Page 19 - Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party

THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD 13
At the time of its inception, Isadore Polier was executive director, Carol King was secretary, and Joseph Kover editor of the International Juridical Association's monthly bulletin. An examination of the bulletin reveals consistent support of Communist legal cases during its entire career.
In fact, the New York City Council Committee Investigating the Municipal Civil Service Committee in 1940 and 1941 declared:
The bulletins of the International Juridical Association from its very inception show that it is devoted to the defense of the Communist Party, Communists, and radical agitators and that it is not limited merely to legal research but to sharp criticism of existing governmental agencies and defense of subversive groups.
The International Juridical Association quietly disappearedfrom the American scene in the early 1940's.
In 1942, the IJA Monthly Bulletin, a publication of the Interna- tional Juridical Association, was combined with the Lawyers Guild Review, an official organ of the National Lawyers Guild. The Decem- ber 1942 issue of the IJA Monthly Bulletin, in announcing the merger, indicated that the opportunity for joining forces with the National Lawyers Guild would "greatly widen the area of our influence." It was also announced that writers for the IJA Monthly Bulletin who remained available would go to the board of editors of the La\\'yers Guild Review and take primary responsibility for the material in the IJA section of the Review.
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF DEMOCRATIC LAWYERS
The current international Communist front for attorneys is known as the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. This organization is sometimes referred to as the International Association of Democratic Jurists.
The idea for the International Association of Democratic Lawyers was conceived during the Nuremberg trials as a threat to aU those considered as "war criminals" by Soviet militarists. The first congress met in October 1946 with some 15 countries represented.
The National Lawyers Guild immediately affiliated with the new international front and sent representatives to the first congress in 1946.
Communist leaders in the United States, recently convicted on conspiracy to advocate overthrow of the Government by force and violence, are being vigorously defended by the International Associa- tion of Democratic Lawyers.
At the close of its third congress, held in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in September 1948, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers voted to send 25 attorneys to observe the trial of the afore- mentioned Communist leaders in New York. This proposal was made by Martin Popper, American representative. A resolution was also unanimously adopted expressing "grave concern over the indictment of the American Communist leaders in New York."
The fourth congress of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers met in Rome in October-November 1949, with 30 affihate national sections. According to the autumn 1949 issue of The Guild Lawyer, quarterly pubhcation of the National Lawyers Guild, Executive Secretary Robert J. Silberstein, and William L. Standard, a member of the guild's national executive board, were sent as guild representatives to the fourth congress.