Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations
Encyclopedia
The United States Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations was a list drawn up on April 3, 1947 at the request of the United States Attorney General
. The list was intended to be a compilation of organizations seen as "subversive" by the United States government. Among those were: alleged Communist fronts, the Ku Klux Klan
and the Nazi Party
.
's Attorney General Francis Biddle
began tracking Soviet controlled subversive front organization
s in 1941. The original list had only eleven organizations but was greatly expanded by the end of the decade. 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.
's Executive Order 9835
. 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. It appeared in the Federal Register on March 20, 1948.
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.
(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.
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
. The list was intended to be a compilation of organizations seen as "subversive" by the United States government. Among those were: alleged Communist fronts, the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
and the Nazi Party
American Nazi Party
The American Nazi Party was an American political party founded by discharged U.S. Navy Commander George Lincoln Rockwell. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Rockwell initially called it the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists , but later renamed it the American Nazi Party in...
.
Creation
The Attorney General's list was first known as the Biddle list after President Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
's Attorney General Francis Biddle
Francis Biddle
Francis Beverley Biddle was an American lawyer and judge who was Attorney General of the United States during World War II and who served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg trials....
began tracking Soviet controlled subversive front organization
Front organization
A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...
s in 1941. The original list had only eleven organizations but was greatly expanded by the end of the decade. 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
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
during the McCarthy era.
Biddle list
- American League Against War and FascismAmerican League Against War and FascismThe American League Against War and Fascism was an organization formed in 1933 by the Communist Party USA and pacifists united by their concern as Nazism and Fascism rose in Europe...
- American League for Peace and Democracy
- American Peace MobilizationAmerican Peace MobilizationThe American Peace Mobilization was a peace group, officially cited in 1947 by United States Attorney General Tom C. Clark on the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations for 1948, as directed by President Harry S...
- American Youth CongressAmerican Youth CongressAmerican Youth Congress was an early youth voice organization composed of youth from all across the country to discuss the problems facing youth as a whole in the 1930s. It met several years in a row - one year it notably met on the lawn of the White House. The delegates are known to have caused...
- League of American WritersLeague of American WritersThe League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA in 1935...
- National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners
- National Committee for Peoples Rights
- Nationmal Federation for Constitutional Liberties
- National Negro CongressNational Negro CongressThe National Negro Congress is an organization which was put into place by the Communist Party of the United States of America in 1935 at Howard University. It was a popular front organization created with the goal of fighting for Black liberation and was the successor to the League of Struggle for...
- Washington Cooperative Bookshop
- Washington Committee for Democratic Action
Later history
The Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was expanded by President Harry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
's Executive Order 9835
Executive Order 9835
President Harry S. Truman signed United States Executive Order 9835, sometimes known as the "Loyalty Order", on March 21, 1947. The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence in the U.S. federal government...
. 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
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
(HUAC) members, as designated by committee Chairman J. Parnell Thomas
J. Parnell Thomas
John Parnell Thomas was a stockbroker and politician. He was elected to seven terms as a U.S. Representative from New Jersey...
. Those he named initially were John McDowell
John McDowell (politician)
John Ralph McDowell was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.-Biography:...
, a Pennsylvania Republican, Richard Vail, an Illinois Republican, and John Wood
John Stephens Wood
John Stephens Wood was an American politician from the state of Georgia, USA. He served in the United States House of Representatives, 1931–1935 and 1945–1953....
, a Georgia Democrat. They readied their first version of the list for Attorney General Tom C. Clark
Tom C. Clark
Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States .- Early life and career :...
within a few days. It appeared in the Federal Register on March 20, 1948.
Executive Order 10450
Executive Order 10450
President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450 in April 1953, effective May 27, 1953. It revoked Truman's 1947 Executive Order 9835 and dismantled its Loyalty Review Board...
, issued by President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
in April 1953, expanded the Attorney General's List and added the proviso that members of the United States armed forces
United States armed forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
could not join or associate with any group on the list under threat of discharge from military service.
List as of 1959
- Abraham Lincoln BrigadeAbraham Lincoln BrigadeThe Abraham Lincoln Brigade refers to volunteers from the United States who served in the Spanish Civil War in the International Brigades. They fought for Spanish Republican forces against Franco and the Spanish Nationalists....
- Abraham Lincoln SchoolAbraham Lincoln SchoolThe Abraham Lincoln School for Social Sciences of Chicago, Illinois was a "broad,nonpartisan school for workers, writers, and their sympathizers," aimed at...
- Action Committee to Free Spain Now
- Alabama People's Educational Association
- American Association for Reconstruction in Yugoslavia
- American Christian Nationalist Party
- American Committee for European Worker's Relief
- American Committee for protection of Foreign Born
- American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in BirobidzhanBirobidzhanBirobidzhan is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Trans-Siberian railway, close to the border with the People's Republic of China....
- American Communist Party
- American Peace Crusade
- American Polish League
- Black Dragon SocietyBlack Dragon SocietyThe was a prominent paramilitary, ultranationalist right-wing group in Japan.-History:The Kokuryūkai was founded in 1901 by Uchida Ryohei, and was descended from the Genyōsha. Its name is derived from the Amur River, called Heilongjiang or "Black Dragon River" in Chinese , read as Kokuryū-kō in...
- Cervantes Fraternal Society
- Committee to Abolish Discrimination in MarylandMarylandMaryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
- Committee to Aid the Fighting SouthSouthSouth is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.South is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to east and west.By convention, the bottom side of a map is south....
- Committee to Defend the Rights and Freedom of Pittsburgh's Political Prisoners
- Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy
- Committee for Constitutional and Political Freedom
- Committee for the Defense of the Pittsburgh Six
- Committee for Nationalist Action
- Committee for the Negro in the Arts
- Committee for Peace and Brotherhood Festival in Philadelphia
- Committee for the Protection of the Bill of Rights
- Committee for World Youth Friendship and Cultural Exchange
- Committee to Defend Marie RichardsonMarie RichardsonMarie Richardson is a Swedish stage and film actress. She studied at the Teaterhögskolan i Stockholm from 1982 to 1985...
- Committee to Uphold the Bill of Rights
- Congress of African Women
- Daily Worker Press Club
- Detroit Youth Assembly
- Elsinore Progressive League
- Families of the Baltimore Smith Act Victims
- Federation of Greek Maritime Unions
- Florida Press and Education League
- Freedom Stage, Inc.
- Friends of the Soviet UnionFriends of the Soviet UnionFriends of the Soviet Union was an organization formed on the initiative of the Communist International in 1927, with the purpose of coordinating solidarity efforts with the Soviet Union around the world...
- Garibaldi American Fraternal Society
- German American Bund
- Harlem Trade Union Council
- Hellenic-American Brotherhood
- Hungarian Brotherhood
- Independent Socialist League
- Industrial Workers of the WorldIndustrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
- Japanese Association of America
- Jewish Community of Cortlandt
- Jewish Culture Society
- Knights of the White CameliaKnights of the White CameliaThe Knights of the White Camelia was a secret group of the American South from 1867 through about 1870, similar to and associated with the Ku Klux Klan, supporting white supremacy and opposed to Republican government....
- Ku Klux KlanKu Klux KlanKu Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
- Labor Youth LeagueYoung Communist League, USAThe Young Communist League USA is the fraternal youth organization of the Communist Party USA. Although the name of the group has changed a number of times over the years, it dates its lineage back to 1920, shortly after the establishment of the first communist parties in America.-Early years:The...
- League of American WritersLeague of American WritersThe League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA in 1935...
- Mario Morgantini Circle
- Michigan Council for Peace
- Michigan School of Social Science
- Nanka Teikoku Gunyudan
- Oklahoma League for Political Education
- People's Educational and Press Association of Texas
- Virginia League for People's Education
- Youth Communist LeagueYoung Communist League, USAThe Young Communist League USA is the fraternal youth organization of the Communist Party USA. Although the name of the group has changed a number of times over the years, it dates its lineage back to 1920, shortly after the establishment of the first communist parties in America.-Early years:The...
Abolition
The list went through several revisions until President Richard M. Nixon abolished it in 1974.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 InvestigationFederal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(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
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
and loyalty boards.