Wolff appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee to defend VALB (Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade) from being banned as a Communist front organization. His explanation for his actions owed to his ancestry: "I am Jewish, and knowing that as a Jew we are the first to suffer when fascism does come, I went to Spain to fight against it."
According to historian Peter Carroll:
- When Congress passed the McCarran Act in 1950, obliging all designated subversive organizations to register with the federal government and creating heavy penalties for leaders who refused to cooperate, the entire executive committee of the VALB resigned in 1950. In its place, two Lincoln veterans stepped forward: Milton Wolff became the National Commander; Moe Fishman became the Executive Secretary/Treasurer and served the organization in an executive capacity for the rest of his life.
Mr. Wolff also battled fiercely for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. He even offered the services of the aging veterans of the Lincoln Brigade to the North Vietnamese leader, Ho Chi Minh, who declined them. Later, Wolff campaigned against apartheid in South Africa, and raised money for ambulances in Sandinista-ruled Nicaragua in the 1980s, personally delivering 20 of them. Milton wrote three autobiographical novels documenting his life, including
A Member Of The Working Class about his early life in New York,
Another Hill about his communist and Spanish experiences; and
The Premature Anti-Fascist, describing his post-war experiences (although there is no concrete proof of the manuscript's existence).
Wolff married a woman named Anne, and with her had two children. His family resided primarily in Stoneybrook, New York. He supported his family as a pharmaceutical salesman, which required that he live in New York City mid-week and with the family on the weekends. His marriage grew distant over time, and he relocated to California and obtained a divorce. Many years after his divorce from Anne, Wolff and his daughter were looking at some photos from a wedding when he pointed out a beautiful woman to his daughter. She exclaimed, "Dad -- That's Mom!" Every Veterans' Day, his daughter would call him and thank him for making the world a safer place.
While Wolff was in California, he looked up a comrade of his from Spain, a fellow New Yorker. She had had a sister who had died years before, and for reasons of political prejudice and identity, she took her sister's name. She was an artist who owned a dress shop in Carmel. She was thrilled to see Wolff after so many years. One day, she surprised Wolff, driving up to the house in a convertible Cadillac pulling a shiny Airstream Trailer. She had sold her dress shop, and they left to see the world. Wolff learned that she had been diagnosed with cancer, and part of their travels included a stop in Agua Caliente, Mexico, where they hoped that the local cures might send the disease into remission. Following their travels, they settled down in the hills of El Cerrito, California, overlooking the San Francisco Bay. Wolff's second wife is buried in Kensington at the top of a hill by a Unitarian Church, while Milton Wolff is buried at the bottom of the same hill.