(2 of 2)
Red Faces. Last Monday, after hearing on the radio that the U.S. Supreme Court had denied his final appeal, Soblen wrote identical letters to several Manhattan daily newspapers and the Nation. Headed "Why Am I Leaving America?," the letters claimed that he had been railroaded by the FBI and by a prosecuting attorney and a "hanging judge" who had "bullied the jury into a verdict of guilty." Soblen added a postscript ("How strange are the roads of justice") in which he maintained that his brother Jack had testified as chief accuser, even though he had been "certified insane." That night he bought his ticket and flew off.
Deeply chagrined by Soblen's flight was the FBI, which maintained lamely that it had not bothered to keep him under watch because he was a dying man and because nobody expected that he would leave his wife and well-wishers in the hole. (The FBI had not bothered to tail Convicted Communists Gus Hall or Gerhart Eisler either—and both skipped.) Just as shocked were the people who had stood up for Soblen in the face of public rejection. Benefactress Buttenwieser said that it "never occurred to me he'd run out." Snapped Soblen's attorney: "I think this was an indecent, dishonest thing for him to have done." At week's end Israel deported Soblen and sent him on his way back to the U.S.