Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations

Last updated

The United States Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was a list drawn up on April 3, 1947 [1] at the request of the United States Attorney General (and later Supreme Court justice) Tom C. Clark. [1] The list was intended to be a compilation of organizations seen as "subversive" by the United States government. Among those were: Communist fronts, the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party. [1]

Contents

History

Creation

The Attorney General's list was first known as the Biddle list after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Attorney General Francis Biddle began tracking Soviet controlled subversive front organizations in 1941. The original list had only eleven organizations but was greatly expanded by the end of the decade to upwards of 90 organizations. [2] It did not list individuals.

Communist groups, which emerged both in the pre-war and the post-war list, are marked by one ". In the meantime, even some trade unions that excluded members of openly communist groups from their membership lists were dissolved, partially also by government resolution.

Thousands of Americans with progressive or radical political beliefs signed petitions for, or became members of, these groups without being aware of the Communist ties of the group. Many were later persecuted and suffered personal consequences during the McCarthy era. Some others, though, were found through HUAC investigations and Venona cable intercepts, to be actively involved in Soviet sponsored espionage and related activities.

Biddle list

Biddle List of 5 February 1943
  1. American League Against War and Fascism
  2. American League for Peace and Democracy [ citation needed ]
  3. American Patriots, Inc.
  4. American Peace Mobilization
  5. American Youth Congress
  6. Communist Party USA
  7. Congress of American Revolutionary Writers
  8. League of American Writers [3]
  9. Michigan Federation for Constitutional Liberties
  10. National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners
  11. National Committee for Peoples Rights [ citation needed ]
  12. National Federation for Constitutional Liberties
  13. National Negro Congress
  14. Protest War Veterans of the USA
  15. Washington Book Shop Association
  16. Washington Committee for Democratic Action
  17. Workers Alliance

(Source: New York Times of 5 December 1947) [4]

AGLOSO of 4 December 1947

On December 4, 1947, US Attorney General Tom C. Clark released the "Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations" (AGLOSO).

As reported by the New York Times on the same day, the list included groups from the Biddle List plus new groups plus eleven (11) school. [4] Leaders of five groups—the Reverend William H. Melish of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, Martic Martntz of the Armenian Progressive League of America, Howard Selsam of the Jefferson School of Social Science, Max Yergan of the Council on African Affairs, and Edward Barsky of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee—denied the government's accusation. [5]

The next day, the New York Times reported a second batch of groups who rejected the government's accusation: William Z. Foster and Eugene Dennis of the Communist Party USA, an unnamed spokesperson for the International Workers Order, an unnamed spokesperson for the Civil Rights Congress, an unnamed spokesperson for American Youth for Democracy, Harrison L. Harley of the Samuel Adams School for Social Studies, and Walter Scott Neff of the Abraham Lincoln School. [6]

AGLOSO of 4 December 1947
  1. Abraham Lincoln School of Chicago, IL
  2. American League Against War and Fascism
  3. American League for Peace and Democracy [ citation needed ]
  4. American Patriots, Inc.
  5. American Peace Mobilization
  6. American Polish Labor Council
  7. American Youth Congress
  8. American Youth for Democracy
  9. Armenian Progressive League of America
  10. Civil Rights Congress including: Civil Rights Congress for Texas, Veterans Against Discrimination of Civil Rights Congress of New York
  11. The Columbians
  12. Communist Party USA including Communist Political Association, Citizens Committee of the Upper West Side (New York City), Committee to Aid the Fighting South, Dennis Defense Committee, Labor Research Association, Southern Negro Youth Congress, United May Day Committee, United Negro and Allied Veteran of America
  13. Connecticut State Youth Conference
  14. Congress of American Revolutionary Writers
  15. Council on African Affairs
  16. George Washington Carver School of New York, NY
  17. Hollywood Writers Mobilization for Defense
  18. Hungarian-American Council for Democracy
  19. International Workers Order
  20. Jefferson School of Social Science of New York, NY
  21. Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee
  22. Ku Klux Klan
  23. League of American Writers [ citation needed ]
  24. Macedonian-American People's League
  25. Michicagn Federation for Constitutional Liberties
  1. National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners
  2. National Committee to Win the Peace
  3. National Council of American-Soviet Friendship
  4. Nature Friends of America
  5. National Federation for Constitutional Liberties
  6. National Negro Congress
  7. New Committee for Publications
  8. Ohio School of Social Sciences
  9. Philadelphia School on Social Sciences and Art
  10. Photo League of America
  11. Proletarian Party of America
  12. Protest War Veterans of the USA
  13. Revolutionary Workers League
  14. Samuel Adams School for Social Studies of Boston, MA
  15. School of Jewish Studies of New York, NY
  16. Seattle Labor School
  17. Socialist Workers Party including American Committee for European Workers Relief
  18. Tom Paine School of Westchester, NY
  19. Tom Paine School of Social Science of Philadelphia, PA
  20. Walt Whitman School of Social Science of Newark, NJ
  21. Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
  22. Washington Book Shop Association
  23. Washington Committee for Democratic Action
  24. Workers Alliance
  25. Workers Party including Socialist Youth League

(Source: New York Times of 5 December 1947) [4]

Later history

The Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was expanded by President Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9835. [1] EO 9835 established the first Federal Employee Loyalty Program designed to root out Communist infiltration of the U.S. government. It allowed for organizations to be listed on the recommendation of certain members of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) members, as designated by committee Chairman J. Parnell Thomas. Those he named initially were John McDowell, a Pennsylvania Republican, Richard Vail, an Illinois Republican, and John Wood, a Georgia Democrat. They readied their first version of the list for Attorney General Tom C. Clark within a few days. [7] It appeared in the Federal Register on March 20, 1948. [8]

Executive Order 10450, issued by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in April 1953, expanded the Attorney General's List and added the proviso that members of the United States armed forces could not join or associate with any group on the list under threat of discharge from military service. [9]

List as of 1959

Abolition

The list went through several revisions until President Richard M. Nixon abolished it in 1974. [10]

Impact

The list's impact was immediate but not all important. Its purpose was to provide a guide for the loyalty boards mandated by EO 9835. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began using it immediately, but it was only one of many lists they used. The HUAC maintained its own list. Membership in an organization on any such list was reported to the Justice Department and loyalty boards. [7]

The list was quickly adopted by other public and private groups, which used it to discriminate without any notice, charges, or hearing. [11] : 26–27 

See also

Footnotes

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Prelude to McCarthyism: The Making of a Blacklist". Goldstein, Robert Justin, Prologue, U.S. National Archives. Retrieved 6 February 2007.
  2. ↑ M. Stanton Evans, Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies (New York: Crown Forum, 2007) ISBN   978-1-4000-8105-9, pp. 55-60, notes).
  3. ↑ Mitgang, Herbert (1987-09-28). "Policing America's Writers". The New Yorker . Retrieved 2022-02-16.
  4. 1 2 3 "Groups Called Disloyal". New York Times. 5 December 1947. p. 18. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  5. ↑ "Accused Groups Deny Disloyalty: Five Organizations Listed by U.S. Insist They Are Not Subversive, Assail Clark". New York Times. 5 December 1947. p. 18. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  6. ↑ "Accused Groups Condemn 'Purge'; Foster of Communist Party Hits Federal Charges -- One Body R~calls 'Palmer Raids'". New York Times. 6 December 1947. p. 13. Retrieved 16 June 2020.
  7. 1 2 "Hoover and the Un-Americans". O'Reilly, Kenneth, Chapter 8:Counter Intelligence, University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 6 February 2007.
  8. ↑ Attorney General's list, Federal Register 13, (20 March 1948) Archived 7 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ Defense Department Form 98, Revision 1 June 1959
  10. ↑ Pear, Robert (1980-10-27). "Immigration Service Keeps List Of 'Proscribed' Groups in Nation; Basis for Listing Groups". New York Times. pp. A19. Retrieved 6 February 2007.
  11. ↑ Brussee, Vincent (2023). Social Credit: The Warring States of China's Emerging Data Empire. Singapore: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN   9789819921881.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Lawyers Guild</span> American association of lawyers

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States. The group was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association (ABA) in protest of that organization's exclusionary membership practices and conservative political orientation. They were the first predominantly white US bar association to allow the admission of minorities to their ranks. The group sought to bring more lawyers closer to the labor movement and progressive political activities, to support and encourage lawyers otherwise "isolated and discouraged," and to help create a "united front" against Fascism.

Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U.S. 123 (1951), was a United States Supreme Court case that held that groups could sue to challenge their inclusion on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations. The decision was fractured on its reasoning, with each of the Justices in the majority writing separate opinions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Peace Mobilization</span> 1940-unknown, aka. National Committee to Win the Peace

The American Peace Mobilization (APM) was a peace group established in 1940 to oppose American aid to the Allies in World War II before the United States entered the war. It was officially cited in 1947 by United States Attorney General Tom C. Clark on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations for 1948, as directed by President Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9835.

Bartley Crum was an American lawyer who became prominent as a member of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, his book on that experience, and for defending targets of HUAC, particularly the Hollywood Ten and Paul Robeson.

Bella Dodd was a teacher, lawyer, and labor union activist, member of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) and New York City Teachers Union (TU) in the 1930s and 1940s, and vocal anti-communist after she had a big conversion after meeting Fulton J. Sheen, Bishop of Rochester, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Executive Order 9835</span> 1947 order by President Harry S. Truman

President Harry S. Truman signed United States Executive Order 9835, sometimes known as the "Loyalty Order", on March 21, 1947. The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence in the U.S. federal government. Truman aimed to rally public opinion behind his Cold War policies with investigations conducted under its authority. He also hoped to quiet right-wing critics who accused Democrats of being soft on communism. At the same time, he advised the Loyalty Review Board to limit the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to avoid a witch hunt. The program investigated over 3 million government employees, just over 300 of whom were dismissed as security risks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mosess Fishman</span>

Mosess "Moe" Fishman fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and was wounded during the Spanish Civil War. He was general secretary of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Veterans' Association.

The Abraham Lincoln School for Social Science in Chicago, Illinois was a "broad, nonpartisan school for workers, writers, and their sympathizers," aimed at the thousands of African-American workers who had migrated to Chicago from the American South during the 1930s and 1940s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English-language press of the Communist Party USA</span> Press

During the ten decades since its establishment in 1919, the Communist Party USA produced or inspired a vast array of newspapers and magazines in the English language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs of America</span> American national youth organization

The W.E.B. Du Bois Clubs of America was a national youth organization sponsored by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and launched at a national convention held in San Francisco in June 1964. The organization was active in the American student movement of the 1960s and maintained a prominent presence on a number of college campuses including Columbia University in New York City and the University of California in Berkeley. The organization was dissolved by decision of the CPUSA in February 1970 and succeeded by a new organization known as the Young Workers Liberation League. They were named after socialist and racial and social activist W. E. B. Du Bois, co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">O. John Rogge</span> American attorney and civil servant

Oetje John Rogge was an American attorney who prosecuted cases for the United States government, investigated Nazi activities in the United States, and in private practice was associated with civil rights and liberal political causes. He was the prosecutor in the Great Sedition Trial, in which the U.S. government, under the initiative of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, tried dozens of isolationists and Nazi sympathizers for sedition.

A communist front is a political organization identified as a front organization under the effective control of a communist party, the Communist International or other communist organizations. They attracted politicized individuals who were not party members but who often followed the party line and were called fellow travellers.

The National Federation for Constitutional Liberties (NFCL) was a civil rights advocacy group made up from a broad range of people.

The International Juridical Association was an association of socially minded American lawyers, established by Carol Weiss King and considered by the U.S. federal government as "another early (communist) front for lawyers. The principal concern about the IJA was that it "constituted itself an agent of a foreign principal hostile to the interests of the United States."

Joseph Forer was a 20th-century American attorney who, with partner David Rein, supported Progressive causes, including discriminated communists and African-Americans. Forer was one of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild and its DC chapter. He was also an expert in the "Lost Laws" of Washington, DC, enacted in 1872–1873, that outlawed segregation at business places.

American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born was the successor group to the National Council for the Protection of the Foreign Born and its successor, seen by the US federal government as subversive for "protecting foreign Communists who come to this country," thus "enabling them to operate here.".

Abram Flaxer (1904-1989) was an American union leader who founded the State, County, and Municipal Workers of America (SCMWA), which merged with the United Federal Workers of America (UFWA) to form the United Federal Workers of America (UFWA), of which he became president.

Thomas I. Emerson (1907–1991) was a 20th-century American attorney and professor of law. He is known as a "major architect of civil liberties law," "arguably the foremost First Amendment scholar of his generation," and "pillar of the Bill of Rights."

Alvin William Stokes (1904-1982) was a 20th-century African-American civil servant, best known as an investigator for the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.