US PASSPORTS SIR.—Your correspondent, W. D. Paden, in referring to
Brian Moore's review of Mary McCarthy, states that Communists may receive US passports. He goes on to imply that persons are not gaoled in America for their ideas, as distinct from overt acts, such as the submission of false affidavits. Mr. Paden is in gross error. Although a Supreme Court decision did make it easier for American dissidents to receive passports, Section 6 of the Internal Security Act of 1950 (50USC785) provides severe penalties (fine and/or imprisonment) for Communist Party members who apply for, use or attempt to use US passports. There is a notice to this effect on each of the passport- inquiry desks at the American Embassy in London. On the second count, Mr. Paden is also badly misinformed. Wherever possible, investigating com- mittees in America try to nail their man for an overt act. However, since these are rare, several alterna- tives are open. Aside from the stringent provisions of the Smith and McCarran Acts, which cover US and foreign-born Communists and Trotskyists, there is the much-used gimmick of 'contempt of Congress.' Anybody who actively disagrees with, say, the House Committee on Un-American Activities can be sum- marily subpeonxd, usually in the role of an 'un- friendly witness.' If the witness refuses to co-operate —for example, by refusing to incriminate himself, his colleagues, friends or associates—he can be issued with a contempt citation. This entails, I believe, a maximum sentence of one year. A friend of mine. Frank Wilkinson, formerly of the Los Angeles Housing Administration, was recently re- leased after serving twelve months in a southern prison farm for refusing to 'co-operate,' on grounds both of conscience and the First Amendment. Wilkinson was gaoled not because he was a Com- munist but because he sought to organise active opposition to the HUAC. He and Cart Braden, a well-known Kentucky radical and anti-segregationist, sought to test the constitutionality of the HUAC's fishing expeditions, and lost their cases.
Although I am told the heat has died down in civil-liberties incidents, it is still probably true to say that any US left-wing dissident must continue to step very daintily indeed if he wishes to remain out of trouble, and gaol.
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