Editing McCarthyism (section)

====Loyalty-security reviews====
[[File:Page one of Executive Order 9835.jpg|thumb|310x310px|Executive Order 9835, signed by President Truman in 1947]]
In the federal government, President Truman's Executive Order 9835 initiated a program of loyalty reviews for federal employees in 1947. It called for dismissal if there were "reasonable grounds&nbsp;... for belief that the person involved is disloyal to the Government of the United States."<ref>{{Cite book |chapter=The Constitution of the Truman Presidency and the Post–World War II Era |editor1-first=Martin |editor1-last=Fausold |editor2-first=Alan |editor2-last=Shank |first=Donald R. |last=McCoy |year=1991 |title=The Constitution and the American Presidency |publisher=SUNY Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/constitutionamer0000faus/page/116 116] |isbn=978-0791404683 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/constitutionamer0000faus/page/116}}</ref> Truman, a [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]], was probably reacting in part to the Republican sweep in the [[United States House election, 1946|1946 Congressional election]] and felt a need to counter growing criticism from conservatives and anti-communists.{{sfn|Fried|1997}}

When President [[Dwight Eisenhower]] took office in 1953, he strengthened and extended Truman's loyalty review program, while decreasing the avenues of appeal available to dismissed employees. [[Hiram Bingham III|Hiram Bingham]], chairman of the Civil Service Commission [[Executive Order 9835|Loyalty Review Board]], referred to the new rules he was obliged to enforce as "just not the American way of doing things."{{sfn|Fried|1990|p=133}} The following year, [[J. Robert Oppenheimer]], scientific director of the [[Manhattan Project]] that built the first atomic bomb, then working as a consultant to the [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission]], was stripped of his security clearance after a [[Oppenheimer security hearing|four-week hearing]]. Oppenheimer had received a top-secret clearance in 1947, but was denied clearance in the harsher climate of 1954.

Similar loyalty reviews were established in many state and local government offices and some private industries across the nation. In 1958, an estimated one of every five employees in the United States was required to pass some sort of loyalty review.{{sfn|Brown|1958}} Once a person lost a job due to an unfavorable loyalty review, finding other employment could be very difficult. "A man is ruined everywhere and forever," in the words of the chairman of President Truman's Loyalty Review Board. "No responsible employer would be likely to take a chance in giving him a job."{{sfn|Schrecker|1998|p=271}}

The [[United States Department of Justice|Department of Justice]] started keeping a list of organizations that it deemed subversive beginning in 1942. This list was first made public in 1948, when it included 78 groups. At its longest, it comprised 154 organizations, 110 of them identified as Communist. In the context of a loyalty review, membership in a listed organization was meant to raise a question, but not to be considered proof of disloyalty. One of the most common causes of suspicion was membership in the [[Washington Bookshop Association]], a left-leaning organization that offered lectures on literature, classical music concerts, and discounts on books.{{sfn|Fried|1990|p=70}}