21 Facts About Esther Brunauer

Esther Caukin Brunauer was a longtime employee of the American Association of University Women and then a US government civil servant, who with her husband was targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy's campaign against US State Department officials whose loyalty to the US he questioned.

Esther Brunauer's mother worked as a clerk, supported women's suffrage, and campaigned for Woodrow Wilson in 1914.

Esther Brunauer graduated from Girls' High School in San Francisco in 1920 and then attended Mills College, graduating with a B A in history in 1924.

Esther Brunauer earned a doctorate from Stanford University in 1927, financing her education in part with a fellowship from the American Association of University Women.

Esther Brunauer moved to Washington, DC, to work on the AAUW staff and headed its international affairs program until 1944.

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Esther Brunauer was an immigrant to the US from Hungary, trained as a chemist, who had belonged to the Young Workers' League, a Communist front, until 1927.

Esther Brunauer gained the rank of commander before changing his status to that of a civilian employee of the US Navy in 1944.

Esther Brunauer headed a National Defense Study Commission that published a study of national defense in 1937 that the US Chief of Naval Operations assessed in 1950 as "largely responsible for converting various pacifist organizations in this country and thus making possible an immediate program of rearmament".

Esther Brunauer campaigned on behalf of the AAUW for the relaxation of the US Neutrality Acts.

Esther Brunauer joined the US State Department in March 1944 where she was responsible for international organizational affairs.

Esther Brunauer first worked on planning for post-war international cooperation, helping draft plans for the United Nations and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Esther Brunauer was promoted to the rank of minister, the third US woman to hold that State Department rank, and represented the US at preparatory meetings of UNESCO and several of its overseas conferences.

Milton Eisenhower wrote a letter in support of her, as did her neighbor former US Senator Joe Ball, a Minnesota Republican, who wrote that Esther Brunauer was "perhaps the most violently anti-Communist person I know".

Esther Brunauer herself had long supported the government's loyalty-security review program.

Esther Brunauer persisted with the review and was forced from the State Department on June 16,1952.

Esther Brunauer showed the press the letter that said the action was based on the fact that she was a "security risk" but did not specify the grounds for that determination.

Esther Brunauer said she thought the "official reason" was her marriage but the real reason was "political expediency".

Esther Brunauer said she hoped the incoming Eisenhower administration would review the federal government's loyalty-security program "fearlessly and thoroughly".

Esther Brunauer once commented on the role of gender in her loyalty-security review after facing an all-male panel:.

Esther Brunauer worked as associate director of the Film Council of America and then in publishing at Rand McNally and Follett Publishing.

Esther Brunauer died of a heart condition in Evanston on June 26,1959.