Over the weekend, I spoke at the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Laguna Beach regarding our Sunkist memories. I mentioned the sad story of Joel Dvorman, Orange County's original conservative scapegoat, a man that more than a few people in the audience knew personally.
After the service, Jean Raun, the lady who led everyone in prayer told me her own experience with OC's conservative loons during their expansion of power during the early 1960s–the time Raun tried to invite Nobel Prize laureate Linus Pauling to Anaheim.
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Pauling, of course, was persona non grata among conservatives during the 1960s for his anti-nuke pacifism. Raun wanted to invite Pauling to speak with Orange County progressives and asked the Anaheim Union High School District if they could use a room where Pauling could speak.
Sure, said the superintendent at the time, if Pauling signed a loyalty oath.
Though Pauling had long campaigned against those McCarthy-era paranoid delusions, the UU service leader told me he signed it just so he could speak in Orange County. But that wasn't enough for the Anaheim superintendent, who refused to allow Pauling a room to speak in.
This incident happened after Pauling won the Peace Prize, after Pauling had visited Brookhurst Junior High in Anaheim in 1958 to mucho controversy. Orange County: the place where Nobel laureates are welcomed only if they're GOP approved!
