William A. Reuben Papers, ca. 1946-2000 (majority within 1946-1996)

Summary

Creator:

Reuben, William A.

Abstract:

William Reuben is an investigative reporter and author who wrote, most notably, about the Rosenberg espionage case and the Alger Hiss-Whitaker Chambers libel and perjury trials. The Collection includes correspondence, research and interview notes, drafts of books and articles, published and unpublished, on the trials of the "Trenton Six," Morton Sobell and Robert Soblen, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Alger Hiss, with much research on Whittaker Chambers.

Extent:

27.25 linear feet (28 boxes)
Posters in Box 28.
Audio cassette in Box 11.
Newspapers clippings are scattered throughout the collection.

Language:

English

Authors:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Nancy Bartlett, 1984; Merle Rosenzweig and Roark Miller, 1986; Dan Santamaria, 2002

Background

Scope and Content:

In general, most of the series consist of similar kinds of material: Reuben's research notes, drafts of his writings, correspondence, clippings, and reviews of other writings about the case or individual. Some of the series have further value because they include Reuben's collection of printed material about the case. For example, Reuben was particularly active in the Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case, and the Rosenberg series includes some of the printed matter put out by this organization. Reuben also collected correspondence of the Civil Rights Congress, a major organization lobbying on behalf of the Trenton Six.

In many ways, the Reuben papers are an assemblage of secondary material. Reuben had little first-hand dealings with either the Rosenbergs or the Trenton Six. Nevertheless, the files have value for their documentation of the manner in which this one investigative reporter worked. Reuben was a meticulous and persistent researcher, who tracked down a variety of leads in a story, first analyzing the available court transcripts and other official records, then corresponding as much as he was able with the people involved in the case (including other writers like himself), and finally monitoring the amount and kind of press coverage given to the case. Unfortunately, Reuben did not gain as much first-hand contact with the principals in his investigations as he would have liked, and thus the collection is not as substantive as the researcher might like. Reuben 's correspondence, furthermore, is often superficial and anecdotal in character. Another disappointment of the collection are Reuben 's notes and drafts, which because they are fragmentary or unidentified, are difficult to use and of questionable research value.

Biographical / Historical:

William A. Reuben (born 1915) is a free-lance journalist and writer, most remembered for his investigative reporting of the Rosenberg espionage case and the Alger Hiss-Whittaker Chambers libel and perjury trials.

Reuben was educated at Columbia University, then worked for Conde Nast Publications where he wrote for Vogue and House and Garden magazines in the 1930s. During this time, he was also a staff member of Judge and Scribner's magazines. After service in World War II, where he was wounded three times, Reuben went back to free-lance writing. He contributed numerous articles to Pageant Magazine, New York Daily Compass, and National Guardian, and also worked for a short time as a publicist for the American Civil Liberties Union.

In this post-war period Reuben developed a reputation as an indefatigable investigative journalist on a variety of civil rights and civil libertarian court trials. The first of these was the so-called Trenton Six case -- the trial of six young black men charged and convicted with the murder of a Trenton, New Jersey, junk-shop dealer. Through a series of articles that he wrote for the National Guardian, the Daily Compass, and Reynolds News of England from 1948 to 1949, Reuben publicized the more sensational aspects of the case, notably the predominance of circumstantial evidence and a confession from one of the six that was allegedly made after a beating by the police. Partially on the basis of his work, the Trenton defendants were given a new trial where four of the six were acquitted and the other two given life imprisonment (later changed to six to ten years in prison).

Reuben next took up the cause of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and Morton Sobell, charged by the government with conspiracy to transmit classified military information to the Soviet Union. A cause célèbre during the 1950s, the Rosenbergs were sentenced to death. Many, including Reuben, believed that the Rosenbergs had been denied a fair trial because of the political climate of the Cold War period. Throughout the summer and fall of 1951, Reuben reported on the Rosenberg trial in the pages of National Guardian. At about the same time, he wrote a pamphlet entitled, "To Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case." Reuben also helped to organize the Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case. Despite the execution of the Rosenbergs in 1953, Reuben continued to plead for justice in their case, especially as it related to Morton Sobell, a co-defendant in their trial who had been sentenced to thirty years in prison. In 1955, Reuben published his book about the case, The Atom Spy Hoax, an account sympathetic to the Rosenbergs and critical of the government's case against them.

Along with the Rosenbergs, the case of Alger Hiss was one of the most prominent in the post-war period. Reuben again sided with the defendant in the case, former State Department Director Alger Hiss, who had been accused of perjuring himself by denying he had passed classified documents to one-time communist courier Whittaker Chambers. Reuben believed Hiss had been a victim of the then-prevalent fear that internal subversives were "selling out" the country to the communists. He further argued that the Hiss case had been used by the politicians of the time for their own advantage. Much of his criticism in this regard was directed toward California congressman Richard M. Nixon, who chaired a subcommittee of the House Un-American Activities Committee that had accused Hiss of subversive activities. Out of this affair Reuben produced The Honorable Mr. Nixon (1956) and an unpublished manuscript "The Dream of Whittaker Chambers."

Reuben's interest in the case continued beyond Hiss' conviction. In 1975, Hiss and Reuben filed suit under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain access to the FBI file on Hiss. Among the materials released were the so-called "Pumpkin Papers," the microfilm of documents that Hiss had allegedly passed to Chambers by means of a hollowed-out pumpkin. As a result of their review of these government documents, the National Emergency Civil Liberties Foundation filed suit on Alger Hiss' behalf to overturn his perjury conviction.

Throughout his career, Reuben pursued a number of investigative projects simultaneously. In the early 1960s, he began work on the case of Dr. Robert Soblen charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. From his research, Reuben prepared a book-length manuscript (still unpublished), "The Crime of Dr. Soblen." Shortly thereafter he investigated the case of Mark Fein, a wealthy New Yorker accused and convicted of murdering his bookie. Based on this work, Reuben published The Mark Fein Case (1966).

Reuben continued his journalism career throughout the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. He continued researching and writing about the Rosenberg and Hiss cases. In 1983 Reuben published a pamphlet, "Footnote On an Historic Case." The pamphlet includes the complete text of federal judge Richard Owen's opinion on the Hiss case, with footnotes by Reuben that point out Owen's "inexcusably careless, error riddled and irresponsible findings." Much of Reuben's writings during the 1980s and 1990s were reviews of and responses to other writers' work on the Rosenberg and Hiss cases. In 1983, Reuben filed a libel lawsuit against Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, authors of the book The Rosenberg File.

Reuben also researched and wrote about cases similar to the Hiss and Rosenberg cases. He wrote several articles about the disbarment of Roy Cohn, and assembled a substantial amount of material about the Philby, Burgess, and MacLean British spy case, as well as a large number of other espionage and Cold War related cases.

As he did earlier in his career, Reuben also worked on a number of projects that were not directly related to espionage or the Cold War. These projects included an investigative report in the Nation and work on a documentary film on the Lexington High Security Women's unit, a high security prison whose inmates claimed they were being experimented on with U.S. military behavior modification techniques, and research on the case of Alan Friess, a New York city judge who was criticized and removed from the bench for his unconventional behavior in the courtroom.

Acquisition Information:

The collection was purchased from Mr. Reuben in two accessions, 1979 and 1981. Mr. Reuben donated a third accession in 2002.

Processing information:

Collection processed and finding aid created by Nancy Bartlett, 1984; Merle Rosenzweig and Roark Miller, 1986; Dan Santamaria, 2002.

Arrangement:

The William A. Reuben Papers consist of over 27 linear feet of material and date primarily from 1946 to 2000. The collection has been divided into the following 15 series:

Summary Contents List

• 1. Trenton Six Case -- Boxes 1-2
• 2. Rosenberg/Sobell Case -- Boxes 3-7
• 3. Alger Hiss Case -- Boxes 7-11
• 4. Robert Soblen Case -- Boxes 12-14
• 5. Roy Cohn -- Boxes 14-15
• 6. Philby, Burgess and MacLean Spy case -- Box 15
• 7. Mark Fein Case -- Boxes 16-17
• 8. Alan Friess -- Box 17
• 9. Lexington Female High Security Unit -- Box 18
• 10. Libel Research -- Boxes 19 and 20
• 11. Other Writing and Research -- Boxes 20-23
• 12. Employment Related -- Boxes 24-25
• 13. Personal and Miscellaneous -- Boxes 25-26
• 14. Correspondence -- Box 27
• 15. Posters -- Box 28

Subjects

Click on terms below to find any related finding aids on this site.

Subjects:

Espionage--United States--Cases.
Communism--United States.
Investigative reporting.
Subversive activities--United States.
Trials (Perjury)--United States--20th century.
Women prisoners--Kentucky--Social conditions.

Formats:

Clippings.
Correspondence.
Drafts (documents).
Research (document genres).
Posters.

Names:

Federal Correctional Institution (Lexington, Ky.).
Burgess, Guy, 1911-1963.
Chambers, Whittaker.
Cohn, Roy M.
Hiss, Alger.
Maclean, Donald, 1913-
Philby, Kim, 1912-
Rosenberg, Ethel, 1915-1953.
Rosenberg, Julius, 1918-1953.
Sobell, Morton.
Soblen, Robert.