Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

Spoil 1.96

A curious feature of the Cold War was the prohibition against travel abroad by Americans suspected of Left leanings. From 1952 until 1958, when the Supreme Court took a hand in the matter, passports were arbitrarily withheld or revoked [...] Thus for almost a decade only the true-blue, the politically and intellectually untainted, were permitted to travel abroad. I have often wondered if this accounted for the generally low esteem in which American tourists were held by Europeans.

J. Mitford, A fine old conflict, London, 1977, p. 175

posted by Geist @ 11:15 am