1956 Academic Freedom?

"There is a tarnish on the Veritas today. The good name of the University is being used to disadvantage," Edwin Ginn '18, a Boston tinancier, charged in 1956 when he resigned as the Class of 1918's representative to the Harvard Fund Council. Ginn, protesting the appointment of J. Robert Oppenheimer '26 as William James Lecturer, called the famous scientist "a known Communist sympathizer and confessed liar in a matter of espionage." Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wis.) also challenged then-President Nathan M. Pusey's appointment of Oppenheimer, whom McCarthy considered a "security risk."

As in previous years, the major challenge facing Harvard in 1956 was maintaining academic freedom in the face of crusading anti-communists outside the University. In the Massachusetts state house, the legislature considered three bills aimed at preventing Communists from teaching in Massachusetts universities. Rep. Charles Iannell of Boston, sponsor of two of the bills, said. "It is a wellknown fact that Harvard is a nest of Communists."

Iannell's proposals, of course, were not without critics. Mark DeWolf Howe '28, a leading expert on constitutional law and a professor at the Law School, complained that the bills "seek to destroy as an educational institution" any university that does not accept the legislature's criteria for teachers. Samuel H. Beer, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, said he feared the bills would curtail free discussion of ideas and create an atmosphere of fear in the classroom. A Crimson editorial, calling the Iannell proposals "inherently unsound," claimed that universities can only function "when they are free to set their own standards for the conduct of their faculty."

The threat of outside interference in the University, however, extended beyond what one observer called an "awfully stupid" state legislature. In Washington, the Senate Internal Security Committee, headed by Sen. James O. Eastland (D-Miss.), charged that 10 per cent of a group of intellectuals listed as "the most typical sponsors of Communist Front Organizations" had some connection with Harvard. In the House Un-American Activities Committee, the view of Harvard was much the same as in the Senate. Harold H. Velde, the former chairman of the committee, told a group of students that Harvard, as a large center for learning, was an ideal target for the Communists to infiltrate.

McCarthy, in his "ongoing effort to remove communists from positions of responsibility wherever they may be found," called Harvard a "privileged sanctuary" for "President Pusey's Fifth Amendment Communists."

"It is wrong, it is viciously wrong" for the University to refuse to eliminate its Communist instructors, McCarthy said, adding. "Whoever is responsible should not be president of Harvard."

McCarthy's anti-Harvard fervor brought him to Boston to testify against several Harvard faculty members indicted on grounds of contempt of Congress by the McCarthy subcommittee. The faculty members had refused to answer questions pertaining to Communist activities of members of the University faculty.

Leon J. Kamin '48, a former-instructor in Social Relations, was aquitted by Federal District Judge Bailey Aldrich '28 after a ten day trial. Aldrich's decision, which held an entire McCarthy investigation illegal, forced the Justice Department to drop a similar case against Wendall H. Furry, associate professor of Physics. McCarthy, calling for Aldrich's impeachment, said the ruling was "ridiculous to the point of being ludicrous."

Other academics were not as fortunate, however. Marcus Singer, a former Harvard Zoology instructor, was convicted of contempt of Congress and sentenced to a suspended three-month jail term and a $100 fine. Dirk J. Struik, an MIT mathematics professor, was indicated for conspiring to overthrow the government of the United States and of Massachusetts. After four years of waiting, the court finally dismissed the indictment.

The House Un-American Activities Committee openly censured Harvard and several College professors for their pro-Struik actions. "History alone will show how many of Struik's students were led by him down the road to Communism," the committee said