In the Witness Chair

Columnist Walter Winchell, who says he likes nothing better than "to step into the ring" to fight, is a hard man to crowd into a corner. He jabs so fast, moves so nimbly, that he seldom presents his numerous opponents with a solid target for counterblows. But last week, at the pre-trial examination in a $1,500,000 libel suit brought against him by the New York Post and its editor, James A. Wechsler, Winchell's footwork was not quite fancy enough. Witness Winchell, who has broadly implied that the Post and its editor are proCommunist, was drawn into a sad admission: he had plugged the Communist line himself in the past.

Much of the hearing was devoted to a reading aloud of Winchell's columns by lawyers, plainly a pleasant ordeal for Winchell. In good humor, he volunteered so many comments that his own lawyer cautioned him: "It is better if you would just listen." When Post Lawyer Simon H. Rifkind, onetime federal judge, set forth that Winchell had printed Russian propaganda, Winchell amiably agreed. "Do you remember when Mr. Churchill made his famous speech [in 1946, warning of Russian aggression] at Fulton, Mo.?" asked Rifkind. Answered Winchell: "I panned hell out of it." He admitted having used in his column such Winchellese as "Sovvy-bogey, Reds-under-the-beds-panicker, Bolshy boo, the fi-fo-fuming of forumites" to blast the critics of Russia. Mindful that Winchell bases most of his attacks on Post Editor Wechsler on Wechsler's admitted membership in the Young Communist League 15 years ago (TIME, Jan 21, 1952 et seq.), Rifkind needled: "Do you think that, because Winchell was wrong on Russia in 1945, Winchell ought to be held up in scorn in 1953?"

Winchell acknowledged that in 1945-46 he had given a "super-plug" to Stalin, written about the "generous" Russian justice in the Moscow trials, and attacked former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow William C. Bullitt for saying that Russia was a menace to the U.S. Russia was an ally of the U.S. during World War II, Winchell observed, and while he had no love for Communists, he had also loathed many of the "Sovvy-baiters." "Do you think it would be fair to comment that you had been duped [by the Communists]?" asked Rifkind. "[I] might have been," answered Winchell. "And was your column used as a place to plant pro-Communist propaganda?" "I am wide open to that, too," replied Winchell. "Anybody is, I believe, that writes in the public papers."

Three days later Columnist Winchell, who has nothing to lose in the libel suit but honor, since his newspaper and radio-TV contracts free him from financial responsibility for damages, explained his change of heart about Russia. Said he: "Such are the vagaries of history.''

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