Crusader in the Cold War: A Biography of Fr. John F. Cronin, S.S. (1908-1994).

Crusader in the Cold War: A Biography of Fr. John F. Cronin, S.S. (1908-1994). By John T. Donovan. (New York and other cities: Peter Lang, c. 2005. Pp. xiv, 245. $67.95, ISBN 978-0-8204-7413-7.)

Few historians are familiar with John F. Cronin. Yet he played a role in critical mid-twentieth-century developments, including the drive against communism, the career of Richard Nixon, and the push for racial equality. Generally working behind the scenes, Cronin served as a link between the Catholic Church, agencies of state repression, and conservative business and political leaders. Scholars have made passing note of Cronin in biographies of Nixon and studies of anticommunism. But John T. Donovan has written the first biography of him, drawing on Cronin's voluminous writing, his papers, Catholic church archives, reports of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and oral histories.

Cronin entered the priesthood in 1932, when the depression revived church interest in economic and labor issues. A student of Monseigneur John A. Ryan, Cronin wrote a series of books, pamphlets, and articles on economics and taught courses on labor and social action to priests and workers. During World War II he helped lead an effort to force communists out of the Baltimore labor movement, during which he developed ties to the FBI.

In 1945 Cronin wrote an influential report for the Catholic bishops that pushed them toward more active anticommunism. Cronin called on church officials to mobilize against what he characterized as a real threat from the left while rejecting the right-wing equation of communism and New Deal reform. Based at the Social Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, Cronin wrote a series of anticommunist pamphlets for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which received wide distribution.

J. Edgar Hoover considered Cronin imprudent, but his agents and other investigators used him as a conduit to leak information about alleged communist infiltration of the government. Cronin passed it on to Nixon during the Alger Hiss affair. As Nixon's career blossomed, so did his relationship with Cronin, who according to Donovan was his main (though unpaid) speechwriter during his vice presidency.

In the 1950s Cronin turned his attention to racial discrimination, which he urged both Nixon and the Catholic bishops to actively oppose. He was the principal author of a 1958 pastoral letter on race, which the hierarchy, divided over the issue, released on order of Pope Pius XII. Cronin served as a Catholic spokesman on racial issues and participated in an ecumenical lobby of Congress to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Donovan's short book provides much useful information on Cronin but not a great deal of analysis. It does not fully convey the urgency and complexity of Cronin's writing or its relationship to other thinking on economics and communism inside and outside the church. Donovan's study suggests the need for further investigation of the sometimes hidden links between church and state and the intertwining of conservative and reformist strands in American Catholicism.

JOSHUA B. FREEMAN

City University of New York