Matilda Landsman (October 18, 1918– February 18, 1986) was a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' employee in the 1950s. She was subpoenaed by the

Senate Internal Security Subcommittee The United States Senate's Special Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, 1951–77, known more commonly as the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) and sometimes the M ...

in November 1955 during their investigation into Communists in the media. She was one of 34 news media employees to be subpoenaed by the Senate after the testimony of journalist

Winston Burdett Winston Burdett (December 12, 1913 – May 19, 1993) was an American broadcast journalist and correspondent for the CBS Radio Network during World War II and later for CBS television news. During the war he became a member of Edward R. Mur ...

, a one-time spy for the Soviet Union, in June 1955. Landsman worked as a Linotype operator at the time of her testimony in January 1956. According to allegations from unnamed sources Landsman had voluntarily obtained reassignment from the Times newsroom to the Linotype department, at lower pay, in order to do organizing and recruiting for the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

among members of the powerful and militant typographers union, which was to shut down all the newspapers in New York City in a crippling 114-day

1962–63 New York City newspaper strike Year 196 ( CXCVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Dexter and Messalla (or, less frequently, year 949 ''Ab urbe condita ...

which left half the daily papers in New York dead or mortally wounded. In the past she had worked as a stenographer in the Times news and Sunday departments, and as a secretary to

Joseph Fels Barnes Joseph Fels Barnes (1907–1970) was an American journalist, who also served as executive director of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). Background Barnes was born in 1907. he graduated from Harvard University in 1927, where he was managin ...

, editor of the defunct '' New York Star'', the brief-lived successor to the progressive/left daily newspaper '' PM''. In her testimony she invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions about her affiliation with the Communist Party. Landsman was born in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

on October 18, 1918.

References

Time Magazine article
Jan. 16, 1956 American women journalists The New York Times corporate staff Typesetters 1918 births 1986 deaths {{US-journalist-1910s-stub