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The Pittsburgh Press SPORTS Pages 23-26 EDITORIALS Next Page Tuesday, July 9, 1974 Page 17 Life Turns Up For Lawyer-Victim Of McCarthy-Era Communist Purge 2 0 REb Ji 1951, convicted along with five other "second string Communist leaders" in April, 1952, sentenced to three years in prison, Braverman was released in May, 1955, after having served 28 months only to be promptly disbarred, forbidden to practice law. Then began a decade of almost misanthropic isolation, followed by a gradual return to social action culminating, on March 1, 1974, in what one of his lawyers called "an exceedingly rare and unique svent" the readmission to the bar of Maurice Braverman, the only attorney among 114 persons convicted under the Smith Act, the first and only lawyer to be able to return to practice under Maryland's strict new disciplinary rules. Baitimorz Folk Hero So Braverman has become something of a folk hero in Baltimore, where he has lived for most of his life. he seems almost a double for the kindly old professors of philosophy that the Nazis were always unceremoniously bouncing out of German universities in endless Hollywood movies. Not that nice Mr.

Braverman in trouble with the authorities? Surely not Mr. Braverman. Yes. Maurice Braverman, down so long, as the blues lyric goes, seems like up to me. Named as a Communist Party member in a July 11, 1951, session of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), he indignantly called the FBI undercover agent who made the identification "a stool pigeon," only to have Rep.

Francis E. Walter, shnot right back "You may regard her as a stool pigeon, but I regard her as a great American." Arrested and indicted for violation of the antisubversive Smith Act in August, By KENNETH TURAN BALTIMORE Lawyer Maurice Braverman puts his hand in a briefcase and out conies a letter from Huntsville, Texas, a letter laboriously hand-printed on Texas Department of Corrections stationery offering "congratulations on winning your right to practice law again." Other letters have been less appreciative, such as the note to a Baltimore paper which, Braverman admits wearily, talked with high scorn about "the scandal of disbarring a brave man like Agncw and letting a Commie back in practice." Namely Maurice Braverman. Not Nice Mr. Braverman? A shambling, sunburnt man of 58 years with a short, greying beard and sharp eyes, Braverman comes on amiably. Despite a strong trace of temper, Though the fuss tends to amuse him, and though he seems to take pleasure in every so often basking in his own vindication, Braverman is ultimately too sharp to be taken in.

"America loves a winner, and I won." There is a peculiarly American cycle, he will tell you, of "burning witches, doing penance, and then burning 'em again. I'm lucky. Unlike the Rosenbergs, I'm here today, I'm alive." Most mornings find Braverman in an absolutely bare basement office with yellow walls, a green metal desk and a tiny, one-foot window near the ceiling, an office he admits "reminds me too much of my prison cell." The room is in the Family Law Center of Baltimore's Legal Aid Bureau, a fluorescenl-light-and-acoustic-tile type of place where a colorful "Justice is what we're a 1 1 about" poster doesn't really relieve the gloom. Divorce work, which Is the Family Law Center's line, is not exactly Braver-man's ultimate aim in life, and neither are the other things like consumer law and domestic relations he will be getting into in the coming months of volunteer work at Legal Aid. However, he needs the refresher experience the place provides before going back to a private practice that will center around civil liberties.

It all seems ever so pleasant, the America Facing ffs Fall? Hopeful Signs Can Still Be Found Amid Evidence Of Our Decline -Washington Post Phot A it iv Third of a Series. By ROSCOE DRUMMOND WASHINGTON-I do not intend to minimize the somber plight in which the United States finds itself today-its government weakened and indolent, cynicism rampant, trust in grievously short supply, uncontrolled inflation imperiling the very foundation of our society. Iwsi Mumford, the 79-year-old historian and social philosopher, pronounces this grim verdict: "The dark age is not coming we are In the midst of the dark age." Parallels In Decline I do not dispute this view. In an earlier column I 'set out the signs of the decline of this nation which parallel many of the signs of the decline of the Roman Empire the symptoms which cause Mr. Mumford to say we are already in the dark age.

But are we going to stay there? Must we stay there? What can we do about it? Is all the evidence on one side the side of hopeless despair? It isn't. And if we are going to summon the will, the energy, the resources and the vision to turn things around and avert the worst, then we need to appreciate something of the worthy and worthwhile things America and Americans have done as since the end of World War II. This is the "other side" of what has been happening: At a time when it possessed total monopoly of nuclear power the United States offered to destroy its atomic bombs and put the production of all nuclear weapons under international control and safeguards. The Soviet Union refused. The American people contributed $14 billion to the economic recovery of its allies and former enemies after the war.

At the initiative of three Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson the United States acted to arrest aggression at its inception in Korea and Vietnam, perhaps unwisely but with honorable motives. Washington Merry Go Watergate fairy tale ending to a brutal nightmare, Braverman has hardly forgotten what has gone before. Talking on a radio station, his voice breaks and tears dot his cheeks as he describes how he lay on his prison bed and cried bitterly the night Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for espionage. Later, sitting in a bar, his face suddenly hardens as he sees a man who broke off their friendship during the bad days and he snaps out, "the stupid son of a bitch, he hasn't seen me in 20 years, he doesn't want to know he knows me." Fearful, Fateful Time It is hard, even for those who lived through it, to recapture for those who didn't shrill, hysterical fear and trembling that the stridently anti-Communist heyday of Sen. Joe McCarthy, caused in America.

For those directly involved, it was a fearful, fearful time, more than one person said, rife with clandestine suspicions and professional informers. "Infer no, that now you oescriDe it, says Harold Buchamn, one of Braverman's original lawyers. To Braverman, it seemed almost as if the Biblical end of days was closing in on America, that this country was on verge of fascism and worse. "I thought they'd throw us all into concentration camps, I feared torture and everything else," he says. So why, one wonders, with all this as backdrop, why did Braverman commit himself to defending Communist Party members in open court? The answer lies partly in Braver-man's insistence, even 20 years after the fact, in carefully pointing out that he did not, as some news stories said, ever deny he was a member of the Communist Party.

I neither admitted nor denied it, I evaded, avoided the question because to admit it would have been like an open admission you were a witch," he explains. And why is making that point so important to him at this late date? "Because I don't lie," he says a bit sharply. "Because I have principles." And so, though he was keenly aware that "a lot of lawyers wouldn't touch these cases for anything," Braverman began defending the accused. "It was never a question of weighing the good I might accomplish versus the bad that might happen to me." he explains. "I would feel how could I live with myself if I didn't do what 1 was supposed to, what I had to do.

I guess," he adds sardonically, "I'm a fool." Braverman did not always have this streak of idealistic social consciousness. Born in Washington but a Baltimore resident since he was 5. Braverman didn't even always want to be a lawyer. "I wanted to be a doctor, I didn't want to be Clarence Darrow, but I couldn't afford medical school," he Racial justice is ascendant. Laws enforcing segregation of blacks and whites in public education were struck down by the Supreme Court.

After some years of resistance and resentment, the dual schools are virtually ended and the racial caste system in the South is nearly dissolved. Progress Toward Equality The Supreme Court abolished distorted voting districts which had produced so many unrepresentative state legislatures in its one-man. one-vote ruling. In the wake of these decisions Congress enacted new civil rights legislation protecting minorities. The United States has ended its war in Southeast Asia, is averting war in the Middle East and is significantly reduc-i the peril of confrontation among three superpowers: the Soivet Union, China and itself.

The generation gap and student radicalism have almost wholly disappeared from college campuses. Round Stifles Consumer Bills Braverman displays headlines, says. "So my father suggested, 'Why don't you go to law and I liked it from the first day. "Why do I like it? Why does a person order corned beef instead of roast beef? I have a passion for the law, and it's as hard to describe as any other love affair." Braverman's civil libertarian feelings were aroused by a law school study of Sacco and Vanzetti case. He graduated and was admitted to the bar in 1941 and in 1943 joined the Communist Party, motivated in part by "my strong feelings as a Jew in" putting an end to fascism.

While contemporary newspaper clips describe Braverman as part of "a secret white collar group which received special security protection from party," the man himself laughs and says the whole thing was more like "a Great Books study group. We met in people's houses and while membership was kept quiet for fear of being fired, no one snuck in the back door or used a password or anything like that." In fact things were so low-key the group could never quite manage to get through Marx's Das Kapital, which Braverman himself didn't finish until he got to prison. Besides book's, discussions centered on trying to get friends and associates to do things about what Braverman. his voice rising, calls "the burning issues of the times, like discrimination. Do you realize that Baltimore was a Jim Crow town, that you couldn't get a drink with a black friend, that some blacks would wear turbans in restaurants and pretend they were Indians.

"I want to emphasize the positive things," he says in a strong, positive voice. "The party was a great experience, it gave us an education. For the first time I read history and got a consciousness of history. The party was a vehicle of great intellectual growth for me. a very rich part of my life." Nixon Got Furious Not everyone, however, felt this munificent toward the party, and Braverman began getting involved defending people who were treated with downright hostility for supposed Communist sympathies'.

His first major clash came in 1948 in connection with the Alger Hiss ease and a Senator named Richard M. Nixon. '1 was representing an old Jewish tailor." he says with a -smile, "and Nixon was convinced this little old Jewish tailor was the key to the whole Hiss By ERMA BOMBECK For fainting: Rub the person's chest, or if it is a lady, rub her arm above, the hand. For asphyxiation: Apply artilicial respiration until the victim's dead. The over-simplification of treatment has never failed to amaze me.

Several years ago our son announced he wanted to be a baby-sitter. Couldn't Trust Him Franklv, I couldn't trust the kid to turn off the sprinkler, so 1 summoned him to the kitchen one day and said, "What do you know about "What's to he shrugged. "For openers, what would you do if the babv swallowed a coin and started to choke?" He thought for a moment. "What mementos of jrim business. The questioning wasn't gelling i anywhere so Nixon got furious, came down off the podium, shook his finger at the tailor and me and said, 'You know something and we are going to get it out of Things got more complex for Braverman after he himself was named a Communist before HUAC.

"Toward the end of July, 1951," says Braverman's wife Jeannette, "Maurice he-came aware that he was being followed wherever he went. Cars with their motors running were stationed in the street near our home. Neighbors, friends and relatives were visited and questioned by members of the FBI." Protectors Eluded Hardly a power even in the tiny world of the Communist Party, Braverman could not understand why all (his was happening to him, though now he is convinced it was because he had called FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover "a fag" on a tapped telephone. Arrests were starting and Braverman was worried so he slipped away from his protectors and went up to New York to talk to another attorney.

"He just laughed at me," Braverman remembers. Still. Braverman was convinced the arrest was coming, and, wanting it to be in Baltimore and sure that his phone was tapped, he called home and told his wife he'd be on a plane leaving New York at 8 p. m. However, it was pouring rain in New York and he had so much trouble catching a cab that he arrived at the airport just as the plane was scheduled to lake off, "Are you Mr.

the woman at the ticket counter said as he huffed and puffed through the door. "We're holding the plane for you." "Never in all of American history," says Braverman with a big laugh, "has a plane ever been held up for such an unimportant person as Braverman. Why am I laughing? Really, it was funny." Once the plane landed in Baltimore, however, on Aug. 8. 1951, Braverman was arrested, the humor, even the gallows variety, abruptly ceased.

It took a jury of nine men and three women only two hours and 40 minutes to find him guilty of violating the Smith Act: to label him someone who "wilfully advocates, abets, advises or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability or propriety of overthrowing the government of the United Stales by force or violence." A label which Braverman and friends irately insist has never fit. not at all. Washington Post Service I 'What difference docs that make'." "If it was a quarter. I'd go for it, hut a penny, I'd just write it off." "Forget the money. Just say it choked on a banana." -Then I'd never give it another banana again." -I know that! But assume you had and it is choking." "I'd get the vacuum sweeper nozzle and suck it out." "Where did you, in all your life, gel a hare-brained, stupid, idiotic idea like that?" "From uu.

You used a sweeper nozzle when I stuck a piece of popcorn in my car once. And don't worry, Mom. After all. 1 am years old." If any fourth grader has a cure for I -year-olds, I'll listen. The nation's free enterprise economy is ameliorating black poverty.

The majority of black families moved into the middle class in a single decade. The number of black mayors rose from 82 last year to 108 so far this year. The number of blacks elected to political office last year was 152 per cent more than five years ago. Thus, black leaders are steadily turning away from protest against to participation in the American democratic process. The United States is wisely reducing i I military commitments in distant parts of the world and is seeking shared responsibility in serving the cause of peace.

I cite the foregoing not to distract from what has gone badly but to show that the seeds of recovery and restoration are present and that the dark decade can be overcome. TOMORROW: Drummond discusses urgently needed political and social reforms. Los Angeles Times Service S3 also enable buyers to judge which prod ucts are cheaper to operate. Sen John Tunney. is trying to push through a bill that, in ef-feet, would establish "consumer courts." It would assist small claims courts and arbitration offices in helping consumers sue dishonest merchants and landlords.

Sen. William Proxmire's closing cost bill, which was killed in committee by pro-banking senators, would save homebuycrs billions of dollars. It could still be revived on the Senate floor. Even the No. 1 priority of the consumer movement, the Consumer Protection Agency, is now in serious jeopardy from the Watergate lethargy.

The proposed agency would fight for the consumers before the Federal Trade Commission. Food and Drug Administration, Federal Communications Commission and other regulatory agencies. 'Grown Sluggish' As a confidential Senate Commerce Committee memo points out. some government offices "have grown sluggish and weak with age and Fallen prey to the industries they are supposed to regulate." Rep. Chet Holilield, and Rep.

Ben Rosenthal, long enemies, teamed up to get a Consumer Protection Agency bill through the House. Then one of the biggest and best financed lobbies Capitol Hill has even seen went to work in the Senate. When Sens. James Allen, Sam Ervin, and James Buckley, threatened a filibuster, Mansfield lost his enthusiasm for the measure. Mansfield feels he must get critical legislation through Ihe Senale before the impeachment trial begins and the mere threat of long debate on the consumer bill discouraged him.

Thus, the consumers may become the next victims of Watergate. quire premarket testing of hazardous chemicals passed the Senate almost a a ago. Among other things, it would outlaw the mishandling of polyvinyl chloride, which is now causing cancer in workers and perhaps consumers. A safe drinking water bill passed the Senate a year ago. It would require states to fix standards for safe water and would authorize federal officials to step in if the states don't act.

The Consumer Food Act is ready Senate action. Evidence shows a third of the nation's food plants are contaminated. The bill would provide closer supervision of canncrs and processors. As part of the campaign to save energy, the Senate passed a bill to put labels on appliances showing how much electricity they use per year. This would Graffiti Are Children Under 12 Hazardous To Health? By JACK ANDERSON WASHINGTON-Thc Watergate paralysis which has brought so many government activities to a grinding halt, is now threatening to stymie consumer legislation.

93rd Congress started out to champion the consumers as one bill after another was introduced to keep unscrupulous businessmen from ripping off the public. 'Dying On Vine' But with some or the best spokesmen for the consumers lied up in House impeachment hearings or trying to make up time spent on the Senate Watergate Committee, the consumer bills, are dying on the legislative vine. With a little push from House Speaker Carl Albert and Senate Democratic leader Mike Mansfield, these bills could still be saved. Here is where they stand: No-fault auto insurance passed the Senate Mav 1. This bill would save billions of dollars which now go to lawyers to settle who is to blame tor auto accidents.

If the House will act, the billions in legal bills could be used instead to pay the medical bills and repair costs of accident victims, thus reducing insurance premiums. A warranty bill, introduced by Sens. Warren Magnuson. and Frank Moss, D-Utah. left the Senate Sept.

12, 1973. It would compel manulac-turers to repair or replace faulty car parts, appliances and other items if there is a warranty to do so. Most present warranties are riddled with loopholes. A bill to give the Federal Trade Commission (FTCi more power to crack down on shoddy advertising also passed the Senate September 12. It would permit the FTC to move quickly against phony ads.

which now may take jears to ban. A toxic substances bill to re A group of fourth-graders in Washington were given a First Aid quiz recently and their answers revealed something I alwavs suspected children under 12 are not only injurious to your mental health, they can fix it so you can visit that big utility room in the sky sooner than you planned. 'Home Remedies' These are just a few of their "home remedies." For head colds: Use an ngomzrr to spray the nose drops until it drops in the throat. For nose bleed: Put the nose lower than the bodv. For snake bite: Bleed the wound and wrap the victim in a blanket for shock.

For fractures: To see if the limb is broken wiggle it gently back and forth. oneM; A.