“Running with the hounds”: Academic McCarthyism and New York University, 1952-53

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

'A Divided Soul'? the Cold War odyssey of O. John Rogge

In 1948 O. John Rogge, a prominent American liberal, was a contender for the Progressive Party's vice-presidential nomination. He was then a man of the Left: an activist in the international peace movement, a champion of radical causes and a defender of organizations deemed subversive by the Department of Justice. In 1951 he persuaded his\ud client to turn government witness in the Rosenberg espionage trial and was converted into 'Rogge the Rat' by his former allies. In tracing this transformation, this paper will argue that Rogge was neither a typical Cold War apostate nor a typical anti-Stalinist intellectual. Instead, his political trajectory was the outcome of a failed attempt to steer global politics away from Cold War dichotomies. The paper will therefore throw new light\ud both on the movement to find a 'third way' between East and West, and on the phenomenon of non-communist Left activism during the early Cold War