Third Try

The U.S. Government, which had failed twice to kick Australian-born Harry Bridges out of the country as a Communist, was at it again. Last week in San Francisco, a federal grand jury indicted the Longshoremen's Boss Bridges for perjury. Said Bridges, with the air of a man who was weary of it all: "It's no surprise." But the Government thought this time it might prove to be.

The indictment charged that when Bridges became a U.S. citizen in 1945, he lied by swearing that he was not a Communist and never had been. The grand jury, after listening to a few of Bridges' old labor pals and several ex-Commies, charged that Harry Bridges had been a Communist for twelve years, and that he is still a Communist.

Indicted with Bridges were two of his . International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's lieutenants. They are Texas-born Vice President J. R. ("Bob") Robertson and German-born Henry ("The Dutchman") Schmidt, who is currently running Bridges' four-week-old tie-up of Hawaiian shipping.

If the Government's case sticks, hawk-nosed Harry Bridges faces the possibility of a maximum of seven years' imprisonment, then deportation, In its previous attempts to deport Bridges, in 1939 and 1941, the Government cited Bridges' ties with Communist-front organizations, and produced witnesses who said they had heard him admit to being a Communist. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1945 ruled the evidence insufficient.

Last week, John P. Boyd, special assistant to Attorney General Tom Clark, said: "We have evidence that has never been shown up to now. We're sure we'll win--otherwise we wouldn't have brought all this before the grand jury. This is the first criminal indictment ever returned against Bridges." Harry Bridges, a noisy foe of the Truman Administration, had his own theory about the charges: "A smokescreen to get people's attention away from what's happening in Washington."

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