American Blacklist: The Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (review)

Based on meticulous research in FBI and Justice Department documents acquired through declassification requests, American Blacklist is the definitive account of the origin, development and belated demise of "the single most important domestic factor that fostered and facilitated the Red Scare" (xi). A masterful narrative history of the U.S. Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLSO), it will appeal primarily to scholars familiar with historiography of Cold War political repression.

Goldstein explains how President Truman built upon previous programs based on guilt-by-association to create this official black list, which labeled individuals and organizations without notice, evidence presentation, or any provision for defense, circumventing due process. Zealots used it to punish social reform movements and, by citing previous associations or membership, discredit individuals, facilitating the politics of fear that came to be known as McCarthyism. Anomalies regarding list content led to confusion, bureaucratic infighting, and official negligence. Since criteria for listing were vague, and no provision existed to indicate extent or timing of Communist influence in listed organizations, the AGLSO seems to have had little effect on Communist Party political activity, let alone Soviet espionage.

Instead, for at least eight years, nearly 300 organizations, and numerous individuals who could be somehow linked to them, suffered "serious and relentless" public and private sanctions, including loss of tax exempt status, restrictions upon travel, ejection from federal housing, and loss of employment (62). Fearful that other organizations might be listed in the future, a "silent generation" of young people became resolutely apathetic (xiv).

Beginning in 1954-1955, as the Supreme Court forced the Justice Department to incorporate hearings, the blacklist became an albatross: revealing evidence would have exposed illegal FBI intelligence operations. As bureaucrats attempted to avoid responsibility, proceedings against surviving groups were dropped, the list was not updated, and tax dollars were wasted. In the 1960s, proceedings against avowed fascists and revolutionaries were nixed, to avoid providing a public forum. This reviewer has found that when called before HUAC in 1965, Klan leaders used non-listing to certify their patriotic credentials. Dead as an instrument of overt repression, the blacklist was nevertheless not abolished: Goldstein's most disturbing finding is that the AGLSO continued to provide the FBI with a convenient pretext for spying, ostensibly to "consider" whether targets deserved listing (53).

Goldstein's masterful chronology of internal bureaucratic debates leaves counterfactual questions open to interpretation, which may deter casual readers unaware of implications for historiography regarding, for example the nature and extent of Communist Party influence in American life, or relationships between various countersubversive discourses. American Blacklist is essential reading, however, for scholars seeking to assess the "silent generation" or the "politics of fear"(xiv). It also raises pertinent issues regarding the effects of anticommunism on the civil rights movement, the background to FBI domestic covert action programs, and the context of Watergate. Most importantly, Goldstein alerts us to the tenacity of targeted organizations, such as the National Lawyers Guild, which fought the blacklist, which will inspire those fighting for civil liberties and human rights during a so-called War on Terror.