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When he appeared before the committee this week he turned out to be a slight, bespectacled man named Alexander Koral, for more than 20 years a New York City school board engineer. The only thing he cracked was the committee's patience as he repeatedly refused to answer any questions on the constitutional ground that he might incriminate himself. Among the questions left hanging: Had he not once confessed spying for Russia?
The committee also hauled in droop-shouldered Victor Perlo, 36, named by Elizabeth Bentley as head of a spy ring. Of all the people named in the investigation to date, he acknowledged knowing only one: Harry Dexter White. Pale and squirming, he gulped hard at pertinent questions and, more than 40 times, refused to answer—on the ground that he might incriminate himself.
The committee got out its subpoenas for more witnesses.
*Peters, also known as Alexander Stevens and Isadore Boorstein, grew up in Communism in Bela Kun's regime in Hungary, is under a deportation order, has been hunted by the committee's subpoena-servers for almost a year. He is the author of the C.P.'s Manual of Organization.