Vern Partlow (May 25, 1910 – March 1, 1987) was an American newspaper reporter and folk singer who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era.

He began working for Manchester Boddy's Los Angeles Daily News (which is unrelated to the current newspaper of the same name) in the 1930s.

[7] Partlow became part of People's Songs in late 1945, after several branches of the group were formed in California.

He was a public relations consultant to the California Attorney General races of Edmund G. "Pat" Brown in 1946 and 1950.

Partlow had interviewed nuclear weapons scientists for the Los Angeles Daily News in the early fall of 1945.

Pete Seeger first heard the song while traveling in California in the late summer or early fall of 1946.

[14][16][18][20][21] Lyrics referring to the United Nations and non-English-speaking countries building their own nuclear arsenals were changed in the Sons of the Pioneers recording, and replaced with blander lyrics about people coming together to end the threat of nuclear war.

Popular New York City disc jockey Martin Block played it extensively on his show, Make Believe Ballroom[13][14] and the song quickly began receiving significant airplay nationwide.

[20] The New York City-based Joint Committee Against Communism, which had recently and successfully campaigned to have the actress Jean Muir kicked off the television program The Aldrich Family for allegedly having communist sympathies, began a grassroots effort against the song.

Life magazine denounced the withdrawal of the song from store shelves: "...we don't like the private censorship that has resulted in the withdrawal, by RCA Victor and Columbia Records, Inc., of a 'talking blues number' called Old Man Atom, presumably on receipt of complaints that it 'parrots' the current Communist line on peace.

"[23] The New York Times editorialized that "A new high in absurdity has been reached by two large record manufacturers who have recently withdrawn from distribution a five-year-old song about the atomic bomb because of some protests that it coincided with current Communist 'peace' agitation.

[25] Nearly a decade after the controversy, music critic Robert Shelton called the song full of "savage humor".

[9] In October 1952, Partlow was named a member of the Communist Party by witnesses testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

[11] Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, Partlow worked as a publicist and public relations expert for a number of Jewish organizations in the Los Angeles area.

[31] Vern Partlow died of cancer in a hospital in Los Angeles, California, on March 1, 1987.