United States v. Peck, Cr. No. 1214-56.

• Decision Date: 11 June 1957
• Docket Number: Cr. No. 1214-56.
• Citation: 154 F. Supp. 603
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Seymour PECK.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

154 F. Supp. 603

UNITED STATES of America v. Seymour PECK.

Cr. No. 1214-56.

United States District Court District of Columbia.

June 11, 1957.

William Hitz, Asst. U. S. Atty., Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Telford Taylor, New York City, and Joseph Fanelli, Washington, D. C., for defendant.

YOUNGDAHL, District Judge.

The defendant, Seymour Peck, was convicted of "contempt of Congress"¹ on March 26, 1957. In view of the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Watkins v. United States,² he has moved for judgment of acquittal.³

Seymour Peck is a newspaperman employed by the "New York Times". By the use of compulsory process, the Internal Security Subcommittee of the United States Senate required Peck to appear as a witness before it. He freely answered all questions concerning his own activities, frankly admitted his past Communist affiliations, explained the reasons therefor, told the Subcommittee that he had fully terminated these affiliations in 1949, seven years prior to the date of his appearance before it, and added that in the seven years immediately preceding 1949 his associations with the Communist movement were virtually negligible. However, Peck refused to answer the questions which would have required him to identify others as Communists.

In the Watkins case, supra, the Supreme Court explicitly set forth the framework for judicial evaluation of prosecutions for contempt of Congress. The Court said, "In the decade following World War II, there appeared a new kind of congressional inquiry unknown in prior periods of American history. Principally this was the result of the various investigations into the threat of subversion of the United States Government, but other subjects of congressional interest also contributed to the changed scene. This new phase of legislative inquiry involved a broad-scale intrusion into the lives and affairs of private citizens. It brought before the courts novel questions of the appropriate limits of congressional inquiry. * * * The emphasis shifted to problems of accommodating the interest of the Government with the rights and privileges of individuals. The central theme was the application of the Bill of Rights as a restraint upon the assertion of governmental power in this form."⁴ The Supreme Court forthrightly explained the reason for this shift in emphasis by setting forth the evils which result from abuses of the congressional power to investigate. The Supreme Court stated that these abuses not only invade the freedoms of the individual summoned as a witness, but that they adversely affect the general public as well by impeding freedom of thought and association.⁵

This case exemplifies the abuses the Supreme Court sought to curtail. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee conducted investigations which were indistinguishable in scope or nature from those the Supreme Court condemned. In addition, the particular series of hearings here involved constituted an even more serious threat to freedom of thought and expression. For these hearings consisted of the questioning of persons employed in the newspaper field, in radio and television. The danger inherent in such an investigation is found not only in the effect upon those investigated but also in the potential effect upon others in the same field.⁶ There is no need to stress the importance to our society of a free press — and, therefore, of the necessity of enabling writers to formulate ideas and associations freely and without fear of governmental retribution by investigation or otherwise. History is replete with instances in which writers and philosophers have been penalized by the state, but it is always the writers and philosophers who are remembered and admired, never their prosecutors or inquisitors. It is difficult to draw the line between investigations of the political beliefs of newspapermen and investigations of newspapers. For newspapers consist of news stories and editorials; and news stories and editorials are written by newspapermen. To inhibit the freedom of thought and association of newspapermen is to infringe upon the freedom of the press. It is also a temptation to those investigating newspapermen to wander into the field of press content, and at times during these hearings the Subcommittee was unable to resist even this direct invasion. This Court said at the time of the trial that it had grave doubts as to the constitutionality of such a series of hearings, particularly under a resolution which does not contain specific authority therefor.⁷ This Court added, however, that it felt that earlier opinions of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had foreclosed that question.⁸ At that time the Watkins case had been decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in the government's favor and the Supreme Court had not yet spoken. The Supreme Court's opinion, however, reopens this field to consideration as a result of the restoration of concern for individual liberties to its traditional high place in the judicial system, and the recognition of the practical effects of such investigations. Nevertheless, the instant case is not to be determined by the Subcommittee's violation of freedom of the press, for of even greater importance is the fact that Peck was deprived of the rights to which all witnesses, whatever their occupations, are entitled.

The questions which Peck refused to answer infringed upon his basic First Amendment freedoms. Peck did not refuse to answer questions relating to espionage, sabotage, or the overthrow of the government by force and violence. In fact he informed the Subcommittee that he possessed no information whatever on those subjects and said that he would be willing to volunteer any such information to his government at any time — that he considered it his duty as a citizen to do so. The infringement stems from the Subcommittee's action in summoning an individual, compelling him to disclose his past political associations, and insisting that he reveal the views and associations of his friends and colleagues. In so doing, the Subcommittee invaded the individual's protected freedoms of privacy, thought, and association.⁹ The effects of such an invasion upon the life of an individual, his family, and his friends, are often disastrous and the community as a whole is seriously harmed. Yet under certain circumstances the Congress may infringe upon an individual's First Amendment freedoms, but only when the national interest clearly justifies such drastic action,¹⁰ and only when there is strict compliance with all procedural requirements.¹¹

Watkins does not purport to determine the general question whether there is a sufficient national interest to justify requiring witnesses to identify others as Communists. But it does make clear the duty of courts to balance the necessity for obtaining such information from a particular witness against the invasion of individual rights which results from such questioning. In assessing the national interest, courts may look to several factors, including the degree of Communist activity of the witness; the remoteness of the period concerning which he is being questioned; the information already possessed by the committee concerning the particular activity to which the questioning relates; the sensitivity from a national security standpoint of the field of employment of the witness and of those he is being asked to identify. On the other side of the scale must be weighed the First Amendment. Courts must be zealous to guard against any unnecessary infringement of this right, for upon its strength rest the foundations of our form of government. Although an infringement of the Bill of Rights may be necessary under certain circumstances, no one can rejoice in such an exigency. For with each such authorized infringement, the rights of all citizens become fewer, the freedoms we cherish are limited, and democracy itself is weakened.

Peck was asked to identify persons who belonged to groups at a time when those groups constituted legitimate political associations and when many Americans who would have violently opposed the overthrow of the government by force were members. These questions related to periods which were remote in time and in which a different political climate prevailed. There had not yet occurred any armed conflict between American and Communist armies. The witness was asked to name his fellow members of the Young Communist unit at Hearns Department Store (in 1937-42) and the Communist party unit at a now defunct newspaper "The New York Star" (in late 1948 and early 1949).¹² There is little, if any, national interest to be served by engaging in so indiscriminate a resurrection of the political past — and whatever interest there is, is more than counterbalanced by the deprivation of First Amendment rights. So, too, with regard to the other questions Peck refused to answer. He declined to reveal whether he knew Mathilda Landsman to be a Communist either at the time he testified or when she worked as secretary to newspaper editors. The Subcommittee already had received information from a so-called "friendly" witness that Landsman was a "Communist". Thus Peck's confirmation, if in fact he could confirm this information, could be of little help to the Subcommittee in its efforts to identify "subversives". The Subcommittee already had all the information it needed to justify calling Landsman to question her about any "subversive activities". If upon questioning, Landsman denied the accusation, and the government considered prosecuting her for perjury, that would be time enough for the executive branch of the government to question her associates in order to determine its course of action. Nor was there any other valid national security interest great enough to justify the Subcommittee's requiring Peck to answer the question. The desire to check upon the...