at White House (October 1944), from left:
Van Wyck Brooks,
Hannah Dorner,
Jo Davidson,
Jan Kiepura,
Joseph Cotten,
Dorothy Gish,
Harlow Shapley. The ICCASP started in 1944, as an "Independent Voters Committee of the Arts and Sciences for
Roosevelt" (IVCASR). The ICCASP formed in 1945 shortly after the end of World War II. From the start, the group found itself at odds with the
Truman administration's "aggressive anti-Soviet" and anti-labor policies, as well as his accommodation to racism. On January 21, 1946, the group met to discuss
academic freedom, during which Pauling said, "There is, of course, always a threat to academic freedom – as there is to the other aspects of the freedom and rights of the individual, in the continued attacks which are made on this freedom, these rights, by the selfish, the overly ambitious, the misguided, the unscrupulous, who seek to oppress the great body of mankind in order that they themselves may profit – and we must always be on the alert against this threat, and must fight it with vigor when it becomes dangerous." Fellow actors, mostly Roosevelt supporters, like
Olivia de Havilland,
Bette Davis,
Gregory Peck and
Humphrey Bogart were also in its Hollywood chapter. In 2006, De Havilland described her reason for joining: "I thought, 'I'll join and try to be a good citizen." In June 1946, De Havilland was asked to deliver speeches that she felt seemed to come from the
Communist Party line. She refused to deliver the speeches and rewrote them, this time championing President
Truman's
anti-Communist program. De Havilland described that in meetings of the Citizens' Group, the group rarely embraced the kind of independent spirit it publicly proclaimed, as it always ended up siding with the
Soviet Union, even though the rank-and-file members were noncommunist: "I thought, 'If we reserve the right to criticize the American policies, why don't we reserve the right to criticize Russia?'" When reform efforts failed, a number of prominent members from the liberal side like De Havilland and Ronald Reagan left in 1946, causing the ICCASP to be seen increasingly as a Communist front group. The ICCASP (like the Soviets) opposed the Baruch Plan. By October 1946, Ickes was urging the ICCASP to reconsider its position on atomic energy. On December 26, 1946, ICCASP and the National Citizens PAC merged to form the
Progressive Citizens of America (PCA). {{cite magazine {{cite web ==Legacy==