Wassily Leontief had to go through interrogation at the Bureau of the 
Budget, for which he worked as a consultant around 1952. But things got 
worse when he was invited to work as Rand consultant. He had to answer 
to nine menacing charges, of which (from my memory) one was that 
Leontief knew Shigeto Tsuru [Tsuru who was the first Japanese iwth 
American ohd in economics, had by then served as Minister in Japanese 
government), another that his wife was a member of the Boston Branch of 
the League of Women Shoppers which had been cited by HUAC as communist 
front organization, and a third that Leontief had known Dorothy Fox 
Richardson who later married Solomon Adler, reported to be a member of 
the Communist Party! [Yes, you ought to pay attention to the future 
associations of the people you know]

It was a humiliating experience for Wassily Leontief but he fought the 
charges bravely and had them rebutted in the end.

olav bjerkholt


-- 
Professor Olav Bjerkholt
University of Oslo
Department of Economics
Pb 1095 Blindern
0317 Oslo, NORWAY
mobile phone 47 90654957