The FBI and the Catholic Church, 1935-1962

Chapter 4: Father John F. Cronin and the Bishops’ Report on Communism

133 C H A P T E R 4 Father John F. Cronin and the Bishops’ Report on Communism Father John Cronin, S.S. (1908–1994), was as significant to his church’s anti-Communist activities as it was to the anti-Communism movement as a whole. After a bruising two-year battle with Communists in the Baltimore shipyards, he persuaded the U.S. Catholic hierarchy to finance a year-long study of subversion, which resulted in his “The Problem of American Communism in 1945: Facts and Recommendations.” That document, known as the bishops’ report, was a Trojan horse inside which was hidden Cronin, who as a result became an assistant director of the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference in February 1946. His appointment on November 12, the same day the administrative board of the NCWC approved his report, began a policy shift there that eventually resulted in the Church’s retreat from a pro-union and anticapitalist social Catholicism. “The Problem of American Communism in 1945” also launched Cronin’s career as an anti-Communist of national importance. Having made the right contacts and achieved the right position in the right place, Cronin played such an important role in the anti-Communist movement that it is difficult to exaggerate its significance. The most immediate outcome of Cronin’s report was the series of pamphlets he wrote for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Communist Infiltration in the United States (1946), Communists within the Government (1947), and Communists within the Labor Movement (1947). Francis P. 134 c h a p t e r f o u r Matthews (1887–1952), who received Archbishop Samuel Stritch’s permission to read the report, was the connection with the Chamber of Commerce . A committed New Dealer, former Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, and future secretary of the navy, Matthews chaired the Chamber’s Committee on Socialism and Communism, under whose auspices the reports appeared. By spring 1947 more than 1 million copies of the three pamphlets were in print. They were something, Cronin’s mentor argued, of which he could be proud: “Your long months of research in the field of Communism have officially borne fruit by way of a big harvest.” All three, moreover, played a crucial role in the increasing salience of Communism as an issue in congressional politics.1 There was still more that kept Cronin busy in 1946 and 1947. Well connected to various anti-Communist networks, Cronin was intimately involved in organizing, financing, and establishing the magazine Plain Talk and then the newsletter Counterattack. The former published for only about a year but the latter lasted for more than two decades. American Business Consultants, publisher of Counterattack, also did research for corporations that had a “Communist problem” and vetted artists, actors and actresses, and radio and TV personalities. Red Channels, the blacklisters ’ bible, was its work.2 Cronin pursued Alger Hiss from the moment he learned about Hiss’s role as a Soviet agent in September 1945. He discussed Hiss at numerous points in “The Problem of American Communism” and passed along to journalists documents attesting to his activities. Most important, however , was the help Cronin gave the freshman congressman Richard Nixon in his battle against Hiss. Using contacts developed during his research for the bishops’ report, the priest fed Nixon FBI investigative reports leaked to him by Bureau agents. Nixon used this information to great effect as a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which held the hearings that led to Hiss’s ultimate conviction for perjury. Cronin went on to write speeches anonymously for Nixon during his vice presidency.3 Cronin’s report for the bishops laid the groundwork for other actions as well that cannot be discussed here because of space limitations. Suffice it to say that without the report, Cronin could have not done what he went on to do. No one has told its full story. (This is so in part because historians have neglected the Catholic archives, but also because Cronin did not want anyone to know everything. “I have consistently covered sources during this report by giving misleading indications,” he stated. Why? “I could not risk the jobs of my informants by giving any indication of their Father John F. Cronin and the Bishops’ Report 135 identities.”) This account is almost certainly not the final one, but it is more...