After waiting over five years, I finally got the FBI files on Edwin D. Hoffman! Hoffman was one of the three professors at Allen University who were accused of being "communist workers" by South Carolina Governor George B. Timmerman in the late 1950s.
The governor's accusations drew national attention and ultimately resulted in the dismissal of Hoffman and the other professors. However, the core of his claims is, at best, unclear under close inspection. The governor claimed that he'd seen records showing that Hoffman had been a member of various "Communist Party affiliates," but the groups he cites were obscure ones like the Queens County Financial Station. The name "Financial Station" certainly does not suggest troubling communist political activity. Moreover, in most cases, Hoffman's involvement dated to a decade or more in the past. The FBI records shed light on the governor's claims and show how Hoffman first caught the attention of the surveillance state.
The FBI files show Hoffman enthusiastically participated in left-wing political activities, essentially all of which the governor would have condemned. However, there is no evidence that he was a member of the Communist Parties, and his documented activities were well within constitutionally protected activities.
Hoffman was first investigated by army counter-intelligence during the Second World War, and this occurred almost by accident. Shortly after Hoffman joined the army (on August 8, 1942), an army investigator was examining records at the City College of New York as part of an investigation unrelated to Hoffman. In the course of doing this, the investigator came across evidence that Hoffman had engaged in "communistic activities" while a student in the late 1930s.
The investigator's claim wasn't baseless, although it is striking that City College retained records on Hoffman several years after he graduated. When Hoffman attended the college, the student population drew heavily from the city's working-class immigrant families. Many had seen their families devastated by the Great Depression and were open to political and economic change. This manifested itself by a large wave of campus activism.
Hoffman was a leader among student activists. He helped form and then lead a chapter of the American Student Union. The governor of South Carolina described the ASU as a Communist Party affiliate, and he wasn't wrong. The ASU had been formed from various socialist and communist groups. However, the City College chapter focused on issues like opposing war and fascism. They successfully advocated for removing mandatory ROTC training. Hoffman's proudest achievements were those related to African-American rights. A student protest he participated in succeeded in getting the college to hire its first African-American instructor, Max Yergan.
Hoffman's old student records were enough to trigger an army investigation. As Hoffman was enrolled in the army during war time, the military had extensive powers to investigate his activities. Investigators interviewed a number of the soldiers who worked with him as well as former employers, reviewed all the records they could get their hands on, and inspected his mail.
Investigators found a few additional causes for concern. Hoffman's political activities hadn't ended with college. When he registered as a voter, he had registered as a member of the American Labor Party. This was a legitimate, if minor, political party, but it promoted a socialist democratic platform and was viewed by some as communist-aligned.
A more serious cause for concern were his Selective Service records. They showed that he told the draft board that he was a conscientious objector. Moreover, he had actively protested against the war. On May 29, 1941, Hoffman was stopped by a police officer for distributing "Communistic" anti-war pamphlets on a street corner. While the officer did not arrest him, he did make a report to Hoffman's draft board.
May 1941 was before both the invasion of the Soviet Union and the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and Hoffman's feelings about the war had evidently changed by the time he was inducted into the army. Every soldier interviewed spoke highly of Hoffman, although a few acknowledged that he held leftwing political beliefs. One officer said he was "pinkish" but loyal to the US. Two other officers said that Hoffman had discussed being an active communist during college and acknowledged that he had maintained friendships with active communists.
None of the soldiers expressed serious concerns about Hoffman, but investigators felt differently. They noted that he was friendly with another soldier (Richard J. Crohn) who had already been flagged as "proven to be a dangerous Communist."
On January 22, 1944, army investigators completed their work and concluded that Hoffman was at least a communist sympathizer. He was deemed potentially subversive and a few months later (on March 17, 1944) he was restricted from sensitive duties.
Hoffman, it appears, was unaware of the investigators' findings or even the existence of an investigation. All evidence shows that he was a loyal soldier who dedicated himself to the war effort. He was commissioned as an officer and volunteered for combat duty at the time of the Normandy invasion. He served as an artillery forward observer in western Europe and earned three Battle Stars.
Hoffman's military service did nothing to erase the army's concerns about his communist sympathies. A few years after the war (on March 26, 1948), the army provided the FBI with a copy of their records on Hoffman. Using those records as a basis, the FBI opened an investigation. The reasons for sending records to the FBI are unclear. In Hoffman's file, an FBI cover letter attached to Hoffman's military record is followed by four pages that are fully redacted under a national security exception. These pages may contain a description of why the files were transferred.
However they made their way to the FBI's files, the records were hugely consequential. The governor's accusations against Hoffman were a regurgitation of the army's findings together with some activities that the FBI had investigated in the early 1950s.
Hoffman's Anti-War Pamphlet.
The text below is a transcription of the anti-war pamphlet that Hoffman was distributing in May 1941. The pamphlet is a response to one of President Roosevelt's radio addresses in which he encouraged Americans to support the war. At the time, America was nominally neutral, but it was sending supplies to the Allies via Naval convoys, something the pamphlet openly opposes. The pamphlet also opposed organizing an A.E.F., which was an acronym for an American Expeditionary Force (the term for the US military forces that fought in World War One).
The pamphlet encourages readers to listen to an answer to the president's speech that Congressman Vito Marcantonio would deliver. The reference to Marcantonio is highly significant. He represented East Harlem and was one of the most left-wing members of Congress. At the time, he was a member of the American Labor Party. During the early years of the war, he was among the staunchest opponents to American military involvement. His position appears to have reflected his sympathy for communism. Up until June 1941 (a month after the pamphlet was distributed), the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany had formed a non-aggression pact, and the Soviets encouraged American communists and their allies to advocate for American neutrality.
