Breathes There a Jury With Soul So Pure?

In Washington last week the U.S. Communist Party went on trial for the second time-for failing to register as an agent of the Soviet Union. Whatever the outcome, the party can hardly claim it has a prejudiced jury.

In an elaborate screening process, agreed on by Government and party attorneys beforehand and designed to ferret out both pro-and anti-Communist bias, Judge William B. Jones asked the eight women and four men picked to hear the case in U.S. District Court to swear that they 1) did not regard the Communist Party as "subversive" or a threat to themselves or their families; 2) felt no "hostility" toward the party; 3) had "not read, seen or heard anything derogatory about the party," and 4) would not doubt the truthfulness of any officer of the party or the party itself.

The jurors also swore that neither they nor their families had ever worked for the U.S. Government or belonged to the John Birch Society, Ku Klux Klan, American Legion, American Nazi Party, Young Americans for Freedom, Americans for Constitutional Action, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Daughters of the American Revolution, Conservative Society of America, Liberty Lobby, Americans for National Security, Chris, tian Anti-Communism Crusade, Christian Crusade, American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born, Labor Youth League, Civil Rights Congress, Communist Party, Jefferson School of Social Science, New York School for Marxist Studies, Young Communist League, American Peace Crusade, National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, Nation of Islam, International Workers Order, Washington Bookshop Association, Fair Play for Cuba Committee, or the Southern Conference for Human Welfare.

None of the jurors had ever read books or articles by Elizabeth Bentley, Whittaker Chambers, Louis Budenz, J. B. Matthews, Herbert Philbrick, William F. Buckley Jr., Gerald L. K. Smith, Westbrook Pegler, Dan Smoot, Robert Welch, Dr. Fred Schwarz or Dr. George Benson, or listened to radio programs conducted by Fulton Lewis Jr., John T. Flynn, Life Line, Facts Forum, Clarence Manion's Forum, or the 20th Century Reformation Hour.

Despite its otherworldly blend of open-and empty-mindedness, the jury was picked in two hours.

* The first trial, in 1962, resulted in a conviction, with a $120,000 fine, that was reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

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