Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations explained

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]

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
  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
  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
  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
  24. Macedonian-American People's League
  25. Michicagn Federation for Constitutional Liberties
  26. National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners
  27. National Committee to Win the Peace
  28. National Council of American-Soviet Friendship
  29. Nature Friends of America
  30. National Federation for Constitutional Liberties
  31. National Negro Congress
  32. New Committee for Publications
  33. Ohio School of Social Sciences
  34. Philadelphia School on Social Sciences and Art
  35. Photo League of America
  36. Proletarian Party of America
  37. Protest War Veterans of the USA
  38. Revolutionary Workers League
  39. Samuel Adams School for Social Studies of Boston, MA
  40. School of Jewish Studies of New York, NY
  41. Seattle Labor School
  42. Socialist Workers Party including American Committee for European Workers Relief
  43. Tom Paine School of Westchester, NY
  44. Tom Paine School of Social Science of Philadelphia, PA
  45. Walt Whitman School of Social Science of Newark, NJ
  46. Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade
  47. Washington Book Shop Association
  48. Washington Committee for Democratic Action
  49. Workers Alliance
  50. Workers Party including Socialist Youth League

(Source: New York Times of 5 December 1947)

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]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Prelude to McCarthyism: The Making of a Blacklist. Goldstein, Robert Justin, Prologue, U.S. National Archives. 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), pp. 55-60, notes).
  3. Policing America's Writers . Mitgang . Herbert . 1987-09-28 . . 2022-02-16.
  4. News: Groups Called Disloyal. New York Times. 18. 5 December 1947. 16 June 2020.
  5. News: Accused Groups Deny Disloyalty: Five Organizations Listed by U.S. Insist They Are Not Subversive, Assail Clark. New York Times. 18. 5 December 1947. 16 June 2020.
  6. News: Accused Groups Condemn 'Purge'; Foster of Communist Party Hits Federal Charges -- One Body R~calls 'Palmer Raids'. New York Times. 13. 6 December 1947. 16 June 2020.
  7. Web site: Hoover and the Un-Americans. O'Reilly, Kenneth, Chapter 8:Counter Intelligence, University of Pennsylvania. 6 February 2007.
  8. Attorney General's list, Federal Register 13, (20 March 1948)
  9. Defense Department Form 98, Revision 1 June 1959
  10. News: Pear. Robert. Immigration Service Keeps List Of 'Proscribed' Groups in Nation; Basis for Listing Groups. A19. New York Times. 1980-10-27. 6 February 2007.
  11. Book: Brussee, Vincent . Social Credit: The Warring States of China's Emerging Data Empire . . 2023 . 9789819921881 . Singapore.

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