Un-American Activities : The Trials of William Remington

by May, Gary

• ISBN13: 9781577663270
• ISBN10: 1577663276
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-02-01
• Publisher: Waveland Pr Inc

Summary

In 1948, William W. Remington was one of the bright young men in the Truman administration. He was tall and handsome, a product of Dartmouth and Columbia. From 1940 on, he had risen through government ranks, serving on wartime boards, the President's Council of Economic Advisors, and eventually as a major official in the Department of Commerce, with a promising future ahead. By 1954, however, Remington was dead - assassinated in his cell by a team of inmates in a high-security Federal prison. In Un-American Activities, historian Gary May tells the fascinating story of William Remington - a story of intrigue, injustice, government corruption, and anti-Communist hysteria. May labored for eight years in reconstructing Remington's case, searching through FBI files and government documents, and waging an epic battle against then U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani to become the first historian to obtain access to grand jury records. The result is a brilliant account of one man's tragic odyssey and a government run amok. Remington's future collapsed in 1948, when he was charged with being a Communist and a Soviet spy. The accuser was Elizabeth Bentley, an admitted ex-Communist herself and a former courier for Soviet spymasters. Remington's life fell into a whirlpool as he fought government improprieties, illegalities, and the assumption he was guilty. Cleared by government loyalty boards, he was indicted by a grand jurywhose foreman was secretly helping Elizabeth Bentley prepare her memoirs. Remington suffered through two trials for perjury, and the chief witness against him was his own embittered ex-wife. He was convicted and sentenced to the federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, wherehis reputation as a Communist preceded him. But May's account also offers fascinating insight into the depth of Soviet penetration into wartime America: As he follows Remington's life from the radical circles at Dartmouth and the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s through his Washington career, he finds that Remington may well have been guilty of the charges against him. Gary May is one of the leading historians writing about postwar America. His first book, China Scapegoat, won the Allan Nevins Prize and was hailed as being "as well-written as a novel, as powerful as a good film" by The Los Angeles Times. Here he brings his analytical and narrative skills to bear on one of the forgotten stories of the McCarthy era, uncovering a gripping tale of espionage, corruption, and personal tragedy.

Table of Contents

Present in the Flesh	3	(15)
The New Student---Dartmouth, 1934--1936	15	(11)
Enfant Terrible---Knoxville, 1936--1937	26	(10)
A Square Character---Dartmouth, 1937--1938	36	(7)
Flirting with Danger---Dartmouth, 1938--1939	43	(10)
Renegades	53	(15)
Obliging a Lady	68	(29)
Fighting Back	97	(14)
Sorry about Everything	111	(21)
A Marked Man	132	(13)
No Peace	145	(14)
Tool of Tyranny	159	(10)
Scene of the Crime	169	(12)
Missionary Work	181	(12)
Not in This Day and Time	193	(14)
Object of Hate, Engine of Destruction	207	(27)
A Lot to Explain	234	(28)
The Only Verdict Possible	262	(15)
His Own Worst Enemy	277	(20)
The Ends of Expediency	297	(23)
Epilogue In Dubious and Ambiguous Battle	320	(3)
Notes	323	(48)
Bibliography	371	(6)
Index	377