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Politics and Vision: The ADA and American Liberalism, 1947-1985

1988; Oxford University Press; Volume: 93; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1873727

1937-5239

Dean Albertson, Steven M Gillon,

Academic Freedom and Politics

This study examines the Americans for Democratic Action group, founded in 1947 during a time of great conflict among American liberals over the Cold War and the nature of Communism. The ADA was at the forefront of the movement toward the Vital Centre, opposed Communism and the Soviet Union, and tried to strike a balance between its commitment to social justice and what it felt was possible politically. Among its prominent members were union leaders Walter Reuther and David Dubinsky, old New Dealers Eleanor Roosevelt, John Kenneth Galbraith and Robert Nathan, and intellectuals such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., James Loeb and Reinhold Niebuhr. An effective lobby for the liberal causes in the 1950s, the group found that its approach to new reform issues was too moderate for it to remain influential in the 1960s, when the civil rights movement and the debate over the Vietnam War led to a polarization of American liberalism.