Copyright 1949 by the editors of THE HARVARD CRIMSON. (Not to be reprinted in any form without the specific permission of THE HARVARD CRIMSON.)

The information which led to the uncovering of the following story was given the CRIMSON by individuals who had heard rumors of the situation at Yale and believed it would make an interesting sequel to the series on academic freedom which the CRIMSON printed last week. The story itself is presented as a case study of what happens to an academic community under the pressure of administrative and governmental fears of Communism.

Yale University is caught in a mystifying web of "cold war" security. So is Harvard. So is M.I.T. So is the country. What makes Yale different is that Yale is scared--scared right out of its civil liberties. The older faculty men, secure in tenure appointments, are just worried. Certain faculties, notably those of the law and medical schools, are not even worried. But the younger faculty members and the graduate students, especially in the physics department are scared stiff. "We're afraid to open our mouths on any idea left of Wilsonian liberalism," one physics instructor says. Other young instructors have admitted that this attitude is wide-spread in the science departments. (Little information is available in other fields in the university; it is well known, however, that although many instructors have Progressive Party sympathies, very few men did any active work for Wallace in the recent election.)

Why is this true at Yale? There are two reasons. The first is the appointment policy followed by the Prudential Committee, the standing committee of the Yale Corporation, in the one case in which the facts are known: no card-carrying or de facto Communists will henceforward be admitted to the Yale faculty. The young graduate students and faculty men put it a different way: "There will be no witch-hunts at Yale (quoted from President Charles Seymour), because there will be no witches." What worries the young men is how far the Prudential Committee intends to go with this policy. So far, they know of only one case where an applicant was suspected of Communism. In this case, the policy was implemented by a secret report, probably based on FBI files. In addition, the report was completely inaccurate.

Is this the method of keeping Communists off the Yale faculty, the young men ask. If so, they might as well forget there ever was such a thing as freedom of speech.

Provost Edgar S. Furniss says that accepting such secret reports is neither Yale University policy nor practice.

Then how does the Committee intend to implement its policy, the young men ask. There is no satisfactory answer to that question. So the young men remain scared.

FBI Activity

The second reason is the FBI--not just the eight or so regular New Haven agents, but the many more undercover agents, the liaison men on the faculty, the FBI informants, official, semi-official, and just plain snoopers. Provost Furniss himself says that the known agents are only a minority in the New Haven FBI system. No one agrees on this system's area of investigation. In the physics department alone, some feel that every faculty member and student is under surveillance; others believe that few men except applicants for government positions and men involved in government projects are being checked.

In two definite cases and a third probable case the FBI has gone beyond official FBI policy in influencing Yale academic and political activities. These cases, outlined below, have further increased the nervousness of the young instructors.

Henry Margenau is not a likely man to cross the Federal Bureau of Investigation. True, he has been cleared by the FBI for government work; but things were not always so smooth for the Yale physicist and philosopher.

During the war, he had a brother in the German air force. The FBI did not clear him until after the Nazis had surrendered. Professor Margenau remembers this when he says, "A lot more injustices were done by the FBI in the hot war than are now being done in the cold war."

A few months ago, a young lady called Professor Margenau and asked him to speak to The New Haven Youth Movement. With no knowledge of the group's political complexion, he accepted the invitation.

Not too long after the meeting, an FBI man (one of several who has frequent business in Yale's physics laboratory) stopped in to see Professor Margenau.

What do you mean, speaking to that New Haven Youth Movement, the agent asked. Who invited you?