Last of the Cold War Spies (37 page)

“We think,” he said, sloughing on as if at a lectern, “it is an illusion to believe Americans can gain security by attempting to drive underground or destroy a little band of shabby men on Fourteenth Street, whom we think we can lick by normal constitutional measures within existing laws. We think to that extent we create that illusion, that illusion is a point in favor of Joseph Stalin.”

Tavenner chipped in and asked Straight to submit his written legal brief, which he did. Then a discussion centered on the finding of the great liberal, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, regarding the First Amendment, which protected beliefs, speech, assembly, and advocacy. Holmes argued (in
Schenk v United States
, 1919) that words spoken or written had to be assessed in the context of whether there existed a “clear and present danger” that they would bring about evils which the congress wished to prevent (such as overthrowing the government).

Morgan M. Moulder noticed Straight had said communism “did not constitute a menace or danger in this country.” He wanted to know if Straight confined that to the Communist Party in the United States, or was he referring to “communism being a danger in the worldwide movement?”

Straight replied that he thought communism was “a very grave danger on a worldwide front.” This international communism was also “a danger” to the United States. But he added he did not consider the Communist Party in the United States “at the present time” was “a clear and present danger as defined by Justice Holmes.”
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This statement again implied that the local party was too small to worry about, yet. Better to fight it everywhere and monitor its growth and activity rather than crush its free speech and opinions.

Velde wanted to know how many of the AVC opposed the MundtNixon Bill. Straight claimed members were unanimously against it. The New England chapters of the AVC, he said, wanted him to testify to this unanimity in front of the HUAC.

Velde wasn’t too happy about this response. “I suppose you would say no legislation of any kind is necessary?” he asked pointedly.

“Mr. Nikoloric feels the legislation presently on the statute books is sufficient,” Straight responded. “We don’t see how it is possible to legislate . . . on matters of opinion.”

Velde wouldn’t let it go. “I think you realize that the Communist Party of the United States took the lead during the last war in attempting to obtain our military secrets,” he said with some indignation. “Do you think we have been successful in convicting members of that espionage ring?”

“No, sir,” Straight replied with true authority, “but I think the remedy is to tighten the espionage laws. I think the Communist Party is used as a recruiting ground for espionage agents.”
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It was safe territory known to anyone who had read the papers over the past half decade, but it was close to a delicate area for him. He neglected to inform the committee that he was aware of even more fertile recruiting arenas outside the party.

Velde, the tortoise, seemed to be catching the hare. He wanted to know how Straight would go about tightening espionage laws. “I understood you to say a while ago the present laws were sufficient . . . ”

Straight deferred to Nikoloric, who said he hadn’t studied the Espionage Act “with any thoroughness.” But he did count twenty-seven laws “specifically designed to take care of the communist problem.” Then he said what no government committee ever wanted to hear: “There isn’t anything that you are accomplishing here that is not adequately taken care of in those acts [to deal with espionage].”

Hearing members shifted in their seats. Several wanted to press the witnesses. Velde, now more terrier than tortoise, was in first: “Do you agree with Mr. Straight that the laws are not sufficient to handle the espionage problems?”

Nikoloric replied: “I haven’t read any hearings [transcripts] on whether you believed the espionage agents were getting by [not caught] under the present laws. . . . You should be able to take care of that under the Espionage Act rather than legislating on opinion.”

Chairman Walter was agitated: “This bill does not do legislating as to opinion, and you have addressed all your remarks to that issue.”

“That is right,” Straight said.

Nikoloric took over the response by giving an example of a “Father Parker” who testified to the hearing the day before: “I don’t agree with him, but I respect his constitutional right to do whatever he chooses as long as he doesn’t commit any dangerous acts. He is entitled to his beliefs, whether you agree with him or not.”

Kearney then had Nikoloric agreeing that the Communist Party leaders in the United States had a “policy” and an “intent” to overthrow the government. Straight interrupted and pushed the hearing back on the track he wanted: “Up to this time there has been no legislation on opinion. You have no precedent for punishing people by reason of association.”

Walter tried another tack by asking if Straight had any objection to that portion of the bill that would require “communist political organizations to publish their financial statements”?

Nikoloric stepped in again and said the discrimination against communist “political and front organizations was unconstitutional.”

Walter disagreed, saying, “Those statutes have been tested [in the courts] and held to be constitutional.” The two of them debated sections of the bill. Kearney asked, “If the committee saw fit to revise the bill to meet your objection, would you then be in favor of the legislation?”

Nikoloric said he would still be against it and once more maintained that the present laws were adequate. He didn’t think the government was “riddled with spies.” He cited just one example of a spy—Judith Coplon—being caught, pointing out that even that case was questionable. Velde piped in, asking if Nikoloric thought there had been an espionage ring in the United States during the war. The advocate replied that he would be “very disappointed in Joseph Stalin’s ability if there weren’t Russian agents here during the war.”

It was almost as if Nikoloric knew the situation about the man beside him. Velde didn’t like the apparent flippancy in the reply. He pushed his point for the record, saying that the new bill was a means of assisting the government in “combating this espionage ring. If we had this bill, which would require the registration . . . ”
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Nikoloric interrupted him. Both he and Straight were scornful of the government’s power to force anyone, from spies to most communists, to register. Nikoloric said espionage agents would avoid registering and “just go underground.” Velde disagreed, and the argument ran in circles. Walter called a halt by asking if there were any further questions. There was a stalemate. No one had any more to ask. The hearing was over.

Soon afterward, the Mundt-Nixon Bill passed the House, supported by many liberals and Democrats. The measure became law and was widely supported. (In 1954, Hubert Humphrey, the leader of the Senate liberals in the Democratic Party, introduced a bill in the Senate that made it a crime to belong to the Communist Party. It passed with one dissenting voice.)

Hardly anyone in or out of politics—apart from Communists—agreed with Straight’s argument that it was better to keep the party alive and defeat them with endless political in-fighting across the United States. He was in a minority in not seeing them as a clear and present danger, despite agreeing with the concept of communists outside the United States being a threat to the nation and its interests.

The New Republic
was a useful platform for Straight to consolidate his image as a liberal anticommunist. There were constant reminders in the magazine’s advertising in 1950, which told its readers that “Michael Straight is not a Starry-eyed Liberal,” and such slogans as “Recognize the one in the middle?” that referred to the “independent (of the left and right) reporting you need to maintain your liberal point of view.”

Opposed to this, there was an unprecedented advertisement for a new magazine, the
New Leader
, which asked if
New Republic
readers were “one of the snowballing number of American liberals who is done with the self-deception about the communists—whether in Russia or here?” And “are you . . . tired of the way most of America’s so-called ‘liberal’ magazines still pussyfoot about communism?”

Running this would have hurt Straight, especially as the ad listed an impressive group of “recent contributors,” some of whom were known to him, including Stewart Alsop, Roger Baldwin, John Dos Passos, David Dubinsky, Hubert Humphrey, Arthur Koestler and Bertrand Russell. But he needed all the revenue he could get. Besides,
The New Republic
was for free speech, even if it didn’t agree with the speaker or the sentiment.

Straight was doing his best to put aside any “pussyfooting” image as he tried to lengthen the distance between the liberalism he wanted to be seen espousing and communism. Articles he wrote seemed to advocate burying the subject, not praising it. Yet he appeared to be achieving neither.

In the May 1, 1950, edition, in a disjointed article entitled “The Right Way to Beat Communism,” Straight began by stating that “Soviet Communism is today the greatest organized evil in the world.” It seemed for a moment that he may have been Ronald Reagan’s original scriptwriter, but soon he was attacking conservatives who viewed Russia as a police state, which was backed by its agents and armies. A few lines later, he softened the message further by quoting his undergraduate hero, John Maynard Keynes, on the subject: “Communism . . . represents a gigantic enterprise. Its men have resolutely embraced a purpose of reform and live tensely under the discipline that faith instills in them. . . .”
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Then there was a reminder of the jargon of his undergraduate days: “The communist appeal was maintained in the thirties by the contrasts of capitalist depression and the need for a common front against fascist aggression . . .” Near the end Straight added a dash more Keynes, who noted that the “appeal of communism was not primarily economic and could not be counted by economic action alone; it consisted not of the substance but of the fervor of communist faith.”

This “faith,” readers were informed, could not be suppressed or defeated militarily. In fact, in the end he had made a case for nothing except communism’s invincibility, with some meaningless asides such as advocating “a shift in concentration from the Cold War to the strengthening of the non-communist world.”

Straight, it appeared, was fighting to suppress the clichés of his intellectual development in the 1930s, which had shaped his mind. The remnants of the once inspirational phraseology were not always easy to suppress. This piece, which Straight held up as meaningful in his autobiography, exemplified similar articles through the year. He presented them as proof of his anti-communism.

The New Republic
was noticeably thin in 1950, but the editor did not hesitate to run up further debts by organizing a team of researchers and writers to compile four substantial “editorials” in the early months of the year on atomic energy. They drew on a wide range of source documents on such topics as politics, supply, use of raw material, and bomb
production in the most comprehensive press publication on the issue to that point.
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It was a return to the frenetic days of 1937–1942, when Straight compiled impressive papers on major military and defense topics, some of which were passed to his Russian control. But this time he didn’t need to pass anything on. All the KGB had to do was to keep up its subscription to the magazine to glean useful information—all accessible in free, democratic America—about the state of the nation’s atomic energy programs. The four-part study needed interviews with experts, who assisted the journalists in finding useful material. This was a difficult assignment without the vehicle of public interest, which the press provided.
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