A Juror, a Girl, a Diary

If a Hollywood idea man had visited Manhattan's federal courthouse last week, he could have walked away with all the makings of a grade B movie script, complete with a theatrical producer, a dark-haired charmer trying to entice information out of him, and a sizable batch (89 pages) of ready-made dialogue. The script didn't quite turn out according to plan.

In the courtroom where for 32 patience-grinding weeks eleven Communist leaders have been on trial for conspiring to teach and advocate overthrow of the U.S. Government by force, defense lawyers melodramatically moved for a mistrial. They charged that the pudgy, moonfaced man occupying seat No. 2 in the jury box had flagrantly violated his duty as a juror. At the very least, the defense added, the juror should be removed from the jury.

Carol's Diary. Juror No. 2 was Russell Janney, 64, Broadway producer, promoter and author of the bestselling The Miracle of the Bells. One of the steadiest job-seeking callers at Producer Janney's offices since the start of the Communist trial had been Carol Nathanson, a willowy, 26-year-old singer and actress who works under the name of Carol Nason and dabbles in party-line dialectics. Like many a show girl,

Carol kept a diary. Hers was different from most--it consisted of her conversations with Janney concerning the trial. The Communists' lawyers produced Carol's diary last week when they tried to upset the Government's tedious, costly effort to jail the top U.S. Communists.

Like all jurors, Janney had been instructed not to discuss the trial with anyone. But by shrewd prodding, Carol had apparently gotten Janney to do some talking. With carefully culled excerpts from her conversations with him, as verified only by Carol, the defense tried to prove that Janney was emphatically prejudiced ("Those goddam Communists--If anyone ever mentions Marxism-Leninism to me, I'll knock his block off"). They contended he was determined to find the defendants guilty ("Whatever the verdict is, it will be appealed and appealed . . .").

"Fair Jury." The Communist protest was serious enough to give pause to trial-worn Judge Harold R. Medina. He recessed court for a day to consider the matter. Closer study, however, showed that Carol's diary was not the earth-shaking thing it purported to be. While Janney did complain often that he was tired of testimony about Marxism-Leninism, he added once: "I guess I'd be tired of hearing capitalist theory if they were talking about it . . ." Another time he said: "We have a fair jury . . . they won't be swayed or prejudiced by personal emotions. It isn't whether we like Communists or not--just is this charge true or isn't it."

Next day, Judge Medina denied the motion for mistrial and announced that garrulous Juror Janney would keep his seat. What was more, the judge added, he was fed up with the noisy Communist picket lines outside the courthouse and the cascade of telegrams and letters poured in on him by Communist sympathizers. "I will not be intimidated," he said.

The Communists replied the following day with one of the biggest, noisiest picket lines of the trial, chanting insults at Medina and Janney. Samples:

"Hey, Medina, get on the ball. Remember what happened to Forrestal." "If Janney gets in our way, we're going to roll right over him." "How do you spell Medina? R-A-T." And inside, with not much more restraint, the Communists' lawyers continued their badgering of the judge, and their delay of the trial.

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