NEW YORK: Reinstatement

Bonaventura Pinggera, 57, is a thin, sad-faced Swiss-Italian who became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1942. For ten years he had been a municipal employee in New York City. Then, last December, he admitted he had been a member of the Communist Party from 1936 until 1939. He was expelled, he said, when he denounced the Nazi-Soviet pact. The Municipal Civil Service Commission fired him. Last week New York State Supreme Court Justice Aron Steuer concluded that "it is a bit difficult to visualize how [Pinggera] in his official capacity can give aid to his country's enemies," ordered him reinstated in his old job: washroom attendant in a public comfort station.