Mccarthyism, Angela Davis, & the Berrigans

...But the institutional web that gave McCarthyism such a scope and range is lacking...

...But civil libertarians and the democratic Left simply cannot proclaim themselves indifferent to the issue of terrorism— a moral and political calamity...

...In the Chicago Seven trial, for instance, there was a clear intention on the part of the defendants to epater the court and the square world for which it stands...

...In that period there were a host of blacklists: COMMENTS AND OPINIONS screening longshoremen and seamen in the Port Security program...

...It could be that some of the conspirators engaged in fantasy or foolish speculation, perhaps egged on by a government provocateur...

...and the whole sorry conclusion will hopefully be reversed by the Supreme Court...

...But the only hope for an effective defense of civil liberties requires that the issue be placed in a rational perspective...

...and so on...

...But there is no question that the legitimate fear in those times was much more widespread than now...

...And that, as will be seen, is particularly true in the case of the kidnap-bombing charges against some Catholic radicals...

...She is certainly entitled to a fair trial in either case, and one must be exceedingly vigilant lest there be a conspiracy to frame her...

...First of all, the historical contrast...

...And in the New Haven trials related to the murder of Alex Rackley, there is no question that Panthers cooperated in the killing of a black man...

...The issue is whether the crime was prompted by a government agent...

...In one way or another tens of thousands, and perhaps more, were affected by jail sentences, loss of jobs, or simple fright...

...The charge was brought under an unconstitutional law...

...To some of her supporters it makes little difference what the truth is: if the police are out to get her, or if she indeed engaged in terrorism, she is worthy of support...

...And there is no catch-all doctrine, like overthrowing the government by force and violence, to provide a litmus test for redness...

...During the McCarthy period the Right had a heaven-sent institution: the Communist party...

...There have been, to be sure, events that cry out to heaven for justice: the killings at Jackson and Kent State, the apparent police connivance in Hampton's death...

...But if that is to be done—if the ultraLeft is not simply going to dissipate all of its energy in getting arrested and raising defense funds—then we must be able, in the old-fashioned way, to support the rights of those with whom we disagree, and without having to submerge our differences in a hysterical "unity...

...giving bad discharges to soldiers whose allegedly disloyal associations took place before they were drafted...

...The nation was hardly living under a fascist terror since it was still possible to fight against each of these injustices...

...But that is no crime and as the case unfolds it may well be that it is the Justice Department, or at least the FBI, which should be brought to the bar of justice...

...I just do not believe it...

...It cannot be excluded either that she is being framed or that she knowingly purchased guns to be used in the attempt to free the prisoners...

...making it impossible for some hundreds of actors, writers, and technicians to ply their trades in the movies and television...

...THE CASE of Angela Davis is more complicated than almost any of the others...

...COMMENTS AND OPINIONS So I would certainly take the Berrigans' word as against Hoover's...

...I went to an Angela Davis rally in New York because I am quite suspicious of aspects of that case and would like to help her get a fair trial—and to help any government wrongdoers get their fair trial, too, if a frameup is involved...

...I cannot agree...

...How that squares with the FBI claim to be only an investigative agency is hard to understand...

...They have an admirable record of speaking openly and honestly, even when that meant prison sentences (which does not mean I approve of their tactics simply because I admire their courage...

...It cannot, therefore, quickly assemble lists of pariahs for the courts, the loyalty boards, and the private citizens who, sometimes for a fee, used to act as prosecutors, judge, and jury all on their own...

...demanding special oaths of college professors and school teachers...

...in general I share Gordon Zahn's critique) . Mr...

...Eventually, with a detente in the Cold War, many cases were won...

...That was an outrageous and unconstitutional attack on basic freedoms—as the Supreme Court was to acknowledge when it shamefacedly and obliquely repealed •the decision in the United States v. Dennis during the fifties...

...firing workers in defense industry and government in the loyalty and security program...

...the judge behaved boorishly and repressively, particularly in his contempt sentences...

...FINALLY, THERE Is the charge against Catholic radicals that they plotted to kidnap Henry Kissinger and to blow up the federal heating system in Washington...

...Certainly, rhetorical excess is characteristic of much of the Left these days, including some of its more recent and enthusiastic converts...

...It can most certainly be argued that the atmosphere of the moment, the polarization over the war and race, have inspired individual police officers or national guardsmen to callousness, brutality, and even murder...

...But the defendants' tactics were not the invention of a conspiratorial prosecutor and they constituted at least part of the problem...

...And yet, it must be said that, for all the current talk of repression in American society, what is surprising is the mildness of reaction in comparison to the McCarthy period in the early fifties...

...But that meeting would have put off anyone who was opposed on principle to terrorism or who rejected the simplistic analyses of the ultra-Left, which is to say, put off the overwhelming majority of the American people...

...Membership in the Party and its front groups provided a very simple criterion of subversion, and enough people had been within its ambit to keep squadrons of public and private witchhunters at work...

...IN ALL of these cases—most emphatically including those where I have little political sympathy for the defendants—there is an urgent need for a clear and principled civil libertarian defense...

...It was in the course of such an appearance that he irresponsibly— and I should think, illegally—made criminal charges against citizens before any indictment had been brought against them...

...For these days the Right no longer has a believable international Communist conspiracy which is monolithically trying to subvert every institution in American life...

...Hoover has an equally public record of exaggerating and trifling with the truth before congressional committees when the size of his appropriation is at stake...

...In the Smith Act trials, the Communist leadership was convicted of conspiring to advocate the teaching that at some future date the government should be overthrown by force and violence...

...My reason is simple enough (it was suggested in a Commonweal editorial) : since the defendants say they did not do it, I believe them rather than J. Edgar Hoover...

...But even though each of these bloody incidents is worse than anything that happened in the days of Joe McCarthy, they do not demonstrate the existence of a national and concerted movement for repression of the kind we experienced in the early fifties...

...But it cost the defendants five years in jail...

...I AM NOT, I HOPE, INDULGING in that most middle-aged of pastimes, boasting of how terrible things were when I was young...

...It is possible to fight back against repression, in part because the Right has not yet created a nationwide movement as in the Joe McCarthy days...

...There are, to be sure, murderous exceptions like the police execution of Fred Hampton...

...Moreover, some of the current cases arise out of the use of a confrontation strategy which positively seeks an encounter with the police and, in theory at least, consciously provokes arrest and jail sentences...

...nor is the fact that the antilibertarians are being somewhat restrained in their violation of various freedoms a reason for giving them an inch...

...But it would be very sad indeed if the various defense committees in these cases required you to accept the politics of the accused in order to fight for their rights...