- 1952 IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT BECOMES LAW
Also known as the McCarran-Walter Act, this law was enacted over President Truman's veto. It provided for the exclusion of immigrants who espoused subversive ideas. The law was frequently invoked to bar communists or suspected communists from entering the country.
1952 - PIERRE TRUDEAU (Former Prime Minister of Canada)
The State Department blacklisted Pierre Trudeau after he attended an economic conference in Moscow. Though branded as a communist sympathizer, Trudeau got into some trouble in the Soviet Union after throwing a snowball at a statue of Stalin. In spite of these early diplomatic problems, Trudeau later served four terms as Canada's Prime Minister.
1952 - GRAHAM GREENE (British Novelist)
Greene was removed from the United States during a visit in 1952. He was deemed inadmissible based on his brief membership in the British Communist party when he was nineteen. Documents obtained by The Guardian reveal the State Department later believed Greene's membership had been a joke. In 1956, they recommended granting Greene a waiver and wrote that he "is internationally known as a writer and from the philosophies expressed in his writings it is evident that he is anti-communist."
1953 - JAN MYRDAL (Swedish Author)
Being the son of two Nobel prize laureates didn't help Jan Mydral enter the U.S. Whether Jan Myrdal's visa was denied because his mother informed on him (as he alleges in his autobiography, Childhood) or because the FBI drew his name from an acknowledgements list in his father's social justice tome, the author was barred from setting foot on U.S. soil.
1957 - YVES MONTAND (French Actor and Singer)
Yves Montand's 1982 performance at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York came twenty-five years and an ideological leap after his first, unsuccessful attempt to enter to the U.S. Formerly sympathetic to Communist causes, Montand arrived in New York dismayed by an anti-nuclear rally and espousing support for then President Reagan's position on "Russian imperialism."
Approximately 1962-1986 - GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ (Columbian born Novelist & Nobel Laureate)
From 1962 to 1986, Marquez was unable to obtain a visa from the State Department. Whenever he wanted to visit the United States, he was forced to apply for a special waiver granting him permission to enter. The author of One Hundred Years of Solitude was never informed why he was ineligible for a normal visa, though theories include his support of leftist causes throughout Latin America as well as his friendship with Fidel Castro.
1962 - CARLOS FUENTES (Mexican Novelist and Former Ambassador to France)
In 1962, Fuentes was invited to debate the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs on the U.S. economic plan for Latin America. His visa was denied, reportedly because the State Department suspected he was a Communist. Fuentes was an outspoken opponent of ideological exclusion. He believed hearing other political perspectives was essential for the American public "to be involved and to evaluate the nature of these policies, if they are good or bad, or to vote them down through its representatives in Congress."
1966 - PABLO NERUDA (Chilean Poet and Nobel Laureate)
Pablo Neruda was invited to the International PEN Conference in New York. (PEN is a writers' group devoted to human rights and free expression.) Neruda's visa application was denied, probably based on his membership in the Chilean Communist party. Playwright and conference organizer Arthur Miller intervened on Neruda's behalf and he was granted a waiver of inadmissibility in order to attend.
Before 1969 - DORIS LESSING (British Novelist)
Doris Lessing was famous for her depiction of the shackles of motherhood and marriage. Until 1969, she faced another restraint she was barred from entering the United States because of her ties to subversives. Explaining her membership in the Left Book Club, a Communist reading group, Lessing said, "[They were people] who read everything, and who did not think it remarkable to read."
1969 - ERNEST MANDEL (Belgian Economist)
Ernest Mandel was invited to debate Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith at Stanford University. The State Department denied his visa because he was an avowed Marxist and advocated Communist economic doctrines. He challenged his exclusion and the case reached the Supreme Court, which ruled against him. Mandel said his case was based on "the right of the American public to hear [and] to listen to whatever opinions they wanted to listen to, even given by a foreigner."
1971 - OSCAR NIEMEYER (Brazilian Architect)
Niemeyer helped designed the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Though construction was complete in 1953, he did not see the realization of his work until 1971. He had been unable to obtain a visa because he was a member of the Brazilian Communist party. Niemeyer was a supporter of open dialogue, and once remarked, "the United Nations means that men from different governments and ideologies are able to sit down like brothers and discuss their problems. This would bring peace to mankind."
1980 - DARIO FO (Playwright and Nobel Laureate) and FRANCA RAME (Actress)
Dario Fo and Franca Rame were scheduled to appear at the Town Hall for the Fifth Festival of Italian Theater in New York on May 27, 1980. The State Department denied their visas, apparently due to their ties to Soccorso Rosso ("Red Aid"), a leftist organization that worked to improve prison conditions for those who committed politically motivated crimes.
1982 - GENSUIKYO (Japanese Antinuclear Group) and GYOTSU SATO (Buddhist Monk & Leader of Gensuikyo)
When the United Nations held a special session on disarmament, hundreds of people planning to attend were denied visas. These included over 300 members of the Japanese peace group, Gensuikyo. The US government claimed Gensuikyo had ties to the Soviet Union. The group's leader, Gyotsu Sato denied this allegation. His group had planned to appeal to the UN for a total ban on nuclear weapons.
1982 - ANGEL RAMA (Uruguayan Scholar)
Tenured University of Maryland professor, Angel Rama, called his visa difficulties his "Catch 28," after the subsection of the McCarran-Walter Act invoked to deny him permanent residency. After swearing under oath that he had never been a Communist, Rama was unable to understand the denial. "The burden of proof is entirely upon the individual seeking to establish his residency," he said.
1983 - NINO PASTI (Former NATO Deputy Supreme Commander and Former Italian Senator)
Nino Pasti was invited by peace groups to speak at a nuclear disarmament rally in Boston. Pasti was denied a visa because of his membership in the World Peace Council, which the State Department claimed was a communist front group. Many thought the denial was politically motivated, since Pasti contradicted Reagan administration claims regarding nuclear weapons. Pasti maintained that the "American people are entitled to know not only the picture on one side, but the picture on all sides, in order to judge."
1983 - HORTENSIA BUSSI DE ALLENDE (Widow of slain Chilean President Salvador Allende)
Allende applied for a nonimmigrant tourist visa after receiving speaking invitations from several academic and community groups. The letter denying her visa stated that her presence would be "prejudicial to US interests." During hearings on ideological exclusion, Rep. Barney Frank asked, was "Why Senora Allende kept out of the United States? It would seem to me fairly clear that it was a question of people not wanting her to make speeches here." Allende said that had she been allowed to speak in the U.S., she would have condemned President Reagan's support of the Pinochet regime in Chile.
1984 - MARITZA RUIZ (Leader of El Salvador's Comadres)
Maritza Ruiz was invited to the U.S. to receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for her work in documenting disappearances in El Salvador. Her visa was denied amidst claims that the Comadres had ties to guerilla fighters. Ruiz denied these allegations. She had planned to offer evidence of human rights abuses in El Salvador that contradicted the Reagan administration's position.
1985 - FARLEY MOWAT (Canadian novelist)
Mowat was scheduled to promote his book Sea of Slaughter in Los Angeles when he was refused entry into the U.S. He was among the roughly 3,000 Canadians on the "Lookout List." Mowat's name had been added to the book after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police submitted a report about him to the INS labeling him as a "subversive."
1986 - CHOICHIRO YATANI (Professor of Psychology at Alfred State University)
Upon returning to the U.S. after a trip to the Netherlands, Choichiro Yatani was stopped by immigration authorities because his name appeared on an INS "Lookout List." He was detained for 44 days without explanation. Yatani had lived in America since 1977 and was a Ph.D. candidate at SUNY Stony Brook. In spite of a Freedom of Information Act request and a lawsuit to remove his name from the "Lookout List," Yatani has never received a satisfactory answer for why he was detained. He and his lawyers speculated that it was due to his protests of the Vietnam War while he was a student at Doshisha University in Japan.
1986 - PATRICIA LARA (Columbian Journalist)
Patricia Lara was invited to attend the Maria Moors Cabot Awards at her alma mater, Columbia University, where she received a Masters in Journalism in 1980. After arriving at JFK airport, she was detained and questioned by INS officials after they found her name on the "Lookout List." In recounting her interrogation, Lara said the officials asked if she "had written things against the U.S. government." The State Department claimed she was excluded based on suspicion of communist, subversive, or terrorist activity.
1990 - JIM HUNTER (Canadian Union Leader, President of the International Transport Workers Federation)
Jim Hunter was on his way to a meeting in Florida when U.S. immigration officials stopped him at the airport. His name was on a "Lookout List," though he had entered the U.S. several months earlier for a meeting in Washington, DC. An INS agent indicated Hunter was inadmissible based on his membership in the National Federation of Labor Youth League in his twenties. Hunter's involvement with the group was more recreational than political. He said, "The country of the free and the brave wouldn't let someone into their country who played ball on a baseball team 35 years ago with some communists."
2002 - JOHN CLARKE (Canadian Organizer for the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty)
John Clarke was traveling to speak at Michigan State University when he was stopped at the border. After officials ran his ID through a computer, they asked if he was opposed to the "ideology of the United States." He was detained and questioned by a State Department special agent. During the interrogation, the agent accused Clarke of knowing where Osama Bin Laden was hiding. Clarke was sent home after five hours.
2003 - NELSON MANDELA (Former President of South Africa, Former President of the African National Congress) TOKYO SEXWALE (African National Congress Activist) SIDNEY MUFAMADI (African National Congress Activist)
Members of the African National Congress had trouble obtaining visas to the United States as private citizens, because of convictions against them for anti-apartheid activities. Tokyo Sexwale was refused a visa in 2002. Virginia Farris of the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria said, "To make an exception for those who struggled against apartheid would require congress to change the law, and that would be a very lengthy process." In 2003, the US government informed Mandela, Sexwale, and Mufamadi that they would be removed from its list of undesirable aliens for a period of ten years.
2003 - CARLOS ALZUGARAY TRETO (Cuban Scholar and Former Ambas...