Background
William Walter Remington was born on October 25, 1917 in New York City, the son of Lillian Sutherland and Frederick Clement Remington, an insurance agency executive.
(In 1948, William W. Remington was one of the bright young...)
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, government documents, and waging an epic battle against then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Guiliani 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 jury--whose 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, where his 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 "as well as a novel, as powerful as a good film" by the 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.
https://www.amazon.com/-American-Activities-Trials-William-Remington-ebook/dp/B0083TRBFW?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B0083TRBFW
( The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records an...)
The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978 contains the world's most comprehensive collection of records and briefs brought before the nation's highest court by leading legal practitioners - many who later became judges and associates of the court. It includes transcripts, applications for review, motions, petitions, supplements and other official papers of the most-studied and talked-about cases, including many that resulted in landmark decisions. This collection serves the needs of students and researchers in American legal history, politics, society and government, as well as practicing attorneys. This book contains copies of all known US Supreme Court filings related to this case including any transcripts of record, briefs, petitions, motions, jurisdictional statements, and memorandum filed. This book does not contain the Court's opinion. The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping ensure edition identification: William Walter Remington, Petitioner, v. United States of America. Petition / WILLIAM C CHANLER / 1951 / 387 / 342 U.S. 895 / 72 S.Ct. 231 / 96 L.Ed. 671 / 10-19-1951 William Walter Remington, Petitioner, v. United States of America. Brief in Opposition (P) / U.S. Supreme Court / 1951 / 387 / 342 U.S. 895 / 72 S.Ct. 231 / 96 L.Ed. 671 / 1-11-1952 William Walter Remington, Petitioner, v. United States of America. Reply Brief (P) / WILLIAM C CHANLER / 1951 / 387 / 342 U.S. 895 / 72 S.Ct. 231 / 96 L.Ed. 671 / 1-22-1952 William Walter Remington, Petitioner, v. United States of America. Motion / U.S. Supreme Court / 1951 / 387 / 342 U.S. 895 / 72 S.Ct. 231 / 96 L.Ed. 671 / 11-2-1951 William Walter Remington, Petitioner, v. United States of America. Motion / WILLIAM C CHANLER / 1951 / 387 / 342 U.S. 895 / 72 S.Ct. 231 / 96 L.Ed. 671 / 11-21-1951 William Walter Remington, Petitioner, v. United States of America. Memorandum (P) / U.S. Supreme Court / 1951 / 387 / 342 U.S. 895 / 72 S.Ct. 231 / 96 L.Ed. 671 / 12-6-1951
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William Walter Remington was born on October 25, 1917 in New York City, the son of Lillian Sutherland and Frederick Clement Remington, an insurance agency executive.
He entered Dartmouth College in 1934 but interrupted his studies to work for the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1936-1937, during which time he participated in labor union activities and associated closely with radicals. After returning to Dartmouth, he joined a group of self-proclaimed radicals and espoused a communistic philosophy.
He graduated first in his class with the A. B. in 1939 and received the A. M. in economics from Columbia University in 1940.
Remington worked as an economist with the National Resources Planning Board (1940 - 1941), the Office of Price Administration (1941 - 1942), and the War Production Board (1942 - 1944).
He enlisted in the navy, serving first as a Russian translator in Washington, then with the Economic Affairs Mission in London and, from December 1945, with the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Appointed to the staff of the President's Council of Economic Advisers in 1946, Remington transferred two years later to the Department of Commerce, where he headed the division that cleared export licenses to trade with the Soviet bloc nations.
In 1945 Elizabeth Bentley informed the FBI that during the war she had been a courier for a Soviet espionage ring in Washington, D. C. , and that Remington had been one of her sources. She repeated these charges in 1947 before a federal grand jury, which returned no indictments, and publicly in July 1948, before a Senate subcommittee. Remington admitted meeting Bentley secretly and giving her information during 1942 and 1943, but claimed that he knew her only as a researcher and had never given her classified material. Bentley's charges coincided with the beginning of President Harry Truman's loyalty program; and on September 28, 1948, the Commerce Department's loyalty board ordered Remington's dismissal (a ruling that he appealed).
Meanwhile, on September 12, 1948, Bentley repeated her charges on "Meet the Press"; Remington brought a $100, 000 slander suit against her, the broadcasting network, and the program's sponsor. On Feburary 10, 1949, the Loyalty Review Board ordered Remington reinstated. Later that year the sponsor and the radio station settled out of court for $10, 000; Bentley, however, was not a party to the settlement.
Then during congressional hearings in April 1950, two former Communists claimed that Remington had been a Communist party member in 1937, while he was working for the TVA. Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer dismissed Remington on grounds of "inefficiency" - Remington had been frequently absent from his job while testifying before grand juries, loyalty boards, and congressional committees. On June 8, 1950, a federal grand jury indicted Remington on one count of perjury, his denial of Communist party membership.
Remington was convicted after a trial lasting from December 26, 1950 to Feburary 7, 1951, but a unanimous Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the conviction, citing principally Judge Gregory Noonan's improper instruction to the jury of what constituted Communist party membership and his refusal to provide the defense with the minutes of the grand jury testimony of the government's star witness, Remington's former wife. Rather than retry the case, the government convened another grand jury and on October 25, 1951, secured a new five-count perjury indictment based on Remington's trial testimony.
After obtaining the grand jury minutes, Remington's attorneys unsuccessfully appealed to the United States Supreme Court to quash the indictment. The grand jury minutes revealed that Ann Remington had changed her testimony under pressure from the foreman, John Brunini (who had contracted to assist Bentley in writing a book). Without objection from the United States attorney, Brunini had threatened Ann Remington with a contempt citation, improperly telling her that she had no privilege to refuse to testify. The jury at the second trial found Remington guilty of perjury on two counts: swearing that he had not known of a Young Communist League chapter at Dartmouth and that he had not given Bentley classified material. Sentenced to three years in prison, Remington appealed this verdict, arguing that the manner in which the first indictment had been obtained prevented his being prosecuted for testimony made in his own defense.
On November 24, 1953, the Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Remington; and on Feburary 8, 1954, the United States Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari. Remington began serving his sentence at the Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, federal prison on April 15, 1953.
On November 22, 1954, he was brutally beaten by two fellow inmates who were, the FBI said, ransacking his cell. He died two days later.
( The Making of Modern Law: U.S. Supreme Court Records an...)
(In 1948, William W. Remington was one of the bright young...)
By 1948, when Truman's loyalty program began, Remington was no security risk, being an anti-Communist and a moderate in economic philosophy. Attracted to radicalism as a youth, he was an ambitious young man who sought to salvage his reputation by on some occasions dissembling about his association with Bentley and affirming his anti-Communism. He was thus vulnerable to the anti-Communist politics and priorities of the early years of the cold war.
Remington married Ann Moos on November 28, 1938; they had two children. They divorced in 1949. His second wife was Jane Alben.
