As Commencement approached for the Class of 1949, many Harvard students were concerned with more than just frolicking in the sun and preparing for life after college.

For those who tuned in to the national news on June 8, what they heard left them wondering about the future of academic freedom at Harvard.

On that day, The Crimson's front page informed the Harvard community that President James B. Conant '14 had signed his name to a report declaring card-carrying Communists unfit to teach in America's education system.

Coming barely one week after The Crimson ran a series on faculty dismissals and FBI investigations at schools as close as Yale University and the University of New Hampshire, Conant's stance seemed an unusual departure from Harvard's previously strong stance in favor of free speech.

The June 8 incident would become one of many in the dispute over the place of communism in American schools and universities in the years following World War II.

Only several years down the road, during the hysteria produced by the red-baiting campaign of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, Harvard professors would face a serious threat to their academic freedom.

As Harvard's leftists struggled to distinguish themselves from their radical peers, members of the Class of '49 bore witness to a prelude of the anti-Communist fervor that would grip the nation within a few years of their graduation.

Conant: A Nuclear Power

Before, during and after WWII, Harvard was intimately connected to the national political scene. Conant, who served as Harvard's president from 1933 to 1953, was also an atomic weapons adviser to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman.

Having earned a Ph.D. in chemistry before assuming the helm of the University, Conant was hand-picked by Roosevelt to function as the president's liaison to the scientists at New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory-the physicists and military experts who made the United States a nuclear power.

President Conant transitioned fluidly from the Ivy-covered walls of Cambridge to the halls of power in government. After the war, he continued to serve Washington, sitting on the Educational Policy Committee (EPC)-a body of academic experts who in 1949 issued a report calling for the expulsion of Communists from the ranks of the nation's teachers.

For Conant and the University, his signature on the document represented a policy shift. Just the previous April, Conant had testified at the State House against a bill that would have prohibited Communists from teaching in the state's public schools.

While strongly worded, the EPC report contained no enforcement provisions and was careful to distinguish card-holding Communists from unaffiliated people with leftist political views. Still, the national media focused on the committee's recommendation that Communists not be allowed to teach.

The ramifications for academic freedom were, at best, murky. Crimson President John G. Simon '50 met twice with Conant in an attempt to understand the report's implications for Harvard professors, andCrimson editors penned a staff editorial callingfor assurances that no systematic scouring of theFaculty would ensue.

Appreciating the need for a clarification,Conant issued a second statement.

"The harm done by the effort to discover even asingle clandestine Party member would outweigh anypossible benefit," Conant said in a Commencementday speech to the Foundation for Advanced Studyand Research in Princeton, N.J.

"Any suggestion that we should employ here aprocedure comparable to that required by thenecessities of secret government work andinvestigate the loyalty of our staff is utterlyrepugnant to my concept of a university," hecontinued.

Although the statement made it clear that theFBI would not become a fixture on Harvard's campusas it already was on Yale's, some feared thepolicy clarification would not be enough to undothe damage of the EPC's original report.

For those devoted to intellectual freedom, thereport was a warning of the events to come.

Setting an Example

More so than any time before, world events hadshaped the political atmosphere at Harvard in thelate 1940s. As veterans returned from active duty,the student body as a whole was older and moreexperienced than prewar and postwar classes.

Harvard professors, many of whom wereworld-renowned experts on topics like Communism,nuclear weapons and U.S.-Soviet relations, alsoexposed the Class of '49 to an unusually highlevel of political debate.

Associate Professor of Government Payton S.Wild gave an alarmist lecture about the nuclearrace and the potential for what The Crimson calleda "Gestapo situation" in the United States inApril 1946.

Meanwhile, Professor of History C. CraneBrinton '19 warned students against a militaryalliance with England, whose motives in the ColdWar he called into question.

Arthur M. Schlesinger '37, then an associateprofessor of government, wrote and lecturedfrequently about the dangers of Communism and theneed to support the postwar European reliefeffort.

Harvard students and professors also becameinvolved when Massachusetts Attorney GeneralClarence A. Barnes proposed a bill that wouldprohibit Communists from teaching in Massachusettspublic schools.

Student groups organized letter-writingcampaigns, and in April 1948 Professor of GeologyKirtley F. Mather challenged the attorney generalto a debate at Harvard. The bill ultimatelypassed, albeit in a watered-down form.

A Campus Presence?

Although the conservative Chicago Tribunebranded Harvard a "hotbed of Communism" in January1948, the main Marxist organization forundergraduates in 1949-the John Reed Club-neverboasted more than 50 members.

Nevertheless, the society made its presencefelt on campus. John Reed members twice playedhost to the well-known German Communist GerhardEisler. On both occasions, capacity crowds turnedout to hear Eisler speak.

About 500 students attended a lecture on the"Marxist Theory of Social Change," and anadditional 200 were turned away from the door atthe second speech in February 1949.

According to former John Reed President RobertN. Bellah '48, most students attended Eisler'slectures out of curiosity and because he was anotorious national figure-not because they sharedhis political views.

Bellah says that non-Communists in the studentbody and Faculty were usually ambivalent towardthe John Reed Club. He adds, however, that theadministration tried to influence hisorganization.

"There was quite a bit of pressure on us not toinvite speakers who would embarrass theUniversity," Bellah says, adding that the pressurenever came from Conant himself.

"[Conant's] views [on Communism] were quiteclear at the time, but I don't think he had thetime to care about this sort of thing," Bellahsays.

While students usually exhibited tolerance ofradical political views, there were exceptions tothis case. On Nov. 10, 1948, George W. Stocking'49, then president of the John Reed Club, wasattacked by three assailants while distributingpamphlets for a Communist event.

While the stolen pamphlets were later found ina Wigglesworth Hall room, the College meted out nopunishment for the attack.

Knowing Left from Left

For every confirmed Marxist in the Class of'49, there were at least three liberals contentwith being ascribed to the moderate left.

One such activist, Warren A. Guntheroth '49,now a professor at the University of Washington'smedical school, remembers the Communists as "kindof fringe people."

"But those of us who were devoted liberalsresented them," he adds. The Communists, withtheir reputation for provoking upheaval and theiragitating techniques, often seemed to interferewith the liberals' public relations on campus.

"Every time a good movement would start-forexample, an anti-Cold War peace movement-a lot ofnoisy radicals would show up," Guntheroth says."Then people would say, 'Oh God, we don't want tobe a part of this."

Guntheroth does, however, remember findinghimself troubled by the way his fellow studentstreated their more radical cohorts.

"I was a little disappointed with liberalorganizations," Guntheroth says. "They engaged ina public clearing-out of people accused of beingCommunist."

Bellah also noted that most student debate atthe time arose from within the left, in theconflict between liberal and radical students, asmany liberals struggled to avoid being branded asCommunists.

In October 1946, for example, the HarvardLiberal Union (HLU) purged its executive board oftheir more radical American Youth for Democracy(AYD) members.

More than 100 of the organization's 125 membershad not been present the previous year when theexecutive board had been elected. A small cliqueled by Charles G. Sellers '45, Abraham P. Goldblum'46 and Maurice C. Benewitz '47 gathered the nightof Oct. 2 to plan an anti-Communist coup.

At an all-group meeting the next day, theyportrayed the AYD-heir to the Young CommunistsLeague-as an undemocratic organization and wonsupport for the election of a new board. WilliamH. Bozman '46 replaced AYD member Harry A.Mendelsohn '48 as HLU president; three otherofficers were also deposed.

In a small way, the AYD-HLU subterfuge was aprecursor to the anti-Communist purges thatoccurred across the nation in later years.

While students battled the Communist label, theadministration faced similar pressure from thegovernment and the public. After the early'50s-the years of the McCarthy hearings-theUniversity was to secretly but systematically rootout junior Faculty members with Communist Partyties, as historians and journalists laterdiscovered.

Far from immune to McCarthyist Red-baiting,Harvard urged both avowed and suspected CommunistParty affiliates to report on their colleagues.Those who failed to "name names" suffered careersetbacks and were threatened with tenure denial orgrant revocation.

Politically Charged

While the campus was not extremely fragmentedin the late '40s, certain issues could arouse thepassions of the student body.

James S. Bernstein '49 remembers that the 1948presidential elections served to showcase theleftist impulses on campus.

During the warm-up to the Democratic primary,which featured Harry S Truman and Henry A.Wallace, Bernstein says he attended a rally heldby the Harvard AYD chapter.

Truman, the incumbent and an establishmentDemocrat, was clearly the moderates' choice.Wallace's conciliatory remarks about the SovietUnion, by then America's sworn enemy, had markedhim as a radical.

"I suspected [the AYD] would be for Wallace,who was the most to the left, but apparently hewasn't to the left enough for them," Bernsteinsays.

Bernstein recalls how, at a cocktail party forpotential new members, the AYD student leaderschanted, "If Truman's in the way, we're gonna rollright over him."

"Then they sang the same thing for Wallace,"Bernstein adds.

Former Crimson editor David E. Lilienthal Jr.'49 remembers considerable debate in The Crimson'seditorial meeting when the paper was decidingwhether to endorse Truman or Wallace. Ultimately,The Crimson supported Truman.

Lilienthal says that the debate over academicfreedom aroused student passions as well,especially after The Crimson ran a series ofarticles chronicling the faculty dismissals atschools around the country.

"This was a major theme in the country at thetime," Lilienthal says. "If people didn't stand upand fight in this time of hysteria, Harvard wouldeventually find itself threatened."

Bellah, however, paints a different picture ofthe Harvard reaction. He says that while studentswere aware and concerned about what was going onoutside of Harvard, few were courageous enough toopenly challenge freedom of speech violations.

"You could have intense discussions at thedinner table, but that didn't result in any kindof activity that would have a real effect onevents," Bellah says. "No one got agitated aboutit, because if you started talking about the Billof Rights, you were branded a Communist."Harvard ArchivesARTHUR M. SCHLESINGER '37 lecturedfrequently on the dangers of communism.