Subject: Re: John Abt
Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 15:17:02 GMT
From: billkell@my-deja.com
Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Newsgroups: alt.assassination.jfk

In article <37631919.7256@mu.edu>,
  John McAdams <6489mcadamsj@marquette.edu> wrote:
> Pierre Carbonneau wrote:
> >
> > We know that during his incarceration and interrogation at the
> > headquarters the DPD, Oswald asked for legal assistance, he ask
especially
> > for a lawyer: John Abt of New-York. Is this "John Abt" the same person
who
> > wrote the book: "Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist
> > Lawyer", Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993?
> >
>
> Yes, that's him.  You might check out:
>
> http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/defense.txt
>
> Remember, Oswald was radicalized during the Rosenberg case, and he
> apparently was playing the "victim" in the manner that the Rosenberg's
> did.
>
> .John
> --
> Kennedy Assassination Home Page
> http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm
>
>

John, thanks for refering to the article "Oswald In His Own Defense," by
Grant and Locke, as they quote Osawld saying that he wanted Abt because of
his defense of those charged with the Smith Act.
   While you are correct that Oswald was "radicalized" during the
Rosenberg case, having been handed a leaflet in their defense on the
streets of New York, Oswald more likely knew about the Smith Act from his
favorite undercover agent, Herbert A. Philbrick.
   In his book "I Led 3 Lives - Citizen - 'Communist' - Counterspy,"
(Grosset & Dunlap, 1952), Philbrick discusses the Smith Act and prints
bighlights of the law in his appendix.
   The Smith Act of 1940 was passed to thwart fascists and Nazis, before
WWII, but was used in the 1950s to harras Communists. It was used in the
trail in which Philbrick testified against eleven of his former friends,
neighbors and fellow communists who were indicted under the Smith Act for
threating to take over Melrose, Massachusetts.
   According to Philbrick's Appendix:
"It shall be unlawful for any person -
1) To knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty,
necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any
government in the United States by force or violence or by the
assassination of any officer of any such government;...."
    Oswald apparantly knew what he was doing in asking for Abt, whose
Warren Commission testimony must be the shortest of anyone they
questioned, and therefor more significant than what has so far been
determined.
    The Rosenberg case is also significant in regards to the NSA
intercepts and decoded KGB transmissions that prove the Rosenberg's
guilt by association with the Russian network [but not introduced at
their trial], which also implicated Donald MacLean, Guy Burgess and Kim
Philby [mentor of J.J.Angleton, Win Scott and other significant players
in this drama].
    I wonder if the Smith Act is still on the books and can be used
today to indict potential assassins.
Bill Kelly
billkell@my-Deja.com

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