This volume was published in 1956 Summary from the books Foreword:Most Americans are convinced that loyaltysecurity investigations of people working for the government in sensitive positions or seeking key federal jobs are necessary to protect the government from the infiltration of persons who might try to destroy it But when loyalty tests are applied by private groups to people in private industries and people are barred from jobs because they are controversial many citizens become alarmed The present report (with its companion volume dealing with the radio television industry) embodies the results of a study initiated by The Fund for the Republic in September, 1954, when many Americans had become disturbed by the revelation of blacklisting practices in the radio, television, and motion picture industries At the time this study was launched, such blacklisting was a subject of vigorous public controversy, involving civil liberties issues of a serious kind It raised questions of freedom of thought and speech, of due process, of the protection of the individual against group pressures and of the community against the disloyalty of the individual It was a controversy in which all participants commonly spoke in the name of the Constitution and civil liberty, but in violently conflicting terms Those who advocated blacklisting practices did so on the ground that Communist and proCommunist infiltration into the entertain ment industries represented a serious peril to the American system of law and governance, and therefore to the freedoms which it enshrines The peril might be direct, through giving Communists access to mass media into which they could introduce subversive propaganda, or which they might even sabotage given the proper circumstances It might be only indirect, permitting Communist sympathizers to enjoy popular esteem, earning incomes which would help support Communist causes, operating their own blacklists against antiCommunists and promoting the interests of an international conspiracy directed toward the destruction of all liberties In any case, it was contended, the extirpation from the entertainment industries of proven members of the Communist conspiracy and of all who were considered to have lent it their support or had been indifferent to its dangers (and remained impenitent) was essential as a protection to American institutions Opponents of blacklisting contended that such a policy could only subvert the rights and liberties it sought to protect Some held that it violated the Constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and thought, since it destroyed an individuals livelihood on the sole ground of his political beliefs This raised the issue whether a sympathy with Communism could properly be regarded as a political belief or must be taken as proof of complicity in a criminal conspiracy, even though no criminal charge could be brought Beyond that, many who accepted the view that a convinced Communist should be barred from the cameras and microphones were disturbed by the methods being used to achieve this result It was contended that blacklisting resulted in the ruin of many entirely loyal individuals without formal charges, hearings or other safeguards of due process, often on flimsy or mistaken charges and at the dictates of selfappointed censors or pressure groups Several things were apparent in this controversy The major arguments simply did not meet The facts around which the argu ments raged were largely unknown In these issues, plainly of critical importance to all those interested in the preservation of civil liberty, the information necessary to arriving at valid conclu sions was largely unavailable