Edelman Gains Senate's OK, Attacks Local Press

Isador S. Edelman, research fellow in surgery, returned to Harvard yesterday morning after a Senate subcommittee told him that he had never been accused of being a Communist. But Edelman still termed the trip "the most depressing experience in my life."

In a CRIMSON interview, the 29-year-old scientist had harsh words for the "hysterical and erroneous stories" in the Boston press that front-paged his name for several days before he was given a public hearing. He said he appreciated the fact that the case was turned over to a "responsible Congress."

Bill of Health

"Neither Congress nor any government agency ever said I was a Communist," Edelman stated. "On Tuesday the Senate gave me a clean bill of health. The press is the real evil. It brings tremendous suffering to the family and friends."

Edelman had been suspected of Red sympathies while working at the Medical School under an Atomic Energy Commission fellowship. His work was non-secret, and concerned the balance of body fluids in certain surgical diseases.

Two Meetings

Edelman admitted that he had attended two Communist meetings in Indianapolis in 1943, and may have applied for membership. However, he said, he did so because of intellectual curiosity and dropped out when he found he disagreed with the Party's principles.

Newspapers played up the story of a possible Communist in the atomic energy program. But Tuesday, Senator Kenneth S. Wherry (R.Neb.), a member of the subcommittee Edelman had been asked to testify before, explained that it was all a misunderstanding.

"I didn't charge you with being a Communist or a member of a front organization." Wherry said for the record. "I certainly hope you continue your studies."

Not An Investigation

Senator Homer Ferguson (R.Mich.) added the hearing was "an investigation of Dr. Edelman." Chairman Joseph C. O'Mahoney (D.Wy.) said. "You were merely asked here because your name had been mentioned."

Farlier in the day, Edelman learned for the first time that his application to work at the University of California had been turned down because of security reasons, and not because of "lack of room" as he had been told at the time

The AEC sent Edelman instead to the Harvard Medical School, where he would not be near laboratories doing secret research.

Not Told

"When a man is turned down for security reasons, he has a legal right to a hearing and appeal," Edelman said last night. "No one ever told me that I was rejected because of this. That's what caused all the trouble."

He added that the AEC probably with held this information from him because if didn't want to get him spent and involved in a hearing. It simply feat him to a laboratory not engaged in secret work.

Never Questioned

"No court or committee ever questioned me." Edelman said "I never knew my name was on FBI files until the Boston Post got it. They smeared it over the front page before I had a chance for a hearing."

He added that the FBI data--supposedly confidential--had originally been given by a member of Congress to a Reader's Digest staff writer "who evidently sold it to the Post and papers in other cities."