140                                                                                       FREEDOM IS AS FREEDOM DOES

In June of 1948 the National Councfl of American-Soviet
Friendship brought suit against the U.S. Attorney General and
the Loyalty Review Board to have the Council's name stiicken
from the hst of allegedly subversive organizations and to have
the designation pronounced unconstitutional and illegal. I and
several other officers of the National Council joined in the suit as
individuals in order to give it additional stiength. We claimed
that we had been damaged personally in our professional work
by the Attorney General's proscription of the organization.

The lower Federal Distiict Court in Washington, D.C. dis¬
missed the National Council's complaint on the grounds that no
justiciable issue was involved; and the U.S. Court of Appeals af¬
firmed this decision. However, in Aprfl 1951 the National Councfl
won a Hmited victory when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the
decision by declaring 5 to 3 that the organization did have a real
case that must be argued and answered. Joined with the Councfl
in this decision were the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee
and the International Workers Order.

The Supreme Court stated that the Attorney General and the
Loyalty Review Board had made "unauthorized publications of
admittedly unfounded designations of the complaining organiza¬
tions as 'Communist.' Their effect is to cripple the functioning and
damage the reputation of those organizations in their respective
communities and in the nation. The complaints, on that basis,
sufficiently charge that such acts violate each complaining organ¬
ization's common-law right to be free from defamation. . . .
Whether the complaining organizations are in fact communistic
or whether the Attorney General possesses information from which
he could reasonably find them to be so must await determination
by the Distiict Court upon remand." ^^''

This decision meant that the Attorney General had to show that
it was reasonable for him to put the National Council of Ameri¬
can-Soviet Friendship and the other two organizations on his
subversive list. The implication was also that these groups should
not remain upon the Hst unless and until the Attorney General
proved his case. But the various Federal agencies continued year