The Church League of America Collection of the Research Files of Counterattack, the Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag
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Abstract
The Church League of America, a right wing anti-communist research and advocacy group, collected these research files from other creators with a similar political outlook and professional activities: American Business Consultants Inc., the Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag. All of these creators had connections to the intelligence agencies of the United States government, kept detailed research files on individuals and organizations, and were part of a right-wing research and information network that monitored Communists and other perceived threats to their interpretation of the American way of life.
By the 1950s, the Wheaton, Illinois-based Church League of America had become a major force in right-wing anti-communist activity, and as other similar organizations faced difficulty, the Church League obtained their research files. American Business Consultants, Inc. was founded in 1947 and was a major force in McCarthy-era investigations into suspected Communist activity. Their for-profit weekly publication Counterattack and special report Red Channels provided readers with specific names and information on allegedly subversive individuals and organizations. As a result of the financial difficulties caused by ensuing libel suits, ABC transferred their research files to the Church League. Additional files came from the Wackenhut Corporation, which was founded in 1954 by George R. Wackenhut and other former FBI employees. The company, which provided private security to industry and government agencies, also kept extensive files on individuals, ostensibly to run background checks. The Wackenhut Corporation received many research files from Karl Baarslag who worked for such prominent anti-communists as Senator Joseph McCarthy, Church League of America, and the American Legion. Following the passage of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Wackenhut Corporation transferred many of its research files to the Church League.
The research files contain newspaper and magazine clippings, reports, flyers, internal and external correspondence, pamphlets, brochures, circulars, and government publications. Counterattack's 1940s-1950s research activities are especially focused on entertainment, unions, suspected Communist Party fronts, foundations and individuals in public life suspected of subversive activities. Many of the Wackenhut documents and a series on student movements in California highlight the suspected connections between Communism, opposition to the Vietnam War, and the broader left counterculture of the 1960s, and document the right's evolving definition of "subversion." The meticulous and thorough collecting activities that led to the creation of these research files makes them a strong source of information on Communists and the left from the 1940s-1970s, and taken as a whole they illustrate the right's interpretation of the political and cultural environment of the mid-twentieth century United States.
Historical/Biographical Note
The research files of this collection were obtained by the right-wing Church League of America from several prominent anti-communist organizations and individuals: American Business Consultants, Inc. (publishers of Counterattack), Karl Baarslag, and the Wackenhut Corporation. All of these organizations and individuals had connections to the intelligence agencies of the United States government, kept detailed research files on individuals and organizations as part of their organizational or professional activities, and were a part of a right-wing research and information network that monitored Communists and other perceived threats to their interpretation of the American way of life.
The Church League of America was founded in Chicago in 1937 to oppose left-wing and Social Gospel influences in Christian thought and organizations. Its first director was Frank J. Loesch, head of the Chicago Crime Commission. The nonprofit organization became an influential anti-communist research and advocacy group in the 1950s, under the direction of former United States Air Force Intelligence Officer Major Edgar C. Bundy. In 1961, the Church League moved its headquarters to Wheaton, Illinois, where it continued its research operations, and created an extensive library of materials on subversive activity. Selling reports and access to its information was a major source of revenue for the Church League, and they also sometimes provided it without charge to like-minded researchers, including members of government and law enforcement agencies. The Church League's research files also helped it generate materials to spread its anti-communist message through public speaking, books, pamphlets, films, and its newsletter, News and Views. The Church League of America dissolved in 1984.
The Church League of America received the research files of fellow anti-communists American Business Consultants, Inc. in 1968, at a time when ABC was undergoing financial difficulties as a result of libel lawsuits. During the McCarthy era, ABC had been a major force in identifying alleged Communists in entertainment, business, and unions. It was founded in 1947 by former FBI employees. The organization actively monitored individuals and organizations, particularly those it suspected were involved with the Communist Party USA. Their weekly publication Counterattack and special report Red Channels provided readers with information on allegedly subversive individuals and organizations.
Another source of the research files, the Wackenhut Corporation, was founded in 1954 by former-FBI employee George R. Wackenhut and other former FBI employees. The company, which provided private security and detective services to industry and government agencies, also kept extensive files on individuals and their political leanings, ostensibly to run background checks. Karl Baarslag, who served in the Office of Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, worked as a professional anti-communist researcher for Senator Joseph McCarthy, the American Legion, and the Church League. He also closely monitored individuals and organizations for potential Communist ties, and ultimately transferred many of his research files to the like-minded Wackenhut Corporation. In 1975, prompted by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Wackenhut gave many of its research files to the Church League of America. The Church League was not bound by the legislation, but had a similar political outlook and goals as the Wackenhut Corporation.
Sources:
"3 Democrats Scorn Bid From McCarthy." The New York Times, July 19, 1953.
Bayot, Jennifer. "George Wackenhut, 85, Dies: Founded Elite Security Firm." The New York Times, January 8, 2005.
The Church League of America. "What is the Church League of America?: A History of the Organization, Including its Founders, Scope of Activity, and How Individuals May Participate in its Mission."
Cogley, John. Blacklisting: Two Key Documents. New York: Arno Press, Inc., 1971.
Everitt, David. A Shadow of Red: Communism and the Blacklist in Radio and Television. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2007.
"Karl Baarslag, Author and Ex-Congress Aide." The New York Times, January 14, 1984.
"Mr. Counterattack Quits." Time Magazine, June 30, 1952.
Ridgeway, James. "Spying for Industry." The New Republic, May 14, 1966.
Ross, Nancy L. "Detective Firm Says It Uses Right-Wing Group's Data." The Washington Post, January 27, 1977.
Schmeltzer, John. "Leader vows to resurrect Church League's influence." Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1983.
Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Wilcox, Clyde. God's Warriors: The Christian Right in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Arrangement
This collection is arranged into four series to reflect the three entities that created the materials (Counterattack, Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag) and the unknown provenance of Series IV:
Series I:Counterattack Research Files
Subseries I: Countries
Subseries II: Communist Party USA
Subseries III: Communist Party USA Front Organizations
Subseries IV: Communist Party USA Influenced Trade Unions
Subseries V: Individuals
Subseries VI: Organizations
Subseries VII: Foundations
Subseries VIII: Reports on Individuals and Organizations
Subseries IX:Collected Counterattack Series
Series II: Wackenhut Corporation Research Files
Series III: Karl Baarslag Research Files
Series IV: Research Files on California Student Movements
Scope and Content Note
The Church League of America, American Business Consultants, Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag profoundly feared the entry of Communism into all aspects of American life. The meticulous and wide-ranging research files that they generated to monitor this real or perceived threat provide a trove of information on the relationship between Communism and numerous individuals, organizations, labor unions, and social movements in the United States during the twentieth century.
For each creator, the files were a tool for monitoring and making connections between individuals and organizations. To this end, they collected a wide range of published and ephemeral materials including newspaper and magazine clippings, reports, flyers, correspondence, pamphlets and brochures, circulars, and government publications. Names of individuals and organizations in these collected materials were underlined and cataloged for later access, and the majority of the collection is marked with a unique numbering scheme. This scheme was likely begun by ABC, but a similar numbering system was also applied to the materials from the Wackenhut Corporation. While the Church League of America ultimately obtained all of these files to supplement their own similar activities, there are no research files and records determined to be generated by the Church League in this collection.
Approximately two-thirds of this collection is made up of the research materials gathered by ABC's Counterattack. These materials date from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s and were collected from New York-based publications and organizations. The ABC materials also contain a significant amount of internal reports and correspondence, mostly created during the early 1950s and used by the organization for their own reference. There are also indexes throughout the ABC materials which list references to the topics of their research in other parts of the collection or in outside news sources and publications using the aforementioned numbering scheme.
The Wackenhut Corporation materials have a higher concentration of materials dating from the 1960s through 1970s and document the shifting concerns of the right from strictly Communism to the anti-war movement and left counterculture more broadly. These files are national in scope, but do contain a higher concentration of Florida-based resources and subjects. In addition to research files, the Wackenhut Corporation's materials also include some of their library's administrative files.
The collection also contains research files related to California student movements and protests, which consist mainly of newspaper clippings, fliers, and both typed and handwritten notes, largely collected in the course of preparing a manuscript on the subject. These materials were collected and generated by an undetermined right-wing organization and reflect their perspective on 1960s student movements.
The breadth of the creators' collecting activities gives insight into the extent that the right-wing suspected Communist and left-wing infiltration into American institutions, and taken in full they provide wide-ranging documentation on the political and cultural milieu of the mid-twentieth century United States. The activities that brought about the collection also shine a light on the nature of right wing anti-communist suspicions, the connections between the business and Christian elements in the anti-communist movement, and the connections between private anti-communist organizations and the United States intelligence community.
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Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
Because of the assembled nature of this collection, copyright status varies across the collection. Copyright is assumed to be held by the original creator of individual items in the collection; these items are expected to pass into the public domain 120 years after their creation. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Liberty University in 1992. Additional matearials were found in the repository in 2015. The accession numbers associated with this gift are 1992.082 and 2014.082.
Custodial History Note
The materials in this collection were generated by and passed through a number of hands in the right wing anti-communist network, including private individuals, businesses, and a non-profit before New York University's Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives obtained them in 1992. The immediate source of acquisition for the materials was Liberty University of Lynchburg, Virginia, which at the time was scaling back their archives due to financial difficulties. The accession number for this acquisition is 1992.021. Liberty University had received the collection from the Church League of America, an anti-communist research and advocacy organization, which had essentially dissolved by 1984. The Church League had received the research files from like-minded organizations operating in similar capacities. The files created by American Business Consultants' Counterattack were transferred to the Church League of America as a result of ABC's own financial difficulties and held by the Church League from 1968-1985. Some files generated by former Joseph McCarthy aide Karl Baarslag were variously gifted or sold to the Wackenhut Corporation, who also collected information on individuals' alleged subversive activities. Following the passage of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Wackenhut drastically reduced the number of its files on individuals, and in 1975 they gave many of their research files to the non-profit Church League of America. Materials in Series IV: Research Files on California Student Movements came into the possession of the Church League of America from an unknown entity.
In 2014 a letter from Arthur G. McDowell, administrative assistant to the president of the Upholsters' International Union, to Theodore C. Kirkpatrick, managing editor of "Counterattack" was found in the repository. The accession number associated with this material is 2014.082.
Separated Materials
When the collection was processed in the 1990s a number of materials were moved to other Tamiment collections. Serials found in this collection were removed and individually cataloged. They are accessible via NYU's online catalog, BobCat. Pamphlets found in this collection were removed and added to the Reference Center for Marxist Studies Pamphlet Collection (PE 043). They are arranged by topic. Nonprint materials, including artifacts and photographs were also removed from this collection and added to the Communist Party of the United States of America Graphics Collection (GRAPHICS 024).
About this Guide
Processing Information note
After 1992, the collection was re-housed, re-foldered, and described by Tamiment archivists. Selected materials were removed to other Tamiment collections. It was re-processed in 2012 to address additional preservation and description needs.
The series structure and original order of the documents in the collection have largely been maintained. The Subseries VI: Organizations and Subseries IX: Collected Counterattack Series were created from the combinations of multiple American Business Consultants series.
The folder numbering scheme, which appears to have been created by American Business Consultants, but also applied in a similar form to the documents in the Wackenhut Corporation series, has been maintained as the basis for folder order.
The materials in this collection have been re-housed into new boxes and folders. Overstuffed folders have been divided into two or more folders. Some individual documents have been moved within folders in order to isolate paper with high acidic content, and acid free paper was interleaved in these cases to separate acidic and non-acidic materials. Empty folders were removed. Original folder titles were retained unless clarification was necessary and additional information was added in brackets. Selected fragile newspaper clippings, acidic paper, and Thermofax copies were photocopied and the original material was removed from the collection.
