Overshadowing the battles over parietal rules and student representation on Faculty panels were far greater struggles in the field of political and intellectual freedom.

The post-World War II era had brought the fear of communism to a nationwide frenzy, and accusations tainted some of Harvard’s top professors.

The name of a war victim was removed from a plaque in Memorial Church following the discovery that he had been a German. A Class of 1952 marshal was accused of being a socialist.

The most publicized charges were made against Professor of History John K. Fairbank ’29, who made national press when he was accused on Capitol Hill of being a communist.

In mid-February 1952, he repeatedly answered charges in the Senate’s Internal Security subcommittee by denying that he harbored communist sympathies.

In March, he accused the Senate of “jumping to conclusions on the basis of hearsay evidence and scattergun accusations.”

Gravely concerned by the dilemmas that confronted academia, Conant addressed the red scare in his final report.

On one hand, he denied the presence of any communists on campus and said he would not knowingly hire one.

“But even if there were,” he wrote, “the damage that would be done to the spirit of this academic community by an investigation by the university aimed at finding a crypto-communist would be far greater than any conceivable harm such a person might do.”

Of course, he said, some professors held unpopular views.

But “it would be a sad day for the United States if the tradition of dissent were driven out of the universities,” he wrote. “For it is the freedom to disagree, to quarrel with authority on intellectual matters, to think otherwise, that has made this nation what it is today.”

At the same time that patriotic sentiments swept across the nation, a countermovement of peace activists slowly took shape on campus with several student organizations.

One war had ended; another was beginning. And Harvard—no less than the rest of the country—was plagued by an internal battle over freedom versus national safety.

The authors of the 1952 Yearbook concluded: “The year was not a good one for the free men.”

—Staff writer J. Hale Russell can be reached at jrussell@fas.harvard.edu.