Clubby Conviction

ARMY & NAVY

In 1925 a court martial, sitting in a long, bare room on the second floor of the War Department's old Emory Building in Washington, found Brigadier General William Mitchell publicly guilty of insubordination, suspended the No. 1 trouble-maker in the Air Force from the Army. Not until last week did another high officer of the Army face a court martial. Then Colonel Alexander Elliot Williams (a Brigadier until he finished his tour of duty as Assistant Quartermaster General last January) stood secret trial in Washington on the second floor of the Officers' Club at the War College.

The trouble in which Col. Williams found himself began more than a year ago. At that time a subcommittee of the House Military Affairs Committee made an investigation of Army motor, underwear, and other contracts (TIME, March 5, 1934). A by-product of that probe was an inconclusive District of Columbia grand jury inquiry which called in Army people all the way up to Assistant Secretary of War Harry Woodring. In May the Military Affairs subcommittee decided to exonerate Harry Woodring. In July it reopened his case. Since then the subcommittee has twice dropped and resumed its investigation with persistent secretiveness. Upshot of 15 months' probing was another investigation, by the Army's Inspector General, which ended by accusing Col. Williams of soliciting and accepting a $2,500 "loan" from an inner-tube salesman although, as chief transport purchaser, he knew that the salesman hoped to get an Army contract for his company.

Presided over by Major General Malin Craig, commandant of the War College, seven other general officers in mufti tried the case. Col. Williams' lawyer was a member of A. Mitchell Palmer's Washington firm. After three days the War Department announced that Col. Williams' brother officers had found that West Pointer guilty of accepting a bribe, recommended his dismissal from the Army but unanimously suggested "clemency" because of his 37 years of faithful military service from Santiago to Coblenz.

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