A Catholic Cold War: Edmund A. Walsh, S.J., and the politics of American anticommunism

Abstract

This book is the first biography in 42 years of the priest and educator whomhistorians have called the most important anticommunist in the country.Edmund A. Walsh, as dean of Georgetown College and founder in 1919 of itsSchool of Foreign Service, is one of the most influential Catholic figures of the20th century. Soon after the birth of the Bolshevik state, he directed the PapalRelief Mission in the Soviet Union, starting a lifelong immersion in Soviet andCommunist affairs. He also established a Jesuit college in Baghdad, and servedas a consultant to the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.A pioneer in the new science of geopolitics, Walsh became one of Truman's mosttrusted advisers on Soviet strategy. He wrote four books, dozens of articles, andgave thousands of speeches on the moral and political threat of Soviet Communismin America. Although he died in 1956, Walsh left an indelible imprint on theideology and practical politics of Cold War Washington, moving easily outside thetraditional boundaries of American Catholic life and becoming, in the words of onehistorian, practically an institution by himself.Few priests, indeed few Catholics,played so large a role in shaping American foreign policy in the 20th century.