The Press: Eastland v. the Times

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¶Samuel Weissman, 46, supervisor of indexers on the Times Index, a reference aid to its files. He denied present Communist Party membership. ¶ Matilda Landsman, 37, now a Linotype operator, who had worked as a stenographer in the news and Sunday departments and as secretary to Joseph Barnes, onetime editor of the defunct New York Star.

¶ Proofreader Jerry Zalph, 45. ¶ Proofreader Otto Albertson, 45.

Of the other five newsmen who appeared before the subcommittee, all but one took the Fifth Amendment. The five were:

¶ John T. McManus, 50, general manager of the Communist-line National Guardian, who worked for the Times from 1921 to 1937.

¶ James Aronson, 40, executive editor of the National Guardian, who worked for the Times in 1946-48. ¶ Richard 0. Boyer, 52, free lancer who has contributed profiles to The New Yorker and also written for the Daily Worker. ¶ William A. Price, 35, police reporter who has worked for the New York Daily News since 1940 except for 4½ years as a wartime Navy flyer. He refused to answer questions on Communist activities—or to take the Fifth. Daily News Executive Editor Richard Clarke promptly fired Price by telegram, charging that his conduct at the hearing had "destroyed [his] usefulness" to the News.

¶ Dan Mahoney, 38, a rewrite man who has worked for the New York Daily Mirror for nearly 22 years. He denied present membership in the party or that he had ever performed "any subversive act," but refused to testify whether he had ever been a Communist. Next day Hearst's Mirror fired Mahoney.

Full Coverage. The Times gave the hearings the kind of full, deadpan coverage its readers expect, letting the story run from 4 to 5½ columns a day. But on the editorial page it angrily attacked the Eastland subcommittee and Counsel Sourwine, a protege of Nevada's late Senator Pat McCarran, with the kind of fighting words its readers rarely see. The editorial, "The Voice of a Free Press," brought hundreds of letters from readers (8 to 1 in favor). Excerpts:

"It seems to us quite obvious that the Eastland investigation has been aimed with particular emphasis at the New York Times ... It seems to us to be a further obvious conclusion that the Times has been singled out for this attack precisely because of the vigor of its opposition to many of the things for which Mr. Eastland, his colleague [Indiana Republican Senator William E.] Jenner and the subcommittee's counsel stand—that is, because we have condemned segregation in the Southern schools; because we have challenged the high-handed and abusive methods employed by various Congressional committees; because we have denounced McCarthyism and all its works; because we have attacked the narrow and bigoted restrictions of the McCarran Immigration Act; because we have criticized a 'security system' which conceals the accuser from his victim; because we have insisted that the true spirit of American democracy demands a scrupulous respect for the rights of even the lowliest individual, and a high standard of fair play."