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Yolanda Hall and Milton M. Cohen,
to test HUAC’s constitutional grounds
rather
than
answer
the
committee’s
questions. This refusal to submit to
questioning led to the contempt of Con-
gress charges.
Stamler, who is 48, is director of the
Heart Disease Control Program and
the Division of Adult Health and Ag-
ing for the city of Chicago. After the
indictment he was placed on inactive
status by the Chicago Board of Health
pending the outcomeof the case. Stam-
ler is also the executive director of the
Chicago Health Research Foundation,
the Board of Health’s. research arm, an
associate professor in the department
of medicine at Northwestern University
Medical School,
and Western Hemi-
sphere editor of the Journal of Atherosclerosis Research. He has published
more than 150 articles on diseases of
the heart and blood vessels and has
written several books since 1949, the
year he was licensed to practice medicine.
In May 1965, on the day he was
named to receive the Albert Lasker
Award in Medical Journalism for his
coauthorship of a series of articles on
the prevention of heart disease, Stamler
and Mrs. Hall, a research nutritionist
associated with him at the research
foundation, were subpoenaed to appear before the HUAC hearings. Along
with Cohen, a Chicago social worker,
they filed a civil suit against HUAC
on 24 May 1965, the day before the
hearings were to open. The suit, which
attempted to enjoin the hearings and
to have the committee’s enabling act
declared unconstitutional, was dismissed
as premature.
1967, the government announced its
intention of seeking indictments. Albert
E. Jenner, Jr., a well-known Chicago
attorney who was a senior counsel to
the Warren Commission, heads the
legal team working on Stamler’s, Mrs.
Hall’s, and Cohen’s behalf. Jenner
sought an injunction to halt the government action, but the request was
denied, and before review could be
sought, the government presented the
cases to a grand jury and obtained
criminal indictments.
As a result of the indictments, the
Chicago Board of Health, which had
given Stamler a vote of confidence
following the HUAC hearings, placed
him on inactive status, without salary,
pending the outcome of the contempt
proceedings. Eric Oldberg, president of
the
Chicago
Board
of Health,
told
Science in a telephone interview that
Stamler was placed on “inactive”
status rather than suspended—as Chicago rules demand when city employees are under indictment on
criminal charges—because Oldberg felt
there was less stigma attached to being
made inactive. Although Stamler is not
receiving his $21,800 annual salary
from the Board of Health, he does continue to receive his salary from the
privately operated Chicago Health Re-
search Foundation, of which Oldberg
is president. If Stamler is eventually
cleared of the contempt charge, he will
receive his back pay from the Chicago
Board of Health.
Second Suit Filed
Following the HUAC hearings in
Chicago, Jenner filed a second civil
Hall, and Cohen refused to testify at
suit, on 6 December 1965, against the
committee, That suit updated the first
civil action and described in detail
what had taken place before the subcommittee. The second suit requested a
judgment which would have declared
that the hearings were invalid, that the
subpoenas served on Stamler, Mrs.
addresses. As a consequence, the three
the committee’s enabling act was un-
Stamler, Mrs. Hall, and Cohen then
appeared during the HUAC hearings,
along with 13 other witnesses who had
been called. But unlike the 13, who
cited the Fifth Amendment as grounds
for refusing to testify. Stamler, Mrs.
all, except for giving their names and
were cited for contempt of Congress in
October 1966. HUAC never revealed
why they had been called. However,
their attorney contends
mittee was attempting to
from any involvement
activities by harassing
Stamler.
that the comdeter Mrs. Hall
in civil rights
both her and
For 9 months following the congressional
action the government did
nothing to secure criminal indictments
against the three. Then, on 7 July
8 DECEMBER 1967
Hall, and Cohen were invalid, and that
constitutional. Like the first suit, the
second was dismissed on the basis that
it involved certain ‘threshold’ questions.
Jenner immediately appealed the decision and consolidated the appeal ac-
tion with the appeal for the first suit.
What opened the door for the latest
judicial decision, challenging the com-
mittee to prove its constitutionality,
was a ruling on 10 November 1966 by
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Seventh Circuit, which overturned the
prior judgments by a lower court that
had dismissed the first and second civil
suits filed by Stamler, Mrs. Hall, and
Cohen.
On 9 November 1967, just one day
short of a year after the Court of Ap-
peals paved the way for the suits
against HUACto be heard, the three-
judge U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois unanimously denied a motion by HUAC to
dismiss the suit against it. The court
ordered HUAC’s members to file an
answer to the charges relating to the
committee’s constitutionality by 8 Jan-
uary 1968. The court also, with one
judge dissenting, ruled that the Attor-
ney Genera! of the United States and the
U.S. attorney for the Northern District
of Illinois be added as defendants to
the suit, along with the members of
HUAC.
Jenner, in a letter written to heart
surgeon Paul Dudley White, who is
chairman of Stamler’s Legal Aid Fund,*
noted on 22 November that the latest
“rulings are a milestone in this litigation. The House of Representatives
Committee on Un-American Activities
and the members are subject to being
called to testify at pre-trial depositions.”
To date, the costs in the various
suits brought by Stamler, Mrs. Hall,
and Cohen, and those in preparation
for their defense in the suits brought
against them, have run about $100,000
—an amountnearly equalto that raised
by more than 2000 sponsors of Stamler’s legal aid fund.
The criminal indictments against
Stamler and his fellow defendants have
been consolidated, but no trial date has
been set. On 12 January, a status report will be issued by the court, 4 days
later than HUACis supposed to answer
the charges brought against it in court.
Clearly, the outcome of the battle between Stamler and HUAC will rest
largely on the final action in the civil
suit. Jenner stated in his letter to White
that he hopes “eventually to obtain a
general order of continuance of the
criminal cases pending outcome of the
civil case.” If the civil case, in which
HUAC’s constitutional basis is challenged, is decided in favor of Stamler,
Mrs. Hall, and Cohen, there would appear to be little on which the contempt
of Congress charges could be based.—
—KATHLEEN SPERRY
*The Jeremiah Stamler, M.D. Legal Aid Fund,
Faculty Exchange Box 36, University of Chicago,
Chicago, Hlinois 60637.
1295