National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee

The National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (NECLC), until 1968 known as the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, was an organization formed in the United States in October 1951 by 150 educators and clergymen to advocate for the civil liberties embodied in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, notably the rights of free speech, religion, travel, and assembly. Though it solicited contributions, its program and policy decisions were controlled by a self-perpetuating national council for most of its first 20 years.

It was formed by civil rights advocates who disagreed with the decision of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) not to participate directly in the defense of people charged with violations of the McCarran Act (1950) by advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government. Corliss Lamont later wrote: "It was felt that other organizations were not as vigorous in their defense of civil liberties as they might have been." The ACLU restricted its role in such cases to submitting amicus curiae briefs, while the NECLC participated directly in the defense of those charged. In the 1960s, the NECLC's director, Henry di Suvero, explained how he thought its mission differed from that of the ACLU: "A.C.L.U. takes only clear cases of violations of civil liberties. We take cases that are not so clear." He had left the ACLU because he wanted greater involvement in progressive causes in addition to classic civil rights issues. In the view of one ACLU official, the NECLC made a more direct contribution to the cause of civil liberties in its McCarran Act cases, but its close association with the defendants invited suspicion that the NECLC was itself a Communist-backed organization. Di Suvero responded that the NECLC had learned the importance of avoiding identification with a single cause and therefore looked for cases involving students, prisoners, and the poor. Red-baiting continued for decades. In 1971, after a congressman called NECLC chairman Corliss Lamont an "identified member of the Communist Party, U.S.A." and said the NECLC was "controlled" by Communists, Lamont issued a statement that "although it is no disgrace to belong to the Communist party, I have never even dreamed of joining it." He said the NECLC "is strictly nonpartisan and defends the civil liberties of all Americans, no matter what may be their political or economic viewpoint."

Clark Foreman, a former administrator of New Deal programs and in 1948 treasurer of the Wallace for President Committee, served as the director of the NECLC from 1951 to 1968.

In 1953, the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, headed by executive director Irving Kristol, called the NECLC "a "Communist front with no sincere interest in liberty in the United States or elsewhere" in telegrams to several sponsors of an NECLC public forum. Two of the sponsors withdrew, including theologian Paul Tillich, who said he was unable to ascertain the truth of the charge. The NECLC replied: "We are opposed to communism and other authoritarian movements. We are committed to civil liberties as a bulwark of American democratic strength at home and abroad."

...
Wikipedia