SIDNEY HOOK
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resources were comparatively pitiful. Lingering memories of Soviet–
American wartime cooperating were still strong in some liberal cen–
ters, especially the universities. Despite the defeat of the Communist–
backed Wallace ticket in the fall of 1948, the graphic evidence of
Soviet aggression in Czechoslovakia, West Berlin, and elsewhere,
the Gouzenko revelations of the pervasiveness of the Kremlin's espi–
onage apparatus, the demagogic appeal of the Communist peace
slogans snared a considerable number of outstanding figures in
American cultural life. Criticisms of British and French imperalism,
of Chinese domestic repression, were accepted as a matter of course
application of liberal principles, but in certain quarters fundamental
criticism of Soviet policies at home and abroad were denounced as
invocations to war. We circularized the hundreds of sponsors of the
Waldorf Conference who could be differentiated from Party mem–
bers like John Howard Lawson or A. B. Magill or from hardened
professional fellow travellers like Corliss Lamont or Frederick L.
Schuman . Of the approximately six hundred fifty sponsors, about
one hundred fifty clearly did not belong there. We pointed out to
them that the main interest of the conference was in furthering the
foreign policy of the Soviet Union, that the genuine defense of peace
would be strengthened by their dissociation from the list of sponsors.
Failing that, we requested that in the interests of fair play, they bring
pressure on the organizers of the conference to permit another point
of view to be expressed on the program. We cited my case in point as
evidence of the chicanery of the organizers.
Only a few of the non-Communist sponsors were induced to re–
sign as sponsors. Among them was Irwin Edman, one of my former
teachers at Columbia University, news of whose defection was sup–
pressed by the organizers of the conference. Edman revealed the
chief technique by which some genuine liberals were ensnared. A
prominent individual like Harlow Shapley who exploited his associa–
tion with Harvard University and claimed to be speaking with the
authority and permission of Albert Einstein, another sponsor, would
telephone the prospective signer. Prestige by association is even
easier to acquire than guilt by association. Who could suspect an
astronomer whose profession had the aura of the remoteness and
purity of the stars, supported by Einstein, to play the role of anchor–
man or rather, barker, at a Communist carnival?
There were other liberal figures whose resentment of the bully–
ing pickets and aggressive newspaper campaign surpassed any re–
grets or doubts we raised in their minds about the auspices of the
conference. Their resentment of the noisy picketing was justified,
