William Kaino Heikkila papers, 1951-1966 (majority within 1958-1960)

William Kaino Heikkila was born on March 14, 1906 in Finland while his family was vacationing in their native land. When he was nearly three months old, his family returned to the United States and to the home where they had settled in Minnesota. From that time forward, Heikkila resided in the United States, and spent his formative years in Minnesota. At the age of fourteen, he lost his lower right arm in a hunting accident. In his youth, his father supported his wife and four children by his work in iron ore mines. As times became worse, his family turned to subsistence farming and William dropped out of school to work a variety of jobs to help out, a task made more difficult by the fact of his physical handicap.

When he was eighteen years old, Heikkila filed his first papers to gain U.S. citizenship. At the age of twenty-one, he applied for his final papers, but missed his hearing because he was mistakenly arrested in connection with a controversial street meeting he encountered in Duluth. Later, Heikkila heard of the judge's reaction to his arrest, and was led by the nature of the comments to believe his citizenship would be denied if it was ever brought up again in the future.

During the Great Depression, Heikkila joined the Communist Party and became involved with labor unions. Although he left the Communist Party in 1939, he continued to be active in labor unions for the rest of his life, and won the admiration and respect of many of his fellow union members. In the late 1930s, Heikkila moved to the San Francisco area in California because of health problems and taught himself mechanical drafting, which was his trade from that time forward.

Soon after his arrival in California, the Northern California Committee for Protection of Foreign Born (NCCPFB) was formed, and Heikkila became a member of the group upon its inception. He also learned that his arrest in Duluth did not pose a legal barrier to obtaining his citizenship. In 1945 a hearing for his citizenship was scheduled, then indefinitely postponed by the U.S. government. In 1947, a warrant of deportation was served on Heikkila in connection with his membership in the Communist Party under a 1918 immigration law. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and was subsequently remanded to the lower court on a technicality.

In 1950 Congress passed the McCarran-Walter Act, which stated that an alien could be deported if he or she was at any time a member of the Communist Party. Heikkila's case thus again went to the U.S. Supreme Court, but this time was denied a hearing. In what appeared to be a sign of hope, Charles Rowoldt, in a similar legal position to Heikkila, won his Supreme Court case in 1957 against the Act. However, Heikkila's case was viewed as substantially different from that of Rowoldt by Judge Edward Murphy in San Francisco, and was scheduled to be settled by Heikkila's lawyers and Judge Murphy on May 2, 1958.

On April 18, 1958, William Heikkila was taken into custody by two federal immigration agents while at work. He was put into a car and taken to the San Francisco airport, put onto a government airplane, and flown to Vancouver. Upon his arrival in Vancouver, he was put in jail and held incommunicado under an alias. Two days later he was flown to Amsterdam, then to Helsinki. During the course of these events, Heikkila was allowed no contact or communication with his wife, Phyllis, who was denied any information by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Heikkila's kidnapping became headline news almost immediately, and an issue of both local and national concern. His attorney obtained a writ of habeas corpus ordering his release on April 19. Two days later, Judge Murphy spoke out against the methods involved in the kidnapping and deportation. On April 22, Joseph Swing, Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, announced that Heikkila would return to the United States, and on April 25 Heikkila flew back to San Francisco at the expense of the U.S. government. The ensuing trials continued for the rest of his life.

Heikkila's life included his wife, Phyllis, who he wed in 1953, and an active role in local labor unions and Finnish heritage groups and activities. He was also an active member of the NCCPFB, which supplied him with legal counsel during his many hearings and continually rallied for support in his favor, particularly after his deportation in 1958. On May 7, 1960, he died of a heart attack at the age of 54. Although the cause of his death was due to natural causes, it was speculated by many near to him that his fatal heart attack was in fact brought upon by the years of stress and emotional turmoil he endured during his struggle to gain citizenship and his deportation, and subsequent trial.

After William Heikkila died, the legal battles did not come to an end for Phyllis Heikkila. She fought for the next several years to gain her husband's Social Security Lump Sum Death Benefit, and eventually prevailed.