‘Running with the Hounds’: Academic McCarthyism and New York University, 1952–53

Abstract

This paper is an anatomy of an inquisition. It examines the Cold War persecution of Edwin Berry Burgum, a university professor and literary theorist. Whilst his professional competence was consistently applauded, his academic career was abruptly destroyed. His ‘fitness to teach’ was determined by his political beliefs: he was a member of the American Communist Party. The paper argues that New York University, an institution that embodied liberal values, collaborated with McCarthyism. Using previously overlooked or unavailable sources, it reveals cooperation between NYU's executive officers and the FBI, HUAC and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Though its focus on one individual, the paper illuminates larger themes of the vulnerability of academic freedom and the bureaucratic processes of political repression.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Julie Kimber, Laurence Maher and the Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center, NYU, which funded the research on which this paper is based.

Notes

  [1] New York University Archives, Records of the Edwin Berry Burgum Academic Freedom Case, 1934–61, RG 19, Box 3, Folder 2, Telegram Heald to Burgum, 13 October 1952 [henceforth box and folder numbers only, unless otherwise indicated]. News of his suspension was carried the next day in the Daily Compass, the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune.

  [2] As he told a student newspaper the next day, ‘The whole affair has taken me too much by surprise to make any definite plans’. The Education Sun, 15 October 1952.

  [3] Countryman, Un-American Activities; Caute, The Great Fear, 403–45; Foster, Red Alert!; Lewis, Cold War on Campus; Saunders, Cold War on the Campus; Schrecker, No Ivory Tower.

  [4] Lewis, The Cold War and Academic Governance; McCormick, This Nest of Vipers.

  [5] Holmes, Stalking the Academic Communist.

  [6] Holmes, Stalking the Academic Communist, viii (foreword by Ellen Schrecker).

  [7] Caute, The Great Fear, 416. Caute (p. 445) estimated that, in New York alone, 321 school teachers and 58 college teachers were purged in the 1950s.

  [8] Despite this American pedigree, an FBI informant later noted: ‘speaks with thick English accent, typical English type appearance resembling the late actor W.C. Fields’. US Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, FOIPA No. 115280-000 [henceforth FBI Burgum file], Report, ‘Edwin Berry Burgum’, 17 October 1963, 2. His Washington File No. was 100-113877, and his New York File No. was 100-26437.

  [9] He became Assistant Professor in 1926 and Associate Professor in 1931.

 [10] Schrecker, No Ivory Tower, 76, 83.

 [11] New York Times, 15 January 1938.

 [12] New York City Board of Higher Education Archives, New York, Transcript, Rapp-Coudert Legislative Committee Public Hearing, 8 April 1941, 961–3. This photo is reproduced in Frusciano and Pettit, New York University and the City, 199.

 [13] Because he was employed by a private university – unlike the other witnesses from City College of New York Brooklyn College – Burgum was not subject to Section 903 of the New York City Charter, which empowered the Board of Education to summarily dismiss any public employee who took the Fifth, that is, refused to answer self-incriminating questions.

 [14] New York Times, 12 January 1935; Transcript, Rapp-Coudert Hearing, 8 April 1941, 958–9.

 [15] Badlet to Heald, 16 October 1952, Box 7, Folder 18. Ralph Leviton, a Commerce graduate in 1950 was similarly affected – ‘My heart is heavy … You make a mockery of my diploma’. Leviton to Heald, 17 October 1952, Box 5, Folder 18.

 [16] Gillen to Heald, 4 November 1952, Box 7, Folder 17.

 [17] Solomon to Heald, 14 October 1952, Gillen to Heald, 4 November 1952, Box 7, Folder 17

 [18] Sper to Heald, 31 January 1953, Gillen to Heald, 4 November 1952, Box 7, Folder 17

 [19] Letter to Heald, signed by eight students, 29 October 1952, Gillen to Heald, 4 November 1952, Box 7, Folder 17

 [20] Only four current students wrote to Heald supporting the suspension; see Box 5, Folder 11.

 [21] ‘Transcript of Hearing on Charges Against Associate Professor Edwin Berry Burgum New York University’, 683, Box 1, Folder 10.

 [22] ‘Statement by Professor Riggs’, 20–21, attached to memorandum to Charles Hodges, 12 March 1953, Box 5, Folder 4.

 [23] Carroll, Facing Fascism, 182, n.7.

 [24] The Internal Security Act (also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act) was passed over Truman's presidential veto in September 1950; its draconian centre-piece was the establishment of a five-person Subversive Activities Control Board.

 [25] Both HUAC and the FBI relied heavily on Budenz's testimony; see Budenz, Men Without Faces.

 [26] FBI Burgum File, Correspondence to SAC [Special Agent in Charge], New York and Director, Washington, 13 June 1950.

 [27] FBI Burgum File, Memorandum, SAC, New York to J. Edgar Hoover, 16 January 1951; Report, ‘Edwin Berry Burgum, Security Matter – C’, 16 January 1951, 1. On the other hand Burgum was ‘unknown’ to confidential informants T-23, T-24 and T-25 (ibid., 12).

 [28] In February 1946, a conference of senior FBI officials decided to provide covert support to HUAC (O'Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans, 76, 98); in 1947, assisting HUAC became ‘an FBI priority’ (Theoharis, Chasing Spies, 16); in 1949, an FBI agent, Louis Russell, became HUAC's chief investigator (Goodman, The Committee, 273). See also Schrecker, Many are the Crimes, 214–5.

 [29] ‘The FBI Responsibilities Program File and the Dissemination of Information File [1951-1955]’, microfilm copy (#9703: 8 reels), New York University.

 [30] Chase was appointed Chancellor in 1933, retired in 1950 and died in 1955.

 [31] Chase, Madden and Heald were all titled ‘Chancellor’. This changed to ‘President’ in July 1956 under Heald's successor, Carroll Newson.

 [32] Schrecker, No Ivory Tower, 294–5.

 [33] Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice, Headquarters Files 100-HQ-340005 and 100-HQ-260819 (FOIPA No.115281-000, released 2009) [henceforth FBI Bradley files], Office of Director, Message, 5 March 1951.

 [34] FBI Bradley files, ‘Memorandum to Mr. Tolson’, 8 March 1951. The Madden–FBI connection has been overlooked in the most relevant study, Diamond's, Compromised Campus. Indeed the only reference to NYU–FBI contact is a fleeting endnote (p. 347, n.35) and concerns a 1954 FBI memorandum advising NYU of the ‘sex deviate practices of an instructor’.

 [35] Square Bulletin, 24 October 1952.

 [36] Karl E. Mundt to Frank L. Howley, 4 June 1953, Box 5, Folder 14.

 [37] Testimony of Edward [sic] Burgum, Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, 82nd Congress, 2 ^nd Session, on Subversive Influence in the Educational Process (United States Government Printing Office: Washington, 1952), 13 October 1952 [henceforth Hearings, McCarran Committee], 276.

 [38] The Nation, 29 September 1951 (Leonard Boudin, ‘The Fifth Amendment: Freedom's Bastion’).

 [39] FBI Burgum File, Correspondence, A.H. Belmont to D.M. Ladd, 19 February 1953, ‘Testimony Before McCarran Committee September 25, 1952, Volume #6, Pages 63–89’, 5.

 [40] FBI Burgum File, Correspondence, A.H. Belmont to D.M. Ladd, 19 February 1953, ‘Testimony Before McCarran Committee September 25, 1952, Volume #6, Pages 63–89’, 9.

 [41] New York Times, 14 October 1952.

 [42] Square Bulletin, 14 October 1952.

 [43] Reproduced in The Evening News, 27 October 1952.

 [44] For copies of this open letter, see ‘72 Students on the Burgum Case’, in Box 6, Folders 7 and 11. By early November the group had 150 members; see New York University Heights Daily News, 3 November 1952.

 [45] See assorted leaflets in Box 6, Folder 7; Box 7, Folder 3.

 [46] Phrase used in memorandum, Voorhis to Vice-Chancellor David Henry, 15 October 1952, Box 6, Folder 12.

 [47] Memorandum from Registrar's Office to Voorhis, 23 October 1952 (report of the meeting attached), Box 6, Folder 12.

 [48] Voorhis to E.C.K. [Elaine C. Kashman], 15 October 1952, Box 6, Folder 12.

 [49] Voorhis to Henry, 21 October 1952, Box 6, Folder 12.

 [50] New York Times, 23 July 1952.

 [51] As one professor asked Heald, ‘Is it too much to ask that New York University emulate Columbia [University] rather than an institution that is part of a State apparatus?’ John Bicknell to Heald, 18 October 1952, Box 5, Folder 6.

 [52] Schrecker, No Ivory Tower, 167.

 [53] Howard Mumford Jones to Heald, 1 December 1952, Box 5, Folder 15.

 [54] Time, 23 July 1956.

 [55] Cited in The Evening News, 27 October 1952. He reiterated these sentiments in his commencement speech delivered on 12 June 1952 and spoke of the importance of NYU remaining ‘free from pressures’ outside the University. The Education Sun, 15 October 1952.

 [56] John De Boer (Professor of Education) to Heald, 12 May 1953, Box 5, Folder 6.

 [57] Bicknell to Heald, 18 October 1952, Box 5, Folder 6.

 [58] With 37,064 students enrolled in 1951, it was already the nation's largest private university.

 [59] Commerce Bulletin, 15 October 1952.

 [60] Square Bulletin, 17 October 1952; NYU Commerce Bulletin, 15 October 1952.

 [61] Evening News, 26 January 1953; New York University Heights Daily News, 15 October 1952.

 [62] Time, 23 July 1956.

 [63] ‘Insert in speech “A Chance to Serve”’, P–FILE (no box/folder. Henceforth, ‘Insert’).

 [64] See, for example, New York Times, 8 November 1952; New York Herald Tribune, 8 November 1952; Commerce Bulletin, 12 November 1952 (‘Heald blasts communism before business confab’).

 [65] New York Times, 20 January 1953 (‘Academic Freedom Not For Reds’).

 [66] See Powers, Not Without Honour, 199–212.

 [67] See ‘Academic Freedom and Tenure, Statements of Principles’, AAUP Bulletin 38, no. 1 (Spring 1952): 116–22.

 [68] ‘Insert’, 1–2.

 [69] Square Bulletin, 29 October 1952; Education Sun, 29 October 1952; NYU Commerce Bulletin, 29 October 1952; New York University Heights Daily News, 5 November 1952; Evening News, 10 November 1952.

 [70] This was neither the first nor last time Sidney Hook wrote on this topic; see his ‘What Shall We Do About Communist Teachers?’, Saturday Evening Post, 10 September 1949: 164–8; ‘Academic Integrity and Academic Freedom’, Commentary, 8 (October 1949): 329–39; ‘Indoctrination and Academic Freedom’, The New Leader, 9 March 1953, 2–4.

 [71] ‘Insert’, 2.

 [72] As a communist lawyer later wrote, ‘the witnesses were so many and the possible choices so few that most lawyers representing those witnesses in the early 1950s fell into habit of advising all clients to “take the Fifth”’. Rabinowitz, Unrepentant Leftist, 119–20.

 [73] Philbrick to Heald, 10 November 1952, Box 5, Folder 14.

 [74] Heald to Philbrick, 14 November, Philbrick to Heald, 10 November 1952, Box 5, Folder 14

 [75] Education Sun, 15 October 1952.

 [76] Burgum to Heald, 13 November 1952, Box 5, Folder 8.

 [77] Theodore Skinner (chairman of Board of Review) to Heald, 19 November 1952, Burgum to Heald, 13 November 1952, Box 5, Folder 8

 [78] Excerpt from the minutes of NYU Council meeting, 24 November 1952, Box 5, Folder 1; Box 2, Folder 2.

 [79] Burgum to Heald, 2 December 1952; Heald to Burgum, 5 December 1952, Box 3, Folder 5. He also formally appealed the decision, but on 23 December, the Executive and Education Committees of University Council unanimously rejected his appeal. Minutes of meeting, Box 5, Folder 1.

 [80] ‘Statement for the University Council, November 24, 1952’, Box 5, Folder 2.

 [81] This hints at collusion between Heald and Pollock. The letter bears hallmarks of being composed ‘on the run’. Copy in Box 5, Folder 8.

 [82] Excerpt from the minutes of NYU Council meeting, 24 November 1952, 2–3, Box 2, Folder 2.

 [83] Burgum to Heald, 2 December 1952, Box 3, Folder 4.

 [84] Heald to Burgum, 5 December 1952, Box 3, Folder 5.

 [85] Burgum to Heald, 18 December 1952, Box 5, Folder 10. Emphasis original.

 [86] Heald to Burgum, 5 January 1953, Burgum to Heald, 18 December 1952, Box 5, Folder 10. Emphasis original

 [87] Harry B. Gould to Heald, 26 October 1952, Box 5, Folder 17. Gould was a New York architect and town planner.

 [88] For full details, see ‘Roster of Elected Members – New York University Senate 1952–53’, Box 5, Folder 3.

 [89] Interview with Hollis Cooley, 4 November 1981, transcript of interview kindly loaned by Ellen Schrecker (original tape in Paul Tillett Files, Seeley G. Mudd Library, Princeton University; henceforth Cooley interview, 1981). In 1948–49 Cooley was president of the AAUP chapter at NYU.

 [90] Arad McCutchan Riggs was a 6 ft. 4 in. Law Professor at NYU (appointed 1937; retired 1964) and partner in the Madison Avenue law firm, Allin, Riggs & Shaughnessy.

 [91] Cooley interview, 1981.

 [92] Once a supporter of the Left in the Spanish Civil War, Hodges had become ‘very conservative’ after 1940. Cooley interview, 1981.

 [93] Memorandum, 3, attached to letter, Riggs to Pollock, 10 February 1953, Box 7, Folder 1.

 [94] NYU Commerce Bulletin, 25 February 1953.

 [95] According to one Committee member, they were so preoccupied with this case that they ‘couldn't do other things’. Cooley interview, 1981.

 [96] Untitled document (annotated ‘Pollock 3/5/53’), Box 4, Folder 21.

 [97] Box 4, Folders 1, 3 and 6; ‘Edwin Berry Burgum’, 14 November 1952, Box 6, Folder 24. For an annotated partial list of ‘front’ organizations to which Burgum had lent his support see Box 2, Folder 21 (Exhibits 45–62); for a full list of the 73 organizations compiled by J.B. Matthews (for which Burgum had been a signatory, sponsor, chair or member), see Box 6, Folder 24.

 [98] Kempton, Part of Our Time, 214 (ch.5 is devoted to Matthews); Caute, Fellow-Travellers, 141, 319.

 [99] Caute, Fellow-Travellers, 325; Lichtman, ‘J.B. Matthews’, 1–36.

[100] Schrecker, No Ivory Tower, 72, 151. Matthews was sufficiently eminent to be William F. Buckley Sr.’s dinner guest at the Yale University Club in 1951. Diamond, Compromised Campus, 170.

[101] His links with NYU continued; see J.B. Matthews Papers, 1862–1986, Special Collections Library, Duke University, Box 438, Folder 11.

[102] Now located in Box 4, Folder 13.

[103] ‘Transcript of Hearing on Charges Against Associate Professor Edwin Berry Burgum New York University’ (henceforth Transcript of hearing), 99, 105, 156.

[104] Transcript of hearing, 720 (see 710–22 for this section).

[105] See the highly sceptical response from Professor Walter Anderson, Transcript of hearing, 722

[106] See the highly sceptical response from Professor Walter Anderson, Transcript of hearing, 119, 179. These exhibits are located in Box 3, Folders 15–25, and Box 4, Folders 1–26. Burgum's 18 exhibits are located in Box 3, Folders 2–14. HUAC also forwarded Pollock a copy of its extraordinary Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications (and Appendix), House Document No. 137, 82nd Congress, 1st Session, 14 April 1951.

[107] Committee, Scientific and Cultural Conference, 18. This booklet identified and named 270 individuals affiliated with one to ten front organizations. For Pollock's use of it, see Transcript of hearing, 78–81.

[108] Before the hearings formally commenced, Cooley had sought clarification of the charges, but was overruled by Hodges. Cooley interview, 1981.

[109] Cooley's phrase (Interview, 1981).

[110] Pollock's copy is located in Box 4, Folder 17. Unlike (it would appear) Pollock, Attorney-General, Tom Clark, later remarked: ‘I thought Philbrick's book was a bunch of trash’. Cited in Steinberg, Great ‘Red Menace’, 165.

[111] Cooley interview, 1981.

[112] Steinberg, The Great ‘Red Menace’, 164.

[113] Transcript of hearing, 734–89.

[114] Transcript of hearing, 829–30.

[115] Transcript of hearing, 791–803. Johnson died in 1959 with perjury charges pending.

[116] Cargill to Burgum, 10 February 1953, Box 6, Folder 25.

[117] Square Bulletin, 5 December 1952.

[118] Confidential report of meeting of Student Organizing Committee for Academic Freedom, Elaine Kashman (Registrar's Office), to Voorhis, 23 October 1952, Box 6, Folder 12.

[119] Square Bulletin, 17 October 1952.

[120] Letter, Burgum to ‘Dear Colleague’, 13 November 1952, Box, 4, Folder 14.

[121] Cooley interview, 1981. There was not one protest letter to Chancellor Heald from a current member of NYU faculty. However, there were 17 letters from faculty supporting Heald, ranging from the obsequious (to Heald) to the nasty (towards Burgum). See Box 5, Folder 12.

[122] Attached to ‘Memorandum to the Professorial Members of the Faculty of Washington Square College’, 20 May 1953, in NYU Archives, Dorothy Arnold Papers, RG 19.3, Box 2, Folder 16 (henceforth Memorandum, Arnold Papers).

[123] Beck, Contempt of Congress, 84–6.

[124] See, for example, New York Times, 7 December 1952, 26 December 1952, 30 December 1952; Leonard B. Boudin, ‘The Fifth Amendment: Freedom's Bastion’, The Nation, 29 September 1951 and ‘The Constitutional Privilege in Operation’ Lawyers Guild Review 12, no. 3 (Summer 1952): 1–22.

[125] For some of the vast literature on the Fifth Amendment, see Beck's bibliography, Contempt of Congress, 257.

[126] Cooley interview, 1981. Cooley decided to write a lengthy (12-page) dissenting opinion. For the full text see attachment to Memorandum, Arnold Papers, Box 2, Folder 16.

[127] ‘New York University Statement on the Suspension, Hearing, and Dismissal of Edwin Berry Burgum’, 30 April 1953, 11, Box 6, Folder 8 [henceforth NYU Statement].

[128] NYU Statement, 12–13.

[129] Cooley interview, 1981. Cooley did not identify him but internal evidence points to Professor S. Bernard Wortis, from the School of Medicine.

[130] For the full transcript of both, see ‘Meeting of the Council of New York University’, 27 April 1953, Box 5, Folder 1.

[131] For the full transcript of both, see ‘Meeting of the Council of New York University’, 27 April 1953, Box 5, Folder 1, 34.

[132] Minutes of Special Meeting, NYU Council, 30 April 1953, Box 5, Folder 1.

[133] New York Times, 16 July 1953; Caute, The Great Fear, 321–4.

[134] ‘Testimony of Edwin B. Burgum’, Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations. 83rd Congress 1st Session 1953. Vol. 2, 1198–203. That friend of the NYU administration, Karl Mundt, was a member of this Subcommittee, but was not present during this Executive Session.

[135] His FBI file listed him then as ‘Unemployed’, Office Memo, SAC New York to Director, 19 June 1953.

[136] Letter, 22 June 1953, Box 6, Folder 27.

[137] New York University Heights Daily News, 22 March 1954.

[138] Born Mildred Rabinowich on 16 June 1906 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, she was also a progressive, being affiliated with the left-wing National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. In February 1954, she contributed some poignant poetry (‘Four Poems’) to Contemporary Reader (1, no. 3, 1954: 33–37), the short-lived literary journal founded and edited by her husband.

[139] ‘Edwin Berry Burgum’, ch. 4, Burgum Family History Society, http://www.burgumfamily.com/ (accessed 20 April 2009); confirmed by Doug Burgum, email correspondence, 23 April 2009.

[140] Confidential Report, New York, ‘Edwin Berry Burgum’, 8 April 1957, FBI Burgum files.

[141] Questionnaire completed by Burgum [nd] in Paul Tillett Files, Seeley G. Mudd Library, Princeton; transcribed notes kindly loaned by Ellen Schrecker.

[142] Report, with attachments, SAC, New York, to Director, Washington, 22 March 1962.

[143] New York Times, 17 September 1964.

[144] New York Times, 31 March 1965.

[145] Hoover to SAC, New York, 5 March 1968.

[146] Report, New York Office, 11 March 1966.

[147] In March 1960, no fewer than 15 informants were contacted. ‘Pretext interviews’ involved an FBI agent using a subterfuge when visiting or telephoning Burgum's residence to confirm that he still lived at Apartment 3F, 175 Riverside Drive, to which he and his wife moved in March 1955. His subscriptions included The American Socialist and Science & Society.

[148] This is despite two reports, on 2 June 1958 and 28 January 1963, that direct connections between Science & Society and the CP could not be established. See Price, ‘Theoretical Dangers’, 480. Burgum is still (2009) listed under the ‘Editorial Honor Roll’ of Science & Society.

[149] Published by Russell & Russell (New York, 1963) and translated into Italian and published as History and Criticism (Rome, 1965). That there was such continuing demand for this final work, first published six years before his dismissal, is suggestive of a notable academic career prematurely stymied and an academic field significantly deprived. Burgum's second book, The New Criticism: An Anthology of Modern Aesthetics and Literary Criticism (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1930) became one of the standard texts in its field for the next 15 years.

[150] New York Times, 3 July 1979. (There was no obituary, merely a death notice inserted, presumably, by his daughter, Naomi Smith.)