The Gospels & Marx

Not since the last century, when Henry Ward Beecher kissed Mrs. Tilton, has fashionable Brooklyn Heights, N.Y. had a clergyman as controversial as the Rev. William Howard Melish, 44. Melish, an ardent, undeviating representative of the far, far left, has joined, helped found or led almost a score of organizations long since discredited by Communist infiltration. Melish's politics forced his father, the Rev. John Howard Melish, out of his job as rector at Brooklyn's Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. The younger Melish hangs on as acting pastor in his father's church only because the bishop cannot fire an acting minister.

This month the Subversive Activities Control Board began hearings in New York to determine whether the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship should be compelled to register as a Communist front. The star witness: the Rev. William Howard Melish, chairman of the organization from 1946 to 1949 and still a prize member.

In nine days before the board, Melish insisted that Christianity and Communism are striving for the same social reforms, "each according to its own lights and philosophy." He added that the American Communist Party is using "democratic, constitutional processes." Asked whether Russia is totalitarian or a dictatorship, Melish snorted: "Emotional labels."

In other testimony Melish denied that the American-Soviet Friendship Council is Red-dominated and contradicted testimony by such ex-Communists as John Lautner and Fordham Professor Louis Budenz (who had testified that Melish was a party member). After testifying that he had written two stories for the Daily Worker, Melish was asked whether he knew that the Worker is the "official organ" of the Communist Party. His answer: "That's hearsay." Pressed to identify Communists who came to him for advice, Melish stood on his cloth: he claimed "ministerial privilege" to keep their confidences.

Last week, with serious doubts about Melish's story, the control board demanded that the friendship council produce secret minutes of its meetings. The council, even at the risk of a contempt citation, refused to submit the minutes.

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