Viereck v. United States/Dissent Black

by Harlan F. Stone

United States Supreme Court

318 U.S. 236

Viereck  v.  United States

 Argued: Feb. 1, 2, 1943. --- Decided: March 1, 1943

Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS concurs, dissenting.

The petitioner, having registered with the Secretary of State as a foreign agent, was convicted of wilful refusal to inform the Secretary of certain business activities in which he systematically attempted to influence the political thought of this country on behalf of Germany. The trial judge charged the jury not to convict the petitioner unless he had actual knowledge that the Act and the regulations required him to supply this information to the Secretary, and that having such knowledge he had refused to answer the Secretary's question with the 'deliberate intention of avoiding the requirement of the statute.' The jury found, and it is not questioned here, that the petitioner was a paid German propagandist engaged in various business activities, in all of which he made use of the same kind of propaganda calculated to further the interests of Germany in the United States. The Court holds that the congressional enactment required petitioner to reveal to the Secretary only the particular propaganda activities in which he engaged pursuant to his agency. It holds that the petitioner could keep secret, without violating the law, those propaganda activities undertaken on his own behalf, which were of exactly the same type and were intended to accomplish exactly the same purpose as those for which he had been hired by his German principals.

To this construction of the Act I cannot agree. I think that § 3(c) of the Act, which authorizes the Secretary to require statements 'of the activities of such persons as agent of a foreign principal' must be read in the light of the general purpose of the Act and in close connection with § 6, which permits the Secretary to prescribe the 'rules, regulations, and forms' necessary to carry out the Act. By such a reading, the Secretary was authorized to ask the question the petitioner failed to answer.

The general intent of the Act was to prevent secrecy as to any kind of political propaganda activity by foreign agents. Both the House and Senate Committees reporting the Bill under consideration declared it to be their purpose to turn 'the spotlight of pitiless publicity' upon the propaganda activities of those who were hired by foreign principals. Appreciating that 'propaganda efforts of such a nature are usually conducted in secrecy', they wanted to make full information concerning it 'available to the American public' and sought by 'the passage of this bill' to 'force propaganda agents representing foreign agencies to come out 'in the open' in their activities, or to subject themselves to the penalties provided in said bill.' ^[1] They declared that the purpose of the Bill was to require all such hired agents 'to register with the State Department and to supply information about their political activities, their employers, and the terms of their contracts.' ^[2]

What emerged from extended congressional investigations, hearings and deliberations was this Act, intended to provide an appropriate method to obtain information essential for the proper evaluation of political propaganda emanating from hired agents of foreign countries. As the House and Senate Committees considering the Bill said, it 'does not in any way impair the right of freedom of speech, or of a free press, or other constitutional rights.' Resting on the fundamental constitutional principle that our people, adequately informed, may be trusted to distinguish between the true and the false, the bill is intended to label information of foreign origin so that hearers and readers may not be deceived by the belief that the information comes from a disinterested source. Such legislation implements rather than detracts from the prized freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. No strained interpretation should frustrate its essential purpose.

Section 6 of the Act provides that 'The Secretary is authorized and directed to prescribe such rules, regulations, and forms as may be necessary to carry out this Act.' Congress did not set out in the Act the questions to be answered, and it surely did not intend to entrust the Secretary with no more than the power to copy the Act in seeking information. Such latitude as he has, the Secretary immediately used to require that 'agents of foreign principals who engage, whether or not on behalf of their foreign principal,' in political propaganda activity should register; and he asked the registrants to make a 'comprehensive statement of nature of business.' In view of the general purpose of the Act, such a question seems eminently reasonable. As a practical matter, the very fact that in the instant case it is extremely difficult to determine with conviction which activities the petitioner carried on in his own behalf and which he carried on in behalf of Germany is reason enough for requiring him to report on both. The Act did not contemplate that a foreign agent could evade its terms by claiming that all unreported political activities, upon their discovery by this government, were undertaken on his own behalf. Under the general power given the Secretary by § 6 to determine the form of questions, he was entitled to ask such questions as would make the enforcement of § 3(c) possible. I think the Secretary was authorized to ask the question under consideration in this case and that the Act required the petitioner to answer it.

As is pointed out in the opinion of the Court, the 1942 amendment to the Act explicitly authorizes the Secretary to ask the question which is involved in the instant case. The addition of this provision to the Act, however, I consider purely declaratory. The 1942 Bill was passed, as shown by the Senate and House reports, to serve four major purposes: It required the labeling of foreign propaganda mailed in the United States; transferred the administration of the Act from the Department of State to the Department of Justice; extended the application of the Act to certain propaganda affecting Latin America; and improved the enforcement provisions. The Attorney General, in expressing his views on the bill, declared that the registration provisions of the amendment, which includes specific authorization to ask the very question now before us, were 'merely declaratory'. ^[3] If so, the Secretary had the authority to ask the same question under the 1938 Act.

The reversal here apparently does not rest on the concluding remarks of counsel for the government set forth in the Court's opinion. I am in accord with the sentiments expressed in Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88, 55 S.Ct. 629, 632, 633, 79 L.Ed. 1314, which the Court today repeats. In that case the Court declared that counsel had misstated the facts; put words into the mouths of witnesses which they had not said; intimated that statements had been made to him personally out of court in respect of which no proof was offered; pretended to understand that a witness had said something which he had not; bullied and argued with the witnesses; and committed other offenses. This Court properly declared that his conduct called for stern rebuke by the trial judge, for repressive measures, and 'perhaps, if these were not successful, for the granting of a mistrial.'

A prosecutor must draw a careful line. On the one hand, he should be fair; he should not seek to arouse passion or engender prejudice. On the other hand, earnestness or even a stirring eloquence cannot convict him of hitting foul blows. ^[4]

Notes

1. Senate Report No. 1783, House Report No. 1381, 75th Cong., 3d Sess.
2. The House Committee hearings, which are available in manuscript form only, show the same broad purpose. In explaining the Bill to the House Committee, its author pointed out that it was particularly aimed at firms, groups, or businesses, used 'as a means for that particular country or political party to hide its identity' and that the Bill covered 'all activities of all kinds, that is, all propaganda activities, no matter from what source it emanates.' The Congressional Committee, whose Chairman was the author of this Bill, had discovered through hearings, that business enterprises had been utilized as a means for propagandizing, and that many persons including the petitioner here had published articles in various magazines, concealing their identity behind pseudonyms. The purpose of these activities, the Committee found, had been to influence 'the policies, external and internal, of this country, through group action. They were employing the same method that they had employed in Germany for the purpose of obtaining control of the government over there.'
3. Sen. Report No. 913, 77th Cong., 1st Sess.
4. 'To shear him (the prosecutor) of all oratorical emphasis, while leaving wide latitude to the defense, is to load the scales of justice; it is to deny what has always been an accepted incident of jury trials, except in those jurisdictions where any serious execution of the criminal law has yielded to a ghostly phantom of the innocent man falsely convicted.' Di Carlo v. United States, 2 Cir., 6 F.2d 364, 368.