Though not without flaws, this is a well-researched and endlessly fascinating study of an important legal process—and an even more important historical epoch. Though it can fairly be said that the Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (AGLOSO) reaches back to the dawn of the twentieth century and was deployed ferociously as early as the post–World War I Red Scare, the iteration beginning in December 1947 had far more impact. This was part and parcel of the attempt by President Harry S. Truman to institute a so-called loyalty program, which amounted to defenestration of organizations to the left of liberalism, notably those thought to be within the orbit of the U.S. Communist Party. Ultimately, nearly 300 organizations were obliterated or defamed by being listed as “subversive”—without notice, hearings, or even evidence in a travesty of due process.

Robert Goldstein mines adroitly a massive amount of files from the FBI, the Justice Department, and similar agencies. He shows how those groups that fell under suspicion, along with their increasingly fearful members—many of whom were federal employees, an ostensible primary target for this witch hunt. A number of these organizations were deprived of federal tax-exempt status, as their members were subjected to revocation of passports, deportations, ouster from federally subsidized housing, and private employment bans. The ultimate result was a tilting of the scales toward the right wing, an imbalance that—arguably—has yet to be corrected measurably.

Strikingly, it was in 1954—the year that the Supreme Court moved toward racial desegregation with its concomitant liberalizing signal—that AGLOSO and its handmaiden (the Red Scare) began to be subjected to withering assault as a result of these gross violations of civil liberties. The author asserts that AGLOSO met its Waterloo in 1974 as a direct result of congressional hostility to the attempt by increasingly disgraced President Richard M. Nixon to resuscitate it by dint of an infamous executive order in 1971.

By simply burrowing into the documentary record and emerging with this book, Goldstein has performed an extraordinary public service. He expands our comprehension of the still regnant ideology of anticommunism, the Red Scare, the Cold War, and the policies of various U.S. presidents that implemented AGLOSO.

Alas, the author is no prose stylist and at times—though I am utterly sympathetic to this book's themes—I thought as I was reading how tragic it would be if this worthy book were deprived of an audience as a result of this deficiency. Moreover—and perhaps understandably—the author seems to overdetermine AGLOSO, viewing it as a “thing in itself” and not an instrumentality of a larger Red Scare vision.

Nevertheless, it would be even more unfortunate if these minor quibbles were to discourage a potential reader from opening this book for it offers a bracing perspective in this era of the “Patriot Act,” “torture memos,” lawless wiretapping, and the like. Certainly, this is a cautionary tale that needs to be heeded, and for this, the author merits our heartfelt thanks.