Condon

“We’ve never had the adversary in the White House that we have today,” said Ed Condon, executive director of the Region 9 Head Start Association, which represents four states, including California.

But Condon’s speech that day was focused on a dark vision about America’s future.

Thousands of government scientists, economists, and other experts were being investigated, and in many cases fired, in the name of anti-communism and national security—a campaign that Condon compared to ideological purges by the Nazis in the early days of the Third Reich.

As his audience undoubtedly knew, Condon spoke from painful personal experience.

Condon, who had stayed largely apolitical during the 1930s, was outspoken in his belief in civilian control over nuclear power; even this belief was treated like a prelude to subversion.