No arrangement action taken or arrangement information not recorded at the time of processing.

Series 1, Irving Ferman Records, 1948-1959, documents Irving Ferman's tenure as director of the ACLU's Washington, D.C. Office. Also included in this series is the correspondence from 1951 of two staff employees, Mary Alice Baldinger and Faiga Levine, which deals primarily with administrative matters.

A significant portion of the series is general correspondence between the ACLU's national office and the Washington, D.C. Office (1951-1958). Memoranda which primarily deal with requests for reports and updates on legislation and with discussions of issues and clients constitute the bulk of this correspondence. Most of the correspondence involves Ferman, Staff Counsel Herbert Monte Levy, and national office Associate Director Alan Reitman. There is also similar correspondence with the affiliate offices of the ACLU.

Much of the material in this series details government and organizations' fears of Communist infiltration. The Legislative Investigating Committees section contains records related to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) as well as other Congressional committees concerned with loyalty and security issues. Included is a folder on Judge Dorothy Kenyon's appearance before HUAC in 1950 and several folders on U.S. v. Lattimore, a case in which Owen Lattimore was charged with perjury for having falsely represented his Communist associations.

The section on Freedom of Movement contains correspondence with Ruth Shipley, director of the Passport Office, and John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, and case files detailing academics who were denied passports, visas, naturalization, or citizenship due to questions of security and loyalty. Materials pertaining to loyalty and security issues relate primarily to federal employees and some of this information can be found under the Federal Agencies heading, broken down by individual agency.

The Civil Rights section documents the Washington Office's involvement with school desegregation, women's rights, and opposition to the Bricker Amendment. The Censorship section chronicles Post Office censorship of the mail, including Confidential magazine, and several folders on the Federal Communications Commission's Barrow Report, a study on television network regulation.

A significant amount of material deals with civil liberties issues in U.S. Territories, broken down by geographic locale and includes a large amount of correspondence from Roger Baldwin, founding member and first Executive Director of the ACLU and International Work Adviser in the 1950s and 1960s.

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Series 2, Lawrence Speiser Records, 1951-1970, relates to his work in Washington, D.C. and also his work in San Francisco in connection with the National ACLU and the Northern California affiliate. Case files comprise the bulk of this series, with some cases filling several folders. Case files typically contain correspondence, briefs, drafts of pleadings, and research notes, and are interfiled with regular subject files. Case files from the early 1950s concern cases brought by Speiser in California regarding the illegality of requiring loyalty oaths by qualifiers of certain tax exemption status, including veterans and churches. Also included in this series is a folder of correspondence from 1968 to 1969 of Victoria Popkin, Assistant Director of the Washington Office.

The following headings in this series contain substantial material.

The Assembly and Public Protest section contains case files related to federal employees' right to protest, including records regarding a case in which a U.S. Post Office employee was dismissed for writing to a newspaper and another case in which employees of the U.S. Geological Survey were dismissed for testifying before a committee as private citizens. Other cases include State of California v. Amdur which involved the denial of a permit to use a public sidewalk, and Koel v. Resor regarding the defense of the American Nazi Party's right to wear their uniforms at the burial of George Lincoln Rockwell in a national cemetery.

The Censorship section contains substantial material on the case involving Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Other cases include Mass v. U.S. detailing the publication of the "Valachi Papers" which disclosed information about organized crime; cases involving the publication of Overseas Weekly and its distribution to the Armed Forces; and a case involving Lawrence Ferlinghetti's bookstore and its sale of Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Also included in this section are materials about the Cunningham Amendment which called for the Post Office to censor Communist materials.

The Church-State heading contains material on conscientious objection for religious and non-religious reasons; loyalty oaths (other items also can be found under the "Loyalty and Security" heading), including a case, Torcaso v. Watkins, in which Roy Torcaso refused to swear an oath to God upon his receipt of a notary public's commission and was then denied the commission; a case repudiating the requirement of loyalty oaths in California in order for churches to gain tax exemption; and background information on a public school in Swanton, Vermont which proposed connecting its building to the building of a religious school. (Note that material about non-religious conscientious objectors can be found under the "Conscientious Objector" heading.)

The Court Proceedings section contains documents relating to civil liberties violations in court procedures and sentencing including areas such as: parole, mental illness, alcoholism, habeas corpus, contempt of court, capital punishment, extradition, denial of counsel, double jeopardy and the handling of juveniles. A well-documented case is Brown v. U.S. which deals with juveniles as witnesses.

The Federal Agencies section documents civil liberty issues in relation to federal agencies such as the Agency for International Development (AID); Civil Service Commission; Department of Justice; Federal Communications Commission (FCC); Peace Corps; Treasury Department; and branches of the Armed Forces that deal with non-military personnel.

Loyalty and Security contains some California cases, including those involving the requirement of the swearing of an oath in order to obtain veteran's tax exemption, a major case being Speiser v. Randall involving Speiser himself; and the requirement of an oath for tenants to live in public housing (part of the Gwinn Amendment for which there is a substantial amount of information in this section). Also included is information and cases involving the defense of federal employees considered security risks for their various relations and associations.

Rights of Mentally Ill includes materials relating to the case of Lynch v. Overholzer in which the defendant was judged sane and then pled guilty, but was then found innocent by reason of insanity and subsequently committed to a mental institution. And a file containing correspondence regarding Ezra Pound's commitment and the attempts by his wife to have him released.

The Selective Service heading includes a case file for National Student Association v. Hershey from the late 1960s which was a reaction to a directive by Lewis B. Hershey, head of the Selective Service Board that threatened war protesters with reclassification and possible loss of draft deferments.

Other headings included in this series include Freedom of Movement which details issues concerning visas, passports, and naturalization; Illegal Police Practices, which includes a significant amount of material on search and seizure, false arrest, and illegal detention. Military Justice involves due process violations in military court including: security clearance, discharge for aliens, discrimination, and denial of right to counsel. Subjects covered under Voting Rights include poll taxes, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and several folders on reapportionment and the Dirksen Amendment.

This series also contains significant case file material, primarily transcripts, of the proceedings of U.S. v. F.C.C., a case concerning the application for a license involving International Telephone and Telegraph, Inc. (ITT) and the American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the ACLU's concern that the merger of ITT and ABC would create a broadcasting monopoly.

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