Woman with a Country

Blue-eyed, brunette Ellen Raphael Knauff, 35, is the German-born war bride of a U.S. Army combat veteran. She is also an anti-Nazi who fled Germany and served as a wartime sergeant in the British WAAF. But she has not been able to gain admission to the U.S. When she came to Ellis Island 20 months ago, the Department of Justice's immigration service excluded her as a security risk, without revealing the evidence against her or giving her a hearing. Last January, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the exclusion order without requiring the Department of Justice to disclose its evidence. Dissenting, Justice Robert Jackson called the exclusion "abrupt and brutal."

More effective dissent to the Supreme Court's action was written by Irving Dilliard, 45, longtime student of the Supreme Court's procedures and editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page (TIME, July 4). In a series of 15 doggedly detailed editorials, he denounced the "star chamber proceedings" in the case of Knauff v. the U.S. as a denial of her rights and a threat to the civil liberties of U.S. citizens as well. The P-D backed up his blasts with Fitzpatrick cartoons, news stories and full-page ads in the Washington Post and Star in which it retold the Knauff story FOR THE INFORMATION OF

OFFICIAL WASHINGTON.

Last week the P-D's determined campaign got action in official Washington. The House subcommittee on immigration gave Ellen Knauff her first full public hearing. Wearing a pert sailor hat and a smart suit, Mrs. Knauff made an appealing and convincing witness; she blamed a jealous ex-sweetheart of her husband's for spreading "gossip" that she was a spy. Offered an opportunity to submit its own evidence and to question Mrs. Knauff, the Department of Justice refused on the ground that it would jeopardize its intelligence sources. With no evidence against Mrs. Knauff, the committee unanimously reported out a bill directing the Attorney General to admit her to the U.S. In due course, she could expect to become a U.S. citizen, thanks to the Post-Dispatch and Crusader Dilliard.

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