Subseries 18D: Halton, Hugh Affair, 1948-1965 (bulk 1957-1958) consists of papers relating to the widely publicized controversy around Father Hugh Halton, chaplain to Princeton's Roman Catholic students and director of the Aquinas Foundation. Since the mid fifties the conservative Dominican Halton had launched personal attacks on Princeton faculty, including the leading Catholic philosopher Jaques Maritain. In 1956 Halton had aroused much publicity for his public condemnation of the University for allowing a student-sponsored visit by the controversial Alger Hiss.

In June 1957 the Board of Trustees decided to withdraw all courtesies and privileges from Halton as a member of the academic community. This decision, in which both Goheen and Dodds were involved, was made after a public speaking tour by Halton in April and sermons on campus and in Newark, in which he held Princeton to be an educational hotbed of "moral and political subversion."

The series consists of correspondence, memos, minutes, and clippings which document the internal discussion about the situation as well as the public relation efforts from the administration to respond to the negative publicity. It includes correspondence from parents and alumni, as well as faculty members, and a memorandum from Dodds to Goheen on the matter. Dodds passed on a file of letters sent to him between 1948 and 1950 about the article "Man against darkness: has religion lost its power?," a publication from faculty member Walter Stace, which came under particular attack by Halton in years to come. The series contains copies of "The Roman Catholic Controversy on the Campus of Princeton University" by Professor Emeritus George W. Elderkin (1955-1958). For correspondence with Halton's superiors, who included Bishop Ahr of Trenton, a staunch supporter of Halton, see the files in Series 5 (Chapel) under 'Aquinas Foundation.'