Abraham Feller

Abraham Howard Feller (1904 – November 13, 1952) was the chief legal counsel under Trygve Lie of the United Nations and a friend of Alger Hiss who committed suicide during investigations into communist subversion at the UN by the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS).

Background

Feller was born in 1904 in New York City. He graduated from Columbia University in 1925, Phi Beta Kappa. At Columbia, he was classmates with future Federal Reserve chairman Arthur F. Burns and critic Lionel Trilling. ).

Career

In 1932 to 1933, Feller taught at Harvard Law School.

In 1946, Feller joined the United Nations during its formation in London as legal counsel and policy adviser. At the time, he was working closely with Hiss.

The June 7, 1950, Congressional Record states: In addition to the three Assistant Secretaries-General, Lie appointed pro-Soviet Abraham Feller as General Counsel and Director of the Legal Department of the United Nations Secretariat. Feller's Russian sympathies are well known to his associates. He has been a member of the Committee of International Law of the Nation[al] Lawyers Guild, which was repudiated as Communist-controlled by such liberal attorneys as Frank P. Walsh, Morris Ernst, Ferdinand Pecora, and Robert Jackson. Feller was also a member of the Washington Committee for Democratic Action, which defended civil-service employees charged with subversive activities and was itself cited as subversive by Attorney General Francis Biddle. As general counsel and principal director of the Legal Department of the United Nations Secretariat," Feller headed a 52-person legal team. He served as liaison between the UN and U.S. congressional committees investigating communist subversion in government. Time magazine also reported that Feller was under no suspicion himself–and that the US hearings had "uncovered 17 among the 2,000 Americans on the UN staff who refused to say whether or not they have engaged in subversive activities." Allen Garfield portrayed him in the 1992 HBO movie Citizen Cohn

Works Articles "Addendum to the Regulations Problem" with Erwin N. Griswold (1941)

Books Handbuch der entscheidungen des Ständigen schiedshofs with Ernst Schmitz (1931) Collection of the diplomatic and consular laws and regulations of various countries as editor with Manley O. Hudson (1933) Mexican claims commissions, 1923-1934 (1935) Reparation for injuries suffered in the service of the United Nations: oral statements with Ivan S. Kerno (1949) The United Nations and the World Community (1952)