Price of Silence

In only 30 minutes, a federal jury in Washington last week found Seymour Peck, 39, a New York Times deskman, guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions put to him by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (TIME, Dec. 10). Peck, who has been kept on by the Times, told the committee that he had been a Communist for 14 years (until 1949), but he refused to name other party members he had known, claiming that it was his right under the First Amendment to do so. Maximum possible sentence: one year in jail and a $1,000 fine on each of five counts.

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