Esther Caukin Brunauer (July 7, 1901 – June 26, 1959) was an American diplomat who was longtime employee of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and then a U.S. government civil servant, who with her husband was targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy's campaign against U.S. State Department officials whose loyalty to the U.S. he questioned.
He was an immigrant to the U.S. from Hungary, trained as a chemist, who had belonged to the Young Workers' League, a Communist front, until 1927.
The Atomic Energy Commission denied him a security clearance because of his earlier membership in the Young Workers' League, but he continued to work as a scientist for the U.S.
Therefore, if one is enlightened and believes in social progress, one opposes anything that will permit America to play a part in world affairs, because of the fear that this country will seek to dominate others and by its actions will provoke others into war.
In 1947, Representative Fred Busbey attacked her by name when denouncing "pro-Communist fellow travelers and muddle heads" in the State Department.
In 1950, when Senator Joseph McCarthy launched the anti-Communist crusade known by his name, he identified her as one of the State Department employees whose disloyalty he could prove.
[7] Among her defenders were Eleanor Lansing Dulles, a State Department official from a politically prominent family.
In 1948 she had written: There is certainly nothing vindictive or arbitrary in the attitudes of the people who are carrying out this program, and I have the feeling that, as unpleasant as this situation is, it does provide an opportunity for straightening up the record and being protected in the future.
[9]Testifying in front of the committee, she reported receiving anonymous telephone calls with "death threats and profanity".
[1] In April 1951, while working as a high explosives expert, the U.S. Navy suspended his security clearance to conduct another review.
[14] She once commented on the role of gender in her loyalty-security review after facing an all-male panel: Either their opinion of the reliability of women in professional positions was very low, or else they knew of many men who shared State Department secrets with their wives, and thought that a woman ... must behave the same way.
[15]After leaving government service, she worked briefly for the Library of Congress and then relocated with her husband to Evanston, Illinois, in September 1952.