SOURCE: “Noam Chomsky: An American Dissident,” in The Progressive, Vol. 51, No. 7, July, 1987, pp. 22-5.

In the following interview, Chomsky discusses his political views, objection to the Vietnam War, alternatives to Western capitalist society, and the problem of public ignorance concerning politics and international affairs.

Noam Chomsky, Ferrari P. Ward Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is widely regarded as the world's foremost authority in the field of structural linguistics. Since the mid-1960s, he has also been one of America's leading political dissidents, particularly in his outspoken criticism of U.S. policy toward the Third World.

Chomsky's Pirates and Emperors: International Terrorism in the Real World was published last year by Claremont Research and Publications. Other recent books include Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace (South End Press, 1985), and The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and...