“Abject Cowardice” and Public Image: Debunking the Myth of Harvard University’s Resistance Against McCarthyism

On February 9, 1950, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy delivered a speech claiming that the United States’ State Department “harbor[ed] a nest of Communists and Communist sympathizers who are helping to shape our foreign policy.” This speech acted as a catalyst for the senator’s namesake movement, McCarthyism, which spread like wildfire across the United States during the early 1950s. At this time, communism was growing in strength both in the Soviet Union, with the Cold War and the creation of the first Soviet atomic bomb, and in China, with Chinese communists winning their civil war. Spurred by this broader Second Red Scare, McCarthyism sought to root out and blacklist Communist Party members in all areas of American life. By 1956, an estimated 13.5 million Americans had undergone some form of mandatory loyalty test or investigation—as a result of McCarthyism—in order to maintain employment. In addition to enduring severe investigation, many Americans under suspicion committed suicide in order to escape McCarthyism-induced terror. Amongst the most targeted were academic institutions: as longstanding pillars of intellectual freedom, universities were, according to McCarthy, safe havens for communists and ideological dissidents. By 1952, Harvard University became a major target of the McCarthy agenda—the name Harvard was “almost synonymous with all that was evil in education,” reported The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student-run undergraduate newspaper. Subsequently, the university was forced to decide how to respond both internally and externally to the McCarthy agenda. Although Harvard cultivated an image of deep commitment to academic freedom in the face of McCarthyism, Harvard’s response to McCarthyist threats—through their investigation into longstanding community members and the requirements for newly appointed faculty—marked a shift away from academic freedom for the university and suppressed ideological diversity within the institution.

For decades prior to the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the United States had greatly feared the influence of communism. McCarthy did not invent the concept of prosecuting communists but rather came to power at a time when the United States was particularly susceptible to his extremist views and plans. He collaborated with the already established House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), originally founded secretly in 1938 to investigate domestic fascist groups. The HUAC held congressional hearings for citizens suspected of communist ties. Additionally, McCarthy chaired the Committee on Government Operations’ Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. As subcommittee chair, he led investigations into perceived communist influence within the United States government, including the State Department, the U.S. Army, and the Government Printing Office. These investigations, often joint with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), consisted of research, hearings, and loyalty tests that frequently resulted in loss of employment or even jail time—often not for actual communism but for contempt of Congress, perjury, or violation of the Smith Act by refusing to cooperate with anti-communist questioning. Throughout his time in power, McCarthy targeted suspected current and former members of the Communist Party, initially only within the federal government but eventually across all forms of employment in the United States.

McCarthyism rapidly spread to the academic sector, as many Americans feared that teachers and professors would impart their ideological beliefs—in this case, communism—to their pupils. Anne Rogers Minor, a president of the Daughters of the American Revolution, stated her belief that there should be “no [educators] … who care more for their ‘academic freedom of speech’ and opinion (so called) than for their country.” She went on to explain that, “academic freedom of speech has no place in [educational institutions], where the youth of our country are taught and their unformed minds are developed.” This sentiment was echoed across the country, leading to a crackdown on communists in education, particularly in well-known universities such as those in the Ivy League. Many professors chose to stand up against these McCarthyist efforts, but resistance—or lack thereof—ultimately became the responsibility of the universities’ administrations, who held the overarching power. In order to maintain a teaching position at many schools, each professor was, according to former Boston University professor Maurice Halperin, ...expected first to state his political beliefs and affiliations; second to state those of others with whom he has been associated; third, to expose himself to accusations against which adequate defense is possible only through normal court procedures; fourth, to refrain from invoking the Constitution of the United States to protect himself from these abuses. Halperin’s assessment demonstrated the pressures on educators in this time period: they were forced to succumb to federal influence or lose their appointments and, therefore, their livelihoods.

While many universities suffered during this era, Harvard, a recurrent defender of academic freedom, was specifically targeted by McCarthyists. This instance was not the first time that Harvard had faced off against threats to academic freedom; in the 1930s, Harvard had been labeled the “Kremlin on the Charles” for alleged radicalism—a name used to mock the university as a bastion of liberal and communist sympathizers—and had faced increasing political pressure. Despite this outside influence, during the 1930s, the institution largely chose to protect faculty freedoms and refused to fire tenured professors. Harvard chose to fight the federal government, openly inviting criticism, citing their core value of academic freedom. Subsequently, it is commonly believed that Harvard continued this pattern of defending academic freedom during the McCarthy Era.

For outsiders, Harvard attempted to construct a public image of resistance to McCarthyism, fearing criticism and loss of funding. McCarthy himself criticized Harvard President Nathan Pusey as “a man who… appears to hide a combination of bigotry and intolerance behind a cloak of phoney, hypocritical liberalism.” Elaborating, the senator stated that “while he [Pusey] professes a sincere dislike for Communism, his hatred and contempt appear to be infinitely greater for those who effectively expose Communists … He is what could be best described as a rabid… anti-Communist.” These statements would appear to suggest resistance by the university and its president against McCarthy, as the senator was angered by Pusey’s policies and opinions. Harvard’s own paper, The Harvard Crimson, wrote that, “the University, acting on a long tradition of academic freedom, [has held] firm against the general craze to find subversive scapegoats and against the particular abuses of Senator McCarthy,” alleging the university’s defiance and separating Harvard from other, theoretically more cooperative universities. Harvard Dean for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences McGeorge Bundy explained in an April 27, 1955 letter to the Harvard Corporation—Harvard’s five-person governing board—that the Corporation faced a “danger of outside criticism” if they appeared to simply dismiss suspected communists from their faculty appointments without fair investigation. Bundy’s fear was echoed in many of the university’s decisions regarding McCarthyism, as Harvard strove to manufacture a public image as a guardian of academic freedom. This public presentation hid much of what occurred behind the scenes. Harvard graduate Robert Bellah characterized Harvard’s policy as “a discreet collaboration with McCarthyism with the primary concern of avoiding criticism,” by generally hiding dismissals and investigations into current and former Communist Party members. Drawing attention to occasions of resistance to political pressure, university leaders went so far as to present themselves as upstanders against the McCarthy agenda. Consequently, Harvard was “widely acclaimed as a bastion of academic freedom,” recalled Harvard graduate Leon Kamin; however, according to Kamin, the insincerity of this statement made the respect “wholly undeserved.” This image of resistance was merely a facade that Harvard used to shield itself from public scrutiny.

In contrast to their public presentation of opposition to McCarthyism, Harvard conducted private investigations into longstanding community members, threatening their positions at the university and defining a turning point in the university’s policy on intellectual freedom. Bundy required all former Communist Party members, in order to be kept on, to provide the FBI with a “full and complete account of their activities in the Communist Party” and to subsequently identify all other Communist Party members known to them. This mandate demonstrated the university’s shift away from academic freedom, as professors were no longer permitted to keep information about their pasts private. Instead, they were forced either to accept dismissal from Harvard or to reveal personal—and possibly condemning—information. If a professor was found to be a current member of the Communist Party, they would be fired regardless of whether or not they had tenure. Professor Wendell Furry, a tenured Harvard physics professor, admitted under oath to being a former communist but stated that he was no longer a member of the Party. That “Wendell had tenure” was a particular point of “concern” for coworkers, explained Edward Purcell, a fellow physics professor, because tenure had formerly protected faculty members from this type of inspection. Like many targeted professors, Furry took refuge behind the Fifth Amendment—the right to refuse answering questions in order to avoid self-incrimination—by declining to answer questions from the HUAC, McCarthy, and the Harvard Corporation regarding the identities of his former comrades. The Corporation subsequently charged him with “grave misconduct” and immediately placed him on three years’ probation. The university’s failure to respect Furry’s constitutional rights demonstrated a deviation from historical university values. On December 17, 1954, Furry was federally indicted on ten counts of contempt toward Congress: “the misdemeanor of refusing to answer questions of a Senatorial committee concerning other people,” explained President Pusey. Harvard refused to come to Furry’s defense in court and instead aided the prosecution despite Furry’s longstanding commitment to the Harvard community. In a November 1953 statement about Furry, Pusey claimed that “a member of the Communist Party is not fit to be on the faculty because he has not the necessary independence of thought and judgment.” Pusey’s blatant unwillingness to support Furry revealed Harvard’s compliance with the McCarthy agenda, undermining the myth of the university’s opposition. Though Furry was eventually acquitted in June of 1956 and managed to retain his Harvard appointment, the precedent set by the Corporation’s investigation into him demonstrated a deep shift in Harvard’s policy on academic freedom.

Furry was not the only Harvard community member who suffered from harsh investigation during the 1950s. Leon Kamin was an untenured graduate student, teaching fellow, and research assistant in social relations at Harvard. While an undergraduate, he had joined the Communist Party in 1945 but later elected to leave the party in 1950. During his pursuit of a Ph.D. at the university, Kamin, as he wrote in a letter to the New York Review years later, was “subpoenaed … and asked to “name names” of others who were involved in the Communist Party. He continued:

I declined to answer questions, citing my Fifth Amendment privilege to remain silent. I explained that my use of the Fifth Amendment stemmed from legal advice that if I answered any of the committee’s questions, I would be compelled to give the names of colleagues—who, like myself, were guilty of no crime.

His legal defense was constitutionally sound under the protections of the Fifth Amendment of the United States, and yet it led him to being charged with “misconduct” by the Harvard Corporation. Blatant disregard for this major constitutional amendment— used in many court cases across United States history—again displayed a major shift in Harvard’s policy on academic freedom. While university oversight of freedom of speech had always been in tension with the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment was generally accepted by universities as a valid defense. One member of the Corporation alleged that, if Kamin received a degree from the university after his refusal to submit to McCarthyist questioning, “Harvard would suffer grave embarrassment.” This statement demonstrated a drastic shift in Harvard’s motivations: previously, the Corporation focused on avoiding public disapproval of the university’s compliance with the McCarthy agenda, but—by January of 1954—the Corporation feared “embarrassment” if they did not fall in line. Subsequently, Harvard refused to come to Kamin’s defense when he was indicted on six counts of contempt of Congress. Though the indictment was later dropped, Kamin related in a 2017 interview that “it left [him] unemployable in the United States.” Senator McCarthy himself—as reported by The New York Times in 1956—said “the contempt case against Mr. Furry, a Harvard professor was almost identical [to that of Mr. Kamin],” documenting that the same battle was repeatedly fought against Harvard faculty with the same result: Harvard’s refusal to defend community members. Through Harvard’s investigation and treatment of both Furry and Kamin, the university revealed their compliance with McCarthy—a turning point in the university’s relationship with academic freedom, as tenure and community standing had previously protected community members from prosecution. Harvard’s policy changes during McCarthyism expanded beyond investigations into existing community members: the university also implemented harsh requirements for applicants that prevented current and former communists from gaining positions at Harvard. One such applicant, Harvard-educated sociologist Robert Bellah, had been a member of the Communist Party from 1947 through 1949, mainly as a leader of the John Reed Club—a discussion group focused on Marxism—which was officially recognized by the university. In the spring of 1955, the Department of Social Relations put Bellah up for a faculty appointment despite his history with the Communist Party. Bundy requested that Bellah undergo comprehensive mental health screening by the Harvard Health Service because, as he put it, an ex-communist must be “crazy.” This form of psychological manipulation allowed the Harvard Corporation to keep many ex-communists out of office simply on the grounds that they were not mentally stable enough to serve as faculty members. Eventually, Bellah was offered an appointment on the condition that “if, during Mr. Bellah’s year of service as instructor, he should refuse to testify about any past association with communists, the Corporation would not look with favor on any proposal for his reappointment,” as Pusey wrote in a letter to Bundy on May 16 of 1955. The Corporation’s refusal to ensure Bellah’s appointment unless he “named names” demonstrated the harsh employment requirements that Harvard implemented during this era. Bundy feared that if, in some way, Bellah were called as a witness and refused to cooperate, the university would be accused of “deliberately hiring” such a person. Bundy’s fear emphasized the shift in Harvard’s outlook on McCarthyism: the fear that the university would be seen as a rebel, contrasting previous concerns that the university would be perceived negatively for complying with McCarthy.

Harvard’s obsession with public image translated directly to their handling of ex-communists. Department of Social Relations Chair Talcott Parsons wrote in a 1955 memorandum to the Harvard Corporation that “the Corporation had acted with a degree of deviousness which [was] unworthy of the Governing Board of a great university.” Parsons believed that the Corporation’s actions indicated a turning point for Harvard as an institution, as it was directly opposing the morals for which it was supposed to stand. Pusey responded to Parsons’ memorandum, explaining that the Corporation “[felt] their action taken at that time [May 16, 1955] was the correct one, and, if circumstances were the same today, they would take the same attitude again.” Pusey defended the Harvard Corporation’s choices about Bellah’’s hiring and refused to further consider Parsons’ concerns. By doubling down on the university’s decisions, Pusey emphasized Harvard’s commitment to complying with the McCarthy agenda, even if it meant turning away from the historical tendencies of the university.

In another example, Harvard’s handling of Harvard graduate Sigmund Diamond’s potential faculty appointment again showcased the university’s support of McCarthy. After completing his doctorate at Harvard in 1953, Diamond remained on as a research fellow. Then, in 1954, Diamond was considered for appointment as Counselor for Foreign Students and Dean of Special Students. Despite having formerly been a member of the Communist Party from 1941 to 1950, Diamond believed that this aspect of his past would not prevent him from receiving a faculty position at Harvard, until he was called to Bundy’s office to discuss “if there was anything about [his] history that might embarrass Harvard,” as Diamond later recalled. Though this statement could theoretically refer to many different potential transgressions in Diamond’s past, the assumption that this meeting purely existed as an investigation into Diamond’s membership in the Communist Party is not only reasonable but probable. Diamond discovered later that each of the meetings that he subsequently had with Bundy and Pusey were taped without his permission. These tapes could then serve as leverage against Diamond throughout the investigation; this clear violation on the part of Harvard demonstrated the lengths to which the university was willing to go in order to comply with McCarthy. After Diamond refused to reveal names of members of the Communist Party to the FBI, Bundy withdrew Diamond’s appointment. Diamond’s history with communism eliminated his opportunity to remain at Harvard, as the requirements of his hiring involved his betraying former comrades and condemning them to relentless investigation or even jail time. Harvard’s treatment of Bellah and Diamond further revealed the university’s shift in rhetoric around academic freedom and McCarthyism.

During the McCarthy Era, Harvard University complied with external political pressure, investigating members of its own community and implementing new requirements for incoming faculty. These policies exemplified a shift in Harvard’s relationship with academic freedom as a concept. Ultimately, Harvard’s resistance against McCarthyism—something that the university is still praised for today—was merely a “myth,” as Bellah wrote in a letter to The New York Review. With Harvard’s stature and renown, the university could have used their influence to opportunity to initiate a national pushback against the threat to academic freedom but instead chose to quietly comply with McCarthy, while still preserving their public image. A more complete image of Harvard in McCarthyist times paints the university not as a “bulwark” against McCarthy, as Bellah put it, but as a cowardly institution submitting to political pressure and quietly surrendering their previous loyalty to academic and intellectual freedom. This capitulation, Bellah continued, was “tempered only by a concern that the Harvard administration not do something that would rouse even more criticism than not cooperating with McCarthy would, such as firing someone with tenure.” For centuries, since its founding in 1636, Harvard had featured an intellectually diverse student and teaching body, but McCarthyism saw a shift away from this diversity to a more single minded—and less politically threatening—institution. Even though McCarthyism ostensibly concluded by the end of the 1950s and the fear of communism slowly decayed, censorship and threats to academic freedom persist, even in modern times. Protecting true academic freedom is an insurmountable task, and Harvard during the McCarthy era demonstrated the ease with which a powerful institution can succumb to intense political pressure, no matter their stated moral values.