In one of life’s unlikely coincidences, the high school in the Bronx that Natalie attended is the very same one where my father taught for many years, and which he reluctantly left in 1953. He had been named as a Communist by Harvey Matusow. a former student who had become a paid informant on the staff of Senator Joseph McCarthy. My father knew his days were numbered when shortly after that, the New York City Board of Education launched their own investigation into Communist influence in the schools. My mother, also a New York City public school teacher, was also threatened with dismissal, and it was this tumultuous time in my family’s life that gave me my lifelong interest in this dark era, sparking my research into how this drama played out in my adopted state.
In 1988, together with then Vermont Historical Society director Michael Sherman and Vermont College history instructor Richard Hathaway, I helped present a weekend conference on “Vermont During the McCarthy Era.” Among our guests were William Hinton, a Putney farmer and China scholar whose notes were seized by the FBI upon his return from China and who fought a successful five-year court battle to retrieve them; Kendall Wild, the Rutland Herald reporter who broke the 1954 story of Senator Ralph Flanders’ decision to lead the movement to censure Senator McCarthy; Robert Mitchell, the publisher/editor of the Rutland Herald, and author of several blistering anti-McCarthy editorials; Martha Kennedy, a longtime peace and civil rights activist, whom some of you may have known; and several University of Vermont colleagues of Professor Alex Novikoff, whose dismissal in 1953 I’ll be discussing in more detail.
Although the conference was a successful one, with many stimulating conversations, over the years I’ve come to feel that we barely scratched the surface. Four years ago, I began once again to sift through the microfiche collections of Vermont newspapers in search of more understanding of this complex story. Since the 1988 conference, I’ve come to prefer the terminology “Red Scare” as opposed to “McCarthy Era.” For one, it emphasizes the evocative, emotional component: the fear, highly colored, that gripped America. For another, it acknowledges that this fear started before the appearance of the Wisconsin senator in 1950 and lasted after his downfall in 1954. We need only to look back at the Congressional committees of the early 1940s investigating Communist influence in Roosevelt’s New Deal, the cycle of mistrust between the United States and the Soviet Union that took hold after the close of World War II, Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech in 1946, or President Truman’s institution of a government loyalty program in 1947.
There are many opinions about when the Red Scare ended. Perhaps it’s safer to say when the worst of it was over, say in 1960 with the Eisenhower to Kennedy transition and the end of the Hollywood blacklist. But implying that someone you disagree with has Communist leanings has never gone out of fashion for some. Witness the headline in the New York Post just two weeks ago, charging that New York City mayoral candidate Bill DeBlasio, or “Che DeBlasio,” as they prefer to call him had actually visited the Soviet Union as a college student. “Back in the USSR,” said the headline, with a photo of the candidate next to a big red hammer and sickle.
Today I’ll be discussing two events that unfolded in Burlington during that Red Scare era, the Henry Wallace presidential campaign of 1948 and the Alex Novikoff case of 1953, and the role that was played by the two Burlington newspapers, the Burlington Daily News, the paper owned by William Loeb III, which ceased publication in 1961, and the Burlington Free Press (still going, but “still going strong” might be an exaggeration).
Although most people associate Loeb with his New Hampshire paper the Manchester Union-Leader, his publishing career started with the purchase of the St. Albans Messenger in 1942, followed by the Burlington Daily News in 1944. One of Loeb’s first infamous journalistic exploits was the publishing of his own baptismal certificate on the front page of both Vermont papers in an attempt to disprove rumors of his Jewish ancestry. He bought the Manchester Union-Leader in 1948, and it was there he gained the national reputation as a publisher that many politicians dared not cross.
David Holmes, who wrote the definitive study of the Novikoff case, “Stalking the Academic Communist,” characterized the two Burlington newspapers in this way: “The Daily News conveyed a virulent right-wing perspective, while the Free Press assumed an editorial position close to the Eisenhower brand of Republicanism.” Holmes observed, “The first instinct of most of Vermont’s newspapers at this time was to accept the messages from Washington about the state of the world affairs, particularly about the Communist threat.”
Both Burlington papers were active participants in the first event I’ll discuss today, perhaps the first major display in Vermont of the potent mix of super-patriotism, staunch anti-Communism, and guilt-by-association tactics that came to be known as “The Red Scare. ” The occasion was the unsuccessful, some would say quixotic, presidential campaign of Henry Wallace in 1948.
Henry Agard Wallace is a paradoxical figure. To a great majority of Americans, he is largely forgotten, but to those who do remember him, he remains controversial. As the person more closely associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” than any other figure save Roosevelt himself, he was a figure of international renown at the close of World War II, and was ranked in a June 1946 poll as one of the “most admired” people in the United States.
He was a described by the historian Arthur Schlesinger as “editor, geneticist, economist, businessman, the best secretary of agriculture the country has ever had, a vice president, and at the same time, an incorrigibly naive politician.” Alex Ross, writing in the New Yorker last month on the occasion of a new Wallace biography, described him as “with Al Gore, the most famous almost president in US history, a tragically flawed figure in whom idealistic conviction went sour.”
For many, Wallace embodied New Deal political values with his wartime advocacy of “the century of the common man,” based on pro-labor and anti-monopoly policies at home, and U.S.-Soviet cooperation abroad. “There can be no privileged peoples,” he stated in his most well-known speech. ”Those who write the peace must think of the whole world…International cartels that serve American greed and the German will to power must go.” As Roosevelt’s third-term vice president, Wallace had feuded openly with more conservative members of the cabinet, and Roosevelt, who considered Wallace “too aloof” and unversed in the art of greasing the political wheels, responded to the infighting by replacing him with the more politically pliable Harry S. Truman for the 1944 campaign. Roosevelt placated Wallace by appointing him Secretary of Commerce, and he served in this post from March 1945 to September 1946.
Wallace and then Secretary of State James Byrnes had been rivals for Truman’s confidence; Byrnes finally won the battle when Truman forbade Wallace from making public comments on foreign policy, especially comments weighing in on relations with the Soviet Union. As Ira Katznelson recently wrote in Fear Itself, a history of the Roosevelt years, “While others saw ominous signs in Soviet speech and behavior, Wallace’s vocal minority focused on the fact that the Soviets had taken positions that were not unreasonable about German reparations, reconstruction of Italy and Japan, and other strategic issues.” The historian Garry Wills put it this way: “He saw the NATO alliance in particular as the de facto substitute for all our commitments to the United Nations, a confession that peace had given way to war.”
Truman fired Wallace from the Commerce post in September 1946, which freed Wallace to voice ever more provocative opinions about the growing Cold War conflict. He became editor of The New Republic magazine, which provided a platform to criticize Truman foreign policy. By the start of 1948, he and others formed a new party, which was called variably, The New Party or the Progressive Party, and then ran for president in 1948. The platform advocated friendly relations with the Soviet Union, an end to the nascent Cold War, an end to segregation, and universal government health insurance.
But as Alex Ross wrote, “His messianic belief in his abilities to single-handedly reverse US foreign policy led him into treacherous waters.” That the Communist Party, along with the militant union Congress of Industrial Organizations, served as Wallace’s grassroots organizing force, left the Wallace campaign open to distrust and strong criticism from both Republicans and establishment Democrats. The launch of Wallace’s campaign suffered from particularly tricky timing, coming as it did the same month as the Soviet coup in Czechoslovakia and the suspicious suicide (years later, proven to be murder) of the Czech leader Jan Masaryk.
As a measure of the controversy still surrounding Wallace, Ross’ recent article in the New Yorker brought on a spirited letter of dissent from historian Richard Lingeman, who praised Wallace’s courageous stands as the peace candidate and defended him against charges that he became a tool of the Communists, whether foreign or domestic. Filmmaker Oliver Stone and historian Peter Kuznick have also weighed in in their documentary series and accompanying book, “The Untold History of the United States,” in which they argue that had Wallace stayed as Roosevelt’s vice president, the Cold War might have been averted.
As Curtis MacDougall wrote in Gideon’s Army, his voluminous history of the Wallace campaign, “there was hardly another state in which the New Party was taken more seriously – as a menace – than in the Green Mountain State. Instead of welcoming the movement as an aid to Republicans, the press of the state let no opportunity pass to assail it as an extremely dangerous Leftish threat to the American way of life.”
Although no newspapers in Vermont were in favor of Wallace’s platform, two papers stood out for their opposition: the Burlington Free Press, and above all, the Burlington Daily News. The editorials from these papers ran the gamut from condescension and disdain to apoplectic outrage. Suggesting in those days that the United States and the Soviet Union were equally to blame for Cold War hostilities was hard enough to swallow. To maintain, as Wallace and some supporters did, that the fault was mainly if not all on the American side, was far beyond the accepted parameters of discussion.
One of publisher Loeb’s hallmarks was his use of the front page for signed editorials, often with a strident right-wing message. Shortly after Wallace announced his candidacy, the Daily News called Wallace “America’s Rabble Rouser #1,” blasting his refusal to condemn the Soviet Union for the February 1948 takeover of Czechoslovakia. Under the headline “Our American Fuhrer,” the editorial said, “His strange ideology had seemed to be the product of half-baked thinking, a dreamy-eyed prophesying unworthy of serious examination.” Loeb continued, “But that can no longer be true. While his utterances here at home are dangerously close to outright sedition against our own nation, he could not more loyally serve the Kremlin by his passionate attacks on capitalism and his unashamed support of many things Communistic.”
The first newsworthy incident of the Wallace campaign in Vermont was not long in coming. In late March 1948, Dean Luther McNair of Lyndon State Teacher’s College addressed a Wallace for President meeting in Burlington. Recalling the late Wendell Willkie’s description of the “reservoir of good will” the United States had throughout the world and his warning that it was diminishing. Dean MacNair said that the recent history of U.S. foreign policy was further threatening that reservoir.
“American strength is not being thrown on the side of people struggling for freedom,” he said, and classed American action in Indonesia, China, the Middle East, Turkey, Greece, and Spain as supporting elements of reaction in the world. “I covet for our country,” said Dean MacNair, “the role of supporting all people struggling for freedom, but instead we see ourselves on the side of reactionary forces everywhere.”
During a question session, McNair declared he saw no reason to consider the Soviet Union as aggressive. He explained the coup in Czechoslovakia as provoked by reactionary forces, and raised other points that were anathema to the Burlington Daily News, which responded with a front page editorial declaring “McNair Should Go.” “It is outrageous to learn that no less a person than a history teacher of the Lyndon State Teachers College is going around the state preaching a doctrine strongly defending the Communists in their program of world expansion.” The Free Press weighed in as well: “ Dean MacNair’s frank following of the Communist line is serious because he is in a position to influence public thinking…If he is ignorant of the fact of Soviet aggression, is he a competent leader in the field of education? If he knows it, what shall we say of his honesty?”
But it was the Daily News that kept up a barrage of criticism that week. Dean MacNair did not publicly defend his remarks, and did not respond to the Burlington Daily News’ campaign. Although the Free Press published anti- and pro-MacNair letters, including a letter of support signed by five former students, William Loeb’s paper did not have a letters section. Before the week was out, McNair had submitted his resignation.
A Daily News article of March 28, headlined “McNair Resigned in Time to Escape State School Board Inquiry” made clear that the newspaper was taking credit for keeping the controversy on full boil; Loeb had brought the State Board of Education into the picture by personally sending Commissioner Ralph E. Noble a copy of MacNair’s speech. Whether such an investigation into MacNair’s teaching was actually planned or was simply after-the-fact public relations is unknown. The Daily News took the opportunity for one last strongly-worded “good riddance” editorial entitled, “Sing On, McNair, Sing On”, “Dr. Noble and the state board are to be commended for their promptness in becoming aware of the situation,” said the editorial. “Mr. MacNair has long been known as an extreme left-wing radical; his ideological display at the Wallace rally clearly indicated that his rabid personal opinions were based on distorted ideas rather than on truth.” MacNair then disappeared from the news; the entire controversy spanned just a week and a half.
A footnote: After resigning from Lyndon State, MacNair and his family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he had an ailing father. After working at various odd jobs, he became executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1950, a post he held until 1970. He died in 1988 at age 83, and there is now an annual award in his name given by the Massachusetts ACLU. When I contacted that group a few years ago to find out more about MacNair, I was stunned to learn that his widow, aged 107, was still alive. She has since died, at age 109, but I was able to see her in Cambridge and ask some questions about the 1948 controversy. What she was able to remember was that her husband thought highly of the president of Lyndon State at the time, Rita Bole, and resigned to spare her and the college unwanted attention.
The next major controversy to arise during the Wallace campaign was the Burlington appearance of Rockwell Kent on May 20. Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer who had been a nationally known figure in the arts dating from the 1920s. As World War II approached, Kent shifted his priorities, becoming increasingly active in left-wing politics. In 1938 the U.S. Post Office asked him to paint a mural in their headquarters in Washington, DC. The mural was of mail delivery in Puerto Rico and Kent included (in Inuit dialect and in tiny letters) a postcard from Alaska which said when translated, “”To the people of Puerto Rico, our friends! Go ahead. Let us change chiefs. That alone can make us free!” This caused considerabe consternation but Kent refused to alter the mural until after he had been paid.
Increasingly supportive of Soviet-American friendship and a world devoid of nuclear weapons, Kent and his identity as an American painter receded in the postwar years; the more spoke out, the more he became, along with other prominent intellectuals and creative artists, a target of anti-Communists. At the time of his appearance in Burlington, he had been embroiled in controversy in his town of Ausable Forks, New York: his successful dairy business had been boycotted due to his political views, specifically his support of Wallace. One resident was quoted as saying, “We refuse to buy Russian milk.” In a story that appeared in the Burlington newspapers the very same day of Luther McNair’s resignation in March, Kent canceled his insurance and other business ties, signing over the farm to two of his workers there.
Kent was the guest speaker at a UVM Students for Wallace meeting in the Waterman Building that May and perhaps feeling that he had nothing to lose, delivered an incendiary speech, headlined in the Burlington Daily News the next day, “Rockwell Kent welcomes aid for Wallace from Commies.” “God bless the communists for their support of Henry Wallace,” said Kent. “They have offered their aid to us. What fools we would be to refuse them.” He went on, “It is true that Wallace has the support of the Communists, and also true that Republicans and Democrats have the support of every crook and gangster in the country.”
The next day, The Daily News editorial was headlined, “Kent’s Charm is Disgusting:” and called the speech “a collection of frustrated opinions parading as facts, a parcel of lies gathered with care to create disrespect for our government and support for Henry Wallace and the Communists.” It went on, “No good citizen should distort the truth by saying – without any factual proof whatever – that ours is a government ‘of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.” The editorial concluded, “The visit of Mr. Kent to Burlington was a good thing for one reason only: it gave good Americans a chance to see just how far wrong an idealistic guy can go when he indulges in an emotional orgy supporting such a demagogue as Henry Wallace.”
By the time candidate Wallace made an appearance in Burlington, it was apparent that the campaign was in trouble, both nationally and statewide. Inexperience and lack of organization led to difficulty in selling tickets to Wallace’s Memorial Auditorium rally. In addition, there was a clear reluctance by many to be associated with the campaign; Curtis MacDougall reported that it took many calls to find a farmer willing to allow a noon picnic lunch, and it took 14 calls obtain an accompanist for Bob Penn, one of the stars of the Broadway musical Oklahoma, who was slated to sing at the rally.
By this time, the tone of the Free Press and Daily news editorials moderated from outright alarm to condescending dismissal. A few days before the personal appearance, the Daily News editorialized, with prescience as it happened, “He is being very naïve, indeed, if he expects to pick up many supporters hereabouts. Henry, a persistent fellow if ever there was one, said his third party group would take away votes from both Republicans and Democrats. We have a sneaking suspicion, “ it went on, “that Henry should be getting ready, about now, for an awful surprise.”
Describing Wallace’s sparsely attended speech at Memorial Auditorium, the Free Press mocked Wallace’s campaign slogan of bringing “a fresh breeze to American politics,” and editorialized, “The kindest explanation of Wallace the candidate is that much learning has made him mad. The Wallace breeze, we are sorry to say, seems like a zephyr that has become balmy.” However, this attitude did not prevent the Free Press from publishing the names of everyone who gave money with their identifying towns, at the rally along with the amounts – from $150 down to $5 –, in an article with the sub-head, “Several Well-Known Persons Give Checks of $100 or more.” Among those “well-known persons” were state officers of the Wallace campaign, Charles Zimmerman of Brattleboro and Una Buxenbaum of Putney; two professors, Lucien Hanks of BenningtonCollege and Waldo Heinrichs of Middlebury; and Rockwell Kent.
The Daily News also treated Wallace’s speech with bemused condescension. “During his appearance in Burlington this weekend, Henry Wallace impressed observers as a rather pathetic figure, a man who has been misdirected in his efforts, probably sincere, to gain world peace.” That editorial also pointed out that “however sincere he may be, his tie-in with Communists, whether direct or indirect, will be his final undoing.”
In this, William Loeb was correct, for as Wallace biographers John C. Culver and John Hyde wrote, “Each new chapter in the Red Scare only further isolated Wallace and his party… By the time of the election, his credibility as a political figure was destroyed and his party removed to the fringe of public life.” The total vote for Wallace nationally was well under four million: just over one million votes (2.4 percent of the vote), and a fourth-place finish behind Strom Thurmond and the States Rights Party. In a development that must have been dispiriting to Vermont supporters, Wallace fared worse in Vermont than he did nationally, garnering 1679 votes for only 1.04 percent of the vote. After the election, an embittered and disillusioned Wallace pulled back from party-building efforts, and in 1950, broke decisively with the Progressives over their opposition to United States involvement in the Korean War.
During the next few years, there were several events on the Red Scare front that grabbed occasional headline. One such controversy was in July 1950, when Far East expert Owen Lattimore, who had just been named (with no proof) by Senator McCarthy as a State Department spy, sold his summer home in Bethel to someone who had hidden a Communist Party past. The Free Press headline read, “McCarthy Alleges Sale of Vt. Property by Lattimore to Alleged Reds.” On this occasion, even the Burlington Free Press thought McCarthy had carried his guilt-by-association tactics too far.
In 1950, Lee Emerson became governor, and struck a staunch anti-Communist tone right from his inaugural address: “As long as potential aggression exists that might destroy us, we must remain fully armed, and the temper of the people on the civilian front must be one of continual willingness to plan for our protection and be willing to implement those plans whenever necessary.” He called for the outlawing of any party advocating the overthrow of the government by force, a measure which was defeated in the legislature. He subsequently played an important role in the Novikoff case in his role as ex officio member of the UVM Board of Trustees.
Another vocal public figure was former Congressman Charles Plumley of Northfield, who called for several measures, including one to establish a state board of censorship for school textbooks. In 1950, Plumley contended that Vermont was a “testing ground for Communists,” which drew a rejoinder from the Burlington Free Press that “Communism is as much to be worried about in Vermont as a frost in July.”

The Free Press had a change of heart on that subject in 1953, when the fate of Professor Alex Novikoff occupied the front pages for three months. Some of you here might remember this controversy vividly and might well have known some of the major players: attorney Francis Peisch, Father Robert Joyce, UVM professor Arnold Schein, and Rabbi Max Wall, to name a few.
The Ukranian-born Novikoff, like many young idealists, had been a member of the Communist Party during the Depression while a doctorate student in biology at Columbia and a part-time instructor at Brooklyn College. By the time he arrived in Burlington, he had drifted away from the Communist Party due to disillusionment with Soviet politics, coupled with fears about his academic career. He was earning national recognition for his work in cancer research and was awarded full professorship at UVM when his past caught up with him.
Once a teacher was publicly identified as a communist or invoked the fifth amendment in response to questions from a committee of investigation, it fell to the faculty member’s college to carry out the punishment. The institution would then commence a proceeding to determine the fitness of the teacher to continue on the faculty. Communist Party membership was considered to constitute unprofessional conduct – invoking 5th was a lack of candor inconsistent with prof. conduct, proceedings almost always led to dismissal. Though hundreds of college professors in the United States – at public and private institutions – were either fired or resigned during this period after having been named, Novikoff was the only high-profile example in Vermont.
Let’s go back to our “McCarthy Era” versus “Red Scare” terminology for a moment. As historian Ellen Schrecker has written, “Senator McCarthy was only the most notorious of the congressional anti-Communist investigators.” In fact, one reason why Vermont in general escaped the worst of the Red Scare hysteria was that we did not have a comparable figure to New Hampshire Attorney General Louis Wyman, who waged a years-long battle against subversion at Dartmouth and University of New Hampshire. McCarthy’s followers in the Senate included William Jenner of Indiana, a Republican elected in what was known as the “Class of 46,” conservatives who led the charge in regaining control of Congress for the first time since 1928. This class, which also included Richard Nixon, William Knowland, and a then little-known Joseph McCarthy, were determined, in the words of one historian, “to rid the government of Communists, perverts, and New Dealers, get tough with Stalin, and crack down on labor unions.”
By 1953, Jenner had endeared himself to the Republican right wing by calling for President Truman’s impeachment over the dismissal of General MacArthur and opposing the post-war Marshall Plan. He had incurred the distaste of President Eisenhower and the approval of the now-powerful McCarthy and Republican leaders were glad to see the less unpredictable Jenner take control of the official anti-Communist campaign in Congress, that is, the chairmanship of the Senate Internal Security Committee. It was before this committee that Professor Novikoff was called to testify in April 1953. Senator Jenner was investigating as the Free Press put it, “Red influences in the nation’s colleges and schools.” The committee had received 1941 New York State files and more directly, the testimony of a former colleague at Brooklyn College. When Novikoff was faced with the committee’s request that he name other members of the Communist Party at Brooklyn College, he refused, citing the 5th amendment.
At the insistence of Vermont governor Lee Emerson, UVM pres. Carl Borgmann convened a six-person committee of faculty and trustees to assure Vermonters that the “the faculty is 100% pro-American and anti-Communist.” Chaired by trustee Robert Joyce, a Rutland parish priest (and later Bishop of the Burlington diocese), the committee voted 5-1 to retain Novikoff. But Emerson successfully persuaded the trustees to override the Joyce committee’s recommendation.
The trustees suspended Novikoff for a month with the ultimatum that he either return to Washington and cooperate or risk dismissal on grounds of “moral turpitude.” He remained silent. The Daily News praised the trustees’ decision. “This forthright and American type of action is in contrast to the disgusting vacillations and chicken-heartedness” at Harvard where similar cases occurred. “There has been a great deal of false and dangerous sentimentality,” it went on, “to the effect that the various Congressional investigations are trespassing on the rights of the individual.” Just to put this case in the national context, the other news story on the front page during this time was the impending execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on atomic espionage charges.
Novikoff’s main defenders were UVM’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, who argued that the university had violated its own bylaws by not giving Novikoff a public hearing; and members of the Burlington clergy, led by Episcopal Bishop Vedder Ven Dyck, Methodist minister Harold Bucklin, and Rabbi Max Wall. When 29 members of the clergy wrote a letter in support, the Daily News featured a front-page story as well that highlighted three religious leaders who chose not to sign the letter. Reverend Ralph Peterson, pastor of the Assemblies of God Chapel was quoted as saying, “I did not like the wording that ‘the methods of the McCarthy and Jenner committees do violence to our democratic traditions.” Reverend Rudolph Harm, pastor the South Burlington Community Church, added “I thought the statement was a little too strong, committing me to a position that I did not feel I had sufficient information.” Reverend John Carlson of the Alliance Community Church objected to the statement that Novikoff should be retained, saying it amounted to a demand.
The Daily News also editorialized, “In times such as these, when the nation faces destruction by the sympathetic and very able plotting of Communist agents and spies, such judgment on the part of the clergy is very miserable indeed.” Those who followed the case saw many religious leaders and many faculty members supporting Novikoff, while the college administration and the press were in favor his dismissal. “Congress and public have a right to know, “ said Loeb in one of his signed editorials, “whether Novikoff is attempting to influence the minds of countless numbers of individuals in favor of the Communist conspiracy to destroy this nation.”
Perhaps it’s helpful to step back and see how one of the twentieth century’s greatest historians, Richard Hofstader, put this attitude into perspective by noting that deep strains of anti-intellectualism have appeared in cycles in American political life. He could have been thinking about Senator Jenner and publisher Loeb when he said, “Primarily it was McCarthyism which aroused the fear that the critical mind was at ruinous discount in this country. Of course, intellectuals were not the only targets of McCarthy’s constant detonations but intellectuals were in the line of fire, and it seemed to give special rejoicing to his followers when they were hit. His sorties against intellectuals and universities were emulated throughout the country by a host of less exalted inquisitors.”
Former UVM professor David Holmes, in his 1988 book on the Novikoff case, states, “Although milder in its rhetoric than Loeb’s paper, the more middle-of-the-road Free Press was equally damaging to Novikoff’s cause. The business manager, David Howe, shaped the editorial policy of the paper and pressed an anti-Communist view in public and private, even going so far as to reject several pro-Novikoff letters to the editor.”
Holmes also noted that although other Vermont papers weighed in on the case, the only editor to express support for Novikoff was Bernard O’Shea, the editor of the weekly Swanton Courier. The reaction to O’Shea’s support brought the suggestion that the Courier was “communist-minded” and that the editor was flawed by his education and by his out-of-state origins. One letter writer said, “It is known that O’Shea has a college education and it is more likely that he received some instruction about Communism. He brings those thoughts here to Vermont.”
Ultimately, Emerson’s position won out and Novikoff was forced to resign. Novikoff’s attorney Francis Peisch argued in vain that dismissing Novikoff would violate the terms of tenure, while Louis Lisman, attorney for the university countered that invoking the Fifth Amendment was grounds for dismissal. But unlike many victims of the Red Scare, Novikoff went on to significant professional success, becoming a researcher at the newly founded Albert Einstein Medical School in New York City. He returned to Burlington in 1983 to receive an honorary UVM degree and received an official apology from the university. Showing to some a surprising generosity of spirit, Novikoff willed his papers to UVM and two years after his death in 1987, on the occasion of UVM receiving those papers, the Burlington Free Press ran an editorial formally apologizing for their role. “The University of Vermont was wrong in 1953,” the editorial said. “So was the Burlington Free Press editorial page, which saw Communists in every closet, and failed to defend Novikoff’s rights and endorsed his firing. The arrival of Alex Novikoff’s papers renews our regret that we are 36 years late.”
So that’s a look back at how one of America’s most fraught and fearful eras played out in our state, and in our community. Now I’ll be glad to answer any questions.