The lastest issue (Winter 2004-2005) of Science & Society has an article, "The FBI and Science & Society," by David H. Price, which, using files that the author obtained from the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act, details the decades-long investigation of the journal from the 1940s to the 1960s, the FBI, apparently, viewing Marxist theorizing as almost as dangerous to national security as outright Marxist activism.
Readers here might be amused to learn that according to Price:
----------------------- But during the postwar 1940s and throughout the 1950s the FBI viewed most philosophical links to Marxism as threats to their vision of "Americanism." During the early Cold War most forms of materialist analysis were seen by the FBI as threats to national security (see Price and Peace, 20003). Thus the FBI reacted with strong concern upon reading the essays of Bernhard Stern, Elmer Barnes and others affiliated with the early years of Science & Society in the book *Philosophy for the Future* (Sellars, et al., 1949):
"They are day in and day out influencing the minds of countless youths. Their influence goes beyond the classroom. They are also writers issuing books and articles designed to influence educated and articulate adults in positions of importance. There can be little doubt that these materialists are subtly preparing the minds of at least a percentage of those reached by them for the acceptance of communism. Further, they are preparing a greater percentage of educated minds to be sympathetic or soft on communisn. . . . It is not unlikely that the majority of the educated enemies of the Bureau who are regularly attacking or opposing us in one form or another are philosophic materialists. And, they are not decreasing in numbers. *Philosophy for the Future* is our problem of the future. (WFO 100-FBI Office Memorandum, 7/28/57). ----------------------------------------------------
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