Flato was born in New York on May 27, 1908 to David A. and Hilda (Firot) Flato. He suffered from polio as a child and as a result was deformed, standing only a little over three feet in height and left with a hunchback forcing him to walk with a cane.<ref>[http://www.ioba.org/newsletter/archive/8(4)/reference2.php ''Books About Bookselling: A Backward Look'']</ref> His younger brother Jerome served in the United States Navy during World War II.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Charles_Flato Relative's statement, Charles Flato was not a hunchbacked dwarf, January 17, 2006.]</ref>
During the winter of 1932 he and homosexual author [[John Cheever]] rented Prescott Townsend's place in Provincetown, Massachusetts.<ref>''John Cheever: A Biography'', Scott Donaldson, 2002</ref> Flato submitted wrote an article on Matthew Brady's Civil War photographs that was subsequently published in the Harvard University literary magazine Hound & Horn.<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2479/is_n4_v23/ai_18339989/print ''Afterimage'', "Scavenging the landscape: Walker Evans and American life," Melissa Rachleff, Jan-Feb 1996.]</ref> The article "Matthew B. Brady 1823-1896" was published in the October-December 1933 issue.<ref>''Afterimage'', "Scavenging the landscape: Walker Evans and American life," Melissa Rachleff, Jan-Feb 1996.</ref>One drawback to this article is that he credits Brady with all the Civil War photographs even though Brady often had others take the pictures for him.<ref>''Afterimage'', "Scavenging the landscape: Walker Evans and American life," Melissa Rachleff, Jan-Feb 1996.</ref>
== Career as Soviet Spy ==