RADICALS: Grey for Reds

Congressmen who had been thundering, for an all-out purge of radicals in the State Department (see above) could point to a good example of what they meant and what to do about it. Carl Aldo Marzani, onetime OSS staffer, later a $7,175-a-year State Department economist, had been convicted of fraud against the Government for concealing his Communist Party membership. Last week in Washington, Marzani, born in Italy, educated at Williams College and Oxford, was sentenced by a federal judge to one to three years in prison.

It was a grey week for other Reds and their friends:

¶ Gerhart Eisler, in contempt of Congress for refusing to take an oath before the House Un-American Activities Committee, was sentenced to one year in jail, $1,000 fine.

¶ Eugene Dennis, General Secretary of the Communist Party, was convicted of contempt of Congress after refusing to answer a committee subpoena.

¶ Sixteen board members of the left-wing Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee were convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over their books to the committee. Among the reluctant board members: Chairman Edward K. Barsky, a doctor with the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War; Communist-line Howard (Citizen Tom Paine) Fast; Theatrical Producer Herman (The Searching Wind) Shumlin.