INVESTIGATIONS: Toward Trial

The Justice Department won a round last week in the case of Owen Lattimore, once an important influence in framing U.S. policy in the Far East. Last summer a U.S. Court of Appeals voided the key count in Lattimore’s perjury indictment —for denying that he was “a sympathizer of Communism”—because the word “sympathizer” has too many differing dictionary definitions.

Last week a Federal Grand Jury indicted Lattimore for denying that he had been 1) a “follower of the Communist line” and 2) a “promoter of Communist interests.” The new indictment lists 132 instances where, it says, Lattimore’s writings and the Communist Party line coincided.