William Remington

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William Remington : biography

October 25, 1917 – November 24, 1954

Instead of retrying Remington under the existing indictment, the government presented a new one charging Remington with five counts of perjury based on his testimony during the first trial. The charge from the first trial, that he perjured himself when denying he had ever been a Communist Party member, was not included.

The second Remington trial began in January 1953 with Judge Vincent L. Leibell presiding. It lasted only eight days. The jury found Remington guilty of two counts, for lying when he said he had not given secret information to Elizabeth Bentley and that he did not know of the existence of the Young Communist League, which had a chapter at Dartmouth while Remington was a student there. Leibell sentenced Remington to three years in prison. While his attorneys prepared another appeal, Remington began his sentence at Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. The appeals court upheld the original verdict, and in February 1954, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

Early life and public career

He was born in New York City and raised in Ridgewood,"", The New York Times, November 25, 1954. in Bergen County, New Jersey, by Lillian Maude Sutherland (1888-?) and Frederick C. Remington (1870–1956).1920 US Census for Glen Rock, New Jersey His father worked for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.; his mother as an art teacher in New York. Remington was admitted to Dartmouth College at age 16, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in 1939, and earned a Master’s degree from Columbia University in 1940. Remington’s parents were poor and demanding and he developed a somewhat unconventional and flamboyant personality. From an early age, he was drawn to radical leftist politics, and declared to his friends that he was a Communist when he was 15. In college, he became active with members of the Young Communist League, and later the Communist Party of the United States. In testimony, Remington stated that while he was a Republican when he entered college, he "moved left quite rapidly" and became a radical but was never a Communist Party or Young Communist League member at Dartmouth., The New York Times, January 28, 1951. Accessed June 19, 2008. "He went to Dartmouth a Republican but ‘moved left quite rapidly’ and considered himself a ‘radical.’ He was not a member of the Communist party or Young Communist League but occasionally told other students in jest that he was a ‘bolshevik.’" Whether or not he ever officially joined the party later became a point of contention in his legal battles.

Remington was employed in a number of posts, principally as an economist:

  • Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville, Tennessee, September 1936 to May 1937
  • Workers Education Committee, Knoxville, April to August 1937
  • Junior Economist with the National Resources Planning Board, Washington, D.C., May 1940 to July 15, 1941
  • Associate industrial economist in the Office of Price Administration of the Office for Emergency Management, from July 1941 to February 1942;
  • Assistant to the Director of the War Production Board, February 1942 to October 1943
  • Assistant to the Director of Orders and Regulations Bureau in the War Production Board, October 1943 to 1946
  • President’s Council of Economic Advisers, March 1947 to March 1948Trussell, C. P. , The New York Times, September 10, 1948. Accessed June 19, 2008.

For his position with the Office of Price Administration, Remington was required to undergo a loyalty-security check, which began in 1941. He admitted having been active in Communist-allied groups such as the American Peace Mobilization, but denied any sympathy with communism and swore under oath that he was not and had never been a member of the Communist Party. His leftist affiliations raised concerns, but the investigation was superficial and his security clearance was approved.

Accusations of espionage

In March 1942 and continuing for two years, Remington had occasional meetings with Elizabeth Bentley at which he passed her information. This material included data on airplane production and other matters concerning the aircraft industry, as well as some information on an experimental process for manufacturing synthetic rubber., Time (magazine), January 8, 1951. Accessed June 1, 2008. Remington later claimed that he was unaware that Bentley was connected with the Communist Party, that he believed she was a journalist and researcher, and that the information he gave her was not secret. Bentley was a Communist and an espionage agent for the Soviet Union, who in 1945 broke with the Communists and became an informer for the FBI. She then implicated a number of her contacts, including Remington. Bentley’s revelations of Soviet espionage activities in the United States received a great deal of press attention. She identified more than 80 Americans—including several employees of government offices—as working for the Soviets, of whom only William Remington was still working in a government position.