EXCLUSIVE THE ARTICLE IN THE FEBRUARY 1967 ISSUE OF 'RAMPARTS'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000300030011-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 1, 2005
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: March 29, 1967
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

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March 29, 1967
THE ARTICLE IN THE FEBRUARY 1967 ISSUE OF "RAMPARTS"
magazine, breaking the sensational story concerning Central Intelligence Agency
subsidies of private student, labor, and educational organizations, has already
prompted action by President Johnson to forbid future channeling of CIA funds into
groups like the National Student ' As sociation. Still another outcome of the controversy
may well be closer Congressional supervision of the CIA activities in the future.
An analysis of the backgrounds of those associated with "Ramparts" suggests that the
motivation for the magazine's February disclosures was to destroy, or at least weaken,
CIA, rendering it incapable of acting as a deterrent to communism abroad.
Founded in 1962 as "the Catholic journal of independent opinion", "Ramparts" magazine
has~no official ties with the Catholic Church. It is published monthly in San Francisco
and, particularly in recent years, has been advocating a consistently leftist philosophy
with primary emphasis being placed on a,bitter denunciation of American involvement
in the war in Vietnam.
"Ramparts" magazine's Editor in Chief, Edward Michael Keating, has made numerous
speeches throughout the country criticizing U. S. "intervention" in both Vietnam and
the Dominican Republic. In addition, he has been an outspoken critic of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, frequently making baseless charges or allegations concerning
the work of that Bureau. In October, 1964, Keating publicly indicated that he was
willing to turn over to the Justice Department information he had obtained concerning
the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. In making the offer, he
charged that the FBI had "not done its job" in locating the guilty parties, implying that
FBI officials in Mississippi were sympathetic to the racist slayers. When contacted,
however, Keating stated he had never been in Mississippi, and that he had not personally
obtained any evidence whatsoever concerning the crime.
The Foreign Editor of "Ramparts" is.31 year-old Robert Scheer, a familiar face in
west coast left-wing circles. In.1960, while a graduate student of Economics at the
Berkeley campus of the University of California, Scheer was the Research Director
for the local chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. During the summer of
1964, he visited communist Cuba "in defiance of U. S. State Department travel
restrictions". More recently, he has. become extremely active in denouncing U. S.
policy toward Vietnam at demonstrations sponsored by the Vietnam Day Committee.
The March 4, 1966 issue of the Berkeley campus newspaper, "The Daily Californian",
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reported that Scheer had visited Cambodia as a reporter for "Ramparts" and had
talked personally with representatives of communist North Vietnam and the Viet Cong.
Scheer was quoted as saying that Cambodia was not being used in any significant way
by the Viet Gong in its war with the South Vietnamese.
Washington columnist Carl Rowan, the former head of the U. S. Information Agency,
reported on February 24, 1967, that Scheer recently made a secret trip to Prague,
Czechoslovakia for the purpose of meeting with officers of the communist-controlled
International Union of Students. According to Rowan, the visit raised the question
in high quarters of Washington as to just where "Ramparts" is getting its financial
backing.
In the spring of 1966, Scheer was an unsuccessful "peace" candidate in the California
primaries. He ran against liberal Democrat Congressman Jeffery Cohelan, who
represents the Berkeley area, but had given limited support to the U. S. war effort in
Vietnam. Scheer's campaign literature boasted that he had been "an activist and
leader in (San Francisco) Bay Area protests over the past eight years -- the demon-
strations against the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, the Sheraton Palace
and Auto Row civil rights sit-ins, and the recent marches and rallies against American
intervention in Vietnam.
The campaign leaflets also boasted that the Scheer for Congress Committee had
successfully united in its ranks "socialists, liberal Democrats, radicals, communists,
reformers and people who have never before participated in politics."
Stanley K. Sheinbaum, an economist at the Center for the Study of Democratic
Institutions and a former Campus Director at Michigan State University's Vietnam
Advisory Group, is a Consulting Editor of "Ramparts".
Like Scheer, Sheinbaum has been extremely active in west coast leftist activities
and has spoken at several protest meetings in California during May and November,
1965, and in March, 1966. Sheinbaum's name appeared on a leaflet distributed by the
November 8 Mobilization Committee in October, 1966, protesting American involvement
in the Vietnam conflict.
G. M. Feigen is listed as a member of the Board of Directors of "Ramparts" magazine.
Now a San Francisco proctologist, Feigen is reported to have received a medical
discharge in 1943 from the U. S. Army Medical Corps when he was declared unfit for
general service. A medical board had found him to have "hallucinatory experiences,
most of which had a sexual background, that is, desires and thoughts for abnormal
sexual relationships."I This condition was not judged to be service connected inasmuch
as Feigen had been receiving treatment for it prior to his entrance into the Army in
June, 1941.
Joseph Ippolito is listed as another member of "Ramparts" magazine's Board of
Directors. New York, Ippolito was an active
A former resident of Lackawanna, member of the Socialist Workers Party in 1962. This organization, self-described
as "Trotskyist-Communist", has been cited as "subversive" and placed on. the
Attorney General's list.
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Robert McAfee Brown, listed as an Associate Editor of "Ramparts", signed an
editorial which appeared in the June, 1965, issue of "Christianity in Crisis" assailing
United States policy and military action in Vietnam. He was also, in 1964, one of
the sponsors of the National Committee to Abolish the House Committee on UnAmerican
Activities. That organization was cited by the HCUA as communist inspired and
controlled.
Jessica Mitford Treuhaft, another Associate Editor of "Ramparts", was identified
as a member of the Communist Party, USA, in testimony made before the House
Committee on UnAmerican Activities on December 2, 1953, and in June of 1957. When
called as a witness before a similar state committee in California, Mrs. Treuhaft
repeatedly invoked the protection of the 5th Amendment in refusing to answer questions
concerning Communist Party membership and activities..
The official Communist publication, THE WORKER, of January 31, 1967, reported
that "Jessica Mitford" had been selected to introduce the Party's General Secretary,
Gus Hall, at a gathering of 900 in New York to pay tribute to William L. Patterson
-- an admitted Communist. She is the author of the controversial book, "The
American Way of Death".
Donald Duncan is listed as a Contributing Editor to "Ramparts". A former U. S. Army
Sergeant who has served in Vietnam, Duncan has since his return lashed out at U. S.
involvement in the war there, saying on one occasion that the South Vietnamese would
be better off under the control of Hanoi's communist boss, Ho Chi Minh.
Saul Landau, a Staff Writer for "Ramparts" magazine, traveled to communist Cuba in
1960, in villation of State Department'restrictions. While there, he prepared propaganda
films for the Castro government, and following his return to the United States in 1961,
Landau has lectured throughout the nation in defense of Castro. His wife, Nina
Serrano Landau, was a member of the U. S. delegation to the communist-sponsored
Worled Youth Festival in Moscow in 1957. Following the Festival, she joined several
others in the U. S. group on an unauthorized visit to communist China.
The February, 1967, issue of "Ramparts" lists Bob Avakian as one of its Staff Writers.
He has actively spoken in behalf of the leftist Students for a Democratic Society, and
the Vietnam Day Committee at rallies protesting U. S. involvement in Vietnam. On
one occasion, Avakian told his audience that the war in Vietnam is a "racist" war
because it is being waged by white Americans against the "yellow people" of South
Vietnam.
James F. Colaianni, Managing Editor of "Ramparts", was instrumental in the early
part of 1966 in starting the Redwood City Committee Against Napalm -- a group set up
to protest the establishment of a napalm production facility by the United Technology
Center in the Port of Redwood City, California. Initial efforts of the organization
were aimed at blocking the establishment of the plant through legal means, but local
courts ruled in favor of the Center.
As chairman of the protest group, Colaianni called several public meetings to protest
the new napalm facility. One of these was a "silent protest vigil" in May, 1966,
during which several demonstrators were arrested for civil disobedience.
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"Ramparts" Staff Writer Peter Collier, in August, 1966, was introduced as a repre-
sentative of the Californians for Liberal Representation when he lectured at a meeting
of the Los Angeles Chapter of the W. E. B. DuBois Clubs. The CLR is a political
group whose purpose is to recruit support for leftist and "peace" candidates, while
the DuBois group has been described by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as a "communist
front. "
Maxwell Geismar, currently a Consulting Editor for "Ramparts" magazine, was
listed, in October, 1960, as a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
The April 23, 1961 issue of the Communist Party's THE WORKER named Geismar as
one of a group protesting the invasion of Cuba (the Bay of Pigs) and he was later listed
as a sponsor of a Carl Braden clemency petition in a communication dated August 18,
1961, distributed by the Southern Conference Educational Fund, Inc. Braden, identified
on at least five occasions as a member of the Communist Party in testimony before
the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, had been convicted of contempt of
Congress in connection with his refusal to answer questions during an HCUA hearing
investigating his Communist membership and activities. The Southern Conference
Educational Fund, Inc., with which Braden is associated, was formerly known as
the Southern Conference for Human Welfare which was cited as a communist front
by the HCUA in June, 1947.
Maxwell Geismar's name has also appeared as an honorary sponsor of the Committee
for Morton Sobell (convicted with Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and sentenced to 30
years imprisonment on charges of conspiring to commit espionage on behalf of the
Soviet Union).
The October 2, 1961, issue of the "National Guardian" newspaper identified Geismar
as one of 54 sponsors of the Monroe Defense Committee, formed to aid Robert F.
Williams and four others who were indicted in Monroe, North Carolina in August, 1961,
on a charge of kidnapping. Williams fled the country to take up residence in communist
Cuba and has been making anti-American broadcasts from Havana for the past six years.
More recently, Geismar was identified in the December 8, 1964 issue of "Challenge",
the weekly 'newspaper of the militantly communist Progressive Labor Party, as a
supporter of the newly formed Committee to Defend Resistance to Ghetto Life -- a
PLP front organization.
The list of communists, socialists, and radicals associated with "Ramparts" magazine
will be continued in the next issue of EXCLUSIVE.
Vol. XIII, No. 13
EXCLUSIVE is published every Wednesday by SPECIAL REPORTS, INC., Sheraton Park Hotel, Washington 8, D. C., for private distribution.
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The subscription rote is $24.00 per annum, COPYRIGHT 1967 BY SPECIAL REPORTS, INC.