ABSTRACT
The Office of the Attorney General maintained a document called the "List of Subversive Organizations" for use by federal and state government agencies in determining the loyalty of employees during the late 1940s. At the time, political tensions in the United States were running high amid Communist advances in Eastern Europe and China and accusations that Communist spies and traitors and other left-leaning individuals and organizations were infiltrating the country. The US Supreme Court reviewed the Attorney General's (AG) list in Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 US 123, in which the Court was asked to rule on the AG's determination that several Communist-front groups met the criteria of Executive Order No. 9835, issued by President Truman. The case was relatively easy for the Court to resolve, because the attorney general had failed to hold hearings or provide factual determinations to justify his listing of the organizations as "communist."
