An Asylum for the Doctor
CLEWS, JOHN
Dr. Joseph Cort, a not-so-very ex-Communist, has fled to Prague to avoid persecution by his draft board An Asylum for the Doctor By John Clews London On July 31, two young Americans, Dr....
...Cort on June 12 issued a long statement through his trade union, the Association of Scientific Workers...
...The following year, while still a medical student at Yale, he joined the Communist party...
...John Clews, British journalist, has written for the Manchester Guardian...
...By his action...
...A day or two after the case became a public issue, it was raised in Parliament by Anthony Wedgwood Benn and other Labor back-benchers...
...When these private pleas failed, Dr...
...Cort contended that, when he left America for England, he was legally cleared by his draft board on the basis of his 1948 rejection...
...Cort was allowed a month's extension—until July 31—to wind up his affairs...
...After extensive inquiries in Washington, it was found that the story was exaggerated and distorted...
...By cynically exploiting the good will of a number of eminent civil-libertarians, he has made the future plight of genuine victims of persecution all the more difficult...
...Army issued regulations denying commissions to past or present members of subversive organizations...
...Joseph Cort and his wife Ruth, sailed from London on the Polish steamer Jaroslaw Danbrowski, bound for Gdynia, Poland...
...Cort's supporters had claimed that his only political activity in the United States was advocating a national health service through his membership in the Association of Internes and Medical Students...
...Cort also circulated a report about a fellowscientist who was allegedly imprisoned by the American Army authorities for 14 months...
...within a month, he was told that he could not remain beyond June 30, 1954...
...He went on to speak about American repression of "progressive activists...
...Those with any doubts about Dr...
...They were quickly followed by the Opposition leadership and by Clement Davies, Liberal-party MP...
...Under the McCarran Act, the message said this last charge could be used to take his citizenship away from him...
...To support his case, Dr...
...Only then did Cort reluctantly admit in private that it came from the National Guardian, a minor pro-Communist weekly published in New York...
...But when he decided to make himself a public issue, he had gone to three organizations that are either Communist-controlled or fellow-traveling—the Association of Scientific Workers, the Birmingham Trades Council and the National Council for Civil Liberties...
...The report was taken up by the London Observer in good faith and reprinted as an Observer story by the National Council for Civil Liberties...
...According to the Birmingham Post's political correspondent, Wedgwood Benn and his Labor colleagues thought of Dr...
...At that time, the nationalhealth-service plan was very low on the Association's priority list, coming after "peace" campaigns and the active support of Communist-inspired strikes...
...Professor Hill pleaded that Dr...
...Previously, he had stated that he joined the American Communist party in 1949 and left in 1951...
...About this time, too, the U.S...
...Cort as "a man scared of politics...
...The Students Union, usually alert to cases of injustice, declared that this was no business of theirs...
...Repeated questioning in Parliament, however, did lead to two new developments: Mrs...
...His lawyer told him that the order was not binding in Britain, so he ignored it as well as subsequent orders to report...
...Finally, in December 1953, the Birmingham police relayed a message to Dr...
...The two Americans became a cause celebre in the British press...
...The following February, he applied to the British Home Office for permission to stay in Britain indefinitely...
...Cort's American passport expired and renewal was refused...
...Cort to stay [in Britain] is . . . something which cannot be tolerated under the rule of law...
...It was noticeable that Dr...
...But the Home Secretary made it clear that there was no fresh evidence to show that his original decision should be rescinded...
...He was told (1) that he was a delinquent who had violated American law, (2) that he had left the United States without permission, (3) that he had refused to obey a legally binding order, and (4) that he had left the country to evade military service...
...A significant point was noted in Dr...
...Nowhere was there any statement about having left it...
...Joseph Cort has done a grave disservice to the ancient principle of political asylum...
...The Communists and "progressives" among the staff and students went around with petitions, but their bag of signatures was not very great...
...The left-wing Haldane Society made a statement, based on "the assumption that Dr...
...But he did not tell them that the Association was led by Communists while he was a member and was responsible for a visit which he made to Czechoslovakia in December 1948...
...Benn...
...If this is true, then his behavior all along was rather strange...
...his wife was appointed housesurgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, adjoining the University Medical School...
...His legal adviser told him that "there was no legal compulsion in the request," and he refused to comply with it because he did not expect to obtain any scientific work in America "under present conditions...
...At the same time, protests on his behalf were made by the Birmingham Trades Council and the National Council for Civil Liberties...
...he is now 26—had been foolish enough to dabble with Communism, but who had repented and should not be victimized for his youthful indiscretions...
...Cort] out of one country after another and to hound him behind the Iron Curtain," said Mr...
...As early as November 1951, however, his immediate return was demanded by the American Embassy here—with no reason given, according to his account...
...Cort was identified before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities as a member of "a secret Communist cell" at Yale...
...This month was used for an intensified campaign on the Corts' behalf...
...Then the climax came...
...In June 1952, Dr...
...Cort had their suspicions confirmed as soon as he set foot on Polish soil, on August 4. In a press statement, he thanked the Czechoslovak Government "for the understanding it has shown for our cause," and spoke of the British campaign on his behalf, in which "progressive organizations," several trade unions, many scientists and "even some Members of Parliament" had asked asylum for him...
...In February 1953, he was made a permanent lecturer in physiology at Birmingham University...
...Army authorities, either in the United States or in Germany...
...Cort's statement behind the Curtain...
...military service on physical grounds...
...The word "progressive" had been taboo during his British campaign...
...Between his June 12 press statement and his final July 30 message, he had kept studiously silent...
...Cort from the U.S...
...All along, Dr...
...The Senior Common Room members felt that he should go home and face the draft...
...On Polish soil, however, he simply declared that, "as a medical student, I joined the Communist party of America...
...The apparatus of two modern states has been used to hound him [Dr...
...authorities...
...He claims to have left the party in 1951, when he finished his studies and was appointed a research student at Cambridge University...
...And in March of the same year Dr...
...Cort was an excellent physiologist doing valuable scientific work who in his youth...
...After all, they argued together with many others, medical requirements had changed since the Korean War and everyone is subject to re-examination, so why should Cort be exempted because of his dubious past...
...In 1953, Dr...
...Cort received little support from Birmingham University, where he worked...
...The story of the Corts begins in 1948, when Joseph Cort (whose wife is also a doctor) was rejected for U.S...
...The Corts had sent a farewell message to the National Council for Civil Liberties expressing their "gratitude to the British people," and said they felt sure that they would "find full opportunity for creative medical scientific work in Czechoslovakia...
...On July 30, in an almost empty House of Commons, Wedgwood Benn revealed that the Corts had sought and been granted asylum in Czechoslovakia...
...Cort received a notice to appear for medical examination before the U.S...
...Cort is correct," that the "refusal to allow Dr...
...The National Council for Civil Liberties issued a pamphlet invoking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution...
...Their final destination was Communist Czechoslovakia, where they were seeking "asylum from persecution" by the United States Government...
...From this time on, the Cort campaign gained momentum...
...Cort was told that, if she wished to stay, her case would be considered separately, while Dr...
...But the Corts' position had become difficult even before this...
...R. S. Aitken, Vice Chancellor of Birmingham University, and the distinguished physiologist, Professor A. V. Hill, interceded with Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe on the Corts' behalf...
Vol. 37 • August 1954 • No. 35
