No. 5

"I now adjudge you guilty of willful and deliberate contempt," Judge Harold R. Medina said. "You are to be remanded . . . for a period not to exceed thirty days." Grinning broadly, Witness Carl Winter stepped down from the stand, the fifth Communist to be jailed for contempt in the eight-month conspiracy trial of eleven of the nation's top Reds. Outside the courthouse in Manhattan's Foley Square, Communist pickets dutifully picked up the new refrain: "Free Carl Winter. Stop this frame-up." Within minutes, placards appeared, with Winter's name neatly lettered in.

The jailing of Winter was touched off by his flat refusal to tell whether or not his father-in-law had attended the party's 1945 national convention. It was the climax of eight days of hairsplitting evasion during which Winter's memory wavered, as his fancy suited, from a complete blank to total recall.

At one point, he swore he "could not remember" where his only child was born in 1942, later on produced glib details of his own life in kindergarten, nearly 40 years ago. He blandly told the court that the name "Philip" appeared on his birth certificate, unbeknown to him or his parents, because one of his aunts "had a peculiar penchant for naming babies Philip." As confusion piled on top of contradiction, Judge Medina clasped both hands over his head in bewilderment. Medina's patience was beginning to grow thin: when Defense Attorney George W. Crockett Jr. got into the wrangling, he was also cited for contempt.

But at week's end, it began to look as if Harold Medina might soon be delivered from the trial, which had been a lot tougher on him than on the accused. Defense attorneys, having about run through their list of key witnesses, began reading the deposition of William Z. Foster, national chairman of the Communist Party, who was too ill to appear in person.

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