Eastland v. the Times

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A "Tragic Mistake." Most prominent of the Times witnesses was Benjamin Fine, 50, education editor since 1941 and recipient of seven honorary degrees. Fine admitted to the "tragic mistake" of party membership for about a year in 1935-36 while he was a graduate student at Columbia University's Teachers College. He volunteered that his advice to young people today would be to "keep away from anyone who talks the Communist line to you on the campus." Fine's appearance as a witness was the only clue to why the subcommittee two days earlier had called his brother, David Fine, a New York movie exhibitor specializing in Russian films. He was the only non-newspaper witness, and the only one nobody bothered to ask about any Communist ties.

Senator Eastland complimented Editor Fine on his candor and praised him as "a fine citizen." But the newsman's appearance again provoked Senator Hennings into criticizing subcommittee colleagues. He objected "strenuously" that the group had put Fine on public display after his "full disclosures in executive session."

Cell at the Trib. Other witnesses were less cooperative. Alden Whitman, 42, a Times copyreader since 1951, admitted having been a Communist from 1935 through 1948, but refused to name any other party members. After tough questioning, Counsel Sourwine pried out of him the admission that he had belonged to a Communist cell with "perhaps a half-dozen members" on the New York Herald Tribune while working there as a copyreader from 1943 to 1951. The Trib, which had been giving the hearings the splashiest play in town, grabbed Sourwine right after the session and later quoted him: "We have no evidence or information of any activity by Communists on the Herald Tribune now."

Seymour Peck, 38, a desk man on the Times Sunday Magazine who joined the paper in 1952, also fought shy of naming onetime Communist associates, while he admitted his own party membership from 1935 to 1949. Like Whitman, he did not claim the refuge of the Fifth Amendment to protect himself against selfincrimination. Peck, a onetime staffer of the now defunct Communist-line New York Compass, simply refused to answer, despite the subcommittee's repeated warnings that he was risking a contempt citation.

Another Timesman, Copyreader Robert Shelton, 29, who joined the staff in 1951, refused to answer any questions about his possible Communist associations. He tried to claim the protection of the First Amendment's guarantees of free speech and freedom of the press—but Eastland refused to recognize his claim, ruled that it had no legal standing in this case.

Six other Times employees invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering at least some questions: ¶ Jack Shafer, 44, foreign-desk copyreader for nearly seven years, who testified that the Times fired him before the hearings started, when he indicated that he would duck behind the Fifth. ¶ Nathan Aleskovsky, 43, assistant to the editor of the Sunday Book Review section, where he worked for five years. He denied that he is now a Communist, but would not say if he had belonged to the party. He said that the Times had demanded and got his resignation.