page_title: Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders
section_title: 1949 trial
hierarchical_section_title: Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders / 1949 trial
caption_attribution_description: English: J. Edgar Hoover, head of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1961. Deutsch: J. Edgar Hoover, der wohl berühmteste und berüchtigste FBI-Direktor Italiano: John Edgar Hoover nel 1961 Polski: J. Edgar Hoover przez 48 lat stał na czele BOI, następnie od 1935 roku już FBI Svenska: John Edgar Hoover
context_page_description: The Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders in New York City from 1949 to 1958 were the result of US federal government prosecutions in the postwar period and during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. Leaders of the Communist Party of the United States were accused of violating the Smith Act, a statute that prohibited advocating violent overthrow of the government. The defendants argued that they advocated a peaceful transition to socialism, and that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech and of association protected their membership in a political party. Appeals from these trials reached the US Supreme Court, which ruled on issues in Dennis v. United States and Yates v. United States.
  The first trial of eleven communist leaders was held in New York in 1949; it was one of the lengthiest trials in United States history. Numerous supporters of the defendants protested outside the courthouse on a daily basis. The trial was featured twice on the cover of Time magazine. The defense frequently antagonized the judge and prosecution; five defendants were jailed for contempt of court because they disrupted the proceedings.
context_section_description: In July 1945, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover instructed his agents to begin gathering information on CPUSA members to support an analysis of the Party's subversive goals, leading to a 1,850-page report published in 1946 which outlined a case for prosecution. As the Cold War continued to intensify in 1947, Congress held a hearing at which the Hollywood Ten refused to testify about alleged involvement with the CPUSA, leading to their convictions for contempt of Congress in early 1948. The same year, Hoover instructed the Department of Justice to bring charges against the CPUSA leaders with the intention of rendering the Party ineffective. John McGohey, a federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, was given the lead role in prosecuting the case and charged twelve leaders of the CPUSA with violations of the Smith Act. The specific charges against the defendants were first, that they conspired to overthrow the US government by violent means, and second, that they belonged to an organization that advocated the violent overthrow of the government. The indictment, issued on June 29, 1948, asserted that the CPUSA had been in violation of the Smith Act since July 1945.  The twelve defendants, arrested in late July 1948, were all members of the National Board of the CPUSA:
  Benjamin J. Davis, Jr.  – Chairman of the CPUSA's Legislative Committee and Council-member of New York City
  Eugene Dennis – CPUSA General Secretary
  William Z. Foster – CPUSA National Secretary (indicted; but not tried due to illness)
  John Gates – Leader of the Young Communist League
  Gil Green – Member of the National Board (represented by A.J. Isserman)
  Gus Hall – Member of the CPUSA National Board
  Irving Potash – Furriers Union official
  Jack Stachel – Editor of the Daily Worker
  Robert G. Thompson – Lead of the New York branch of CPUSA
  John Williamson – Member of the CPUSA Central Committee (represented by A.J. Isserman)
  Henry Winston – Member of the CPUSA National Board
  Carl Winter  – Lead of the Michigan branch of CPUSA
  Hoover hoped that all 55 members of the CPUSA's National Committee would be indicted and was disappointed that the prosecutors chose to pursue only twelve. A week before the arrests, Hoover complained to the Justice Department – recalling the arrests and convictions of over one hundred leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1917 – "the IWW was crushed and never revived, similar action at this time would have been as effective against the Communist Party."
caption: J. Edgar Hoover initiated the case.
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