Кеңес тыңшысы және АҚШ экономисі У.У. Ремингтонның тағдыры

Soviet spy in the United States
the economist

William Walter Remington (1917–1954) was an American economist who was employed in various federal government positions for the United States. His career was interrupted by accusations of espionage made by Elizabeth Bentley, a Soviet spy and defector. Remington was tried twice on different charges. He was convicted of perjury in connection with these charges in 1953. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison. He was murdered in Lewisburg prison in November 1954.

William Walter Remington was born on October 25, 1917, in New York City. He was raised in Ridgewood, New Jersey, by parents Lillian Maude Sutherland (1888 1969) and Frederick C. Remington (1870–1956). His father worked for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.; his mother was an art teacher in New York. Coming from a branch of the wealthy Remington family of Illion, New York, Remington's parents were demanding. The son developed a somewhat unconventional and flamboyant personality. From an early age, he was drawn to radical leftist politics, and declared to his friends when he was 15 that he was a Communist. During the Depression, numerous intellectuals were drawn to communism. In college, he became active with members of the Young Communist League, and later the Communist Party of the United States. In later testimony, Remington stated that while he was a Republican when he entered college, he "moved left quite rapidly" and became a radical but was never a Communist Party or Young Communist League member at Dartmouth. Whether or not he ever officially joined the party, later became a point of contention in his legal battles.

In March 1942 and continuing for two years, Remington had occasional meetings with Elizabeth Bentley at which he gave her information. This material included data on airplane production and other matters concerning the aircraft industry, as well as some information on an experimental process for manufacturing synthetic rubber. Remington later said that he was unaware that Bentley was connected with the Communist Party, that he believed she was a journalist and researcher, and that the information he gave her was not secret. But Bentley was a Communist and an espionage agent for the Soviet Union. In 1945 she broke with the Communists and became an informer for the FBI. She implicated a number of her contacts, including Remington. Bentley's revelations of Soviet espionage activities in the United States received a great deal of press attention. She identified more than 80 Americans—including several employees of government offices—as working for the Soviets, of whom only William Remington was still working in a government position. Acting on Bentley's information, the FBI began secret surveillance of Remington in late 1945. Remington was by this time disillusioned with communism and had broken off his relationships with radical organizations, so the investigation revealed nothing of interest. In 1946, Remington was working with the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. From there he transferred in March 1947 to a position with the President's Council of Economic Advisers, where he was paid an annual salary of $10,305. It cleared Remington to return to his government post. The libel suit was settled out of court shortly thereafter, with NBC paying Remington $10,000.

In 1950, the FBI and the federal grand jury in New York City reopened their investigations of Remington, and the House Un American Activities Committee (HUAC) opened a third. Because of continuing suspicions about him, Remington had been demoted at the Commerce Department. His once promising career in the Truman administration was stagnant. Ann Remington, now divorced from him, was subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury. She testified that her husband had been a dues paying member of the Communist Party, and that he had given secret information to Elizabeth Bentley while knowing that Bentley was a Communist. A few days later she recanted, and stated that she would claim marital privilege and refuse to testify against her ex husband in any trial. The grand jury decided to indict Remington for committing perjury when he denied ever being a member of the Communist Party.

Remington's first trial began in late December 1950. Roy Cohn, later to become famous as Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel and already a noted anti communist, joined the prosecution's legal team. "Elizabeth Bentley later supplied a wealth of detail about Remington's involvement with her and the espionage conspiracy. Remington's defense was that he had never handled any classified material, hence could not have given any to Miss Bentley. But she remembered all the facts about the rubber from garbage invention. We had searched through the archives and discovered the files on the process. We also found the aircraft schedules, which were set up exactly as she said, and inter office memos and tables of personnel which proved Remington had access to both these items. We also discovered Remington's application for a naval commission in which he specifically pointed out that he was, in his present position with the Commerce Department, entrusted with secret military information involving airplanes, armaments, radar, and the Manhattan Project (the atomic bomb)." During the trial eleven witnesses claimed they knew Remington was a communist. They included Elizabeth Bentley, Ann Remington, Professor Howard Bridgeman of Tufts University, Kenneth McConnell, a Communist organizer in Knoxville; Rudolph Bertram and Christine Benson, who worked with him at the Tennessee Valley Authority; and Paul Crouch, who claimed he provided Remington with copies of the southern edition of the communist newspaper, the Daily Worker. Ann Moos Remington reversed herself again and testified that her ex husband had been a Communist Party member and that he had knowingly given secret information to Elizabeth Bentley. Bentley testified, repeating her charge that Remington had given her secret information, saying with regard to the synthetic rubber formula, "He said to me that he thought that the Russians would need something very much like this." The prosecution also showed that Remington had handled secret documents that were somewhat similar to the aircraft production information that Bentley said she received from him. During the trial, the defense attorneys revealed that John Brunini, the foreman of the grand jury that indicted Remington, had a personal and financial relationship with Elizabeth Bentley and had agreed to co author a book with her. Remington was convicted after a seven week trial. Judge Gregory E. Noonan sentenced him to five years, the maximum for perjury. He noted that Remington's act of perjury had involved disloyalty to his country. Remington's conviction was celebrated by many. A Washington Daily News editorial said: "William W. Remington now joins the odiferous list of young Communist punks who wormed their way upward in the Government under the New Deal. He was sentenced to five years in prison, and he should serve every minute of it. In Russia, he would have been shot without trial." Remington's attorneys appealed the verdict. The judicial panel hearing the case included Judge Learned Hand, one of the United States' most eminent jurists. The conviction was overturned on the grounds that Judge Noonan's instructions to the jury were too vague as to exactly what constituted "membership" in the Communist Party, and a new trial was ordered. Hand also criticized grand jury foreman John Brunini and Thomas Donegan, the assistant to the Attorney General who directed the grand jury investigation, for Brunini's relationship with Bentley, and for "judicial improprieties" in their abusive treatment of both Ann and William Remington during questioning.

The government presented a new indictment, charging Remington with five counts of perjury based on his testimony during the first trial. The charge from the first trial, that he perjured himself when denying he had ever been a Communist Party member, was not included. The second Remington trial began in January 1953 with Judge Vincent L. Leibell presiding. It lasted eight days. The jury found Remington guilty of two counts, for lying when he said he had not given secret information to Elizabeth Bentley and that he did not know of the existence of the Young Communist League, which had a chapter at Dartmouth while Remington was a student there. Leibell sentenced Remington to three years in prison.

While his attorneys prepared another appeal, Remington began his sentence at Danbury Federal Correctional Institution. There he became friends with fellow prisoner, nonviolent action theorist Gene Sharp, before Remington was transferred to Lewisburg. The appeals court upheld the original verdict, and in February 1954, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The prison warden described it to Remington's second wife as "not a personal attack against Bill but just the actions of a couple of hoodlums who got all worked up by the publicity about Communists." The FBI said that robbery was the motive for the crime. His funeral was held in Ridgewood, New Jersey on November 28, 1954.

Press attention focused on whether more should have been done to protect Remington in prison, and whether his murder was motivated by anti communism. When Cagle confessed, the FBI instructed him to describe the crime as if he and McCoy had been trying to rob Remington. When McCoy confessed four days later, he said he hated Remington for being a Communist and denied any robbery motive. Worried that Cagle and McCoy's confessions might be ruled inadmissible and afraid that a jury would be sympathetic toward men who murdered a Communist, U. S. attorney J. Julius Levy later accepted pleas of second degree murder from McCoy, Cagle, and Parker. McCoy and Cagle both received life sentences, while Parker received a 20 year sentence.

Remington was married twice. He and Ann Moos had two children, daughter Galeyn and son Bruce, together. They divorced. Moos died in 2015. His second wife was Jane Alben, and they had a son Neil together. Jane Alben died in 1994.</blockquote>