Abraham Chasanow

Abraham Chasanow (December 1, 1910 – June 11, 1989) was a United States government employee who was suspended from employment in July 1953, during the McCarthy era, on the grounds that he was a security risk. He was later reinstated.

Career in government Chasanow was born on December 1, 1910, and attended what later became American University Washington College of Law.

Chasanow was employed by the U.S. Navy's Hydrographic Office for 23 years when suspended without pay on July 29, 1953, and charged as a security risk. Unidentified informants had accused him of having left-wing associations. He was removed from government employment on April 7, 1954. associating with people "suspected of having Communistic tendencies" attending a party where funds were raised for Victims of the Spanish Civil War being, according to "everal reliable informants", "a leader and very active in a radical group in Greenbelt, Md." that included "those described as ever willing to defend Communism."

He was first exonerated by the unanimous decision of a security board and then that judgment was set aside. He appealed and followed the advice of his attorney, Joseph A. Fanelli, to make his case public. The Navy announced on May 4, 1954, that a special hearing board would review his case. That board reversed his dismissal. The American Jewish Congress praised Smith's action, but asked for an investigation of the role of antisemitism in the charges against Chasanow. It said in a letter to Charles S. Thomas, Secretary of the Navy, that "under the present loyalty program there is far too much room for action based on suspicion, arbitrary conjecture and secrecy."

Chasanow testified in 1955 when his and several other security cases were reviewed in hearings before a Senate subcommittee investigating abuses in the government security program. He proposed reforms that included the punishment of those who made false accusations and legal aid for those accused. His case continued to be cited as Democrats criticized the Eisenhower Administration's management of security reviews.

Investigative reporter Anthony Lewis won the 1954 Heywood Broun Award of the American Newspaper Guild for a series of articles describing the Chasanow case. He won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 1955 for the same series. The articles were credited with helping Chasanow win the Navy review that exonerated him.

In 1956, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith sponsored the publication of a study of antisemitism in the United States, Cross-Currents in America, that used the security investigation of Chasanow as a principal example.

A management study later proposed the elimination of Chasanow's position. He agreed with the study and resigned from his post as director of the distribution control office of the Hydrographic Office. Bosley Crowther in The New York Times called it a "plainly pussyfooting picture" in which "the obvious point of the real-life drama is avoided and an imaginary target is devised." The film assigned blame to a vague personal enemy and local gossips while the role of those responsible for the investigation was "sweetly glossed". Chasanow's name in the film is Bernie Goldsmith. Chasanow served as an adviser on the film.

Later life After leaving government service, Chasanow practiced law and worked as a real estate broker until retiring in the 1970s.

Abraham was married to Helen Chasanow, who also worked as a real-estate agent. Their second child Phyllis C. Richman (née Chasanow) became an influential writer who served as the food critic for The Washington Post for 23 years.