Alfred Dean Slack
Alfred Dean Slack, was a shift supervisor at Y-12 during the Manhattan Project. Al Slack was arrested as left his automobile in a parking lot to report for work at the Sundure Paint Corp. in Syracuse, NY. His friends were as astounded as the friends of Harry Gold had been only two weeks before. Slack, a big, rugged-looking man, had been known as a solid citizen, who worked hard to support his wife and two children, a provider who had licked the housing shortage by building his family a suburban cottage with his own hands.
Alfred Dean Slack was born in 1906. He worked at the Eastman Kodak Co. in Rochester, N.Y., where he first sold commercial information to Richard Briggs, thinking it was going to a competitor of Kodak, but learned it was actually going to the Soviet Union. Later, after Briggs' sudden death, Slack was handed off by Soviet agents to Harry Gold, who became the courier to provide the information to the Soviet Union. After the time Slack spent in New York, he later worked for Tennessee Eastman at the Holston Ordinance Works in Kingsport, Tenn., before coming to Oak Ridge. It was there that Gold pressured him to provide him more information or he would expose the fact that he had already provided information that had been shared with the Soviets.
In 1943 Russia was a friendly ally whose stand at Stalingrad had become "an epoch of raw courage and respect of 150,000,000 people in America and then the very civilization of this world was tottering at the brink of the precipice. Conditions changed in America's attitude toward Russia from 1943, when the offense was committed, to the fall of 1950, when appellant entered his plea of guilty to the charge of conspiracy to violate the espionage laws of the United States.
The leading example of Amerian deniers of Soviet espionage was a book entitled "The Atom Spy Hoax," written by William A. Reuben, and published by Action Press. He argues that for the Rosenbergs and Sobell to be believed "guilty as charged," it must be assumed "that there is an atom bomb 'secret' which can be stolen and transmitted by individuals; that without the aid of 'atom spies' the Soviet Union could not have produced an atom bomb so soon as 1949; that Russia's possession of the bomb was in some way related to the outbreak of the war in Korea and leads to the expectation that she will use the bomb for aggressive warfare; that there is an innate relationship between communism and Russian espionage; and that all 'Communists' are primarily loyal to Russia and can therefore be presumed to be actual or potential spies, and that no such evidence was produced at the trials. In saying this, Reuben insisted upon discussing the Rosenbergs trial in political terms; he ignored the basic fact that as a matter of law all the Government had to prove was that the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to violate the espionage laws and that overt acts within the scope of these laws were in fact committed in furtherance of the conspiracy.
A review of The Atom Spy Hoax by Harold P. Green was published in the October 1955, issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which provides a detailed account of the Alfred Dean Slack matter. Slack had been named by Harry Gold as one of the persons who had furnished him with secret information to relay to the Russians. Slack was arrested on June 15, 1950, and indicted on September 1, 1950, for conspiring with Harry Gold and "Richard Roe" to violate the Espionage Act, the indictment charging specifically that on two occasions Slack met Gold and delivered to him information relating to the national defense.
RDX is a white powder with one and a half times the blasting force of TNT. It was invented by the Germans in 1899, but had been considered too expensive for military use until the U.S. found a way, used it in naval torpedoes and bazooka anti-tank rockets.
Slack admitted that he had turned over to Gold certain reports as to a new explosive being produced at the Government plant where he was employed as well as a sample of the explosive, and he entered an unqualified plea of guilty pursuant to which he was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. The Government put on the witness stand three special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a former special agent of that bureau, the two attorneys appointed to advise with and represent appellant before and at the arraignment when he pleaded guilty, an assistant United States Attorney, and a former United States Attorney for East Tennessee. These witnesses were rigidly cross-examined by appellant's attorney. Numerous exhibits were introduced in evidence.
Subsequently, Slack moved to vacate the sentence on the grounds that his constitutional rights had been infringed, but the trial court denied the motion. He had argued: that he was arrested without warrant, questioned unlawfully, and transferred from the State of New York to Knoxville, Tennessee, without having the benefit of counsel to which he was entitled; that he was neglected by the attorneys appointed to represent him in Knoxville, and denied his request for substitution of attorneys; that he was kept under suicide guard and questioned repeatedly by the F.B.I. Agents; that he was advised by his counsel that his case would be thrown out of court and subsequently told by the lawyer that a deal had been made with an assistant United States Attorney whereby, upon a plea of guilty, appellant would be sentenced to only ten years' imprisonment.
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, however, reversed the order of the trial court and remanded the case to the trial court for a hearing on whether Slack's constitutional rights had been denied. The trial court, after a lengthy hearing, denied the motion to vacate the sentence, finding that Slack had not been deprived of his constitutional rights. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld the lower court on appeal, and the Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari.
The District Court found further that, upon advice of counsel, appellant had responded voluntarily to frequent questioning by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and that all his admissions were voluntarily made with knowledge that his statements might be used against him, but that they were not so used, there being no evidence that prior statements made by him were a coercive factor in inducing him to plead guilty.
Reuben proclaimed that this case provides a full and complete answer to the bedeviling question as to why alleged spies confess and accept lengthy prison terms although they are actually innocent. He states that the incredible developments in this case may be more sensational than any other revelation made in connection with the series of espionage cases. Reuben finds insidious significance in the fact that the decision of the court of appeals remanding the case to the trial court for a hearing on Slack's motion to vacate the sentence was only three paragraphs in length, and that the style, terseness, and wording of the decision practically made it unrecognizable. The proceeding on which this decision was rendered is characterized as one of the most remarkable court actions ever undertaken in the United States.
But few lawyers would regard the case as remarkable or would find the decision in any way unusual. It was a brief per curiam decision in a case which involved no contested issue. The United States attorney himself had asked that the order of the district court denying the motion to vacate the sentence be reversed and that the case be sent back to the district court for a full hearing. There was, therefore, no issue and no reason why anything other than the most perfunctory decision by the court of appeals was in order. As a matter of fact, the court's use of three paragraphs under the circumstances appears to be quite extravagant.
On the rehearing before the district court, Slack sought to establish principally that the attorneys whom the court had appointed to represent him prior to and during the trial did not properly advise and represent him. His main complaint was that his attorneys did not advise him of an interpretation which had been placed upon the Espionage Act in judicial decisions, and that had he been aware of this interpretation he would not have pleaded guilty. The interpretation of which he was not aware when he pleaded guilty was that of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in United States v. Heine, 151 F. 2d 813, to the effect that the espionage laws are not violated by furnishing information known or available to the recipient from public sources.
He contended that all the information contained in reports which he gave Gold was derived from public sources. Slack argued that not only did his court-appointed attorneys not advise him of this interpretation, but also that they urged him to plead guilty in order to obtain a lenient sentence. Reuben quoted copiously from Slack's testimony and accepted it at face value; he pulled out of context testimony by Black's attorneys, and failed to reflect their side of the story. He plays to the hilt the contention that Slack passed no information which was secret, and the Government's failure to produce evidence that unauthorized information was involved.
The opinion of the trial court concluded with the assertion that, upon cross-examination, appellant had admitted stating to his attorneys that, if doing the things hereinabove set forth constituted a violation of law, he was guilty; that, when arraigned, appellant had entered an unqualified plea of guilty which he had time and opportunity to repudiate, but did not; that the act committed by him fell within the inhibitions of the espionage statute; and that, examined in retrospect, his plea of guilty must be held to have been a voluntary and understanding plea.
But the trial court, after the hearing on these questions, denied the motion, and its decision was affirmed by the court of appeals. Reuben quotes a brief paragraph from the decision of the court of appeals as the basis for suggesting that the court regarded Black's contention as based upon a legal technicality, an impression enhanced by the appellate court's ruling finding it without merit and by its declaration that Black's appeal "'evinces the ingratitude which might be expected of a traitor to his country - a man obviously without principle or honor."
The fact of the matter is that the appellate court did not treat the matter as a legal technicality. Its decision consumes 5 pages of print in the official reporter. The court believed, and with good cause, that Black's contention was manifestly a concocted afterthought. Reuben espoused the cause of Black's innocence even though Slack did not deny that he passed information to Gold for transmission to the Russians. He seemed satisfied that Slack was innocent merely because Slack contended that all the information in the reports was available to the public. He did not report that the appellate court regarded the interpretation of the Espionage Act relied upon by Slack as "open to serious challenge" and that the court went to great pains to point out that even if this interpretation were correct, it would not help Slack.
The District Judge received from the defendant a letter dated September 19, 1950, wherein he stated: "The culmination and the action for which I am legally liable now was a report on the manufacture of the explosive produced in Kingsport in 1943." He wrote that this explosive had been known to scientists since 1899; that it had been used by the Germans in World War One and that its composition, properties and method of manufacture had been described in 1925 in the Journal of The American Chemical Society. The opinion states that this letter, the contents of which were brought to the attention of appellant's attorney prior to his plea of guilty, is made in the present proceeding the cornerstone of his motion to vacate the judgment of conviction and sentence.
The theory of appellant on his motion to vacate was that furnishing something already known or available to the recipient from public sources does not constitute furnishing information within the meaning of the federal statute upon which the indictment was based. The Court stated, upon the authority of United States v. Heine, 2 Cir., 151 F.2d 813, that "as an abstract proposition this theory would undoubtedly have merit, as where the recipient by his own efforts could have gleaned the information from public sources"; but that there was no merit in the contention of appellant where, as in the case at bar, the thing furnished reveals facts not intrinsic in the thing itself.
In the Heine case, it was held that prohibition under the Espionage Act, Sections 32 and 34, Title 50, U.S.C.A., against the dissemination of information relating to the national defense was not inclusive of information from sources lawfully accessible to everyone and, therefore, that a German-born American citizen who was engaged in collecting and transmitting to Germany all available information about American production of airplanes, so that Germany should be advised of that feature of American defense in event of war, could not be lawfully convicted of violating the Espionage Act.
As the court pointed out, since Slack was employed in a closely guarded munitions plant, information furnished to the Russians about the explosive being produced there, even if drawn from public sources, acquired authenticity and value to the Russians as information about what was going on in this plant. Nor did Reuben mention the court's observation that Slack, in furnishing samples of the explosive, provided the Russians with the means by which, through chemical analysis, they could determine what in fact was being manufactured in the plant. The court held unequivocally that such information falls within the scope of the espionage laws.
Moreover, the argument of appellant will not stand up in the light of the opinion of the Supreme Court in Gorin v. United States, 312 U.S. 19, 30, 61 S.Ct. 429, 85 L.Ed. 488, where it was made plain that the evil which the Espionage Act punishes is obtaining for or furnishing to a foreign government "guarded information," either to the damage of our nation or to the gain of another country.
The District Court reasoned thus: "In all probability, the recipient of information relative to the formula of the explosive known as RDX could have obtained the formula from public sources, or already had it at his disposal. The prisoner furnished for transmittal to the Russians a report on the manufacture of RDX. He testified that he obtained his information from public sources, mainly, if not entirely, while he was in Cincinnati. But at the time he furnished the report to his co-conspirator he was employed within what by common knowledge was a closely guarded munitions plant where an explosive was being manufactured. He was familiar with certain phases of the manufacture of the explosive. The report he furnished is not here in evidence, but it is a certainty that he had opportunity to check matters of report obtained outside with those observed inside the plant at Kingsport. It is in evidence that under cover of a pass issued to him as an employee he obtained a sample of the explosive which he knew or assumed to be RDX from a storage department within the plant, which sample he furnished to his co-conspirator. From this sample the recipient could have determined whether the product was, or was not, RDX. Thus, in furnishing the sample, he furnished the means by which through chemical analysis it could be determined what in fact was being manufactured in the Kingsport munitions plant, known as the Holston Ordnance Works. This was the furnishing of information relating to the national defense and was a violation of the espionage law set out in the Code sections of the indictment. See Gorin v. United States, 312 U.S. 19 [ 61 S.Ct. 429, 85 L.Ed. 488]."
Ray Jenkins, the chief counsel appointed to assist Slack in his defense, had practiced law in Tennessee for more than thirty years and has appeared most frequently as the advocate of persons on trial for serious offenses in the criminal courts, both state and federal. He had earned a fine reputation for professional ethics and personal integrity, and is generally regarded as one of the ablest trial lawyers in Tennessee.
Jenkins testified that appellant told him in detail of how, while an employee of the Eastman Kodak Corporation, he had furnished Bridges, knowing him to be an agent of the Russian Government, information of a military nature, for which appellant was paid cash. He furnished this man numerous confidential reports in writing. Appellant had told Mr. Jenkins and his co-counsel that, when Bridges died, he continued to furnish reports, specimens and information, for which he was paid money, to a successor paid spy of the Russian Government, namely, Harry Gold. Gold had visited appellant's home while he was in Cincinnati.
Jenkins testified further: "He told Mr. King and myself of how he after he had become employed at Holston Ordnance Works in Kingsport, how he gained admission to a certain part of that plant where his work did not carry him. And he was working in an entirely different part of the plant but knew what was being done, that it was a military plant, where explosives were made; that the personnel was highly screened, and that the plant was closely guarded. That upon gaining admission to that part of the plant where the real explosive was stored, to-wit, RDX, he while the guards were not looking secretly possessed himself of a quantity of the explosive known as RDX, put it in his pocket, and for the purpose of delivering it to Harry Gold, and that later and shortly thereafter that same specimen was delivered by Mr. Slack to Harry Gold in Kingsport, and at which time he, at Gold's insistence, furnished him with a confidential written report on the manufacture of an explosive known as RDX in Kingsport, Tennessee.
"Finally and after an exhaustive examination of our client, and as sympathetic a one as we knew how to conduct, and one which was conducted with the idea solely and only idea of what was the best thing to do for our client, I recall that I said to Mr. Slack this, `Do you realize, Mr. Slack, that what you have told Mr. King and myself makes you guilty of furnishing information to a foreign government, information relating to the national defense, or of conspiring with Gold to do so?' And he said, `Why, certainly I realize that, gentlemen. I have realized that from the very beginning. I have no thought other than that I am guilty. I know I am. I have confessed everything to the F.B.I. agents and I want you as my attorneys to plead me guilty and to do it forthwith and let me begin serving my sentence and get it over with and get it off my conscience.'
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