Liberty v. Security

In the 17 years since Congress adopted the anti-Communist McCarran act over a presidential veto, the law's provisions have been systematically chipped away by the Supreme Court. Last week the court filed the act's last remaining fangs almost to the vanishing point.

By a vote of 6 to 2, the court rejected as unconstitutional the McCarran provision that any Communist Party member is ipso facto denied the right to work in defense plants. "For almost two centuries our country has taken singular pride in the democratic ideals enshrined in its Constitution," said Chief Justice Earl Warren, who delivered the majority opinion. "It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties--the freedom of association--which makes the defense of the nation worthwhile."

The court's verdict upheld self-avowed Communist Eugene Frank Robel's right to work as a machinist for Todd Shipyards Corp. An employee of the Seattle shipyard for more than ten years, Robel was indicted in 1962 under the McCarran act when the Defense Department ruled that the firm was a defense industry. A federal district court freed Robel because the indictment failed to accuse him of being an active Communist with the intent to further the party's subversive aims; the Justice Department appealed the case to the high court.

Warren made it clear the court was not advocating that the doors of defense industries be thrown open to subversives. "Nothing we hold today," he said, "should be read to deny Congress the power under narrowly drawn legislation to keep from sensitive positions in defense facilities those who would use their positions to disrupt the nation's production facilities." What the court objected to, he added, was the wording of the McCarran act, which is so vague and broad that it "quite literally establishes guilt by association alone." The Congress undoubtedly will take the hint and pass substitute legislation that will guard against subversives without infringing on their constitutional rights.

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