Nathan Witt
Encyclopedia
Nathan Witt was an American
lawyer
who is best known as being the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) from 1937 to 1940. He resigned from the NLRB after his communist
political leanings were exposed and he was accused of manipulating the Board's policies to favor his own political leanings, and was investigated several times in the late 1940s and 1950s for being a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. No evidence of espionage was ever found.
of New York City
. His father changed the family name to Witt shortly after his birth. His college education was interrupted several times by the need to earn a living, but he graduated in 1927 from New York University
.
Angered by what he perceived was the judicial mistreatment and illegal execution of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti
in 1927, he drove a taxi cab for two years to earn money for law school. He graduated from Harvard Law School
in 1932, specializing in labor law
. He attended Harvard shortly after Alger Hiss
had left the school, and he was a friend of Donald
, a Harvard Law classmate and Alger Hiss' younger brother.
recommended him for the job. According to accusers Whittaker Chambers
, Lee Pressman, and Elizabeth Bentley
, Witt—along with John Abt
, Charles Kramer
, Alger Hiss
, and Nathaniel Weyl
, among others—were part of the so-called "Ware group," a clandestine Communist Party USA
group formed by AAA economist Harold Ware
. Chambers also alleged that Witt became leader of the group after Ware died in an automobile accident in August 1935. Pressman said the men merely met to study and discuss left-wing
political theory, but Chambers described it as a Soviet
-controlled cell dedicated to committing espionage. Historian David M. Kennedy
, assessing a half-century's evidence about the case, concurred with Pressman's assessment in 2001.
There is widespread disagreement as to whether Witt was actually a Communist Party member or not. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. observed that Chambers never provided evidence of Witt's party membership (just uncorroborated accusation). Labor historian Leon Fink
agrees. Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein
, however, concluded that Witt "probably" was both a member of the Communist Party and held communist ideals. But historian Ronald Schatz has asserted that Witt's communist sympathies did "not necessarily" mean Party membership. Witt never hid his communist views, and made them well-known to others from his earliest days in the government. Chambers told Adolf A. Berle
, then Assistant Secretary of State, about Witt's involvement in the "Ware group" in 1939. Berle later said, "...to be blunt about it, Mr. Witt's statements and sympathies were so well known that what Mr. Chambers had said added nothing to anything that wasn't public knowledge at the time." William S. Leiserson, an NLRB Board member, knew Witt held communist beliefs almost from the first days after Leiserson joined the Board. There is general agreement among professional historians that Witt's communist views did not affect his work, nor did they change the outcome of any policy choices made by government agencies.
Witt joined the legal staff of the "first" National Labor Relations Board
in February 1934. The National Labor Relations Act
became law in June 1935, creating the "second" (permanent) NLRB. Witt was named the NLRB's assistant chief counsel in December 1935 He exerted a great deal of influence in the Review Section, the division of the NLRB which reviewed transcripts of NLRB hearings in labor disputes, revised transcripts to emphasize points of law, reviewed draft decisions of examiners for adherence to NLRB policy and law, and made oral reports to the three members of the Board. He chose (with the approval of the Board) the attorneys who staffed the Review Section, assigned cases to attorneys, and checked the drafts of Board decisions for technical accuracy. Witt recommended Pressman for a job as a trial examiner at the NLRB in 1936.
He was named Secretary (the highest nonappointed bureaucratic office at the NLRB) of the Board in October 1937. Due to the enormous workload and tremendous expansion in the number of personnel at the NLRB during this time, Witt became the agency's most powerful invidual. He attended Board meetings, took Board minutes, prepared and served Board decisions ordering union organizing elections, granted and denied requests for oral testimony from employers, oversaw each Board member's appointments, and administered the office and oversaw the staff of 250. He was the Board's chief liaison to Congress, and oversaw preparation and submission of the Board's budget. He was the sole supervisor of the Board's 22 regional offices, overseeing the roughly 225 personnel in the field. He alone exercised the authority to authorize a hearing in the case of unfair labor practice
(ULP) or election cases, and he alone reported on these cases (in oral, not written) fashion to the Board. Almost all correspondence, telephone contact, and telegraph contact between the regional offices and the Board passed through his office first, and his office collected nearly all the information coming in from the field regarding elections, ULPs, settlements, strikes
, enforcement issues, informational inquiries, and the development of new policies.
Witt's communist views were the cause of much dispute within the NLRB, and eventually led to his resignation as Board Secretary. The NLRB was under intense legal, media, congressional, and public criticism in 1938 and 1939 for what many people saw as overreaching. In July 1939, the House of Representatives
created the Special Committee to Investigate the National Labor Relations Board (popularly known as the "Smith Committee" after its chairman, conservative Democratic
Rep. Howard W. Smith
) to investigate the NLRB. The Smith Committee received testimony from hundreds of witnesses, conducted a nationwide survey regarding the impact of the NLRB, and questioned NLRB officials at length about the agency's alleged anti-business and anti-American Federation of Labor
/pro-Congress of Industrial Organizations
biases. In December 1939, Board Member Leiserson testified that he believed Witt held too much power at the NLRB, that Witt had influenced the NLRB's decisions in favor of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), and that Witt's far-left views were unacceptable. Leiserson testified that he had repeatedly voiced his concerns to Board Chairman J. Warren Madden
, but that Madden and Board member Edwin S. Smith had allied to prevent any attempt to rein Witt in or fire him. Later testimony revealed that an internal NLRB study had backed Leiseron and that Madden and Smith had suppressed it, and that Witt had assisted Madden in secretly building public and expert support for the NLRB (expending federal funds in lobbying against Congress). Madden attempted to defend Witt. But by September 1940, the Smith Committee was accusing other NLRB employees, such as chief economist David J. Saposs
, of harboring communist ideas. It was clear that neither Madden nor Witt could continue at the NLRB much longer. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
named University of Chicago
economics professor Harry A. Millis
to be the new chairman of the NLRB in November 1940 after Madden's term on the Board expired in August. Witt resigned from the NLRB on November 18, 1940, although his resignation was not accepted until after Millis was sworn in on November 27. He ended his work at the Board on December 10. Later that month, Witt joined Board member Edwin S. Smith, former Board associate general counsel Thomas I. Emerson, and four other NLRB attorneys in denying Smith Committee testimony that they were members of the Communist Party or had followed the CPUSA line in their work.
(founder of the National Lawyers Guild
) to form the law partnership of Witt & Cammer. Later joined by Lee Pressman to become Pressman, Witt & Cammer, the firm became one of the most prominent left-wing labor law firms in the country. He briefly represented the Steel Workers Organizing Committee
(which would later become the United Steel Workers of America) in 1941. In 1955, he left the firm to become legal counsel to the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers
. When the union merged with and became a division of the United Steel Workers in the 1960s, Witt was retained as associate counsel for the new division.
Witt was involved in numerous labor union disputes and labor-related free speech cases in the 1940s and 1950s. He represented members of the College Teachers Union (a predecessor to the modern Professional Staff Congress union at the City College of New York
) when they were accused in 1941 of being communists by the Rapp-Coudert Committee
. He briefly served as legal counsel to the International Fur & Leather Workers Union
in 1944 in a major due process case. He was the lead attorney for the Seamen's Joint Action Committee, a CIO-backed insurgent group which allied with three CIO longshoremen's
unions to challenge International Longshoremen's Association
president Joseph Ryan. He also represented several members of the Teachers Union who had been accused of being communists in 1950 and 1952. (At the time, the Teachers Union was a local union representing New York City public schools teachers. It had been ejected by the American Federation of Teachers
for being communist-controlled, and in the 1950s was part of the United Public Workers of America
. It would later rejoin the American Federation of Teachers in the early 1960s and merge with another local to become the United Federation of Teachers
.)
In 1950, the U.S. State Department
revoked singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson
's passport as a means of preventing him from traveling overseas and continuing his left-wing political work. Witt was Robeson's first attorney and initiated Robeson's eight-year battle to regain his passport.
(HUAC), Whittaker Chambers named Witt as a member of the "Ware Group." When called before a one-man subcommittee of HUAC (whose sole member was Rep. Richard Nixon
) on August 20, Witt denied knowing "J. Peters
" (ostensibly the head of the Soviet Union's political operations in the United States), Chambers, or Alger Hiss. He did, however, identify "George Crosley" (a freelance magazine writer he'd known in 1934 and 1935) from a photograph. ("George Crosley" was one of Chambers' many aliases at the time Chambers was a member of the Communist Party.) Witt invoked his Fifth Amendment
right against self-incrimination by refusing to say whether he'd been a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) or the "Ware group" at the AAA. Lee Pressman, also testifying that day, forced the subcommittee to admit that it was not accusing the men of espionage
but rather being communists seeking to infiltrate the government (which was not a crime). A few weeks later, former Daily Worker
editor turned anti-communist Louis F. Budenz
testified that the CPUSA considered Witt a member. Federal law enforcement officials debated prosecuting Witt in late 1948—not for being a communist, a spy, or for committing espionage, but under a contempt of Congress
charge for asserting his Fifth Amendment rights before the committee and refusing to answer its questions. But no prosecution was ever made. Witt later testified in February 1949 before a federal grand jury
investigating illegal CPUSA activities in the United States.
Testifying again before HUAC in 1950, Lee Pressman named Witt as a member of the CPUSA and the "Ware group." Speaking before a HUAC subcommittee on September 1, Witt once more denied that he had engaged in espionage, again invoked his Fifth Amendment privileges when asked about his CPUSA and "Ware group" membership, and refused to say whether he knew Chambers, Elizabeth Bentley, or scores of others.
In February 1952, writer Nathaniel Weyl named Witt as a "Ware group" member before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security
.
Witt's last appearance before Congress came in 1955. Harvey Matusow
, former CPUSA member, had previously testified before Congress against his former comrades. However, in 1954, Matusow published a book, False Witness, in which he recanted his anti-communist testimony. In April 1955, the Subcommittee on Internal Security learned that Witt had obtained a cash donation from the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union to help Matusow get his book published. Witt was called before the Subcommittee on Internal Security on April 18 to testify about his involvement in the Matusow affair. Witt freely admitted his legal role in obtaining the publication fee. Senator James O. Eastland, subcommittee chair, then implied there was something suspicious about Witt's real name being Wittowsky. Witt engaged in a shouting match with Eastland, accusing the senator of antisemitism. Witt denied he had anything to hide. Eastland demanded to know about his membership in the CPUSA and the "Ware group," and Witt invoked his Fifth Amendment rights again. When a subcommittee member asked Witt if he had sent white lilies to Whittaker Chambers (implying that this constituted a death threat), Witt categorically denied doing so.
Witt died on February 16, 1982, at Rockefeller University Hospital in Manhattan
in New York City
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
who is best known as being the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of...
(NLRB) from 1937 to 1940. He resigned from the NLRB after his communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
political leanings were exposed and he was accused of manipulating the Board's policies to favor his own political leanings, and was investigated several times in the late 1940s and 1950s for being a spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. No evidence of espionage was ever found.
Early life
Nathan Wittowsky was born February 11, 1903, into a Jewish family on the Lower East SideLower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. His father changed the family name to Witt shortly after his birth. His college education was interrupted several times by the need to earn a living, but he graduated in 1927 from New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
.
Angered by what he perceived was the judicial mistreatment and illegal execution of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
in 1927, he drove a taxi cab for two years to earn money for law school. He graduated from Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
in 1932, specializing in labor law
United States labor law
United States labor law is a heterogeneous collection of state and federal laws. Federal law not only sets the standards that govern workers' rights to organize in the private sector, but also overrides most state and local laws that attempt to regulate this area. Federal law also provides more...
. He attended Harvard shortly after Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official...
had left the school, and he was a friend of Donald
Donald Hiss
-Biography:Donald Hiss was born on December 15, 1906, in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University and the Harvard Law School....
, a Harvard Law classmate and Alger Hiss' younger brother.
Government career
Witt joined the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) in July 1932. His friend Lee PressmanLee Pressman
Lee Pressman was a labor attorney and a US government functionary publicly exposed in 1948 for having been a spy for the Soviet foreign intelligence network during the middle 1930s...
recommended him for the job. According to accusers Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
, Lee Pressman, and Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Bentley
Elizabeth Terrill Bentley was an American spy for the Soviet Union from 1938 until 1945. In 1945 she defected from the Communist Party and Soviet intelligence and became an informer for the U.S. She exposed two networks of spies, ultimately naming over 80 Americans who had engaged in espionage for...
, Witt—along with John Abt
John Abt
John Jacob Abt was an American lawyer and politician. He spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA ....
, Charles Kramer
Charles Kramer
Charles Kramer, originally Charles Krevisky, was an American economist who worked for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his brain trust. Among other contributions, he wrote the original idea for the Point Four Program. He also worked for several congressional committees and hired...
, Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss was an American lawyer, government official, author, and lecturer. He was involved in the establishment of the United Nations both as a U.S. State Department and U.N. official...
, and Nathaniel Weyl
Nathaniel Weyl
Nathaniel Weyl was an American economist and author who wrote on a variety of social issues. A member of the Communist Party of the United States from 1933 until 1939, after leaving the party he became a conservative and avowed anti-communist...
, among others—were part of the so-called "Ware group," a clandestine Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
group formed by AAA economist Harold Ware
Harold Ware
Harold Maskell "Hal" Ware was an American Marxist regarded as one of the Communist Party's top experts on agriculture....
. Chambers also alleged that Witt became leader of the group after Ware died in an automobile accident in August 1935. Pressman said the men merely met to study and discuss left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
political theory, but Chambers described it as a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
-controlled cell dedicated to committing espionage. Historian David M. Kennedy
David M. Kennedy (historian)
David M. Kennedy is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning historian specializing in American history. He is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University and the Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West...
, assessing a half-century's evidence about the case, concurred with Pressman's assessment in 2001.
There is widespread disagreement as to whether Witt was actually a Communist Party member or not. Historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. observed that Chambers never provided evidence of Witt's party membership (just uncorroborated accusation). Labor historian Leon Fink
Leon Fink (historian)
Leon Fink is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A historian, his research and writing focuses on labor unions in the United States, immigration and the nature of work...
agrees. Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein
Nelson Lichtenstein
Nelson Lichtenstein is a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy...
, however, concluded that Witt "probably" was both a member of the Communist Party and held communist ideals. But historian Ronald Schatz has asserted that Witt's communist sympathies did "not necessarily" mean Party membership. Witt never hid his communist views, and made them well-known to others from his earliest days in the government. Chambers told Adolf A. Berle
Adolf A. Berle
Adolf Augustus Berle, Jr. was a lawyer, educator, author, and U.S. diplomat. He was the author of The Modern Corporation and Private Property, a groundbreaking work on corporate governance, and an important member of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's "Brain Trust".-Childhood, Education, and...
, then Assistant Secretary of State, about Witt's involvement in the "Ware group" in 1939. Berle later said, "...to be blunt about it, Mr. Witt's statements and sympathies were so well known that what Mr. Chambers had said added nothing to anything that wasn't public knowledge at the time." William S. Leiserson, an NLRB Board member, knew Witt held communist beliefs almost from the first days after Leiserson joined the Board. There is general agreement among professional historians that Witt's communist views did not affect his work, nor did they change the outcome of any policy choices made by government agencies.
Witt joined the legal staff of the "first" National Labor Relations Board
National Labor Board
The National Labor Board was an independent agency of the United States Government established on August 5, 1933 to handle labor disputes arising under the National Industrial Recovery Act .-Establishment, structure and procedures:...
in February 1934. The National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
became law in June 1935, creating the "second" (permanent) NLRB. Witt was named the NLRB's assistant chief counsel in December 1935 He exerted a great deal of influence in the Review Section, the division of the NLRB which reviewed transcripts of NLRB hearings in labor disputes, revised transcripts to emphasize points of law, reviewed draft decisions of examiners for adherence to NLRB policy and law, and made oral reports to the three members of the Board. He chose (with the approval of the Board) the attorneys who staffed the Review Section, assigned cases to attorneys, and checked the drafts of Board decisions for technical accuracy. Witt recommended Pressman for a job as a trial examiner at the NLRB in 1936.
He was named Secretary (the highest nonappointed bureaucratic office at the NLRB) of the Board in October 1937. Due to the enormous workload and tremendous expansion in the number of personnel at the NLRB during this time, Witt became the agency's most powerful invidual. He attended Board meetings, took Board minutes, prepared and served Board decisions ordering union organizing elections, granted and denied requests for oral testimony from employers, oversaw each Board member's appointments, and administered the office and oversaw the staff of 250. He was the Board's chief liaison to Congress, and oversaw preparation and submission of the Board's budget. He was the sole supervisor of the Board's 22 regional offices, overseeing the roughly 225 personnel in the field. He alone exercised the authority to authorize a hearing in the case of unfair labor practice
Unfair labor practice
In United States labor law, the term unfair labor practice refers to certain actions taken by employers or unions that violate the National Labor Relations Act and other legislation...
(ULP) or election cases, and he alone reported on these cases (in oral, not written) fashion to the Board. Almost all correspondence, telephone contact, and telegraph contact between the regional offices and the Board passed through his office first, and his office collected nearly all the information coming in from the field regarding elections, ULPs, settlements, strikes
Strike action
Strike action, also called labour strike, on strike, greve , or simply strike, is a work stoppage caused by the mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually takes place in response to employee grievances. Strikes became important during the industrial revolution, when mass labour became...
, enforcement issues, informational inquiries, and the development of new policies.
Witt's communist views were the cause of much dispute within the NLRB, and eventually led to his resignation as Board Secretary. The NLRB was under intense legal, media, congressional, and public criticism in 1938 and 1939 for what many people saw as overreaching. In July 1939, the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
created the Special Committee to Investigate the National Labor Relations Board (popularly known as the "Smith Committee" after its chairman, conservative Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Rep. Howard W. Smith
Howard W. Smith
Howard Worth Smith , Democratic U.S. Representative from Virginia, was a leader of the conservative coalition who supported both racial segregation and women's rights.-Early life and education:...
) to investigate the NLRB. The Smith Committee received testimony from hundreds of witnesses, conducted a nationwide survey regarding the impact of the NLRB, and questioned NLRB officials at length about the agency's alleged anti-business and anti-American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
/pro-Congress of Industrial Organizations
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
biases. In December 1939, Board Member Leiserson testified that he believed Witt held too much power at the NLRB, that Witt had influenced the NLRB's decisions in favor of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), and that Witt's far-left views were unacceptable. Leiserson testified that he had repeatedly voiced his concerns to Board Chairman J. Warren Madden
J. Warren Madden
J. Warren Madden, born Joseph Warren Madden, was an American lawyer, judge, civil servant, and educator. He served on the United States Court of Claims and was the first Chair of the National Labor Relations Board...
, but that Madden and Board member Edwin S. Smith had allied to prevent any attempt to rein Witt in or fire him. Later testimony revealed that an internal NLRB study had backed Leiseron and that Madden and Smith had suppressed it, and that Witt had assisted Madden in secretly building public and expert support for the NLRB (expending federal funds in lobbying against Congress). Madden attempted to defend Witt. But by September 1940, the Smith Committee was accusing other NLRB employees, such as chief economist David J. Saposs
David J. Saposs
David Joseph Saposs was an American economist, historian, and civil servant. He is best known for being the chief economist of the National Labor Relations Board from 1935 to 1940.-Early life:...
, of harboring communist ideas. It was clear that neither Madden nor Witt could continue at the NLRB much longer. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
named University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
economics professor Harry A. Millis
Harry A. Millis
Harry Alvin Millis was an American civil servant, economist, and educator and who was prominent in the first four decades of the 20th century. He was a prominent educator, and his writings on labor relations were described at his death by several prominent economists as "landmarks"...
to be the new chairman of the NLRB in November 1940 after Madden's term on the Board expired in August. Witt resigned from the NLRB on November 18, 1940, although his resignation was not accepted until after Millis was sworn in on November 27. He ended his work at the Board on December 10. Later that month, Witt joined Board member Edwin S. Smith, former Board associate general counsel Thomas I. Emerson, and four other NLRB attorneys in denying Smith Committee testimony that they were members of the Communist Party or had followed the CPUSA line in their work.
Private sector career
After leaving the NLRB, Witt joined with Harold I. CammerHarold I. Cammer
Harold I. Cammer was an American lawyer who co-founded the National Lawyers Guild. He was known for his participation in labor law, civil rights, peace and justice issues, and freedom of speech cases; in particular, defending those accused of communist leanings.-Early life:Cammer was born in June...
(founder of the National Lawyers Guild
National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild is an advocacy group in the United States "dedicated to the need for basic and progressive change in the structure of our political and economic system . ....
) to form the law partnership of Witt & Cammer. Later joined by Lee Pressman to become Pressman, Witt & Cammer, the firm became one of the most prominent left-wing labor law firms in the country. He briefly represented the Steel Workers Organizing Committee
Steel Workers Organizing Committee
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee was one of two precursor labor organizations to the United Steelworkers. It was formed by the CIO in 1936. It disbanded in 1942 to become the United Steel Workers of America....
(which would later become the United Steel Workers of America) in 1941. In 1955, he left the firm to become legal counsel to the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers
Western Federation of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners was a radical labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles...
. When the union merged with and became a division of the United Steel Workers in the 1960s, Witt was retained as associate counsel for the new division.
Witt was involved in numerous labor union disputes and labor-related free speech cases in the 1940s and 1950s. He represented members of the College Teachers Union (a predecessor to the modern Professional Staff Congress union at the City College of New York
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
) when they were accused in 1941 of being communists by the Rapp-Coudert Committee
Rapp-Coudert Committee
The Rapp-Coudert Committee was the colloquial name of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York — a committee of the New York State Legislature. The Rapp-Coudert Committee, which conducted its business from 1940 to 1942, sought to identify the...
. He briefly served as legal counsel to the International Fur & Leather Workers Union
International Fur & Leather Workers Union
The International Fur and Leather Workers Union , was a labor union that represented workers in the fur and leather trades. The IFLWU was founded in 1913 and affiliated with the American Federation of Labor ....
in 1944 in a major due process case. He was the lead attorney for the Seamen's Joint Action Committee, a CIO-backed insurgent group which allied with three CIO longshoremen's
Stevedore
Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer, wharfie and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country....
unions to challenge International Longshoremen's Association
International Longshoremen's Association
The International Longshoremen's Association is a labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways...
president Joseph Ryan. He also represented several members of the Teachers Union who had been accused of being communists in 1950 and 1952. (At the time, the Teachers Union was a local union representing New York City public schools teachers. It had been ejected by the American Federation of Teachers
American Federation of Teachers
The American Federation of Teachers is an American labor union founded in 1916 that represents teachers, paraprofessionals and school-related personnel; local, state and federal employees; higher education faculty and staff, and nurses and other healthcare professionals...
for being communist-controlled, and in the 1950s was part of the United Public Workers of America
United Public Workers of America
The United Public Workers of America was an American labor union representing federal, state, county, and local government employees which existed from 1946 to 1952. The union challenged the constitutionality of the Hatch Act of 1939, which prohibited federal executive branch employees from...
. It would later rejoin the American Federation of Teachers in the early 1960s and merge with another local to become the United Federation of Teachers
United Federation of Teachers
The United Federation of Teachers is the labor union that represents most educators in New York City public schools. , there were about 118,000 in-service educators and 17,000 paraprofessionals in the union, as well as about 54,000 retired members...
.)
In 1950, the U.S. State Department
United States Department of State
The United States Department of State , is the United States federal executive department responsible for international relations of the United States, equivalent to the foreign ministries of other countries...
revoked singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
's passport as a means of preventing him from traveling overseas and continuing his left-wing political work. Witt was Robeson's first attorney and initiated Robeson's eight-year battle to regain his passport.
More communist charges
On August 3, 1948, in testimony to the House Un-American Activities CommitteeHouse Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
(HUAC), Whittaker Chambers named Witt as a member of the "Ware Group." When called before a one-man subcommittee of HUAC (whose sole member was Rep. Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
) on August 20, Witt denied knowing "J. Peters
J. Peters
J. Peters was the most commonly known pseudonym of a man who last went by the name "Alexander Stevens" in 1949. Peters was an ethnic Jewish journalist and political activist who was a leading figure of the Hungarian language section of the Communist Party USA in the 1920s and 1930s...
" (ostensibly the head of the Soviet Union's political operations in the United States), Chambers, or Alger Hiss. He did, however, identify "George Crosley" (a freelance magazine writer he'd known in 1934 and 1935) from a photograph. ("George Crosley" was one of Chambers' many aliases at the time Chambers was a member of the Communist Party.) Witt invoked his Fifth Amendment
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is part of the Bill of Rights, protects against abuse of government authority in a legal procedure. Its guarantees stem from English common law which traces back to the Magna Carta in 1215...
right against self-incrimination by refusing to say whether he'd been a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) or the "Ware group" at the AAA. Lee Pressman, also testifying that day, forced the subcommittee to admit that it was not accusing the men of espionage
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
but rather being communists seeking to infiltrate the government (which was not a crime). A few weeks later, former Daily Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...
editor turned anti-communist Louis F. Budenz
Louis F. Budenz
Louis Francis Budenz was an American activist and writer, as well as a Soviet espionage agent and head of the Buben group of spies. He began as a labor activist and became a member of the Communist Party USA...
testified that the CPUSA considered Witt a member. Federal law enforcement officials debated prosecuting Witt in late 1948—not for being a communist, a spy, or for committing espionage, but under a contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically the bribery of a senator or representative was considered contempt of Congress...
charge for asserting his Fifth Amendment rights before the committee and refusing to answer its questions. But no prosecution was ever made. Witt later testified in February 1949 before a federal grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
investigating illegal CPUSA activities in the United States.
Testifying again before HUAC in 1950, Lee Pressman named Witt as a member of the CPUSA and the "Ware group." Speaking before a HUAC subcommittee on September 1, Witt once more denied that he had engaged in espionage, again invoked his Fifth Amendment privileges when asked about his CPUSA and "Ware group" membership, and refused to say whether he knew Chambers, Elizabeth Bentley, or scores of others.
In February 1952, writer Nathaniel Weyl named Witt as a "Ware group" member before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security
United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security
The Special Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, 1951-77, more commonly known as the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and sometimes the McCarran Committee, was authorized under S...
.
Witt's last appearance before Congress came in 1955. Harvey Matusow
Harvey Matusow
Harvey Matusow was a U.S. Communist who protected himself from HUAC by providing evidence against his former left-wing colleagues. His false accusations led to his own perjury conviction and to being blacklisted...
, former CPUSA member, had previously testified before Congress against his former comrades. However, in 1954, Matusow published a book, False Witness, in which he recanted his anti-communist testimony. In April 1955, the Subcommittee on Internal Security learned that Witt had obtained a cash donation from the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union to help Matusow get his book published. Witt was called before the Subcommittee on Internal Security on April 18 to testify about his involvement in the Matusow affair. Witt freely admitted his legal role in obtaining the publication fee. Senator James O. Eastland, subcommittee chair, then implied there was something suspicious about Witt's real name being Wittowsky. Witt engaged in a shouting match with Eastland, accusing the senator of antisemitism. Witt denied he had anything to hide. Eastland demanded to know about his membership in the CPUSA and the "Ware group," and Witt invoked his Fifth Amendment rights again. When a subcommittee member asked Witt if he had sent white lilies to Whittaker Chambers (implying that this constituted a death threat), Witt categorically denied doing so.
Retirement and death
Nathan Witt retired as associate counsel for the miners' division of the United Steel Workers in 1975.Witt died on February 16, 1982, at Rockefeller University Hospital in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.