Robert Kennedy and His Times

by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

The Kennedys were also exasperated by State’s philosophic attitude toward the travel restrictions that mocked America’s pretense of being a truly open society. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 excluded from the United States past and present members of proscribed organizations, such as the Communist party and Communist-front organizations, and advocates of proscribed doctrines, such as communism. However, it also empowered the Attorney General, when State so recommended, to grant waivers for reasons of compassion or of the national interest. The Eisenhower administration administered the proscriptive sections of the act with enthusiasm. Dulles selected Scott McLeod, a Joe McCarthy protégé, as head of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs. In the Dulles atmosphere, consuls abroad automatically denied visas to all remotely suspicious persons. The Kennedys thought it all ridiculous. Exchange agreements with Communist countries permitted the entry of party members from behind the Iron Curtain; but artists, writers and scientists from western Europe or Latin America whom someone had charged with committing an offense against American ideas of political propriety were regularly turned away. Their admission, the President and the Attorney General believed, was unlikely to destroy the Republic. Exposure to the United