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.”
Jan De Graaf. Socialism across the Iron Curtain. Socialist Parties in East and West and the Reconstruction of Europe after 1945. [New Studies in European History.] Cambridge University Press, Cambridge2019. xii, 320 pp. £75.00. (E-book: $84.00.) - Isser Woloch. The Postwar Moment. Progressive Forces in Britain, France, and the United States after World War II. Yale University Press, New Haven (CT) [etc.] 2019. xxii, 515 pp. Ill. $40.00.