Reversal

One prompt response to the Brownell testimony came from Boston University. It suspended the chairman of its Latin American regional-studies department, Dr. Maurice Halperin, who was an OSS and State Department intelligence official from 1941 to 1946. J. Edgar Hoover's letter of Nov. 8, 1945, which Brownell quoted, listed Halperin.

In 1941 Halperin was fired from the Oklahoma University faculty. Witness Nathaniel Weyl, an ex-Communist, testified that in 1936 Halperin went to Communist meetings in Mexico. In 1948 ex-Communist Elizabeth Bentley made public her charge that she had received secret government documents and party dues from OSSMan Halperin. Last March, called before the Jenner Committee, Halperin refused, on grounds of selfincrimination, to say whether he was ever a Communist. He denied engaging in espionage. Boston University trustees then "reprimanded and severely censured" Halperin for his "uncooperative attitude," but declined to fire him for lack of "definite evidence."

Why did Boston University reverse itself last week? Explained President Harold C. Case: "The [Hoover] letter, now declassified, was not available to the Boston University committee nor to the trustees [before]." Case said that the suspension would stand "pending a restudy" of the case and a decision by the trustees.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.