It all began in 1935, when the department established the Office of Arms and Munitions Control after passage of the first Neutrality Act by Congress. Long before HUAC’s investigation into Yost, his connection with certain questionable State Department colleagues caused his “infant file to grow like a plot of mushrooms in the darkness of the FBI vault,” as he recalled later. Ten years later, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) branded the Open Road agency a “Communist Front Organization” and the university a forum for communist propaganda. It was the beginning of a decadeslong investigation into Yost and his alleged communist sympathies and connections. He first became aware that this trip was a problem only in 1943, when his aunt reported that the FBI had questioned her about his communist leanings and attendance at a Moscow university. ![]() Before embarking, Yost made his booking through the Open Road travel agency and, once in Moscow, attended classes at the Anglo-American Institute of the First Moscow University (all while awaiting word whether his Polish girlfriend would marry him). His third trip, in 1934, would eventually have disconcerting consequences, however. As a result of his trips there in 19, the future Cold Warrior acquired insights into the Russian psyche. In fact, Yost writes in his memoirs, it would have been foolish of him to ignore the part of Europe where some of the boldest social and political experiments were occurring. Moving into the Crosshairsįollowing World War I, in the early years of the USSR, it was not unusual for young diplomats to visit that country. He was a loyal American and successful diplomat who was subjected to repeated investigation in the search for communists in the State Department. What follows are my father’s own experiences during that tumultuous time, which arguably resonate today. ![]() Yost, my father, was referring to the federal witch hunts that began in the 1930s and lasted through the 1950s and McCarthyism. ambassador to Morocco.Īfter relentless FBI investigations, congressional hearings and State Department security interrogations, the prognosis was dire: It would be a time of “great malaise in the Department such as I have never seen before.” Writing this in 1980, Ambassador Charles W. ![]() ![]() The order also created Presidentially-appointed Loyalty Review Boards to investigate and act on the findings of the FBI.Yost, at left, with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles in 1958 at the State Department, as Dulles announces Yost’s appointment as U.S. Truman’s Executive Order 9835, often called the “Loyalty Order,” created the Federal Employee Loyalty Program, which authorized the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct initial background checks on federal employees and carry out more in-depth investigations when warranted. Between 19, more than 3 million federal employees were investigated, with 308 fired after being declared security risks by the Loyalty Review Boards.The order empowered the FBI to investigate federal employees and created presidentially-appointed Loyalty Review Boards to act on reports from the FBI.The so-called “Loyalty Order” created a controversial “Federal Employee Loyalty Program” charged with eliminating communists from all areas of the U.S.Executive Order 9835 was a presidential executive order issued by President Harry S.
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