Correspondence

To the Editor:

“The controversy in the University of California over the arbitrary imposition on the faculty of a loyalty declaration found psychologists and psychoanalysts in the forefront. In the Academic Senate, Edward C. Tolman led the opposition. The small but determined group of non-signing professors included R. Nevitt Sanford and Erik H. Erikson. In the Medical School, Norman Reider and a number of younger psychoanalysts were among the few who held out against a requirement which they consider a useless and dangerous precedent. Others who found it advisable to sign, filed detailed letters of protest. In spite of appeals on behalf of the non-signers by Governor Warren, Admiral Nimitz and others, all of the non-signers have been fired, or have resigned. The American Psychological Association was the first national organization to advise is members against replacing any of these men. The American Association of University Professors has the matter under advisement. In the meantime, the special interest of the psychologically oriented branches of the faculty in this controversy is worthy of note. The beginning of the controversy is recorded in George Stewart's ‘The Year of the Oath’.”

Norman Reider, M.D.
San Francisco, Cal.

Ed. Note:

To the best of our knowledge this matter has as yet not come up officially before the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Dr. Lawrence S. Kubie passed this note on to us which he received from a friend in Charleston, W. Va. as he thought it might be of interest to the membership: