Dr. Nathan's Passport

For 2 1/2 labyrinthine years, Dr. Otto Nathan tried to get a passport to go abroad "for pleasure and study." About 1,000,000 other U.S. citizens got passports during this period, but Dr. Nathan ran into difficulties. As an economics professor at New York University and the executor of Physicist Albert Einstein's will, Dr. Nathan specifically wants to attend the Jubilee of the Relativity Theory in Bern, Switzerland, to seek cooperation from scientists in preserving and publishing Einstein's manuscripts. But the State Department first stalled, then denied Dr. Nathan his passport, vaguely letting it be known that there was damaging material in the files against him.

The net of State's material was that Dr. Nathan was 1) a German Communist before 1933, when he settled in the U.S. (he denied this), 2) an associate of Communist fronts in Europe and the U.S. (he would not say yes or no to this on the ground that the charge was too vague), 3) an acquaintance of the ambassadors of two Communist satellite states (he admitted this). A fundamental principle was at stake. Is the right to travel abroad a privilege to be granted, like a federal job? Or is it the inherent right of a U.S. citizen, naturalized or native?

In Washington last March, District Court Judge Henry A. Schweinhaut ordered the State Department to give Dr. Nathan "a prompt and appropriate hearing." State filed a petition asking the court to review the whole case. Last fortnight Judge Schweinhaut criticized State for "dillydallying delaying tactics," and ordered that Nathan's passport be delivered "forthwith." State responded by taking the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals, which stayed Judge Schweinhaut's order but ruled that Dr. Nathan must have a "quasi-judicial hearing" within five days; if State continued to withhold the Nathan passport, it would be compelled to defend its action.

At this point, rather than go through with the hearing, the State Department decided to grant Dr. Nathan his passport, asserting nonetheless that "the issuance of passports is a discretionary executive function." For Otto Nathan, getting ready for his trip to Switzerland, the outcome was clear and encouraging. "The State Department's action in issuing a passport to me," he said, "vindicates the fundamental right of every American citizen to travel."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.