Communists: Warning to the Unwary

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T he Justice Department, which has been trying for years to force 22 left-wing organizations to register as Communist fronts under the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, has had little luck to date. Despite the long-drawn-out appeals that have stymied it in most cases, the department believes nonetheless that simply by publishing the facts about such groups, it can warn away many innocents and alert unwary members. With this in mind, it started proceedings last week to force the campus-oriented W.E.B. DuBois Clubs to register as a Communist front.

Formed in 1964, five years after the party convention asked for a national Marxist youth organization, the DuBois Clubs have an estimated 2,500 members in 36 chapters, mostly in California, New York, Illinois and Wisconsin. The Berkeley chapter was a prime mover in the 1964 riots at the University of California. Since then, chapters across the country have been loud and active in opposition to U.S. involvement in Viet Nam. The clubs were named after a founder of the N.A.A.C.P., a Negro who became a Communist when he was 93 and a citizen of Ghana shortly before his death in 1963.

Counsel Patrick Hallinan, at club headquarters in San Francisco, denied that the clubs were either Communist-led or organized, calling the Justice Department's citation "part and parcel of the policies of the Johnson Administration to suppress and silence critics of its dirty little war in Viet Nam." That at least was a new refrain for the old unchanging tune.