360 JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY + VOL. 20, NO. 3
ler focused his critique on medical education, where specialty train-
ing took precedence over preventive and primary care medicine. He
continued to urge the reorganization of services to replace the two-
tiered system of private and welfare medicine, which was dependent
on means testing, fee-for-service reimbursement, and overuse of hos-
pitals (Butler 1969: 476).
Butler was instrumental in establishing one of the first prepaid
health groups, the White Cross Health Service, begun in 1939 to give
medical care to 20,000 people in the Boston area. (It survived only
until 1942, a casualty of the physician shortage caused by World War
IL) On his retirement from Harvard and the Massachusetts General
in 1960, he became director of clinical services and chief of pediatrics
at Metropolitan Hospital in Detroit, providing care for 75,000 mem-
bers of the Community Health Association, a prepaid comprehensive
service.
Butler’s activities among the medical insurgents, as well as his
involvement in antifascist politics in the 1930s and his critique of
cold war policy, enmeshed him in McCarthyism. As the cold war pen-
etrated domestic politics, Butler openly challenged the assault of the
House Un-American Activities Committee on civil liberties and a for-
eign policy that he saw on a collision course with the Soviet Union:
“Will our defence [sic] of the totalitarian oligarchies of Greece and
Turkey strengthen Fascism, Communism or Democracy? . . . Will our
aggressive preparedness at home and abroad make Russia more or
less aggressive? Will infringement upon civil liberties here at home in
order to resist the aggression of Russian totalitarianism protect those
rights and traditions?” (Butler Papers).
Beginning in 1951, Butler endured three loyalty trials, resulting
finally in exoneration. On February 14, 1951, Butler, who served as
a consultant to the Children’s Bureau nine days a year, faced an
inquiry from the agency loyalty board that began at 10:00 A.M. and
ended at 7:45 P.M. The principal charges cited his participation in the
Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, the National Council of
American-Soviet Friendship, and the China Aid Council. He also was
cited for his work for atomic disarmament under the aegis of the
United Nations (a policy the Loyalty Review Board found consonant
with the position of the U.S. Communist party and the Soviet Union)
with individuals who were members of organizations on the attorney
general's list (Boas Papers). Of the last charge, Butler wrote: “One of