RESPONSIBILITY FOR SILENCE

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I note that Mr. Boudin, whose letter concerning testimony before Congressional bodies appeared in your issue of the nineteenth, quotes a few lines from an article written by Professor Chafee in the Kansas Law Review some time ago.

Mr. Chafee is in Europe. However, a few months ago when the same quotation was previously published in a letter to the CRIMSON, Mr. Chafee wrote to the CRIMSON a word of commentary. In view of the repetition of this quotation in Mr. Boudin's letter, I would appreciate it if you would print the applicable comment by Mr. Chafee:

"As I said, both in the Kansas article and in the letter to the CRIMSON from Mr. Sutherland and myself, there is no legal privilege to shield one's friends by silence. One who is asked to testify to matters which actually tend to show his guilt does not lose the immunity he would have available, by reason of the fact that his claim of the privilege would not only protect him, but would incidentally protect his associates as well. But no matter what a man's code of friendship may be, if he swears that an answer will tend to incriminate him when he knows that it will not, he is swearing falsely. I certainly am no advocate of perjury.

"As Mr. Sutherland and I point out, if a man's conscience compels him to keep silent without legal excuse, he must expect to undergo whatever punishment the law prescribes. And as I also indicate in the Kansas article, a claim of privilege to remain silent may have a very damaging effect on a person's career.

"To the extent that any language of mine in the Kansas article may have created any misunderstanding about my ideas, this letter will, I hope, correct it." Arthur E. Sutherland   Professor of Law