War on the Homefront in World War II: The FCC and the House Committee on Un-American Activities

The Kurt Lewin–Goodwin Watson FBI/CIA files

“…A recurrent theme in the archival data, in the oral history interview, and the work of Brinson and Nicholson is Watson's, and his colleagues' attempts to reveal the 'real' motivations behind the events they were experiencing. Hence Watosn (1963), confirmed by Brinson (2001) and Nicholson (1997) suggests concealed motivations behind the attack from Dies. FCC Commissioner Fly, his boss was trying to limit corporate concentration of broadcasting power, and also was a leading opponent of wiretapping, which brought him powerful enemies.…”

“…At the start of the 21st century, Watson (1899Watson ( -1976 might not appear in the front rank of those psychologists thought to have had a profound impact on management ideas. His life and work have, however, been subject to contemporary reassessments, by Brinson (2001) from the perspective of communications studies, and by Nicholson (1997Nicholson ( , 1998 from the history of psychology. Nicholson draws on an extensive amount of archival material, including though not in the detail here, Watson's FBI file.…”

“…By the time the USA entered the Second World War in 1942, Lewin was still at the State University of Iowa in the Department of Home Economics. Watson, however, was established as a leading academic psychologist, and seen as a founder of the field which was to become organized social psychology (Brinson, 2001;Nicholson, 1997Nicholson, , 1998. He had also become a national cause célèbre.…”

“…In November 1941, Watson, an authority on morale and propaganda (Brinson, 2001;Watson, 1942) was appointed as director of the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service (FBMS) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), taking a 50 per cent pay cut and moving to Washington, DC from New York, where his family remained. On 18 November 1941, Representative Martin Dies, Chairman of the Special Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities (i.e.…”

“…Watson was not, for example, provided with any statement of the charges against him, nor allowed to place a statement of his own into the record. Brinson (2001) therefore proposes the Watson-Dies episode as a case study in support of Schrecker's (1986) [FBI Special Agent [name deleted]]: Are you a member or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?…”