Dear Editor
Dear Editor Pearl K. Bell Pearl K. Bell's marvelous discussion of William Gaddis' JR ("Singing the Entropy Blues," NL, December 8) is an occasion to write a letter concerning the wise reviewer....
...As Watergate Special Prosecutor Charles Ruff has said, "virtually the only restraints imposed on the prosecutor's use of the grand jury are those which he imposes on himself as a matter of his personal and professional morality or which are imposed on him as a matter of policy by his superiors...
...Other possible reforms are mentioned in the body of the article, often quite supportively...
...The word 'agency" was unfortunately transformed into "council" through a slip in the composing room of THE NEW LEADER...
...I am "careless...
...is simply irrelevant...
...1277...
...The grand jury is not immune from improvement, and I will certainly support any efforts in the Congress to bring about these long overdue changes...
...Congratulations to all concerned...
...The estimates reflect an independent assessment of what it costs to maintain the Soviet Union's military machine...
...No control of immunity is advised, though immunity is the most dangerous weapon in the prosecutorial grand jury arsenal...
...with prosecutorial control of the transcription process so complete that prosecutors omit from the record such scare tactics as reading frightened witnesses portions of the Espionage Act when espionage is not a crime being investigated...
...But I hope the above is sufficient for drawing two "inevitable" conclusions...
...New York City JOHN M. PODHORETZ Lev Navrozov In his review of my book...
...Leaks should indeed be subject to penalty...
...And so Stalin did...
...I also think they should be allowed to re-present a case to a different panel only on the ground that significant new evidence has been uncovered...
...Others presumably will be embodied in subsequent legislation...
...with subpoenas numbering into the thousands...
...His writing is marred, as I said in the review, by "rhetorical overkill," of which his letter provides a fair sample...
...Just before he died, my old friend Wayne Morse said that what we in Oregon call the free press is a "perversion of the First Amendment...
...But today there are better ways of protecting the individual...
...There is no doubt that grand jury inquisitions would not be permitted under the auspices of Judge Frankel, but they have been, are being and will be permitted (unless strong action is taken) all across the country...
...The Nixon-Mitchell-Griswold team, in its pursuit of political enemies, demonstrated the institution's potency as a Star Chamber...
...The Coalition to End Grand Jury Abuse has been waging that battle since the spring of 1973, and we were heartened to see the special issue of THE NEW LEADER...
...This was a blatant attack on a provision of the Bill of Rights...
...As for permitting witnesses to bring their attorneys into the grand jury room, instead of maintaining the present practice, I believe that would unduly frustrate and complicate matters...
...We must be vigilant in our defense against intrusions upon our rights, especially when they emanate from within the legal system...
...Yet such instances do occur, making this prosecutorial abuse all the more appalling...
...We see the essence of Frankel and Naftalis' thinking in their defense of the Supreme Court decision that established immunity from prosecution as an adequate safeguard against self-incrimination...
...Having "praised" me in this fashion, Baras then proceeds to no less absurd insults...
...He tried to mobilize them against non-Communist elements in their own countries, a policy that led some non-Communist "national liberation" leaders to seek closer ties with the U.S...
...FRED J. SOLOWEY Executive Director, Coalition to End Grand Jury Abuse I found Judge Frankel and Gary P. Naftalis' judicious discussion highly enlightening, particularly since I recently served on a grand jury in New Jersey...
...A defendant's contact with a prosecutor might, for instance, be limited to meetings at jail-with an attorney present -or to cross-examination during an open and public trial...
...Those who have seen first-hand what prosecutors are doing with the grand jury are frightened and angry...
...The fact is that the modern grand jury has been inalienably transformed into a tool for depraved prosecutors to destroy the constitutional defenses of an accused...
...2986 and H.R...
...The Grand Jury Your special issue, "The Grand Jury: An Institution on Trial," by Marvin E. Frankel and Gary P. Naftalis is a first-class piece of work...
...National Security Council, or even thought of it...
...2) Just like any other mortals, "experts on Russia" must confine themselves to reviewing artistic and intellectual works they are willing and able to understand, and not simply take on assignments for the purpose of airing their bureaucratic smugness with respect to everyone-except those on whom their promotions depend...
...And Frankel and Naftalis should ponder how their poor effort will reflect upon their reputations...
...Nor were Frankel and Naftalis overly disturbed by the corruption of the courts' contempt powers, which further undermines free speech and freedom of the press...
...The National Security Agency is not part of the CIA...
...Many of these are worthy of serious consideration...
...To conserve time, though, witnesses likely to plead self-incrimination should not be called...
...Similarly, much energy and money could be saved, and the backlog of cases greatly reduced, if arrests involving insignificant gambling charges, illegal possession of firearms and the illegal sale of narcotics were presented to the appropriate courts without grand jury indictments...
...Navrozov says that Stalin tried to mobilize the peoples of Asia and Latin America against the United States...
...That is why England, a nation truly concerned about civil liberties, threw the grand jury out...
...I also support several of the ideas suggested by Frankel and Naftalis, including: allowing judges to receive regular reports of grand jury activities from prosecutors, having judges provide better and more comprehensive instructions to grand juries, and requiring right to counsel for all key witnesses...
...Prosecutors, furthermore, should be compelled to disclose to the grand jury any evidence that would "tend to negate guilt," and I agree that they should be barred from holding press conferences to announce indictments...
...The writers of the Bill of Rights visualized the grand jury as a defense against the arbitrary power of the 18th-century state...
...Frankel and Naftalis quote three clearly unconstitutional questions put to witnesses there...
...And inasmuch as the accuracy and legality of a police investigation would be determined by the trial court, grand juries should normally accept an officer's conclusions...
...Still, I would like to see the system perpetuated only if it really expedites trial by petty jury...
...In noting the magnitude of Soviet military expenditures, I was not quoting Navrozov but citing a fact...
...In one of their concluding paragraphs, the authors say we should not lightly tamper with the Bill of Rights...
...But one position I cannot agree with is the call for the abolition of grand juries...
...my book mentions the U.S...
...In their final section, Frankel and Naftalis list 12 basic reforms they feel ought to be implemented...
...They perform an important function in our criminal justice system, particularly by providing safeguards against overzealous prosecutors who, in their efforts to exploit their position for political purposes, often stampede over the lawful rights of individuals...
...On this point, the authors find few instances of prosecutors going to subsequent grand juries after getting a no-bill...
...I fully support this bill, and hope it can be enacted by Congress in the near future...
...Such intrusions threaten the very fiber of the criminal justice system in this nation...
...Very frankly, the authors, while no friends of grand jury abuse, did not seem adequately angry or frightened...
...South Orange, N.J...
...One urgently required reform, as Judge Marvin Frankel and Gary P. Naftalis made clear, is new protection against the unauthorized leaking of grand jury proceedings...
...Nevertheless, the reforms proposed by them would not have stopped that grand jury inquisition...
...At present prosecutors are even able to manipulate grand juries to their advantage, and this constitutes another key motivation for reform...
...Actually, I ridicule this and other such comments made by some ignorant "experts on Russia...
...Instead, he confused two similar sounding, but absolutely different American institutions...
...1277, now pending in the House Judiciary Committee, would impose criminal penalties of up to $500 and/or six months in jail on any person disclosing grand jury proceedings, unless specifically ordered to do so by a court...
...But it is not the First Amendment alone that has been perverted...
...The omniscient Baras decided to show off his omniscience by faulting a Russian author for his ignorance of some subtleties in American bureaucracies...
...This is incorrect...
...It was Stalin's successors, most notably Nikita Khrushchev, who discovered the anti-American potential of the Third World...
...No means are offered for regulating the use of subpoenas (the power is the grand jury's but it de facto belongs to the prosecutor and the FBI), limiting the scope of questioning, or prohibiting grand jury investigations for purposes having nothing to do with indictments...
...a rather awesome, systematic, coordinated campaign of terror with over 100 grand juries...
...These are small points...
...The second of my "outright errors" is my observation that Stalin tried to instigate the people of Asia and Latin America against the U.S...
...Rather than streamlining proceedings, the presence of a lawyer would tend to drag them out and to induce jurors to be more concerned with incomprehensible legal technicalities than with common sense and justice...
...with witnesses purposely dragged across the country to unfriendly environments on virtually no notice...
...I do feel that defendants should be permitted to appear before a grand jury and to recommend additional witnesses...
...I commend your magazine for its values, for its modesty, for its overall fine quality, but mostly for Pearl K. Bell...
...Many necessary reforms are proposed in H.R...
...If anything, Senator Edward Kennedy's description of all this as "a dangerous modern form of Star Chamber secret inquisition that is trampling the rights of American citizens from coast to coast" is a mild understatement...
...Washington, D.C...
...with subpoena power given over to the FBI and others seeking to gather material for government data banks and intelligence files...
...Baras' counter-argument, that Stalin "supported only Communists...
...The tone is the one we all ought to adopt in these matters: skeptical about the institution, but just as skeptical about drastic changes in parts of a system...
...New York City Lev NAVROZOV Victor Baras replies: Lev Navrozov raises a few substantive objections to my review...
...with immunity often used purposely to jail witnesses...
...Although the subtitle of Frankel and Naftalis' essay is "An Institution on Trial," what is really on trial at present are a Bar and a Bench that tolerate grand juries and all the other methods that have turned the Bill of Rights against itself...
...I perpetrate "outright errors.'' The first of my "outright errors" concerns the U.S...
...Since there are few instances in which grand juries do anything but rubberstamp, this is not surprising...
...They might better have cited the dissents of Justices William O. Douglas and Thurgood Marshall...
...The proposals are good ones, but lest a misconception be allowed to emerge, the worst and most dangerous abuses of the grand jury could continue if additional fundamental changes are not made...
...Portland, Ore...
...HENRY BLUMENTHAL Professor Emeritus of History, Rutgers Your special issue on grand juries did you no credit...
...We must strive to make our criminal justice system more responsible to the needs of all our citizens...
...I stand by my description of Navrozov's prose as "contaminated by bitterness" and "oozing malice...
...Of what value arc protections that ran so easily be Inmed around to defile their very purpose...
...We do, however, have some criticisms...
...THE NEW LEADER welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...Washington...
...I "ooze malice...
...National Security Agency...
...At the time, I was very much impressed by the professional competence of the prosecutors and the fairness and common sense of the men and women who served with me...
...Other legislation pending before Congress seeks to make further changes in the system...
...MARIO BIAGCI Member of Congress...
...New York City ANTHONY LEWIS A long, sometimes lonely battle is being waged against the use of the grand jury as an instrument of political repression, intimidation and intelligence gathering...
...No mention is made of banning reiterative subpoenas, immunity orders and jailings, or of restricting venue and the prosecutor's ability to ignore a grand jury's findings or circumvent a jury engaging in independent questioning...
...I never mentioned the U.S...
...The Education of Lev Navrozov ("Rhetorical Overkill," NL, November 24), Victor Baras ascribes to me as one of my "sound general premises," the statement that the Kremlin devotes "twice as large a proportion of the GNP to defense as does the United States...
...Since grand juries were designed as a mechanism to help guarantee the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the absolute secrecy of their investigations must not be compromised...
...The same subpoenas could have been issued, the same unconstitutional questions asked and the same immunity grants obtained pro forma to compel answers to the unconstitutional questions...
...Four witnesses could still have gotten less than one day's notice for their contempt hearings and then been held in contempt and jailed for four months (until the grand jury's term expired), only to be re-subpoenaed as soon as they were released from jail...
...I am puzzled by Navrozov's indignation at this editorial error since his original statement was wrong in any case...
...Even if most government attorneys do not run political inquisitions or seek to abolish the Bill of Rights, we still need to face the fact that we are in serious trouble if our only protection against political inquisitions is prosecutorial self-regulation...
...Though Frankel and Naftalis clearly state their opposition to the practice of using the grand jury as an instrument of political oppression, they do not give enough credit where credit is due: to the grand inquisitors who have mounted...
...Not included among the Frankel-Naftalis suggestions are procedural reforms like allowing some minimal notice before a subpoena is returnable and time to prepare for a contempt hearing, or requiring that a complete transcript-including all introductory remarks by the prosecutor-be kept...
...Bell has, for a number of years, been possibly the finest critic on literature in the country (I rate Isa Kapp second), and the pleasure with which I open THE NEW LEADER to read her intelligent analyses is the pleasure with which I close it...
...Only the American people can stop them and we urge all citizens to work toward that end...
...RICHARD T. TENCH There is unquestionably a need for certain basic alterations in the present grand jury system...
...National Security Council...
...These two "errors" are, Baras gravely concludes, the "inevitable consequence of Navrozov's taste for dramatic overstatement...
...on the other hand, much harm could be done to witnesses and the legal process if defendants had access to grand jury transcripts...
...Incidentally, Western estimates of Soviet military spending are not based, as Navrozov seems to imagine, on uncritical acceptance of the defense budget published by the Russians...
...Legislation H.R...
...but since he chooses to make much of them, I will respond to each...
...No thought is given to the fact that the courts and prosecutors have already besmirched that document through their use of the grand jury...
...with the grand jury illegally used to gather evidence for pending indictments or to track down fugitives, or to disrupt the ongoing, legitimate political activities of organizations...
...My list could continue, but perhaps it is best to focus on a single example-a repressive grand jury in Tucson in 1970, mentioned by' the authors themselves...
...The foundation that financed the piece should ask for its money back...
...I could refute as well the rest of the review, including its entirely unfounded and insulting title...
...Fantastic...
...1) The multitudes of academic posts in America may create semiliterate bureaucratic impudence instead of knowledge of Russia...
...Also, it should suffice for the foreman, deputy foreman and clerk of the grand jury to file indictments...
Vol. 59 • January 1976 • No. 1
