbeck become the enemies of the political status quo." In a 1942 letter to United States Attorney General Francis Biddle, John Steinbeck wrote: "Do you suppose you could ask Edgar's boys to stop stepping on my heels? They think I am an enemy alien. It is getting tiresome." The FBI denied that Steinbeck was under investigation. In 1936, Steinbeck published the first of what came to be known as his Dustbowl trilogy, which included "Of Mice and Men" and "The Grapes of Wrath". This first novel tells the story of a fruit pickers' strike in California which is both aided and
John Steinbeck spirit of resistance in an occupied village in Northern Europe, was made into a film almost immediately. It was presumed that the unnamed country of the novel was Norway and the occupiers the Nazis. In 1945, Steinbeck received the King Haakon VII Freedom Cross for his literary contributions to the Norwegian resistance movement. In 1943, Steinbeck served as a World War II war correspondent for the "New York Herald Tribune" and worked with the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the CIA). It was at that time he became friends with Will Lang, Jr. of "Time"/"Life" magazine. During the war,