Fletcher D. Proctor Professor Emeritus of American History at Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT.
Travis Beal Jacobs
Konteksty Kultury, Volume 12, Issue 4, 2015, pp. 474-488
https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.21.4781Columbia University announced the Adam Mickiewicz Chair in Philology, Language and Literature in May, 1948, during the Cold War. The Chair’s incumbent would be Manfred Kridl, an émigré who had left Poland 1940, and the communist Warsaw government would contribute $10,000 annually. Polish Ambassador Josep Winiewicz, with the assistance of Czeslaw Milosz, had suggested Kridl. Arthur Coleman, an Assistant Professor of Slavic Languages, and the Polish-American Congress loudly protested the appointment, “This infiltration of the Communist voice.” The Polish-American press agreed. The controversy received nationwide attention when Coleman resigned and asserted that Poland, controlled by Moscow and the Comintern, would wage a campaign of “academic infiltration” with the Mickiewicz Chair. Sigmund Sluszka, a former Coleman student, called Kridl “a noted Marxist.” The New York Timesgave the resignation front-page coverage, and the media emphasized that Columbia was “a Hot-Bed of Communism.” The fact that World War II hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had just become the university’s president increased public interest in the controversy, even though the decision on the Chair had been made before his arrival. Columbia’s Provost launched an extensive investigation into the accusations against Kridl and two professors, and Eisenhower presented the confidential report to the University’s Trustees. Columbia stood by hersupport of the Chair and Kridl.
The protest lasted throughout the summer, and several university officials had questioned accepting the funding from Warsaw. While the controversy had undermined the Polish Studies program for the Polish-American and émigré communities, the Provost believed that the Adam Mickiewicz Chair and Professor Kridl contributed to the furthering of Polish-American Studies in America.