TRIALS: Guilty as Charged

At the defense table, William Remington put down the book he had been reading —Parrington’s Main Currents in American Thought. In the jury box, the foreman, Hotel Clerk David L. Jones, rose to his feet. “We find the defendant guilty as charged,” he said in a husky voice. Remington closed his book, shut his eyes, and got to his feet with an effort. Two U.S. marshals stepped to his side. Federal Judge Gregory F. Noonan told the jury: “I believe the verdict you have arrived at is a fair one.”

Thus young (33), brilliant (Phi Beta Kappa), Dartmouth-trained Bill Remington was publicly and legally branded a liar for saying that he had never been a Communist. He was convicted for perjury, but even graver was the implication that he had passed on to fellow Communists secret information to which he had access when he was working for the WPB. Remington was whisked off to jail for the night. Next day, pale but calm, he stood before Judge Noonan and received the maximum sentence for perjury: five years in jail and a $2,000 fine.

But at week’s end, Remington was still free. The U.S. court of appeals had continued his bail, and his attorneys had filed an appeal, contending that twelve “substantial” errors were committed during his trial.

A name that cropped up often during the Remington trial was back in the news. Mrs. Elizabeth Moos, Remington’s former mother-in-law, was one of the five sponsors of the Peace Information Center, publicity agents for the Stockholm Peace Appeal, who were indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington for failure to register as foreign agents. Another of the five: Dr. William E. DuBois, 82, Negro writer, who ran for the Senate on the New York American Labor Party ticket last fall.