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The American Studies Program at Yale: Lux, Veritas, et Pecunia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2009

Sigmund Diamond
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Extract

Documents in the Yale University archives - the papers of the presidents, deans, provosts, secretary of the university - show that Yale was no more insulated from the hot and cold of post-World War II politics than any other university. During the decade of 1945–55, the Yale authorities felt considerable pressure to take action concerning several appointees whose political views had been questioned by alumni, and most certainly by others as well. The New Haven Office of the FBI - and through it the national headquarters in Washington, D.C. - had been in close touch with university officials for some time and, during the last years of the regime of President Charles Seymour, knew of what it described as the Yale policy of inquiring into the political activities of faculty members prior to their appointment. As the Special Agent in Charge of the New Haven Office reported to J. Edgar Hoover on June 6, 1949, “The position of Yale University is apparently swinging around to the point… that it is much better to look men over and know exactly what they are before they are appointed, and that it is much easier to get rid of them by not appointing them than after they have been once appointed.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Prospects , Volume 16 , October 1991 , pp. 41 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

NOTES

1. Yale University file, FBI Central Files, Washington, D.C. See also Diamond, Sigmund, “Surveillance in the Academy: Harry B. Fisher and Yale University, 1927–1952,” American Quarterly 36 (1984): 7–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Adee, George T. to Seymour, Charles, 01 23, 1946Google Scholar, and Bush, to Seymour, , 06 29, 1948Google Scholar, Seymour Papers, Box 80; Clise, to Griswold, , 11 27, 1953Google Scholar, and Griswold, to Clise, , 12 3, 1953Google Scholar, Griswold Papers, Box 1, Yale Library. I am indebted to the authorities of the Yale Library for permission to examine these documents.

3. See, for example, Wise, Gene, “‘Paradigm Dramas’ in American Studies: A Cultural and Institutional History of the Movement,” American Quarterly 31 (1979): 305–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which says nothing about this aspect of the history of the American Studies movement. See also Sklar, Robert, “American Studies and the Realities of America,” American Quarterly 22 (1971): 597–605CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mechling, Jay, Merideth, Robert, and Wilson, David, “American Culture Studies: The Discipline and the Curriculum,” American Quarterly 25 (1973): 362–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar To be sure, Christopher Lasch, in his essay “The Cultural Cold War: A Short History of the Congress of Cultural Freedom,” in Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History, ed. Bernstein, Barton J. (New York: Pantheon, 1968)Google Scholar, calls American Studies an evasion of “critical thought” and part of the “holy war against communism” (p. 56).Google Scholar

4. Buckley Papers, Box 4, Yale Library.

5. Charles Seymour Papers, Box 83, Yale.

6. Seymour, to Coe, , 05 16, 1949Google Scholar, and Coe, to Seymour, , 05 18, June 1, 7, 1949Google Scholar, Seymour Papers, Box 83.

7. Seymour, to Coe, ; 11 8, 1949Google Scholar, Seymour Papers, Box 83.

8. Seymour, to Coe, , 11 12, 1949Google Scholar, Seymour Papers, Box 83.

9. Coe, to Seymour, , 11 17, 1949Google Scholar, Seymour Papers, Box 83.

10. Coe, to Furniss, , 11 28, 1949Google Scholar, Seymour Papers, Box 86; Furniss, to Coe, , 11 30, 1949Google Scholar, Coe, to Furniss, , 12 7, 1949Google Scholar, Coe, to Seymour, , 04 3, 1950Google Scholar, and Seymour, to Coe, , 04 5, 1950Google Scholar, Seymour Papers, Box 83.

11. Babb, to Coe, , 04 12, 1950Google Scholar, copy in Seymour Papers, Box 83; Coe, to Griswold, , 09 10, 1951Google Scholar, Griswold Papers, Box 16.

12. Coe, to Seymour, , 05 25, 1950Google Scholar; Coe, to Tighe, , 01 2, 1951Google Scholar; Tighe to the President, Provost, and Librarian, January 4, 1951; and Furniss, to Griswold, , “Progress of American Studies,” 10 17, 1950Google Scholar, Griswold Papers, Box 16.

13. Buckley, William F. Jr., God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom” (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1951), pp. 101, 102–3.Google Scholar

14. Coe, to Buckley, Jr., 07 27, 1951Google Scholar, copy in Griswold Papers, Box 16.

15. Buckley, Jr., to Coe, , 08 6, 1951Google Scholar, copy in Griswold Papers, Box 16. How far Buckley was prepared to go to suppress ideas unpalatable to his own political taste was revealed later in his efforts with the CIA to prevent publication of the book Invisible Government, and to disparage its authors, David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, “who verge close to unpatriotism,” he wrote. At the time that he wrote his attack on the book, Buckley did not reveal that he had been a former CIA agent and that his column was based on a memorandum that he had received from his former CIA superior, still in the agency, E. Howard Hunt, of Watergate fame. See Wise, David, The American Police State: The Government Against the People (New York: Random House, 1976) p. 200n.Google Scholar

16. Coe, to Griswold, , 08 13, 1951Google Scholar, Griswold Papers, Box 16.

17. Coe, to Potter, David, 10 10, 1951Google Scholar, copy in Griswold Papers, Box 16.

18. Potter, to Coe, , 10 11, 18, 26, and 29, and November 10 and 15, 1954Google Scholar; Coe, to Potter, , 10 24, 1951Google Scholar, and October 27, 1954; Griswold, to Coe, , 11 27, 1951Google Scholar, and January 18, 1952; Coe, to Griswold, , 01 16, 1952Google Scholar; Furniss, to Coe, , 01 11, 1952Google Scholar; Miller, Spencer F. to Furniss, , 04 29, 1955Google Scholar; Coe, William Rogers to Potter, , 02 8, 1956Google Scholar; Coe, to Griswold, , 01 17, 1955Google Scholar; Potter, to Coe, William Rogers, 12 21, 1955Google Scholar; and Furniss, to Ripley, Dillon, 12 19, 1955Google Scholar - all in Griswold Papers, Box 16.

19. Furniss, Edgar S. to Rabinowitz, Louis M., 07 11, 1950Google Scholar, and Griswold, to Rabinowitz, , 07 18, 1950Google Scholar, Griswold Papers, Box 20.

20. A copy of Griswold's letter to Rabinowitz, was sent to Goodenough, on 07 21, 1950Google Scholar; Goodenough, to Griswold, , 07 26, 1950Google Scholar, Griswold Papers, Box 20.

21. Report, Academic Freedom Study, Columbia University, March 14, 1951, Griswold Papers, Box 20; Griswold, to Maclver, , Griswold, to Rabinowitz, , Griswold, to Adams, , all 12 19, 1952Google Scholar; and Rabinowitz, to Griswold, , 12 19, 1952Google Scholar - all in Griswold Papers, Box 20. Some light is shed on the relations between university officials and donors by the correspondence relating to Rabinowitz. Provost Furniss wrote Treasurer Gage, Charles S. on 03 7, 1955Google Scholar, that Rabinowitz “can easily be persuaded to endow a chair bearing his name … During the past fifteen years Yale has been the focus of his life's interest.” The establishment of a professorship bearing his name “would be for him the surpassing consummation of his entire career. If this caused him to reduce his gifts which only add to our running costs, such as rare books and manuscripts (don't tell Jim Babb [librarian of Yale]) I would regard it as a net gain.” Gage was warned to keep the matter confidential: “If our friends in the Library and Gallery [also a major beneficiary of Rabinowitz's gifts] get wind of this development they might take alarm and torpedo the whole proposition.” Exactly one year later, Babb wrote to Furniss about a testimonial dinner honoring Rabinowitz, at which he had represented Yale: “After a day in New York - the night before attending a completely Hebrew dinner in honor of Louis at which we listened to (it seemed to me) ten speeches, all entirely in Hebrew. My wife certainly works hard for Yale University.” And then handwritten in the margin - “Kosher food.” In his letter soliciting contributions to the Louis M. Rabinowitz Memorial Fund, however, Babb paid tribute to Rabinowitz, 's “constant and generous”Google Scholar contributions to the Library, “which owes some of its greatest scholarly resources to him,” especially in Judaica, incunabula, and English literature, but such was his recognition “of beauty and historical importance in any form” that he secured for Yale outstanding books and manuscripts of many kinds. After Rabinowitz died on April 27, 1957, the amount of money that Yale might expect from his estate was a subject of considerable interest to Provost Furniss; Furniss, to Gage, , 03 7, 1955Google Scholar; Babb, to Furniss, , 03 6, 1956Google Scholar, June 11, 1957; Furniss, to Rabinowitz, Victor, 09 27, 1957Google Scholar; and Note, Conference with MrRabinowitz, Victor, signed E.S.F., 05 22, 1957Google Scholar - all in Furniss Papers, Boxes 12 and 56.

22. Kaplan, to Griswold, , 10 5, November 17, 1950Google Scholar, and February 28, 1951, with copy of Kaplan, to Biddle, , 02 27, 1951Google Scholar; Potter, to Griswold, , 11 10, December 12, 1950Google Scholar; Griswold, to Kaplan, , 11 1, 1950Google Scholar; and Griswold, to Potter, , 11 17, 1950 - all in Griswold Papers, Box 1.Google Scholar