what was the attorney general’s list of subversive organizations

by Prof. Jeramy Thompson 4 min read

The Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was expanded by President Harry S. Truman's Executive Order 9835. EO 9835 established the first Federal Employee Loyalty Program designed to root out Communist infiltration of the U.S. government.

What was the purpose of the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations?

The list of "subversive organizations" was maintained by the attorney general until it was abolished in 1974. The list chilled First Amendment freedoms. (Image via Library of Congress, public domain) In 1947 President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order for the government to catalog organizations engaged in subversive activity against the United States.

What is the Attorney General's List?

In his 1952 book The Loyalty of Free Men, Alan Barth, a Washington Post editorial writer, described the so-called “Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations” (AGLOSO), which …

What was the purpose of President Truman's 1947 list of Subversive Organizations?

Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) Between 1940 and 1943 the federal government had screened federal employees for "loyalty" using a secret "Attorney General's List of ...

What are “reasonable grounds” to prosecute a US citizen for subversion?

The United States Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was a list drawn up on April 3, 1947 at the request of the United States Attorney General (and later Supreme Court justice) Tom C. Clark. The list was intended to be a compilation of organizations seen as subversive by th. WikiMili.

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History

The Attorney General's list was first known as the Biddle list after President Franklin D. Roosevelt 's Attorney General Francis Biddle began tracking Soviet controlled subversive front organizations in 1941. The original list had only eleven organizations but was greatly expanded by the end of the decade to upwards of 90 organizations.

Later history

The Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was expanded by President Harry S. Truman 's Executive Order 9835. EO 9835 established the first Federal Employee Loyalty Program designed to root out Communist infiltration of the U.S. government.

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 Investigation (FBI) began using it immediately, but it was only one of many lists they used. The HUAC maintained its own list.

What is the National Lawyers Guild?

The National Lawyers Guild ( NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States . The group was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association (ABA) in protest of that organization's exclusionary membership practices and conservative political orientation. They were the first US bar association to allow the admission of minorities to their ranks. The group sought to bring more lawyers closer to the labor movement and progressive political activities, to support and encourage lawyers otherwise "isolated and discouraged," and to help create a "united front" against Fascism.

Who was the Attorney General of the United States in 1941?

The Attorney General's list was first known as the Biddle list after President Franklin D. Roosevelt 's Attorney General Francis Biddle began tracking Soviet controlled subversive front organizations in 1941. The original list had only eleven organizations but was greatly expanded by the end of the decade to upwards of 90 organizations. [2] It did not list individuals.

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Overview

  • 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 (and later Supreme Court judge) Tom C. Clark. 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
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History

Later history

Abolition

The United States Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was a list drawn up on April 3, 1947 at the request of the United States Attorney General (and later Supreme Court justice) Tom C. Clark. The list was intended to be a compilation of organizations seen as "subversive" by the United States government. Among those were: Communist fronts, the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party.

Impact

The Attorney General's list was first known as the Biddle list after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Attorney General Francis Biddle began tracking Soviet controlled subversive front organizations in 1941. The original list had only eleven organizations but was greatly expanded by the end of the decade to upwards of 90 organizations. It did not list individuals.
Communist groups, which emerged both in the pre-war and the post-war list, are marked by one …

See also

The Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) was expanded by President Harry S. Truman'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. …

Footnotes

The list went through several revisions until President Richard M. Nixon abolished it in 1974.