New Blacklist

Like an aging roue looking back on halcyon days, the House Un-American Activities Committee has tried to sanitize its image. It changed its name to the House Internal Security Committee in 1969 and made abortive attempts to revive lost vigor (convening hearings on such left-wing groups as the S.D.S.). But last week, in the best oldtime "I have a list" form, the committee released a compilation of "radical" speakers who have spread leftist rhetoric over American campuses during the past two years.

The list was based on questionnaires sent to 179 colleges and universities asking names of all speakers who appeared on campus during the last two years and the fees paid for their lectures; 95 replied. From this information the committee chose the names of 65 affiliated with left-wing organizations, affiliation being determined on the basis of support as well as actual membership. Thus a speaker could make the list, for example, if he had attended a public rally of certain antiwar groups.

Chemist Linus Pauling, twice a Nobel laureate, was on the list (described as "affiliated with" the Communist Party); so were Author (The American Way of Death) Jessica Mitford (also alleged to be connected with the Communist Party) and Social Critic Nat Hentoff (for affiliation with the Socialist Workers Party, S.D.S. and the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Viet Nam). The list also contained the names of many self-proclaimed radicals, among them Yippie Founder Abbie Hoffman, Pacifist David Dellinger, Black Panther National Chairman Bobby Scale and Black Panther Fred Hampton (although he was slain in a Chicago police raid in December 1969).

Some of those who made the list spoke indignantly, in the words of Nat Hentoff, of "selective repression." Most met inclusion with scorn. Jessica Mitford vowed to "add it to my list of awards and honors in Who's Who." One of the more intriguing facts in the report was that the speakers had earned a total of $108,000 so far in campus lecture fees, showing that radicalism can be profitable. In fact, the blacklisting probably made them still more desirable as campus speakers.

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