Re "employee loyalty" and all that, I was a grad student in economics at U.C. Berkeley in 1953 or so, and a year or so into writing my dissertation. I made two mistakes.  One was wearing a Stevenson button too openly; the other was associating with Carey McWilliams, Editor of The Nation. On learning of the latter, my thesis chair, one Varden Fuller, asked the Dean of the Grad Division to expel me - after 4 years of life spent slaving to swallow their twisted teachings and write that 500 page dissertation!

All that saved me was that the Dean of the Grad Division was my father-in-law.  Otherwise ... ?  Yes, it was an awful time.

-----Original Message-----
From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Luca Fiorito
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2014 5:37 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] McCarthyism at Chicago

Isador Lubin briefly talks about the "Employee Loyalty Program" -- and  
the problems caused by his former association with Veblen at the  
Department of Agriculture! -- in his oral history interview that is to  
the found at Columbia. Lubin is so scared to talk about this episode  
that he insists several times with the interviewer that his  
reminiscences had to be used only at a later date.
lf


Ric Holt <[log in to unmask]> ha scritto:

> It is interesting get this e-mail. I'm going through the letters now
> when Ken Galbraith was asked a number of questions by what was called
> the "Employee Loyalty Program" from the Department of Commerce in
> 1950. It appears that if anyone had worked or had done any consulting
> for a government agency, (which included attending a conference where
> the government paid for travel to the conference) the "Loyalty Board"
> had a right to ask you to submit a notarized response to any question
> they might have of your affiliation or "sympathetic" association with
> any "foreign or domestic organizations or persons as totalitarian,
> fascist, communist, or subversive…" Ken was asked to respond if he
> knew Corliss Lamont, E. Johnston Coil or Martin Popper. He was also
> asked to provide names of those he believed were in "sympathetic
> association" with the Communist Party. Given that many economists had
> or were doing work for the Federal government right after the war this
> meant that many of them were subject to such questions that could
> influence their careers. The response of the board of who it would
> question, in many cases, was from "certain information of a derogatory
> nature with respect to you…" What an ugly time. So it wouldn't
> surprise me about some Chicago economists being asked to testify.
> Ric Holt
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 2:32 PM, E. Roy Weintraub <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Anatol Rapoport's autobiography states that Senator Albert Jenner's Internal
>> Activities Subcommittee came to the University of Chicago looking for
>> communists in 1953, two years after Hutchins left. Several faculty were
>> fired. is there a record of any Chicago economists being called to testify?
>> Are there records of any of them being interviewed by the FBI or the
>> Subcommittee about "communist tendencies" or "communist sympathies" among
>> colleagues?
>>
>> --------
>> E. Roy Weintraub
>> Professor of Economics
>> Fellow, Center for the History of Political Economy
>> Duke University
>> www.econ.duke.edu/~erw/erw.homepage.html
>>
>>