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The '''Attorney General's list''' of [[subversion (political)|subversive]] oganizations was published on the ''Federal Register 13'' on 20 March 1948.  The list consists of organizations classified as Soviet communist controlled. It did not list individuals.

The '''Attorney General's list''' originally known as the '''Biddle list''' named after Attorney General [[Francis Biddle]]) began during the administration of U.S. President [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]] in 1941 to track Soviet controlled [[subversion (political)|subversive]] front organizations.  The original list had only eleven organizations but was greatly expanded by the end of the decade.  <ref>M. Stanton Evans, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=tQt3AAAAMAAJ&pgis=1 Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies]'' [New York: Crown Forum, 2007] ISBN 978-1-4000-8105-9, pp. 55-60).</ref>  On 20 March 1948 it was published in the ''Federal Register.'' It did not list individuals.

Communist groups, which emerged both in the pre-war and the post-war list, are marked by one "". In the meantime some trade unions communists had excluded other openly communist groups from their membership lists, were dissolved, partially also by government resolution. The [[Venona project]] intervcepted and translated messages of Soviet spies inside the U.S. reporting to Moscow, but the information was not translated until years later and was not used by the Attorney General to make the list.

Communist groups, which emerged both in the pre-war and the post-war list, are marked by one "". In the meantime some trade unions communists had excluded other openly communist groups from their membership lists, were dissolved, partially also by government resolution. The [[Venona project]] intercepted and translated messages of Soviet spies inside the U.S. reporting to Moscow, but the information was not translated until years later and was not used by the Attorney General to make the list.

Thousands of people with an inclination for radical thinking signed petitions or became members of these groups without being aware of the Communist control of the group.  

Thousands of people with an inclination for radical thinking signed petitions or became members of these groups without being aware of the Communist control of the group.