Two days in August 1948

The charming, two-story Meierhof, which currently houses Salzburg Global’s administrative offices, the lecture room known as Fellows Hall, 55 nicely appointed guestrooms and café that offers one of the best cappuccinos in Salzburg, once served as a 42nd Infantry Division outpost in the Nazi-infested hinterland of postwar Austria. “Many Austrians are afraid to cooperate with the Americans because they know the area teems with fanatical Nazis,” TIME magazine reported from Salzburg in June 1945, “many of whom have taken to the mountains with both food and arms.” Even as retaliatory threats subsided, the American Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) remained on alert for other subversions.

“Although the Seminar was an unofficial venture, authorized but not sponsored by the local military authorities,” a State Department official wrote in January 1948 as plans were being made to convene a second session at Schloss Leopoldskron, “the political complexion of participants was considered a subject of some security interest.” The CIC investigations determined that the American staff, as well as some participants, were “critical of various aspects of current American policy” and were “possessed of unorthodox views on many political subjects.” It was strongly recommended that if the Seminar were to be continued it should be run by “virile, alert and intelligent personnel who are staunch believers in, and advocates of, the American way of life.” The CIC expressed particular concern over Clemens Heller and his criticism of US government policies.

A CIC report on “Communist Activity at Harvard Seminar,” dated July 26, 1947 and since acquired via a request made under the Freedom of Information Act, reported on “sharp attacks” made by Clemens on the US Military Government policies in the American Occupation Zone of Austria. The report found no fault with the other two founders, Richard “Dick” Campbell, Jr. and Scott Elledge. Clemens insisted, according to the CIC report, that a military government, even one run by the United States, was “inadequate to promote democracy in those areas.” When pressed on his alleged anti-Americanism, Clemens held his ground. “What I do believe is that no military government is an ideal instrument for the promotion of democracy,” Clemens had written in a letter framing his position. “The concept of absolute power implicit in the rule by a military government, and the general atmosphere engendered by government based on such a concept, is certainly not the most beneficial one for the realization of a democratic society.” Clemens did not help his cause in two subsequent interrogations by FBI officers stationed in Boston. In the transcripts to one interrogation, Clemens was asked, “Do you believe in democracy,” to which he replied, “What do you mean by democracy?” In the margin beside his response, an agent has written, “Does not even know what democracy is.” Clemens was branded “a Red” and banned from the American Occupation Zone, barring him from returning to Salzburg.

That August, a young political officer was dispatched from the US Embassy in Vienna to gather intelligence on the activities of “the Harvard Seminar” at Schloss Leopoldskron. Earlier that year, Martin Herz had investigated the allegations of communist sympathies that had banned Clemens from the American sector labeling him “a dangerous Red.” “This is a case of a serious political mistake having been made in high places,” Herz reported in a confidential memorandum. The false allegations of communist sympathies had been “motivated by spite and bigotry.” He did admit that Clemens was a “free thinker” but did not feel this should be held against him. “If we cannot afford to have an American student there who occasionally, in a bull session with foreign students, tends to agree with them and criticizes some American policies,” Herz wrote, “then we are in a very sad situation.” 

Now, Herz had come to Salzburg to collect intelligence on the Seminar activities. He discovered that the CIC agent who had written the negative report the previous year had become engaged in a fight on the “virtuousness of the United States” and the “dastardliness of the Russians.” A heated debate ensued with the Seminar staff seeking to parse the differences. “The agent appears to have taken the attitudes that all who disagreed with him were just a bunch of Communists,” Herz reported. “Such loose statements appear to have been most harmful to the seminar.” Herz argued that the “importance of the seminar in advancing the purposes of American policy” lay in the fact that “it is definitely not a propaganda venture,” he wrote, “but a place where serious-minded students can acquire information on the United States—and where they have to work to acquire that information.” Herz praised, in particular, the “informality” of the lectures and the “approachability” of the faculty who participated in informal discussions with the students and conversed on a first name basis. “The freedom of the atmosphere in the seminar, then, is an integral part of its basic idea,” he continued. “Students of many nationalities can be seen sitting together in small groups until the small hours of the morning, discussing the widest range of subjects with complete freedom and independence.”

Herz recommended permitting the Seminar to continue. “For it provides a live demonstration of the fact the freedom of speech and academic freedom do indeed exist in the United States,” he wrote. “If we can demonstrate that, they feel [sic], we will also have gone a very long way toward selling democracy—real constitutional democracy—to the Europeans who attend the seminar.” And thus, a 31-year-old junior political affairs officer, just eight months on the job, had singlehandedly saved the Salzburg Seminar. This was, I believe, the sort of engagement Clemens meant when he spoke of the “courage of individual responsibility.” A US State Department memo summarizes succinctly: “Here, if left to develop in its own way, is a peculiar and unique instrument for the effective projection of American democracy.”