With the growth of
McCarthyism and the
Second Red Scare, the subject of communism in America began to loom large in the public consciousness.[1] In 1951,
Robert M. Hutchins became the president of the Fund for the Republic, a non-profit organization whose basic objectives were to research and analyze civil liberties and civil rights. In 1954,
Wilbur Hugh Ferry became Fund vice president, responsible for administration and public relations, and moved with the Fund to Santa Barbara 1959.[5]
In August 1953,
Clifford P. Case resigned from the
House to become president of the
Ford Foundation's Fund for the Republic.[3] He served in that position until March 1954.[6]
Bethuel M. Webster served as legal counsel to the Fund and represented the Fund in hearings before the notorious Un-American Activities Committee of the House of Representatives (
HUAC). During this period he also defended William Remington, an economist and alleged Communist accused of espionage.[citation needed]
Political scientist
Clinton Rossiter of
Cornell University directed the Fund for the Republic, which aimed to publish a full-scale history of American communism. It engaged
David A. Shannon of the
University of Wisconsin to write the history of the
Communist Party USA during the post-war period. In 1952, it engaged
Theodore Draper to write a monograph on the party's early years. Draper had already been thinking of writing a "traditional" history of the Party, based upon documentary sources and meeting scholarly standards.[1] In 1954, Millis became the director of the Fund's study of
demilitarization.[citation needed]Robert W. Iversen wrote a book for the fund called Communism and the Schools, published in 1959.[7][8]
Economic Power and the Free Society by
Adolf A. Berle (1957)
American Civil Liberties in the Foreign Press: A Study Conducted Under the Auspices of the Association for Education in Journalism, with Financial Support from the Fund for the Republic by
Douglas Waples (1957)
^Medicine: An Interview by Donald McDonald with Herbert Ratner, M.D. One of a Series of Interviews on the American Character. Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Comment by Scott Buchanan. Santa Barbara, California: Fund for the Republic, May, 1962.