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| Bernadine Dohrn Today |
Here is another outstanding, informative, and well researched compilation by David Horowitz from his site, Discover The Networks.
- Uses the law to promote “basic change in the structure of our political and [capitalist] economic system”
- Has longstanding ties to the Communist Party and its front groups
- Defends all manner of America-hating radicals
- Has consistently opposed U.S. foreign policy while supporting America's enemies across the globe
- Has consistently opposed post-9/11 national security measures by the U.S. government
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) describes itself as “a non-profit federation of lawyers, legal workers, and law students” that uses the law “to advance social justice and support progressive social movements.” By the NLG's definition, such movementspromote “basic change in the structure of our political and [capitalist] economic system,” a system where “vast disparities in individual and social wealth” render “neither democracy nor social justice … possible.” Regarding “human rights” as “more sacred than property interests,” the NLG's crusade to transform society also includes the participation of so-called “jailhouse lawyers” – the Guild's term for incarcerated criminals claiming to have been wrongfully imprisoned by an oppressive state for reasons related to their race, ethnicity, class, or ideology. The NLG's overarching strategy is to “bring together,” into a unified revolutionary force, a host of groups whose members have allegedly been victimized by capitalism's inequities – “workers, women, farmers, people with disabilities and people of color.” “The welfare of the entire nation,” says the Guild, depends upon the efforts of these allied contingents to “eliminate racism” and “maintain and protect our civil rights and liberties in the face of persistent attacks upon them.” With more than 8,000 members nationwide, the NLG has approximately 120 local chapters grouped into nine regions (covering nearly every U.S. state). It also has student chapters at 113 universities and law schools across the United States, and tens of thousands of active supporters worldwide.
The NLG's earliest antecedent was an agency known as the International Class War Prisoners Aid Society (whose Russian-language acronym was MOPR), formed by theCommunist International (Comintern) in 1922 as part of its effort to infiltrate American legal organizations. Soon thereafter, MOPR became known as International Red Aid (IRA). In 1925 an American section of IRA was established under the name International Labor Defense (ILD), which in 1936 helped organize the NLG.[1]
Officially launched in 1937 as a progressive alternative to the segregated and comparatively conservative American Bar Association, the NLG was inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the Communist Party's newly launchedPopular Front movement, the newly revitalized trade-union movement, and the increased activity of the NAACP.[2] As evidenced by its Comintern roots, there were certainly members of the early Guild who were dedicated Communist revolutionaries. NLG founding member David Freedman, for instance, candidlyadvocated socialism as a desirable alternative to American capitalism. Communist Party USA (CPUSA) attorneys were also among the NLG's founders. Indeed, the CPUSArequired communist attorneys to become Guild members because the organization was evolving into the chief legal instrument of the Party. The NLG's first executive secretary, Mortimer Riemer, was himself a CPUSA member.
But communists were by no means the only actors within the fledgling NLG. New Deal supporters, civil libertarians, law professors, government officials, senators and congressmen, future Supreme Court Justices, the general counsels of the AFL and the CIO, and other liberals were also among the Guild's earliest members.[3]
In the late 1930s, NLG lawyers helped organize the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and supported the New Deal, which the American Bar Association opposed.
At the NLG's third annual convention, its National Executive Board refused to adopt an amendment to the Guild's constitution opposing dictatorship and supporting democracy, after communist lawyers complained that the amendment was "divisive." Many comparatively moderate Guild members regarded this development as ominous and thus left the organization. The leadership, however, remained on the far left of the political spectrum. Indeed, in 1940 the Guild's president, Russell Chase, also served as the attorney for the CPUSA in Ohio.
Throughout the 1940s, NLG lawyers fought racial discrimination in cases such asHansberry v. Lee, the case that struck down segregationist Jim Crow laws in Chicago. In 1945 the Guild was one of the nongovernmental organizations selected by the U.S. government to officially represent the American people at the founding of the United Nations.
During World War II, a number of Guild attorneys became public defenders for indigent criminals,[4] on theory that the latter were among the many unfortunate victims of capitalism's inequities. Other NLG lawyers sought damages on behalf of people who had been harmed by defective products;[5] again, the subtext was that corporate capitalist greed had resulted in shoddy workmanship and, ultimately, in injury to unsuspecting innocents. These trends gained momentum in the postwar years.[6]
In 1946 the NLG became affiliated with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), a newly formed Soviet front controlled by Moscow. The Guild went on to become the largest U.S. affiliate of IADL, which is described in James Tyson's 1981 book Target America as "the world-wide Communist front group for attorneys." In 1978 the CIA characterized IADL as "one of the most useful Communist front organizations at the service of the Soviet Communist Party, [an organization that] has so consistently demonstrated its support of Moscow's foreign policy objectives, and is so tied in with other front organizations and the Communist press, that it is difficult for it to pretend that its judgments are fair or relevant to basic legal tenets."
In the late 1940s and 1950s, NLG members founded the first national plaintiffs' personal injury bar association, which became the American Trial Lawyers Association.
In 1950 the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) issued its Report on the National Lawyers Guild: Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party, which declared:
The NLG's earliest antecedent was an agency known as the International Class War Prisoners Aid Society (whose Russian-language acronym was MOPR), formed by theCommunist International (Comintern) in 1922 as part of its effort to infiltrate American legal organizations. Soon thereafter, MOPR became known as International Red Aid (IRA). In 1925 an American section of IRA was established under the name International Labor Defense (ILD), which in 1936 helped organize the NLG.[1]
Officially launched in 1937 as a progressive alternative to the segregated and comparatively conservative American Bar Association, the NLG was inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the Communist Party's newly launchedPopular Front movement, the newly revitalized trade-union movement, and the increased activity of the NAACP.[2] As evidenced by its Comintern roots, there were certainly members of the early Guild who were dedicated Communist revolutionaries. NLG founding member David Freedman, for instance, candidlyadvocated socialism as a desirable alternative to American capitalism. Communist Party USA (CPUSA) attorneys were also among the NLG's founders. Indeed, the CPUSArequired communist attorneys to become Guild members because the organization was evolving into the chief legal instrument of the Party. The NLG's first executive secretary, Mortimer Riemer, was himself a CPUSA member.
But communists were by no means the only actors within the fledgling NLG. New Deal supporters, civil libertarians, law professors, government officials, senators and congressmen, future Supreme Court Justices, the general counsels of the AFL and the CIO, and other liberals were also among the Guild's earliest members.[3]
In the late 1930s, NLG lawyers helped organize the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and supported the New Deal, which the American Bar Association opposed.
At the NLG's third annual convention, its National Executive Board refused to adopt an amendment to the Guild's constitution opposing dictatorship and supporting democracy, after communist lawyers complained that the amendment was "divisive." Many comparatively moderate Guild members regarded this development as ominous and thus left the organization. The leadership, however, remained on the far left of the political spectrum. Indeed, in 1940 the Guild's president, Russell Chase, also served as the attorney for the CPUSA in Ohio.
Throughout the 1940s, NLG lawyers fought racial discrimination in cases such asHansberry v. Lee, the case that struck down segregationist Jim Crow laws in Chicago. In 1945 the Guild was one of the nongovernmental organizations selected by the U.S. government to officially represent the American people at the founding of the United Nations.
During World War II, a number of Guild attorneys became public defenders for indigent criminals,[4] on theory that the latter were among the many unfortunate victims of capitalism's inequities. Other NLG lawyers sought damages on behalf of people who had been harmed by defective products;[5] again, the subtext was that corporate capitalist greed had resulted in shoddy workmanship and, ultimately, in injury to unsuspecting innocents. These trends gained momentum in the postwar years.[6]
In 1946 the NLG became affiliated with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), a newly formed Soviet front controlled by Moscow. The Guild went on to become the largest U.S. affiliate of IADL, which is described in James Tyson's 1981 book Target America as "the world-wide Communist front group for attorneys." In 1978 the CIA characterized IADL as "one of the most useful Communist front organizations at the service of the Soviet Communist Party, [an organization that] has so consistently demonstrated its support of Moscow's foreign policy objectives, and is so tied in with other front organizations and the Communist press, that it is difficult for it to pretend that its judgments are fair or relevant to basic legal tenets."
In the late 1940s and 1950s, NLG members founded the first national plaintiffs' personal injury bar association, which became the American Trial Lawyers Association.
In 1950 the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) issued its Report on the National Lawyers Guild: Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party, which declared:
"The real aims of the National Lawyers Guild, as demonstrated conclusively by its activities … are not specified in its constitution or statement of avowed purpose. In order to attract non-Communists to serve as a cover for its actual purpose as an appendage to the Communist Party, the National Lawyers Guild poses benevolently as 'a professional organization which shall function as an effective social force in the service of the people.'"
The HUAC report accused the NLG of attacking the FBI as “part of an overall Communist strategy aimed at weakening our nation’s defenses against the international Communist conspiracy.” The document also recommended that Guild members be barred from federal employment, and that the American Bar Association consider whether it should permit its members to belong to the NLG in light of the latter’s "subversive" character.
Decimated by the HUAC report, and viewed by many non-members with deep distrust, the NLG saw its membership fall from approximately 4,000 to about 500 during the fifties.[7] In the McCarthy era, Guild members represented the Hollywood Ten (who were Soviet agents and Communist Party members), the Rosenbergs (Communists who were convicted and executed in 1953 for passing classified information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union), and thousands of people whom the NLG portrayed as victims of “the anti-communist hysteria.” Unlike all other national civil-liberties groups and bar associations of the time, the Guild refused to require its members to take “loyalty oaths.” The U.S. Attorney General threatened to designate the NLG as a “subversive organization” but dropped the threat in 1957, at which point the Guild began to regroup.[8]
According to a 1959 report by the House Un-American Activities Committee, NLG programs of that day were largely “directed toward the weakening of the security programs of Federal and local governments” by such measures as the following:
Decimated by the HUAC report, and viewed by many non-members with deep distrust, the NLG saw its membership fall from approximately 4,000 to about 500 during the fifties.[7] In the McCarthy era, Guild members represented the Hollywood Ten (who were Soviet agents and Communist Party members), the Rosenbergs (Communists who were convicted and executed in 1953 for passing classified information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union), and thousands of people whom the NLG portrayed as victims of “the anti-communist hysteria.” Unlike all other national civil-liberties groups and bar associations of the time, the Guild refused to require its members to take “loyalty oaths.” The U.S. Attorney General threatened to designate the NLG as a “subversive organization” but dropped the threat in 1957, at which point the Guild began to regroup.[8]
According to a 1959 report by the House Un-American Activities Committee, NLG programs of that day were largely “directed toward the weakening of the security programs of Federal and local governments” by such measures as the following:
1. “Abolition of congressional committees assigned to the task of coping with subversion in the United States”;
2. “Curbing of the investigative powers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation”;
3. “Emasculation of the recent statute which grants immunity to any witness called before a committee or a Federal grand jury if the witness furnishes information regarding subversive activities”;
4. “Repeal of the Smith Act prohibiting teaching or advocacy of forceful overthrow of the United States Government”;
5. “Discontinuance of the Attorney General's listings of subversive organizations”;
6. “Repeal of the Internal Security Act and the Walter-McCarran Immigration Act”;
7. “Unrestricted issuance of passports to subversive individuals”;
8. “Repeal of the Federal employees loyalty-security program”;
9. “Limitations on the right of the Defense Department to discharge subversives from the Armed Forces.”
As the 1960s began, the NLG focused heavily on fighting for civil rights for black Americans, setting up offices in the South and organizing thousands of volunteer lawyers and law students to provide legal support for the civil-rights movement and its activists. The Guild's underlying goals were twofold: to depict racism and discrimination as inevitable by-products of capitalism, and to acquire new members, both black and white. (One of the Guild's black members, John Conyers, would be elected to Congress in 1964.)
Until 1963, the NLG was led chiefly by East Coast attorneys who were active in the trade-union movement, in leftist movements, and in such entities as the American Labor Party, the Communist Party, the left wing of the Democratic Party, and the Progressive Party of Henry Wallace.[9] In 1964 the Guild's organizational leadership shifted to a younger contingent based in Detroit. A significant number of these new leaders were black, and they felt much greater affinity to the U.S. civil-rights movement than to the international movements with which the older NLG leaders had identified.[10]
As the 1960s progressed, the NLG defended rioters and others involved in the civil unrest that struck many American cities. The Guild encouraged young men to become draft evaders and then defended them. And it was active in defending those arrested during the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention riots as well as members of the Black Panther Party.
As the sixties drew to a close, NLG president Victor Rabinowitz (1967-1970) -- a Communist who represented Fidel Castro’s Cuban dictatorship -- openly advocated a Marxist future. Rabinowitz was also a member of the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. He and his law firm (Rabinowitz, Boudin, and Standard) represented such clients as the Soviet spies Alger Hiss and Judith Coplon, and the American military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who infamously leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971.
As the 1960s began, the NLG focused heavily on fighting for civil rights for black Americans, setting up offices in the South and organizing thousands of volunteer lawyers and law students to provide legal support for the civil-rights movement and its activists. The Guild's underlying goals were twofold: to depict racism and discrimination as inevitable by-products of capitalism, and to acquire new members, both black and white. (One of the Guild's black members, John Conyers, would be elected to Congress in 1964.)
Until 1963, the NLG was led chiefly by East Coast attorneys who were active in the trade-union movement, in leftist movements, and in such entities as the American Labor Party, the Communist Party, the left wing of the Democratic Party, and the Progressive Party of Henry Wallace.[9] In 1964 the Guild's organizational leadership shifted to a younger contingent based in Detroit. A significant number of these new leaders were black, and they felt much greater affinity to the U.S. civil-rights movement than to the international movements with which the older NLG leaders had identified.[10]
As the 1960s progressed, the NLG defended rioters and others involved in the civil unrest that struck many American cities. The Guild encouraged young men to become draft evaders and then defended them. And it was active in defending those arrested during the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention riots as well as members of the Black Panther Party.
As the sixties drew to a close, NLG president Victor Rabinowitz (1967-1970) -- a Communist who represented Fidel Castro’s Cuban dictatorship -- openly advocated a Marxist future. Rabinowitz was also a member of the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. He and his law firm (Rabinowitz, Boudin, and Standard) represented such clients as the Soviet spies Alger Hiss and Judith Coplon, and the American military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who infamously leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971.
By 1967, as domestic unrest in the United States became increasingly pervasive, the NLG began to see a real potential for socialist/communist revolution. Publicly repudiating the idea that incremental reforms were sufficient for committed leftists, the Guild’s 1967 “Statement of Policy and Program” argued that "new approaches" were needed to bring about "basic structural changes in society."
In 1968 the NLG was rocked by a fierce internal dispute when New Left and antiwar activists from California and New York attempted to seize control of the organization. At that point, the Guild essentially suspended its legislative work and shifted its focus: from passing resolutions to participating in mass actions, and from filing friend-of-the-court briefs to directly representing clients and organizations.[11]
Around this same time, prominent NLG member Arthur Kinoy (co-founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights) argued that the proper role of the radical lawyer was to facilitate the coming anti-capitalist revolution by weakening the law’s ability to function effectively against law-breaking radicals. Guild president Paul Harris quoted Lenin in arguing that a successful revolution required a "legal struggle" supported by illegal, militant, revolutionary activity. And Doris Brin Walker, a “proud” Communist Party member who served as NLG president from 1970-1971, eagerly anticipated a "Second American Revolution."
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, NLG members represented FBI-targeted operatives of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. They also fought to stop FBI and CIA surveillance, infiltration, and disruption tactics (called COINTELPRO) against domestic subversive organizations.
Among the NLG's more notable members during the 1960s and 70s, were the following individuals:[12]
In 1968 the NLG was rocked by a fierce internal dispute when New Left and antiwar activists from California and New York attempted to seize control of the organization. At that point, the Guild essentially suspended its legislative work and shifted its focus: from passing resolutions to participating in mass actions, and from filing friend-of-the-court briefs to directly representing clients and organizations.[11]
Around this same time, prominent NLG member Arthur Kinoy (co-founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights) argued that the proper role of the radical lawyer was to facilitate the coming anti-capitalist revolution by weakening the law’s ability to function effectively against law-breaking radicals. Guild president Paul Harris quoted Lenin in arguing that a successful revolution required a "legal struggle" supported by illegal, militant, revolutionary activity. And Doris Brin Walker, a “proud” Communist Party member who served as NLG president from 1970-1971, eagerly anticipated a "Second American Revolution."
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, NLG members represented FBI-targeted operatives of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. They also fought to stop FBI and CIA surveillance, infiltration, and disruption tactics (called COINTELPRO) against domestic subversive organizations.
Among the NLG's more notable members during the 1960s and 70s, were the following individuals:[12]
- Robert Borosage, director of the Institute for Policy Studies, co-founder ofCampaign for America’s Future, and co-founder of Institute for America’s Future
- Bernardine Dohrn, a leader of the Weather Underground Organization, a domestic terrorist group
- William Kunstler, a director of the ACLU and co-founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights
- Jonathan Lubell, a communist attorney who worked with Philip Agee, the onetime CIA operations officer who went on to publicly reveal the identities of CIA undercover agents in the 1970s and 1980s
- David Rudovsky, an NLG vice president, a National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee member, and a steering-committee member of the National Conference on Government Spying (which led to the formation of the Campaign to Stop Government Spying)
- Peter Weiss, chairman of the Institute for Policy Studies and the husband ofCora Weiss
In a Program Committee policy statement issued at the NLG's 1971 national convention in Denver, the Guild made plain its desire to radically transform America: "There is no disagreement among us that we are a body of radicals and revolutionaries. We are not simply servants of the movement. We are radicals and revolutionaries who now propose to carry the struggle for social change into our lives and our profession."
Among the NLG's most notorious affiliations were its ties to Weatherman and later the Weather Underground Organization (WUO). Those connections dated back to the early 1960s, when militants from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) began working with NLG lawyers who were also active with the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee and the Center for Constitutional Rights. As the sixties progressed, the NLG and its Mass Defense Office provided legal representation for SDS's increasingly violent demonstrators. NLG national organizers Ken Cloke and Bernardine Dohrn were among those who participated in Weatherman planning sessions; they alsorecruited radicalized law students, including many former SDS members, into the NLG. When Weatherman members who faced criminal charges disappeared as fugitives in early 1970, NLG lawyers were instrumental in helping them communicate with one another. Moreover, a number of the aforementioned radicalized law students joinedDohrn and WUO as fugitives as well. Other NLG members with links to WUO included the following:
For much more, continue here
Among the NLG's most notorious affiliations were its ties to Weatherman and later the Weather Underground Organization (WUO). Those connections dated back to the early 1960s, when militants from the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) began working with NLG lawyers who were also active with the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee and the Center for Constitutional Rights. As the sixties progressed, the NLG and its Mass Defense Office provided legal representation for SDS's increasingly violent demonstrators. NLG national organizers Ken Cloke and Bernardine Dohrn were among those who participated in Weatherman planning sessions; they alsorecruited radicalized law students, including many former SDS members, into the NLG. When Weatherman members who faced criminal charges disappeared as fugitives in early 1970, NLG lawyers were instrumental in helping them communicate with one another. Moreover, a number of the aforementioned radicalized law students joinedDohrn and WUO as fugitives as well. Other NLG members with links to WUO included the following:
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