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October 21: Smith Act Convictions

lawrencebush
October 21, 2012

Of the eleven leaders of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) who were sentenced to five years in prison for violating the Smith Act on this date in 1949, at least six were Jewish: Jacob Stachel, John Gates, Gil Green, Gus Hall, Irving Potash, and Carl Winter. So were three of the five attorneys who volunteered to defend them, all of whom were sent to jail in contempt of court: Abraham Isserman, Richard Gladstein, and Harry Sacher. The ten-month federal trial in New York was one of the lengthiest in American history, and was featured twice on the cover of Time magazine, as former communists and undercover agents testified to their belief that the CPUSA illegally advocated the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. During those ten months, the USSR tested is first atomic bomb, and Mao Tse Tung’s communists prevailed in China. The prosecutors’ success led to eight more years of Smith Act trials in which more than 100 CPUSA officers were brought to trial, until the Supreme Court in 1957 (Yates v The United States) found that the First Amendment right to free speech was being violated by the Smith Act.
“The anti-communist hysteria was so intense, and most Americans were so frightened by the Communist issue, that we were convicted before our trial even started.” —John Gates