Frank Donner (November 25, 1911 – June 10, 1993) was a civil liberties lawyer, author, and the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) Project on Political Surveillance, whose clients included

Morton Sobell Morton Sobell (April 11, 1917 – December 26, 2018) was an American engineer and Soviet spy during and after World War II; he was charged as part of a conspiracy which included Julius Rosenberg and his wife. Sobell worked on military and gover ...

(fellow accused in the

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple were convicted of providing top-secret i ...

case) and William Albertson.

Background

Born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, Donner earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Wisconsin and a law degree from Columbia University.

Career

Donner worked for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1940 to 1945 before leaving for private practice, primarily representing the

United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States. UE was one of the first unions to be c ...

and the

United Steelworkers of America The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, commonly known as the United Steelworkers (USW), is a general trade union with members across North America. Headquar ...

. With attorneys

Arthur Kinoy Arthur Kinoy (September 20, 1920 – September 19, 2003), was an American attorney and progressive civil rights leader who helped defend Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. He served as a professor of law at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark from 1964 to ...

and Marshall Perlin he founded the New York firm Donner, Kinoy & Perlin, which specialized in representing progressive and leftist clients, including Soviet spy

and the Labor Youth League. In the 1950s, the firm represented numerous individuals, including labor officials, who refused to take loyalty oaths or to testify on their membership in communist organizations, as well as several who were prosecuted under the

Smith Act The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of th ...

. Donner, himself, was brought before the

House Committee on Un-American Activities The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

in 1956, accused of membership in a Communist cell within the NLRB in the 1940s. He refused to testify, invoking his fifth amendment rights.Report by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Feb. 16, 1959 https://archive.org/stream/communistlegalsu1959unit/communistlegalsu1959unit_djvu.txt Donner was a board member for the

National Lawyers Guild The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States. The group was founded in 19 ...

. In 1977, Donner filed for administrative damages for William Albertson's widow, which led to a lawsuit in 1984 that went to appeal and then the Supreme Court before the federal government settled out of court for $170,000. Beginning in 1970, Donner headed the Project on Political Surveillance for the ACLU. During that time he wrote several books outlining official use of domestic surveillance and the use of

Red Squad In the United States, Red Squads were police intelligence units that specialized in infiltrating, conducting counter-measures and gathering intelligence on political and social groups during the 20th century. Dating as far back as the Haymarket R ...

s, programs like

COINTELPRO COINTELPRO (syllabic abbreviation derived from Counterintelligence, Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of Covert operation, covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation ( ...

, and other agencies to infiltrate organizations suspected of political dissent. Donner was particularly interested in the “modern” version of these policing organization that were focused on groups such as Veterans Against the Vietnam War. Many of these policing organizations infiltrated and were the majority members of some of these groups. Donner also cited the government's use of scapegoats to divert attention from government criticism onto other political groups.

Works

* (1961) ''The Un-Americans'' * (1971) "Theory and Practice of American Political Intelligence", in ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'' * (1980) ''The Age of Surveillance: The Aims & Methods of America's Political Intelligence System'' * (1991) ''Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Political Repression in Urban America''

References

External links

* ''The Theory and Practice of American Political Intelligence'' http://www.nybooks.com/articles/10584 * ''Government Intelligence Abuse: The Theories of Frank Donner'' http://www.publiceye.org/liberty/donner.html *Frank Donner papers (MS 1706). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Librar

{{DEFAULTSORT:Donner, Frank American civil rights activists 1911 births 1993 deaths American Civil Liberties Union people United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America people Lawyers from Brooklyn 20th-century American lawyers

Background

Career

Works

See also

References

External links