In a recent interview, Obama called his mother "the dominant figure in my formative years. . . . The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics." While in high school, Stanley Ann Dunham drifted to the radical left. Her mother described Stanley Ann as an "Adlai Stevenson liberal." In point of fact, she was a a typical 60's radical in the 1950s. Mercer island High School was the subject of an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Subcommittee when it was learned that the Communist Party, USA had infiltrated the school and several members of the faculty were Marxists. In 1955, the chairman of the Mercer Island school board, John Stenhouse, testified that he had been a member of the Communist Party. Two of Dunham's teachers, Jim Wichterman and Val Foubert, were active Marxists who brainwashed many of the students from before they were discovered. Ann was an ardent atheist and she would debate atheism with anyone who wanted to challenge her views. From high school on, Dunham was attracted only to African American males and, according to one of her high school friends, Susan Blake, she never dated white boys.