Letter from Michael Heidelberger to Alden H. Emery, American Chemical Society

In this letter Heidelberger continued to protest the decision of the Admissions Committee of the American Chemical Society in 1953, at the height of the McCarthyism, to deny membership in the society to the French chemist and Nobel Laureate, Irene Joliot-Curie, on the grounds that she was a communist. Heidelberger objected that this decision was itself political, that it undermined the freedom of scientific inquiry in the United States, and that a candidate's scientific qualifications alone should determine eligibility for membership. He pointed to the accomplishments of scientists in the Soviet Union as proof that basic science could thrive under communist regimes.