Dignified Plea

Former President Carlos Prio Socarras of Cuba placed himself at the disposal of a U.S. District Court in New York last week with a plea of nolo contendere* to charges of conspiring to violate the 1939 U.S. Neutrality Act by attempting to ship arms to Cuba (TIME, Dec. 14). Federal Judge Edmund L. Palmieri fined the ex-President $9,000; in a similar procedure, his onetime Interior Minister, Segundo Curd Messina, was fined $6,000.

Said Prio: "I decided to change my defense from 'not guilty' to nolo contendere because I thought that in my position it was more dignified to do so." Defending Prio, Manhattan Lawyer Samuel I. Rosenman, one-time ghostwriter for President Franklin D. Roosevelt, contended that his client's acts had been political and his violation of U.S. neutrality a technicality.

Judge Palmieri agreed that "the defendants are not criminals in the strict sense of the term," although there was no question that U.S. law had been broken.

*Legal definition: "A plea by the defendant in a criminal prosecution, which, without admitting guilt, subjects him to conviction."

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