Inside the Purse

In seven raucous weeks of defending black-haired, 27-year-old Judith Coplon against charges of espionage in a Washington court, loudmouthed little Attorney Archie Palmer had tried almost every lawyer's trick in the book. He almost cracked his vocal cords with protest when the Government introduced some of the contents of his client's purse--FBI "data slips" which the prosecution charged she had taken from her desk in the Justice Department to give to a Russian agent.

Having objected, Archie reversed his field, demanded that the jury not only see all the slips (twelve had been withheld as dangerous to national security) but all the FBI reports to which they referred. Government attorneys and the FBI objected wildly. But last week white-haired Federal Judge Albert Reeves decided in Archie's favor, ruled that the Government would have to produce the documents in court.

Within hours after that, everything about the trial but Judy's purse--which seemed to have grown to the size of a mail pouch--had been forgotten. Even Archie was drowned out in the uproar which ensued.

Report from ND 402. The FBI documents consisted of reports from confidential informants who identified themselves with mysterious symbols such as EP T1, ND 402, and T-7. Much of the information was obviously gossip and hearsay; there was no assessment of the informants' reliability, and their varied statements were unrelated and fragmentary. Nevertheless, the effect was sensational.

The first set of disclosures fell like a bomb on Hollywood. Actor Fredric March was accused of being a Communist; so were Singer Paul Robeson, Writers Dorothy Parker, Donald Ogden Stewart, Ruth McKenney, Albert Maltz, Alvah Bessie, Dalton Trumbo, Millen Brand and Michael Blankfort.

Other public figures were branded as Communist sympathizers. Among them were March's wife, Florence Eldridge, Boston University President Daniel L. Marsh, Radio Writer Norman Corwin and Cinema Stars Edward G. Robinson, Sylvia Sidney, Paul Muni, John Garfield and Melvyn Douglas, husband of California's Democratic Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. Outraged and vehement denials and sardonic evasions flew from coast to coast.

Suicide in a Canoe. Another report to the FBI told of how a 48-year-old Harvard graduate named Morton E. Kent had allegedly tried to get in touch with a Bulgarian suspected of being a Russian intelligence agent. This touched off a set of secondary explosions.

For one thing, Kent was dead--he had lost his job, and fortnight ago had rented a canoe, paddled up the Potomac and cut his own throat with a kitchen knife. For another thing, the FBI document stated that he had gotten the Bulgarian's address from Mrs. Emilie Condon, wife of Dr. Edward U. Condon, director of the federal Bureau of Standards.

Dr. Condon hit the ceiling; Mrs. Condon had given Kent a Bulgarian's address, but there was no showing that the Bulgarian was a Soviet agent. The FBI, he cried, was a "stupid" outfit whose report had been based on "false and malicious" information. "Who attacks my wife," he announced, "must take me on. Mr. J. Edgar Hoover owes her a personal apology. I hope he is man enough to deliver."

When the trial recessed over the weekend, Judy's purse had become a symbol of the evil lurking in the kind of overzealous snooping, gossip and talebearing which seemed to be one price of national security. Presumably the noisy little defense attorney thought he was serving his client by spreading the reports on the record; his aim, apparently, was to show the jury that what she took was not of much importance. The judge had done his painful duty as he saw it. "I'm here to see that justice is done," Judge Reeves explained. "If the reading of the report imperils the Government, the Government ought not to be [in court]." Neither was the FBI to blame; by the nature of its work it received many reports to sift--some true, many false. These reports had been made public through a process beyond its control and over its protests.

Perhaps publication of all the names was beyond anyone's control--but that was small consolation to the people accused. Some may have been Communists as charged, some innocent. But none had his day in court to make the convincing reply that fair play entitled him to.

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