The trial of the 17 alleged seditionists got under way in Brooklyn Federal Court today with opening statements by prosecutor and defense counsel, featured by efforts of attorneys for 12 of the defendants to brand William Gerald Bishop, another defendant, and Dennis J. Healy, a Queens resident, as “agents provocateurs” for the Communist Party responsible for instigating the plot against the Government.
U.S. Attorney Harold Kennedy, in his opening statement, said that Bishop and John F. Cassidy were leaders of the plot to overthrow the Government and that they had a five-year plan for the “Action Committee” to incite the Communists to violent acts, at the end of which period a private army, to be formed in the meantime, would take over the country. Kennedy said: “The Christian Front is not on trial and neither is race nor religion.”
During the opening statements of the six defense counsel, Leo Healy, representing 11 defendants, and Walter N. Thayer, counsel for John T. Prout Jr., named Bishop and Dennis Healy as provocateurs “No. 1” and “No.2.” Attorney Healy charged: “The Communist Party planted them at Christian Front meetings and also high Government officials in Washington sent them.” Bishop’s attorney, Emanuel Trotter, in his address made the unusual statement: “My client is as much a defendant here as anyone else.”
After the statements of counsel the first witness was called. He was sergeant Henry F. Fischer of the National Guard in Brooklyn, who testified that Claus G. Bernecke, one of the defendants, had asked him for literature about machine-guns and had asked him to act as machine-gun instructor for an organization of which Bernecke was a member.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
