Court Opinion

ID: 9639006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:01:24.875307+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:01.809300
License: Public Domain

The Mekits.
The points remaining for discussion go to the heart of the case, involving as they do the nature and elements of the crime of treason under our constitutional and statutory definition, the sufficiency of the overt acts alleged and proved, and an inquiry into what constitutes the specific “intent to betray” which is an ingredient of the offense. In our consideration of these matters, w:e have had borne in upon us the truth of an observation by the Supreme Court in Cramer v. United States, 325 US.. at pages 46, 47, 65 S.Ct. at page 940, 89 L.Ed. 1441: “The framers’ effort to compress into two sentences the law of one of the most intricate of crimes gives a superficial appearance of clarity and simplicity which proves illusory when it is put to practical application. There are few subjects on which the temptation to utter abstract interpretative generalizations is greater or on which they are more to be distrusted. The little clause is packed with controversy and difficulty. The offense is one of subtlety, and it is easy to demonstrate lack of logic in almost any interpretation by hypothetical cases, to which real treasons rarely will conform.” We shall, therefore, try to say enough to decide the case before us, without being too much disturbed by our doubts as to the proper answer to some of the hypothetical cases advanced in argument.

(a) Sufficiency of the Overt Acts.

Appellant’s basic objection to the sufficiency of the overt acts in the case at bar is that mere words, the expression of opinions and ideas for the purpose of influencing people, cannot constitute an overt act of treason; that appellant had a right to broadcast, or otherwise disseminate to the American people, the ideas which coincided with the Nazi propaganda line; and that therefore his preliminary steps to that end — his attendance at conferences of commentators, his preparation of commentaries, his speaking into a microphone to make recordings — cannot be treasonable acts.
There are occasional statements to be found in the books to the effect that mere words cannot amount to an overt act of *938treason. Thus, Mr. Justice Nelson, in a Charge To The Grand Jury reported in 30 Fed.Cas. page 1034, at 1035, No. 18,271 (C.C.S.D.N.Y.1861), said: “Words oral, written or printed, however treasonable, seditious or criminal of themselves, do not constitute an overt act of treason, within the definition of the crime.” In Wimmer v. United States, 6 Cir., 1920, 264 F. 11, 12, 13, the court said: “It is well settled that one cannot, by mere words, be guilty of treason.” See also United States v. Werner, D.C.E.D.Pa.1918, 247 F. 708. That is true'in the sense that the mere utterance of disloyal sentiments is not treason; aid and comfort must ¡be given to the enemy. But the communication of an idea, whether by speech or writing, is as much an act as is throwing a brick, though different muscles are used to achieve different effects. One may commit treason by conveying military intelligence to the enemy, though the only overt act is the speaking of words. Other cases may readily be imagined where the speaking of words might constitute treason. Thus, suppose an ' enemy agent in this country, whose assigned mission was to defeat the consummation of a scientific research project of vital importance to the war effort, bribed and seduced a distinguished American scientist, a consultant in the project, to give an opinion that the work was proceeding on the wrong lines and to suggest procedures which he knew would lead the project down a blind alley: We take it that the scientist in such a case could be convicted of treason, for deliberately giving aid to the enemy agent in steps essential to the consummation of his hostile mission, though the only overt acts were expressing purported scientific opinions. The significant thing is not so much the character of the act which in fact gives aid and comfort to the enemy, but whether the act is done with an intent to betray. In Cramer v. United States, supra, 325 U.S. at page 29, 65 S.Ct. at page 932, 89 L.Ed. 1441, the Court said:
“On the other hand, a citizen may take actions which do aid and comfort the enemy — making a speech critical of the government or opposing its measures, profiteering, striking in defense plants or essential work, and the hundred other things which impair our cohesion and diminish our strength — but if there is no adherence to the enemy in this, if there is no intent to betray, there is no treason.” [Italics added.]
We have not overlooked a possible constitutional limitation upon treason prosecutions for the making of critical speeches. “We do not lose our right to condemn either measures or men because the country is at war.” Frohwerk v. United States, 1919, 249 U.S. 204, 208, 39 S.Ct. 249, 251, 63 L.Ed. 561. Chandler owed allegiance to the political entity the United States, not to the person of the President nor to the party in power for the time being. The framers of the Constitution, in drafting the restrictive language of the treason clause, apparently had in mind to eliminate the historic misuse of treason prosecutions as an oppressive instrument of domestic political faction, as indicated in the study on “Treason in the United States” by Willard Hurst in 58 Harv.L.Rev. 395, 412 (1945) :
“What is suggested is that the historic policy restrictive of the scope of ‘treason’ under the Constitution was most consciously based on the fear of extension of the offense to penalize types of conduct familiar in the normal processes of the struggle for domestic political or economic power. The sale of provisions to an enemy in wartime, or the conveying of intelligence to him, or the proffer of counsel and assistance to his agents, are types of conduct quite distinct from activities of a sort to which political opponents or economic groups would normally resort in their efforts to influence public policy. There is less danger that charges of this type could, in view of the sharply defined character of the conduct in question, he used to suppress free competition for the power to direct the policies of the republic.”
Thus, a citizen, in the exercise of his ordinary political rights may — intemperately as he pleases — criticize the President for getting the country into war, hold up to ridicule the bungling and incompetence with which our civilian and military leaders are conducting the war, express the view that we cannot possibly win the war, *939and that the thing to do is to vote in a new administration which will negotiate a peace on the best terms obtainable and save the country from a greater disaster. The speech may tend to weaken our country in its war effort by inducing divided counsels and a spirit of defeatism, and in that sense may be of aid and comfort to the enemy. Such, indeed, 'might be the speaker’s purpose. But if it be assumed that the utterance in the case supposed would not be treason, whatever the speaker’s purpose, the immunity would be afforded, not to encourage treasonable efforts to aid in the enemy’s triumph, but in order that, in the course of the normal activities of political opposition, the expression of honest criticism and sincere conviction as to what is best for the country may not be fettered by fear of a jury’s finding of traitorous purpose in the passion and tumult of a subsequent prosecution for treason. Assuming that the utterances in the case supposed would not be treason, they might still be punished as sedition, subject to the requirement of the First Amendment that the utterances must be in such circumstances and of such a nature “as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.” Schenck v. United States, 1919, 249 U.S. 47, 52, 39 S.Ct. 247, 249, 63 L.Ed. 470.
In the present case, however, it cannot be said that what Chandler did was merely exercising his right of free speech in the normal processes of domestic political opposition. He trafficked with the enemy and as their paid agent collaborated in the execution of a program of psychological warfare designed by the enemy to weaken the power of the United States to wage war successfully. We have found no indication of a reluctance on the part of the framers of the Constitution to punish as treason any breach of allegiance involving actual dealings with the enemy, provided the case is established by the required two-witness proof.
It is preposterous to talk about freedom of speech in this connection; the case cannot be blown up into a great issue of civil liberties.
What we already have said is perhaps sufficient to indicate the answer to a related argument by appellant, that “If words can be acts of treason, they must at le.ast meet the test of ‘clear and present danger’ established iti the sedition cases” as a deduction from the First Amendment. Trafficking with the enemy, in whatever form, is wholly outside the shelter of the. First Amendment. Congress may make criminal any type of dealing with the enemy which in its judgment 'may have the potentiality of harm to our national interests, including acting as a commentator on the enemy’s short wave station. Conviction could be had under such a criminal statute whether or not the prohibited acts, in the particular case, actually created any clear and present danger of substantial harm to the United States.
The concluding portion of the treason clause provides: “No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.” As observed in the Cramer case, 325 U.S. at pages 47, 48, 65 S.Ct. at page 941, 89 L.Ed. 1441: “It is not difficult to find grounds upon which to quarrel with this constitutional provision. Perhaps the framers placed rather more reliance on direct testimony than modern researches in psychology warrant. Or it may be considered that such a quantitative measure of proof, such a mechanical calibration of evidence is a crude device at best or that its protection of innocence is too fortuitous to warrant so unselective an obstacle to conviction.” However that may be, the salutary purpose of this evidentiary obstacle was to minimize the danger of convicting the innocent. The nature of the crime is such that prosecutions for treason were thought likely to be conducted in a virulent atmosphere, with the triers of the facts all too prone to infer the commission of an overt act from circumstantial evidence. Not only was direct testimony required, but direct testimony of two witnesses, and they had to be “two Witnesses to the same overt Act”. The two-witness rule must be applied in the light of its underlying policy.
Sometimes the overt act charged may be a single isolated act, such as dis*940closure of battle plans to- an enemy agent. In such case the overt act must be proved by the direct testimony of two witnesses who heard the conversation between the accused and the enemy agent. Sometimes, as in the case at bar, the treason may consist of a course of conduct in a single treasonable enterprise. In Haupt v. United States, 1947, 330 U.S. 631, 640, 67 S.Ct. 874, 878, 91 L.Ed. 1145, the Court said:
"And while two witnesses must testify to the same act, it is not required that their testimony be identical. Most overt acts are not single, separable acts, but are combinations of acts or courses of conduct ■made up of several elements. It is not easy to set by metes and bounds the permissible latitude between the testimony of the two required witnesses.” [Italics added.]
May such treasonable “course of con-, duct” be established by the direct testimony of two or more witnesses, though no two witnesses could testify to the same atomized element of the course of conduct ?
We have no doubt that treason may be predicated upon collaboration as an enemy agent in the execution of a program of psychological warfare beamed to the United States over the enemy’s short wave radio. That being so, the case against Chandler has been established by the most satisfactory and overwhelming proof. There is no possibility that he has been convicted of something he did not do. The contracts of employment which he executed are in evidence. Not two, but half a dozen or more witnesses testified of their personal knowledge to his continuous day-by-day participation in the work of the short wave station — attendance at conferences to receive directives as to the current propaganda line, the preparation of manuscripts for his regular Paul Revere broadcasts, and the submission of them subsequently for censorship, collaboration occasionally with other employees of the short wave station in the preparation of special programs to be broadcast jointly, the making of recordings for subsequent broadcasts, etc. The authenticity of the twelve sample Paul Revere recordings introduced into evidence was established by competent testimony, and is not challenged by the defendant. In a statement prepared and signed by Chandler after he was brought back to this country, which statement was received in evidence without objection, he tells the story of his employment as a commentator on the short wave station, though of course he protests that in all he did he was actuated by patriotic motives.
It has been assumed by the Government that the two-witness rule required the prosecution to break down the continuous course of conduct into its separate episodic elements and to produce two witnesses to the same element — for instance, two witnesses who could testify that they saw and heard Chandler make a recording on a particular identified occasion. For the reasons suggested above, and bearing in mind the underlying policy sought to be served by the two-witness rule, we are not sure that the requirement was as exacting as the Government has supposed. Two-witness proof that Chandler made a recording on an identified occasion does not render any more convincing the already, indubitable case in support of the generalized charge in the indictment that “the aforesaid adherence of said defendant, Douglas Chandler, and the giving of aid and comfort by him to the aforesaid enemies of the United States during the period aforesaid consisted of working as a radio speaker and commentator in the U.S.A. Zone of the short wave .station of the German Radio Broadcasting Company, a company controlled by the German Government, which work included the preparation and composition of commentaries, speeches, talks and announcements, and the recording thereof for subsequent broadcast by radio from Germany to the United States”. Two-witness proof of the fragmented elements of Chandler’s course of conduct only adds a burden to the prosecution in the nature of an empty technicality.
But we .shall assume, without deciding, that that burden did rest upon the prosecution. It then becomes necessary to examine the ten overt acts submitted to the jury, in the light of the statement in the Cramer case, 325 U.S. at page 34, 65 S.Ct. at page 934, 89 L.Ed. 1441, that “The very minimum function that an overt act must perform in a treason prosecution is that it *941shows sufficient action by the accused, in its setting, to sustain a finding that the accused actually gave aid and comfort to the enemy.”
Possibly the overt acts, viewed in rigid isolation and apart from their setting, would not indicate that they afforded aid and comfort to the enemy. But viewed in their setting, which is set forth above under the heading Factual Summary, they certainly take on incriminating significance. They then appear as typical routine activities of Chandler in fulfillment of the purpose of his continuous employment as radio commentator for the German Propaganda Ministry over a period of three years. The enemy’s mission which Chandler participated in forwarding — the objective of the German Short Wave radio program beamed to the United States — also appears as part of the setting. It was an obvious advantage to the enemy in the execution of that program to have the open assistance of a cultivated and widely traveled American citizen like Chandler.5 That the enemy deemed Chandler’s services to be of aid • and comfort is attested by the high salary which they paid him. These services consisted not merely of the culminating act of making a recording, but also of the necessary preliminary acts directed to that end. They were all part and parcel of the totality of aid and comfort given by the course of conduct as a whole. Attending a- conference of commentators, at the summons of the Chief of the U.S.A. Zone, in order that directives as to the current propa-' .ganda line might be relayed and discussed and individual assignments made, could reasonably be found to have been of aid and comfort to the enemy. The proof under overt acts 4 and 5 established Chandler’s participation in two such conferences. And certainly the making of recordings by Chandler, on the occasions proved under overt acts 17 and 18, warranted findings that Chandler gave aid and comfort to the enemy. The evidence under overt act 17 showed two recordings by Chandler on the same occasion: one a recording for his regular Paul Revere broadcasts, and another a recording of a special mixed program of poetry and music. The evidence under overt act 18 showed the making of a dialogue recording by Chandler and one Sittler, who was employed as a translator in the U.S.A. Zone.
 It is immaterial that the enemy mission as a whole, which defendant assisted, did not achieve its purpose. In Haupt y. United States, supra, one of the overt acts relied on was accompanying a known enemy saboteur to the house of the superintendent of an optical company for the purpose of assisting the saboteur to obtain employment as a step in the fulfillment of his hostile mission. See 7 Cir., 152 F.2d 771, at pages 774, 775. It did not appear that the. saboteur actually obtained the desired employment. He was apprehended a short time thereafter and his whole mission frustrated. Yet the overt act was deemed sufficient. The act “aided an enemy of the United States toward accomplishing his mission of sabotage. The mission was frustrated but defendant did his best to make it succeed.” 330 U.S. at page 644, 67 S.Ct. at page 880, 91 L.Ed. 1145. So, in the present case, it makes no difference how many persons in the United States heard or heeded Chandler’s broadcasts. It does not even matter whether the particular recordings proved under overt acts 17 and 18 were actually broadcast. Chandler’s service was complete with the making of the recordings, which thus became available to the enemy to use as it saw fit. It was no part of Chandler’s job to put the recordings on the air. His act of making the recording for the enemy is like giving to an enemy agent a paper containing military information, which would be a completed act of aid and comfort, though the enemy agent later lost the paper and thus never put the information to any effective use.
Appellant points out that the .witnesses who testified to the making of the Paul Revere recording referred to in overt act 17 were unable to recall the content of *942that particular recording. This is not surprising, since it was a routine performance which Chandler repeated two or three times a week during the whole period of his employment. But does the two-witness rule require the witnesses to negative the hypothesis, which might he conceived of by a highly imaginative person, that on that particular occasion Chandler called on the American people to redouble their efforts to rescue the freedom-loving peoples of Europe from Hitler’s monstrous tyranny? That would indeed be making a joke of the whole business. As stated in Haupt v. United States, 330 U.S. at page 640, 67 S.Ct. at page 878, 91 L.Ed. 1145, “it is not required that testimony be so minute as to exclude every fantastic hypothesis than can be suggested.” The overt act of making the Paul Revere recording was attested to by two witnesses; its incriminating character was illumined by the other evidence in the case, by the setting in which the act was done.6 It was thus perceived to be a participating act by Chandler meshed in with the psychological warfare being conducted by the German Short Wave Station.
Nor would it be of consequence if, in the particular recording testified to under overt act 17, Chandler confined his talk to cultural topics or to the reading of poetry. The radio programs devised by his superiors contained balanced elements of news, commentary, music and entertainment. This was necessary, as Chandler well appreciated, “in order to gain listener interest,” and to render the listeners more receptive to insinuation of the propagandist ideas.7 Though Chandler was hired by the enemy as a “commentator”, he was also fitted into the other parts of the program as seemed useful to his superiors from time to time.
It is not necessary to refer in detail to the evidence on the other overt acts submitted to the jury. -Since the jury returned special findings as to each of the overt acts, to the effect that it was “a treasonable act committed by the defendant Chandler with an intent to betray the United States”, it is enough if any one of the overt acts, in its setting, warranted .a finding that the accused actually gave aid and comfort to the enemy. See Haupt v. United States, 1947, 330 U.S. 631, 641 n. 1, 67 S.Ct. 874, 91 L.Ed. 1145.

(b) Intent to Betray.

Finally, we come to appellant’s argument relating to the “intent to betray”. This phrase does not appear in the constitutional or statutory definition of the crime, but is deduced from the concept of adherence to the enemy. Adherence to the enemy and an overt act giving aid and comfort to the enemy must both be present to make a treason under our law. Harboring disloyal sentiments is not enough. The mere expression of disloyal sentiments is not enough. There must be an overt act giving aid and comfort. Of course one may give aid and comfort to the enemy without an intent to betray, as where a citizen inno*943cently assists an enemy agent not knowing or suspecting him to be such.
Appellant’s main point on this branch of the case is that the district judge made an erroneous distinction between “intent” and “motive” in his charge to the jury, as follows :
“In the law of treason, like the law of lesser' crimes, every person is assumed to intend the natural consequences that he himself knows will result from his acts. And, in this case, if you find the defendant Chandler committed a voluntary act or acts which actually gave aid and comfort to the enemy and at that time and in his circumstances he knew, or with his knowledge had reason to know that the natural consequence of his act would be that aid and comfort would result to the enemy in the conduct of its war against the United States, you would be warranted in finding from the commission of the acts themselves that he intended to give aid and comfort to Germany, that he intended to adhere to the enemy, that he intended to strike at his own country and betray it and the fact that his motive might not have been to aid the enemy is no defense. In other words a person cannot do an act which he knows will give aid and comfort to the enemy and then attempt to disclaim criminal intent and knowledge by saying that one’s motive was not to aid the enemy.
“In the case on trial, if you find that this defendant voluntarily performed an act or acts which h,e knew would give aid and comfort to a country or its citizens or agents known to him to be enemies of the United States and that he intended by so doing to assist the enemy or injure the United States and betray his own country, he cannot avoid the consequences of his act by asserting that his motive was not to aid the enemy but was a desire to save the United States and the world from a Jewish or Bolshevist menace, or to obey a call, or to change the personnel of our government, or a desire for financial gain. Motive cannot negative an intent to betray, if you find the defendant had such an intent. Where a person has an intent to bring about a result which the law seeks to prevent, his motive is immaterial.”
We think the above charge stated the law with sufficient accuracy.
The argument is made that treason is a crime dependent upon the actor’s motives; that the jury should have been told that the defendant could not be found to have had an “intent to betray” if they believed that he acted from patriotic motives upon the sincere conviction that what he did was for the best interests of the United States. Appellant is surely wrong in that contention.
In the first place, consider the subtle task which would be imposed upon the jury by an inquiry of that kind. Appellant had become, as stated in his brief, “fanatically anti-Semitic”. What part did this factor play in his motivation? Man has a propensity for self-deceptive rationalization to justify to himself conduct which, deep down, proceeds from motives he would be reluctant to acknowledge. Did Chandler carefully inquire into the supposed facts upon which his intense views and opinions were based ? In weighing the evidence, did he make a conscious effort to discount the distorting influence of his prejudices, before arriving at his conclusions ? Whether Chandler was “sincere” in what he did, whether he had the heart of a patriot, is a matter that may be sifted out at the last Great Judgment Seat; but the law of treason is concerned with matters more immediate.
Furthermore, if appellant’s argument in this connection were sound, it would of course be applicable whatever might be the character of the overt acts of aid and comfort to the enemy. Suppose Chandler had obtained advance information of the Anglo-American plans for the invasion of North Africa and had passed the information on to the enemy. Would a treason prosecution fail if he could convince the jury that, in his fanatical and perhaps misguided way, he sincerely believed his country was on the wrong side of the war; that he sincerely believed his country’s ultimate good would be served t>y an early withdrawal from the war; that he sincerely believed that the best, perhaps the only, way to accomplish this good end was to bring it about that the first major military *944operation of the United States should be a resounding fiasco, thereby stimulating such a revulsion among the American people that the perfidious administration would be forced to negotiate a peace? It is hardly necessary to state the answer to that question.
When war breaks out, a citizen’s obligation of allegiance puts definite limits upon his freedom to act on his private judgment. If he trafficks with enemy agents, knowing them to be such, and being aware of their hostile mission intentionally gives them aid in steps essential to the execution of that mission, he has adhered to the enemies of his country, giving them aid and comfort, within our definition of treason. He is guilty of treason, whatever his motive. As stated in Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. at page 32, 65 S.Ct. at page 933, 89 L.Ed. 1441: “It may be doubted whether it would be what the founders intended, or whether it would well serve any of the ends they cherished, to hold the treason offense available to punish only those who make their treacherous intentions more evident than may be done by rendering aid and comfort to an enemy.”
The twelve sample recordings of Chandler’s Paul Revere broadcasts, to which we have made earlier reference, were introduced into evidence and played back to the jury on the issue whether Chandler had an intention to betray, and not in proof of the overt acts which were subject to the two-witness rule. The judge charged the jury “that these recordings that were played back in court can only be considered on the question of intent and not on the issue of aid and comfort. They cannot supply any deficiency with respect to two-witness proof on any of the overt acts submitted as possible acts of treason in the event you find such a deficiency.” Appellant asserts that it was prejudicial error to admit these recordings (though in connection with overt act 17 he complains that the content of that particular recording was not proven). In Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. at page 31, 65 S.Ct. at page 933, 89 L.Ed. 1441, the Court said:
“What is designed in the mind of an accused never is susceptible of proof by direct testimony. If we were to hold that the disloyal and treacherous intention must be proved by the direct testimony of two witnesses, it would be to hold that it is never provable. It seems obvious that adherence to the enemy, in the sense of a disloyal state of mind, cannot be, and is not required to be, proved by deposition of two witnesses.”
On the issue of intent, the prosecution was entitled to have the jury consider all the evidence admissible under the ordinary sanctions of verity having a rational bearing on what was in Chandler’s mind— which necessarily is a matter of inference. This includes what he did, and also what he said. The evidence was clearly admissible for the purpose stated. Haupt v. United States, supra, 330 U.S. at page 642, 67 S.Ct. at page 879, 91 L.Ed. 1145. We cannot say that the district court committed an abuse of discretion in admitting, the evidence.
On the evidence in its entirety, the jury could properly find that Chandler had an intent to betray the United States. It certainly appears that he wanted Germany to win the war, though it may be wondered just how this might be accomplished without the United States losing it. To one witness he remarked that “an American victory in Europe would endanger Western civilization in Europe, whereas a German victory in Europe would in no way harm the United States, it wouldn’t touch the United States.” To another witness he stated “that he thought it his mission to drift the United States out of the war.” Of course Chandler knew that he was dealing with enemy agents. He knew the hostile mission of the German Short Wave Station, and voluntarily hired himself to the enemy with the purpose of contributing to the execution of that hostile mission. And he did so contribute.
The trial judge correctly charged the jury as follows:
“The defendant Chandler, while domiciled in the German Reich, owed a qualified allegiance to it; he was obligated to obey its laws and he was equally amenable to punishment with citizens of that country if he did not do so. At the same time the *945defendant Chandler while residing in Germany during the period stated in the indictment, owed to his government full, complete, and true allegiance.”
The present case involves no problem of acts of aid and comfort performed under enemy duress. Chandler was not under enemy compulsion; upon the contrary it was he who sought employment with the Short Wave Station. Nor does the present case necessitate any detailed examination as to how far an American citizen, caught in an enemy country at the outbreak of war, may, in order to earn a living and without the stigma of treason, accept employment which in these days of total war might conceivably be of some aid in the enemy war effort. Here, as elsewhere in the law, there may be troublesome questions of degree. It is enough to say that in our opinion the present case falls clearly on the treasonable side of the line.
Our conclusion on the whole case is that appellant had a full and fair trial in a court of competent jurisdiction, with every safeguard to which he was by law entitled; that the verdict of guilty was well warranted by the evidence; and that there was no error in the proceedings.
The judgment is affirmed..

 Compare the remark of the Lord Chancellor in Joyce v. Director of Public Prosecutions, [1946] A.C. 347, 371, that “the special value to the enemy of appellant’s services as a broadcaster was that be should be represented as speaking as a British subject.”

 In the Haupt ease, the two witnesses testified to an overt act which to them was entirely innocent, namely, that the defendant accompanied his son to the house of a prospective employer to further the son’s application for employment. This act was shown to be a treasonable one by the other evidence in the case, indicating that the son, to the knowledge of the father, was an enemy agent bent on a mission of sabotage.

 The witness Wagner testified that in the latter part of 1942 he discussed with Chandler a program which Wagner was devising for a series of broadcasts to be directed to the American troops in North Africa. He later embodied the proposed program in a memorandum, which he showed to Chandler. Chandler stated that he would be interested in participating in the program by reading poetry. The memorandum stated that the main purpose of the program is “naturally not the entertainment of the opposing troops but to influence them through propaganda”, by arousing doubt, homesickness, fear for the future, and a belief that the United States is fighting on the wrong side. The memorandum stated that the program must be arranged so that it “does not ‘stink’ of propaganda to such an extent that it automatically arouses an antagonism”; that among other things it should contain plenty of good popular music, sentimental songs and “from time to time, good standard American poetry (Whitman, Tennyson, even Kipling) selected on the basis to arouse homesickness and the desire for peace”.