Establishment (35 page)

“Was he well treated at the hospital?”

“Yes. The doctors and the sisters there were skilled and kind and good.”

“You say sisters. Is it a Catholic hospital?”

“Yes, in that it has connections with the Catholic Church.”

“I see. Now how did the Lavette Foundation become involved with the Hospital of the Sacred Heart?”

“Dr. Charles Lazaire, the surgeon who tried to save my fiancé's life, wrote to me in San Francisco, telling me of the enormous problem the hospital was having with refugees from Republican Spain and of the lack of facilities. It's not a large hospital. I put the matter up to the board of the Lavette Foundation, and it was agreed that we would make funds available to the hospital for the specific purpose of caring for Republican refugees and their families.”

“I see. Now according to your testimony, a sum of some twelve thousand dollars was raised from among this group of eighteen people for the purchase of penicillin and certain other medical supplies. Why couldn't this purchase have been made through the Lavette Foundation?”

“It was a question of time. The medicine was urgently needed. There's a great deal of red tape connected with a foundation grant, and when it goes to a foreign organization, that complicates the matter even further.”

“Then exactly how did you raise the twelve thousand dollars?”

“I telephoned friends and put the problem to them, and the money was subscribed that same evening.”

“Now, is it true that three weeks ago these same eighteen men and women whose names you refused to give to the House committee gathered together at the apartment of one of them in San Francisco?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Were you aware of that gathering in advance?”

“No, I was not.”

“Then you came to this gathering unaware of its purpose?”

“That's right.”

Barbara had expected Crombie to object, but he was listening intently. His assistant, a younger man sitting beside him, whispered something to him. Crombie shook his head. Evidently he was intrigued by the material and wanted to see where it would lead.

“What was the purpose of the gathering?”

“These friends knew of my dilemma. They decided that they would make a statement to the press, revealing their names.”

“And what did you say when you heard this?”

Again Barbara noticed the young man next to Crombie whispering fiercely, and again Crombie shook his head.

The judge said, “Don't answer that question, Mrs. Cohen.” And he went on to Crombie, “Mr. Crombie, I'll entertain an objection here if you wish.”

“I'd rather hear the witness' answer,” Crombie said.

“You may answer,” the judge said.

“I refused their offer. I said that the only way out of my difficulty was for me to supply the names, and this I would not do. I thanked them and persuaded them not to reveal their names.”

“Why did you refuse to give the names to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, since the sense of this gathering would indicate that the persons involved were not afraid of reprisal?”

“Because,” Barbara said quietly, “I must continue to live with myself as a woman and as a human being. If I am turned into an informer, then I lose a very precious thing, my self-respect. No one can ask this of me—not Congress, not any committee of Congress. As for these eighteen men and women, their jeopardy was for me to judge. I had asked them for money. The responsibility was mine, not theirs.”

“Thank you,” Kimmelman said. “I have no further questions.”

He walked back to his table. Baxter whispered, “Splendid, Boyd, just splendid.”

“Yes. God help us now.”

Crombie rose and stood looking at Barbara.

“Watch this now,” Kimmelman whispered.

“Are you a member of the Communist Party, Mrs. Cohen?”

“Objection!” Kimmelman shouted.

“Strike that question,” the judge said to the stenographer.

“Could we approach the bench?” Crombie asked.

The judge nodded. Crombie, Baxter, and Kimmelman went up to the bench.

“The question was asked during her testimony,” Crombie whispered. “We have opened the testimony. I think the question is allowable.”

“She denied it,” Kimmelman argued. “She denied it under oath. If there is any question of proof, why doesn't the government bring a charge of perjury?”

“I ask it only to lay a foundation. The question comes up again and again in her testimony before the House committee.”

“May I see that testimony?” the judge asked.

Crombie handed him the printed record, and he leafed through it. The lawyers waited. Then the judge said, “I'm afraid I shall have to allow the question, Mr. Kimmelman. You can deal with it on redirect.”

“Then I respectfully request that my objection be on the record.”

Crombie walked slowly around Barbara, and, facing the jury, he asked, “Mrs. Cohen, are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”

“No, not now, not ever.”

“Did you, in nineteen thirty-nine, undertake a mission for the Communist Party of France into Nazi Germany?”

“Objection,” Kimmelman called out.

“Overruled.”

“It was not a mission—”

“Would you answer yes or no? Did you, in nineteen thirty-nine, undertake a mission for the Communist Party of France?”

“I can't answer that question yes or no.”

“Was your purpose to contact the Communist Party of Germany?”

A long moment went by, and then the judge said, “Please answer the question, Mrs. Cohen.”

“Yes,” Barbara said.

Crombie shrugged. “I have no further questions.”

“What was your profession in nineteen thirty-nine?” Kimmelman asked her.

“I was a journalist, a correspondent for
Manhattan Magazine
.”

“And you entered Germany as a journalist on assignment from your magazine?”

“Yes.”

“Who were Claude and Camille Limoget?”

“They were journalists, friends of my dead fiancé.”

“What was their relationship with you?”

“It was a social relationship. They would come to my apartment, and we would have fierce arguments.”

“Fierce arguments? But why?”

“Because they were Communists. Marcel and I were not.”

“Yet you could be friends?”

“It was that way in Europe, in France anyway.”

“And since you were to go to Germany as a journalist, what did these two friends, Claude and Camille Limoget, ask of you?”

“They said that all the connections between the Communist Party of France and the Communist Party of Germany had been destroyed. They wanted desperately to find out whether there was any kind of organized resistance left in Germany. They gave me the name of a professor at Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, and they asked me to try to find out whether he still had anti-Nazi connections.”

“And did you find out?”

“No. The Gestapo had killed him.”

“Then you never had or attempted any contact with the Communist Party of Germany?”

“No.”

“Did you ever have any contact with the Communist Party of France?”

“No. The Limogets were the only Communists I knew, socially or otherwise.”

“So the construction that you undertook a mission for the Communist Party of France is Mr. Crombie's invention?”

Crombie objected angrily, and the judge asked Kimmelman to rephrase his question.

“You never undertook a mission for the Communist Party of France in the sense implied by Mr. Crombie?”

“No, I did not.”

“Then why did you put your life in jeopardy, as I understand you did, by trying to contact this German professor?”

“Because it was nineteen thirty-nine,” Barbara answered tiredly. “Because the whole world appeared to be going down before the Nazis. Because they had killed the man I loved, and because I despised them and everything they stood for.”

“That is all. Thank you,” Kimmelman said.

Boyd Kimmelman did not believe in long summations, especially in this case, since all through the trial he had sensed the hostility of the jury. There was a thin line between annoying them and touching, somewhere, a nerve of response, a memory of human dignity.

“My client,” he said, “is not an ordinary woman, and I would do her a disservice if I pleaded that she was. She is a person of principle, and she has lived her life according to the principles she has cherished. She comes from one of the oldest and wealthiest families in San Francisco. At the age of twenty-six, she fell heir to a legacy of something in excess of fifteen million dollars. She refused this legacy, not accepting any part of it. It became the Lavette Foundation, a charitable institution that supports research in science and in medicine. I mention this only to underline her sense of morality and principle.

“She is a widow. Her husband was killed six months ago, in the struggle for the State of Israel. She has a small child. She earns her living as a writer, and she is recognized as a gifted and a humane artist. Under other circumstances, a grateful government might see fit to reward her sense of compassion, her humanity. She has never done anything of which she need be ashamed. Indeed, her whole life honors the country that gave her birth.

“You have heard her on the witness stand. In no way has she tried to evade her responsibility. She has not denied her action. A question was asked of her. She was asked to give the names of eighteen people who were her friends and who had placed their trust in her. She could no more do this than she could reject her whole existence. She was not defying her government or the powers of Congress; she was not being stubborn or intractable; she was simply doing what had become the very fiber of her being. A great writer once wrote, ‘To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.' Must she be condemned and punished for being true to herself and to the best principles of this nation? I think not, and I beg you to have the compassion and the understanding to bring in a verdict of not guilty.”

Crombie was even briefer, as if certainty dispensed with any great need for argument. “We are a nation that functions under law, and God willing, this will continue to be the case. Congress makes the law of the land, and in order to make that law, to frame legislation for the well-being and health and protection of this nation, it is empowered to gather information. He who is subpoenaed before a committee of the Congress of the United States and who refuses to answer a question pertinent to the matter at hand and posed by Congress—he who does that is in contempt of Congress. Do away with this power of Congress, a power before which the mightiest must bend his head, and you do away with democratic government.

“At what point does so-called principle become arrogance? Are we to believe that only Mrs. Barbara Cohen is possessed of principle? Are there no principles in our government? In our Constitution? And what is principle? Is anyone who defies the Congress of the United States entitled to wrap himself in this so-called principle—and insinuate that we ordinary folk are immoral, that we have the ethics of thugs?

“I reject such insinuations. And I am not impressed by the fact that the accused comes from a background of wealth. This is a government of the people, not of the rich, and when the rich break the law, they must look for no impunity. This woman, Mrs. Cohen, arrogantly confesses to the act of contempt. She proves her own guilt. There is only one point at issue here: Did she refuse to answer a question addressed to her by the House Committee on Un-American Activities? We have proven that she refused. The rest is up to you.”

Judge Meadows' instruction was equally concise. “You have heard the evidence,” he told the jury. “Mrs. Barbara Cohen, the accused, is charged with having committed a contempt of the Congress of the United States. The act of contempt, in a congressional inquiry, is the refusal to answer a question that is pertinent to the inquiry at hand. Now as far as the accused's refusal to respond to the question is concerned, the evidence given leaves no room for equivocation. The question was asked. She refused to answer it. By her own testimony today in this court, she specified and concurred in that refusal.

“This leaves only one point to be decided by this jury: Was the question pertinent to the function of the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities? In its original establishment, under the chairmanship of Congressman Martin Dies of Texas, this committee was constituted to conduct investigations into Nazi, fascist, communist, and other organizations termed ‘un-American in character.' Today we group its purpose under the broader label of ‘subversive.' The purpose of such investigations is to frame appropriate legislation for the protection of the people of the United States.

“The evidence has been presented to you. You are not to be swayed by emotional considerations. The question of the guilt or innocence of the defendant rests upon one single issue: namely, was the question asked of her pertinent to the appropriate function of the House committee? Should you find that to be the case, you have no choice but to bring in a verdict of guilty as charged.”

***

Soaking in her tub at the hotel, Barbara decided that no civilization that provides an unlimited supply of hot water can be all bad.
I am now a condemned criminal
, she thought,
yet I don't feel very much different. In fact, I feel relieved that this stupid mockery of a trial is over with.

It had taken the jury all of twenty minutes to come to a unanimous decision that the defendant was guilty as charged. Then Boyd Kimmelman had taken her back to the hotel while Baxter remained to talk to the judge in his chambers.

“I want a bath,” she said to Kimmelman, “and then I want to change my clothes because I feel dirty and uncomfortable and nasty. Suppose we meet in the dining room at seven.”