University of Virginia Library

Catching A Commie

For those of us in the academical village
who were too young to appreciate the witch
hunts conducted by Senator Joe McCarthy
during the early fifties, the Charlottesville
Daily Progress has provided an unusual object
lesson in what we thought was a lost art —
determining an individual's guilt through
association.

In this case the individual involved was
William Kunstler, of Chicago Seven fame,
whose "record" is examined by the Progress
in a long editorial that appeared in its March
31 edition, which most students missed due to
spring break.

It seems that John Lowe, a local attorney
and a member of the American Civil Liberties
Union, took exception to a previous editorial
in the Progress that stated that Mr. Kuntsler
had been connected with Communist-front
organizations.

To show, we suppose, what a foolish
lackey of the party Mr. Lowe is, the Progress,
in their March 31 editorial, presented the
"record" on Mr. Kunstler that showed, at
least to the Daily Progress' opinion, "that for
at least the past decade and more he has
served the cause of Communists and
Communist organizations with far more zeal
than he has served his country."

The information on which the Progress
editorial was written was obtained from the
House Unamerican Activities Committee by
Rep. William Tuck, who serves on that
Committee. From "nearly half of a filing
cabinet drawer devoted to Mr. Kunstler" the
Progress assembled the following "record":

— The Daily Worker on June 23, 1962,
"carried a story listing Mr. Kuntsler as one of
25 signers of an endorsement by the
Emergency Civil Liberties Committee of
Justice Black of the Supreme Court for his
dissenting opinion in the court's decision
upholding constitutionality of the Subversive
Control Act requiring the Communist Party to
register as a subversive organization." Both
the HUAC and the Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee have cited the ECLC as a
Communist front organization, the Progress
informs us.

— In 1964 Mr. Kuntsler was the main
speaker at the fourth annual meeting of the
Citizens Committee for Constitutional
Liberties, which the HUAC cited as a
Communist front organization more than
three years earlier.

— Mr. Kuntsler and his law partner, Arthur
A. Kinoy represented Walter Teague at a
HUAC investigation of pro-North Vietnam
groups. Mr. Teague was chairman of the U.S.
Committee to Aid the National Liberation
Front at that time.

— Mr. Kuntsler's law partner, Mr. Kinoy,
served as legal counsel for Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg and both he and Mr. Kinoy
"actively sought the release of Morton Sobell,
who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for
delivering nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.

— Mr. Kuntsler was one of 100 lawyers
planning to go to Mississippi in 1965 to aid
the Freedom Democratic Party, which was
challenging the election of five Congressmen
from the state. One of the organizations
sponsoring the project was the National
Lawyers Guild, "identified by the HUAC as
'an important focal point in the Communist
campaign of legal subversion.' "

The record goes on. But is shows, more
convincingly, that Mr. Kuntsler has indeed
represented unpopular clients. It also shows
that both the Communist Party in this
country and Mr. Kuntsler have frequently
fought for civil liberties.

To readers of the Lynchburg papers
editorials such as the one in the March 31
edition of the Progress are all to familiar. But
we have regarded the Progress, though it is
certainly no bastion of liberalism, as a cut
better both in its news and editorial reporting.

The editorial on Mr. Kuntsler was
dismaying, because it insults the intelligence
of those who will read it. We would suggest to
the editorial writer of the Progress that
instead of condemning a man who is trying to
make our system of justice work in this
turbulent age, it concentrate on that
committee of the House of Representatives
that has changed its name recently in a futile
attempt to refurbish its justifiably tarnished
image.