17 JUNE 1955, Page 6

I AM GLAD that the US Court of Appeal has

upheld, though by the narrowest possible margin. Judge Youngdahl in dismissing the two chief perjury charges against Professor Lattimore. Professor Lattimore has been on the run, as it were, since March, 1950, when Senator McCarthy announced that he was the 'top Russian espionage agent in the US.' The Justice De- partment has already made itself look sufficiently ridiculous by its handling of the case and it would seem that since the eclipse of McCarthyism any political advantage to be gained by prosecuting the Professor is now outweighed by the legal humiliations involved. I therefore hope, but with no great confidence, that the Attorney-General, Mr. Brownell, will at last call it a dhy.