COMMUNISTS: Tight Hold

By the time the Smith Act trial of five St. Louis Communist leaders had ground through its 18th and final week, both prosecution and defense could agree on one point: the FBI has a tight hold on the U.S. Communist Party.

Early in the trial the defendants got a major shock when the U.S. called the Rev. Obadiah Jones as a prosecution witness. The Rev. Mr. Jones, Negro pastor of Mt. Tabor Baptist Church, was local chairman of the Communist Civil Rights Congress, and such a notorious Communist that the Baptist Ministerial Alliance had expelled him in 1953. Quietly, he testified...

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