Investigations: The Wiz That Was

The once honorable profession of wizardry, which has declined in prestige ever since Merlin succumbed to the Lady of the Lake, may have been permanently discredited some 14 centuries later by the combination of television and Robert M. Shelton Jr. Though impeccably accredited as Imperial Wizard of the United Klans of America, Shelton, 37, a semiliterate, ferret-faced Alabaman, failed so completely last year to cast a spell on either the TV audience or the House Un-American Activities Com mittee that he was widely tuned out by the former and charged by the latter with contempt of Congress. Specifically, the committee charged him with refusing, under subpoena, to turn over Klan records.

Last week in Washington's Federal District Court, Shelton was found guilty on the contempt charge by a jury composed of nine whites and three Negroes. The diminished wiz now plans an appeal based on the First, Fifth and 14th Amendments—"same ones the nigras been using."