CASE HISTORY OF A SMEAR
Friendly, Alfred J.
Case History of a Smear By ALFRED J. FRIENDLY IT WOULD be comforting to believe that last December's smear on Mrs. Anna M. Rosenberg was an isolated, unique, never-to-be-repeated aberration....
...2. She was listed as "Coopera-tor" with the magazine Social Work Today, a publication that was ostensibly a journal of social work but which became a Communist Party line organ...
...Swift, incidentally, was Smith's former bodyguard, chauffeur, and research assistant, and is now his viceroy on the West Coast...
...Nellor and Surine each got a copy of it...
...An . idea of the tone of Thomas Paine's latter-day namesake can be gathered from the issue immediately preceding the one devoted to Mrs...
...Among the questions Senators would put to Mrs...
...It recounted how De Sola had seen Mrs...
...Rosenberg associated herself with NCPAC's anti-Communist rival organization, Americans for Democratic Action, when the ADA came into being...
...Neller [sic], the chief aide to Mr...
...1. Possibly Rep...
...Freedman quickly ran across the street to the Congressional Hotel, where Smith had set up operating headquarters, had lunch with the famous anti-Semite and pro-fascist demagogue, and consolidated forces...
...II The Anna Rosenberg issue of Common Sense flooded Washington...
...the remainder undertook to prove that by using the word "Yiddish" rather than "Jewish," no anti-Semitism was involved...
...Lewis and Mr...
...But — and this is a welcome change from much past practice, and a fact that testifies to the Committee's skill, decency, and good judgment—neither at its first hearing nor in the many later ones to come did the Committee let itself be used as the vehicle, innocent or otherwise, to carry the smear in public parade...
...Rosenberg had indeed signed the petition, the presumption was very strong that she had been a Communist or something pretty close to it...
...Rosenberg denied ever hearing of it in the many long hours during which he had interviewed De Sola after the latter broke with the Communist Party...
...Paul"-—had the printed copies removed and destroyed and issued instructions that no more were to be run...
...Rosenberg gave $5 one year for a subscription, probably at the request of her staff when she was regional director in New York of the Social Security Board...
...It is insurance against aggression, disaster, plague, and all things subversive and un-American...
...Furthermore, in the files of the FBI there is a report on Anna Rosenberg which is literally startling, but, of course, I could not substantiate it...
...Here are the facts: I went to Washington with my staff and we organized a working committee of about eleven people who participated in the campaign to prevent Anna M. Rosenberg from being given full charge over the manpower of America...
...The letter, a copy of which Drew Pearson was able to obtain, reads as follows: "Tuesday afternoon...
...When Burglars Murder Under present conditions a "show-down" [between the Great Powers] would be all too likely to precipitate war...
...There are two or three addenda to the case of a rather slapstick nature...
...He came to Washington with his staff, he wrote, to work against confirmation of "the Rosenberg woman...
...But the Committee found evidence suggesting that "coopera-tor" was apparently the magazine's own high-toned word for "subscriber...
...The Committee asked one of its staff to phone Freedman in New York to have him supply the document...
...Lewis in high esteem for the good things he has said and the vigorous fight he has put up, but he has demonstrated one thing: he fears the Jews more than he hates Communism . . . "Sincerely yours for Christ and America "Gerald L. K. Smith" As mentioned above, Nellor has completely denied ever seeing or conferring with Smith or any of his agents...
...Rosenberg's membership...
...It would be as foolish as committing suicide to escape a fear...
...He spent four days on the text, paid the printer for the work, and put the edition to bed...
...A couple have to do with unkind remarks Fulton Lewis made about Freedman and Gerald Smith toward the end of the hearings, when it began to be painfully obvious to all that the smear was a smear...
...Joe McCarthy, Wisconsin Republican, has denied ever meeting either Smith or Freedman, testimony shows his office was in touch with them or their agents, including the Rev...
...But, it appeared, some 300 to 400 other good people, along with 100 perfectly respectable organizations, had joined in sponsoring the meeting...
...She was not a member of the John Reed Club when De Sola was, and even De Sola asserted she was not the woman he meant, which ruled out the possibility that De Sola had made an accidental, honest mistake in identification...
...About three and one-half pages recounted details of the "Yiddish-Marxist Plot" against the United States...
...He assured the committee he had never established whether Mrs...
...Besides, Freedman is supposed to have said, not even he, Freedman, would see Nellor and Surine without a proper introduction...
...School authorities should "clean house' of the Communistic tainted Liberal teachers and their dangerous and insidious effects on young minds...
...The recommendation went to the Senate next day and, on a routine motion, was held over for later action...
...There is no doubt about discrepancies in the testimony of one witness from another...
...His articles have appeared in Harper's, The Guild Reporter, and other publications...
...At services, and other church gatherings, lectures on Civil Defense are advocated...
...The Committee ended its hearings, as this account of them will end, on that appropriate note...
...One is the bearer of this note...
...On Dec...
...It was an organization comprised of many exemplary and distinguished citizens, and several who were not...
...We enjoyed full cooperation from Fulton Lewis in this matter...
...As Freedman later explained, he sent out 25,000 copies, including one to each name in the Congressional Directory...
...IV To get back to Freedman and the sequence of events: With his version of De Sola's and Matthews' views in his pocket, Freedman hastened back to Washington Dec...
...3, Freedman reduced his impressions of De Sola's story to a sizeable memorandum...
...That background, Lewis noted (apparently because he felt it was important) included the circumstances that she was a friend of Eleanor Roosevelt...
...I understand he is Mr...
...V How the story that De Sola had to tell was completely disproved is probably well enough known so that no great recapitulation is needed...
...Of these, the most noteworthy was one called Common Sense, a four-page tabloid published in Union, N. J., by one Conde McGin-ley...
...McCarthy's office to shed their coats...
...Not until almost the conclusion of its investigation did the Armed Services Committee hear of the existence of the letter from Gerald Smith to Freedman introducing Nellor and Surine...
...In spite of his weakness and cowardice, I hold Mr...
...Churchmen of all creeds should take militant action from their pulpits to enlighten their people, and keep them informed of the treacherous and insidious conception of Communism and similar harmful, so-called Liberal teachings and propaganda...
...The references it contained about Mrs...
...In subsequent letters to his flock...
...Rosenberg let scarcely 25 hours go by after the announcement of her nomination for the Assistant Secretaryship of Defense before they began their attack...
...Freedman: "Congratulations on the terrific job you are doing in helping to keep the Zionist Jew Anna M. Rosenberg from becoming the dictator of the Pentagon...
...Rosenberg was vice chairman of the National Citizens' Political Action Committee in 1946...
...Unfortunately no such placid conclusion is possible...
...that some years ago, when another Congressional committee had raised a question about her alleged membership in a Communist club, she checked with staff members of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee ^JBM found that in their opinion it waglS different Anna Rosenberg who hai that affiliation...
...S. The bearer and Mr...
...Richardson put Freedman and De Sola in touch...
...The FBI ran down some 35 other persons who, De Sola said, were in the Club with him and would substantiate his account of Mrs...
...9-J New York, New York Dear Mr...
...He was the founder, financer, and apparently one-third of the membership of the League for Peace with Justice in Palestine (the other two-thirds were either his wife or mother-in-law, and an Arab publicist named Habib I. Katibah...
...The prospect of continuation of the smear technique makes the Rosenberg case something of more than passing interest...
...It is a distillate, refined to great purity, of the McCarthy, J. Parnell Thomas, and similar attacks, and as such is worth a second look as a guide and pattern...
...It was obvi| ously written for the Armed Serv* ices Committee and contained a specific request that it be held confidential and used only in executive sessions...
...Swift strewed copies about in various Congressional offices, including those of the Armed Services Committee...
...All other persons whom De Sola had named as participants in the affair denied the story in all details That had any bearing on Mrs...
...This Is to introduce two gentlemen who are helping us in this fight...
...This was November 29...
...He spent only five minutes with him, and devoted himself to getting rid of him because, as he said, "I consider Mr...
...Nellor further asserts that he never saw Smith or any of his people and had no contact with them at any time in their office or elsewhere...
...Neller should be treated very kindly...
...Rankin was one, of course, and cooperated to the extent of attacking Mrs...
...Matthews, said Freedman, expressed disgust at news of the Committee's favorable action on Mrs...
...Among the 130-odd signers was the name of "Anna Rosenberg...
...And though Sen...
...My comment to that is nuts...
...Civil Defense is Everybody's Job...
...Rosenberg often remedied the lack from her own pocket...
...Such a beautiful tool will not be abandoned...
...J. B. Matthews, 410 West 24 street, Penthouse B., New York City, stated that to his knowledge there is a file in the FBI regarding Anna M. Rosenberg which contains information 'to prove that Anna M. Rosenberg is the least desirable person in the U.S...
...Meantime, his lawyer, Richardson, had met Ralph De Sola, an ex-Com-munist and former member of the John Reed Club...
...There is a final phase...
...Rosenberg were also circulated in other publications during NovemALFRED FRIENDLY, a staff writer for The Washington Post, covered all the developments in the celebrated Rosen' berg case for that paper...
...Rosenberg testified that everything she ever put her hand to invariably bore the signature "Anna M. Rosenberg," always with the middle initial...
...Rosenberg with the typical charges in a speech to the House Dec...
...Ben Freedman, the financial angel of Common Sense, rushed to Washington from his New York home to see what he could do...
...In some way, however, the dossier or copies of it were soon floating around the Senate Office Building in considerable abundance...
...The A-B-C's of Atomic Survival Rear Admiral John F. McElduff Director, Civil Defense Delaware County, Pennsylvania in 1937 on the subject of "The People Against the High Cost of Living...
...Word that Mrs...
...Louis 1, Missouri Post Office Box D-4 "Dear Friend: "I am inspired, encouraged and highly appreciative of your intelligent attitude concerning the Fulton Lewis matter...
...According to Freedman, Matthews was cordial as all get out, served him a cup of tea, played the organ for him, and spent anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes in the interview...
...The two men's accounts of the visit, described by both later in sworn testimony to the Senate Committee, differ materially...
...Dismayed, Freedman got in touch with McGinley and heard from him that nothing could be issued unless all references to Fulton Lewis were removed from the text...
...3. Mrs...
...The Jews put on the pressure and the price was 'Repudiate Smith or get off the air.' This is the Jew formula...
...Lewis denounced Freedman as an anti-Semite and said the same of Smith, and deplored their activities in the case...
...John E. Rankin (Mississippi Democrat), where he learned, through a phone call of Rankin to Gerald L. K. Smith, that that worthy had come to town for the identical purpose...
...J. B. Matthews, the former chief investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities back in the days of Martin Dies, was scarcely less forehanded than Lewis...
...As a result of the visit, Freedman made the following statement which he later presented to the Armed Services Committee: "Dr...
...Then, according to Freedman, the editor he had been subsidizing, Conde McGinley—the very man that was wont to refer to Freedman with the endearing soubriquet, "another St...
...The letter read: November II, 1»U "Dear Russ: "Here are the photostats, together with a memorandum on the Communist organizations with which A. R. has, according to public records, been affiliated...
...it seems that Mrs...
...But, obliging fellow that he is, Freedman himself undertook to arrange for this...
...Smith's own account of his activities is remarkably frank...
...The Committee was apparently satisfied about this point when it learned that Mrs...
...That night, however, Fulton Lewis had a nice scoop for his broadcast...
...Freedman, testifying all about this later before the Armed* Services Committee, said that in the next few days hc saw a 9reat dcal Of Smith and something of one of his chief henchmen, the Rev...
...Its sole purpose is to point out that the name of Anna Rosenberg was publicly recorded as having been affiliated with four Communist-controlled organizations . . ." Matthews has declared that he gave the document only limited circulation, four copies to be exact...
...Matthews...
...He went on to tell the Committee that it never occurred to him to connect Anna M. Rosenberg with the Communist Party as a member...
...Finally, Mrs...
...In Washington, it was not unnatural that Freedman repaired to the office of Rep...
...On the question of whether or not the A. R. of these documents is the A. R.r I can report that there is not the slightest doubt...
...After a day in Washington, Freedman returned to New York, to firm up, or get in writing, his accusations against Mrs...
...As a consequence, Smith apparently received a number of questioning letters from his followers, so that he felt obliged to send out a form letter...
...Word of De Sola's existence and expected testimony got around fast...
...Sincerely yours, Gerald L. K. GLKS:L "P...
...You should give them any information that will help them, because Mr...
...Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, Noted British Military Analyst, Author of 20 books, including The Decisive Wars of History...
...When the Jew campaign to whitewash the Rosenberg woman was fully organized, it was discovered that Fulton Lewis was in the thing with me up to his neck...
...Clare E. Hoffman, Michigan Republican, was another, for Hoffman inserted into the Congressional Record a smear on Mrs...
...Since the members of the Armed Services Committee are not para-noiacs, they properly and quickly dismissed the first three of the accusations as having only trivial, if any, significance...
...Neller are flying up...
...Rosenberg, Lewis announced, was "why some years ago she joined" the Communist John Reed Clubs around New York City...
...Furthermore, Freedman himself told his stories differently in important points each time he was called on to repeat them...
...6. By this time De Sola had made out an affidavit of his own about his association with Mrs...
...Rosenberg or her enemies expected.^ Properly and conscientiously, the Committee took note of all the allegations made against her and questioned her on each...
...Rosenberg and found no such report, nor, indeed, any indication suggesting that she was anything other than a loyal American...
...The result was that Freedman went ahead and published a newspaper of his own, called Know the Truth, in which he set forth the goings-on just described...
...4. He and the Rev...
...Rosenberg produced by the Anti-Communist League of America, run by Smith or his pals...
...Fulton Lewis...
...On November 29, the Committee held its hearings on the nomination, a little sooner than either Mrs...
...The FBI man to whom De Sola said he had long since related all the gory details about Mrs...
...The League's counsel, and Freedman's former lawyer, was Hallam Richardson, once counsel for and literary collaborator with the Yorkville rab-blerouser, pro-Nazi and anti-Semite, Joe McWilliams...
...In later broadcasts, Lewis spoke with some pride about how he had dispatched Nellor to New York "to dig out De Sola for me and to get, on my instructions, an affidavit from De Sola, which is exactly what Nellor did...
...Rosenberg joined in sponsoring a meeting in New York 'Old-Fashioned Americanism' "The time is ripe for schools of all levels to revert to teaching good old-fashioned Americanism...
...One, he said, went to a Senator, another, it is clear, went to Lewis at the end of the month, and a third to a Benjamin H. Freedman, of whom more below...
...Freedman rabidly anti-Semitic...
...8, to be among the first witnesses before the Armed Services Committee...
...Lewis for at least three of his broadcasts...
...Who they were is not entirely clear...
...Nellor has reported since that it was not he, but Surine, who picked up the letter, that Surine did not know whom it was from and that not until the two men were on a plane to New York did Surine share with Nellor his surmise that the sealed envelope they carried contained a letter from Gerald L. K. Smith...
...I have made exhaustive inquiries and investigations, as a result I have established beyond any possibility of dispute that there has been only one Anna Rosenberg sufficiently known in public life to be listed with the well-known names in these documents, and that there has not been any other Anna Rosenberg of comparable fame, stature, notoriety, or what have you during the past 25 years...
...Here the story is set down not as it emerged piecemeal and out of sequence from the day-to-day hearings of a Senate Committee, but rearranged more or less into chronological sequence...
...None did...
...One of my sources is a Jewish organization which knows about those things...
...that she had never heard of the John Reed Clubs...
...Surine telephoned Freedman, with whom he had apparently been in touch the day before, that he and Nellor were coming up...
...Now in the business of supplying private clients with inside dope on subversive people and affairs, Matthews prepared a nine-page dossier on Mrs...
...after a long conversation Dec...
...Nellor, came to my hotel and conferred at length with my private secretary...
...He was former' ly chief of public relations for Economic Cooperation Administration in Paris...
...Swift...
...Rosenberg's reputed advocacy of "socialized medicine...
...His right-hand man, Mr...
...Ben H. Freedman, 300 Central Park, West, Apt...
...Twenty thousand out of the scheduled 50.00C copies were run before the prinl shop stopped for the Christmas weekend...
...The document begins with the sanctimonious and libel-proof statement: "This memorandum neither states nor implies that Anna M. Rosenberg is a Communist or a Communist sympathizer...
...Churchmen have a twofold obligation regarding Communism...
...Freedman's reply was that he had become so disgusted with the whole affair that he taken the letter, and a whole suitcase full of other documents, and flushed them down the toilet...
...Rosenberg's nomination...
...Please destroy this upon reading it...
...He told of Nellor's trip and interview, and quoted at length from De Sola's affidavit, which was not to reach the Committee formally until two days later...
...The study of war has taught me that almost every war was avoidable, and that the outbreak was most often caused, in a practical sense, by peace-desiring statesmen losing their heads, or their patience, and putting their otherwise calculating opponent in a position where he could not draw back without serious loss of "face...
...It might have provided some clarification on Matthews' views, as well as some good clean fun...
...The Committee summoned the agent, who denied even knowing the lady, much less having been in a Communist cell with her...
...5, by which time Freedman had returned to New York, an assistant of Fulton Lewis, Edward K. Nellor, determined to go to New York and interview De Sola...
...Lewis is doing a magnificent job in the Rosenberg matter...
...Rosenberg about the wonderful work the Communist Party was doing, and finally, how he was told by a Communist a couple of years later to erase from his memory the fact that he had seen Mrs...
...In search of further information at this time, Freedman also arranged an appointment with Dr...
...Yours, J. B.Matthews also told the Committee a story of how he heard, third-hand, of an FBI undercover agent who had reported to the Bureau that he had been in the same Communist cell with Mrs...
...It seems that Freedman replied to Surine that De Sola would see no one unless Freedman paved the way...
...If Mrs...
...The meeting was held under the auspices of the Consumers National Federation, a body that former Communist chief Earl Brow-der once chacterized as a Communist "transmission belt...
...The detractors of Mrs...
...He vehemently and vigorously denied saying anything of the nature that appeared in the first paragraph of Freedman's report, and nothing that permitted the implications of the second paragraph...
...Besides, Senators heard that if they didn't...
...One to the Constitution of the United States and the second toward the preservation of their way of worship...
...According to Matthews, however, he agreed to see Freedman only out of courtesy, wanted no part of the Rosenberg affair, and wouldn't have seen his guest had he known that was to be the subject...
...It read: "Christian National Crusad Gerald L. K. Smith, Directoi St...
...Incidentally, a three-man subgroup of the Committee examined the full FBI files on Mrs...
...The Government did not subscribe to all the publications her office wanted and Mrs...
...Rosenberg explained to the Committee, under oath, that she was not and had never been a Communist or Communist sympathizer...
...As De Sola explained, McCarthy's man Surine had told him "that when I came down here, that is where I could leave my things and any messages that were coming to me...
...In New York, Nellor and Surine saw Freedman and were able to interview De Sola at length the next day, Dec...
...If all this procedure sounds (1) absurb and (2) conspiratorial in the best Hollywood manner, the reader has nothing but his own logical processes to blame...
...He instructed Surine to drop by a certain room in the Congressional Hotel and pick up a letter of introduction...
...Four other charges, all in the Matthews' memorandum and widely repeated elsewhere, were these: 1. Mrs...
...Students should be guided away from the so-called Liberal ideas and warned to avoid their Communistic teachings...
...From the railroad station, they went first to Sen...
...Accordingly, there was a flurry of activity...
...So also did Don Surine, an investigator for McCarthy, whom the Senator hired last spring soon after Surine, once an FBI man, had parted company with the Bureau following the initiation of a personnel action against him...
...Wesley Swift...
...One, apart from the main stream of the attack, had to do with Mrs...
...Rosenberg, and urged Freedman to get the Committee to obtain her FBI file, because it would show "that she is the least desirable person in the entire United States to be appointed to that position...
...The Armed Services Committee concluded De Sola's story was false several days before the FBI, in an amazingly expert and diligent detective job on a clue 21 years old, finally located "the" Anna Rosenberg who had signed the petition...
...Rosenberg shortly after her appointment was announced...
...Rosenberg at four or five John Reed Club meetings in the mid-thirties, how he had been introduced to her by the Communist who had taken him into the Club, how he talked to Mrs...
...Ben Mandel [an employe of the House Committee on Un-American Activities] tells me that he told you that Anna Rosenberg is a name like John Smith...
...VI The Committee sent the hearings and its files on the case to the Justice Department which, in turn, has presented them to a Grand Jury...
...A word about that gentleman: Born a Jew, Freedman has devoted much of the last decade, and not inconsiderable of the fortune he acquired as a successful manufacturer and merchant of cosmetics, in opposing Zionism...
...He takes the line to his congregation that the Government is run by Jews, and that Zionism and Communism are the same thing...
...He "contacted three important committees and ten members of the U. S. Senate," he said...
...When Matthews testified, the Committee did not have before it a letter he had written a few days earlier to C. Russell Turner, of Fulton Lewis' office...
...But Mrs...
...We ought to understand the psychological effect of getting an opponent in a corner and remember the long-standing lesson of police experience—that "a burglar doesn't commit murder unless he is cornered...
...Even though it had a happy ending, in the sense that the calumny was officially and abundantly revealed for what it was, nevertheless it shows to what an advanced state of know-how the art of character assassination and personal vilification for political purposes has been developed...
...De Sola and Freedman came to Washington together, Dec...
...Lewis' broadcast, Matthews' memo, Freedman's paper, and a few other similar publications caused something of a mild stir and provoked several letters and calls to Senators, especially to those on the Armed Services Committee, who were to pass on Mrs...
...Rosenberg in the John Reed Club meetings, had no option but to order the consideration of her nomination reopened...
...to be appointed to that position.' "It is his opinion that the Information contained in the FBI file on Anna M Rosenberg will support all the allegations made regarding her connections, participations and/or relations with Communists, Communist-front, Communist transmission belt or pro-Communist organizations, and/or organizing movements...
...Freedman refused, McGinley remained adamant...
...Meantime, Freedman, unhappy at Lewis' comments and professing to be even more annoyed at the premature release by Lewis of the De Sola affidavit, went back to New York to prepare another edition of Common Sense, speaking his mind about Lewis and about the "Smear-bund" that "rescued" Mrs...
...Ros-oberg's alleged connection with the ohn Reed Clubs...
...4. A petition of the John Reed Club—as the name shows, an outright Communist organization—was published in the New York Times of May 19, 1930...
...Rosenberg in such surroundings...
...Then Freedman must have phoned Gerald Smith asking him to write a letter...
...That body, with a statement before it that there was a living witness ready to testify to knowing Mrs...
...Not only that, but the subject matter which we dug up was used by Mr...
...It turned out she didn't advocate it and, in fact, did not support even the Administration's medical insurance legislation...
...III There was still time for mischief before the Senate voted...
...Rosenberg, a long time public figure and a distinguished expert in social security, manpower, and labor affairs, was to be given the manpower job in the Defense Department was made public late in the day of November 9. Next evening, the radio commentator, Fulton Lewis, Jr., was able to announce that Republican Senators were going to demand a full investigation of her background...
...It has been subsidized in the last three years to the amount of $18,000 by the above-mentioned Mr...
...More worrisome was the John Reed Club business...
...McCarthy would discuss the matter in his own inimitable style on the Senate floor...
...Senators were satisfied and the Committee immediately voted, unanimously, to recommend her confirmation to the Senate...
...But later, when the case was rapidly falling apart under the Committee's examination, Lewis was most indignant at De Sola, and told his radio listeners that if De Sola's story was false, he should be punished drastically, as an example to any other persons who may "for reasons of their own be tempted to appear before a Congressional committee with such attacks on innocent people...
...Rosenberg and the "Anna Rosenberg" of the John Reed Club petition were one and the same, that it was never part of his job to do so, that he was "wholly incompetent" to make such a determination...
...Freedman, and appears to have served almost exclusively, at least recently, as a vehicle for Freedman's prose...
...But whether the Grand Jury will find a prima facie case of perjury, where a lie has been told under oath on a material point with the witness knowing at the time it was a lie, is something that cannot now be forecast...
Vol. 15 • May 1951 • No. 5
