#thomas j. dodd

[oldshowbiz]

1964. Senator Dodd’s Red Scare. 

Senator Dodd’s regressive career is impressive. He sought to crush Pacifica Radio through red baiting in 1964 and later cowrote the legislation that banned LSD.

Investigative journalist Jack Anderson considered Dodd the most corrupt politician of his era. 

[uconnarchives]

[uconnarchives]

[congresscenters-blog]

(Sen. Thomas J. Dodd and Moise Tshombe, 1961)

Dodd's Congo Foray

Sen. Thomas J. Dodd (D-CT) was one of the leading opponents of the Kennedy administration’s policies in the Congo.  Believing Kennedy’s sympathy with Third World nationalism had caused the President to lose sight of the larger Cold War struggle, Dodd used his position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to effectively challenge the power of the executive branch. Dodd supported Moise Tshombe, the leader of Katanga with whom the Kennedy administration was at odds. Even though Tshombe was reviled by the Afro-Asian bloc for betraying Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Congo who was assassinated by Belgium in 1961, Dodd argued that the United States should nonetheless support Tshombe’s bid for power since he was a self-avowed anti-communist willing to partner with the West.

Read more from researcher William Mountz, PhD. Candidate, University of Missouri, about Sen. Dodd's experience with the Congo and the Dodd papers.

From the Archives and Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.