John Abt

John Jacob Abt (May 1, 1904 – August 10, 1991) was an American lawyer and politician, who spent most of his career as chief counsel to the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and was a member of the Communist Party and the Soviet spy network "Ware Group" as alleged by Whittaker Chambers.

Background

Abt was born on May 1, 1904, in Chicago, Illinois. His sister was Marion Bachrach. He was a graduate of the University of Chicago and its law school.

Career

Abt practiced real estate and corporate law in Chicago from 1927 to 1933.

Government (1933–1938)

Abt was the Chief of Litigation, Agricultural Adjustment Administration from 1933 to 1935, assistant general counsel of the Works Progress Administration in 1935 (where Lee Pressman was also working), chief counsel to Senator Robert La Follette, Jr.'s Committee from 1936 to 1937 and special assistant to the United States Attorney General, 1937 and 1938. (Thus, in 1943, as American spy Elizabeth Bentley resurrected the Ware Group [of which Abt had been a member], Abt could not risk involvement with her or the group. Instead, the group reformed without him under Victor Perlo as the Perlo Group. )

By January 1946, he was also working as general counsel for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and traveled to Russia with a CIO delegation, which included Pressman. (The CIO had long-term support from communists; in 1947, CIO leaders like Walter Reuther pushed out communist elements and again in 1949 after the CIO's merger with the American Federation of Labor [AFL] to form the AFL-CIO.)

Politics (1946–1948)

In 1946, Abt appeared on the New York state ticket of American Labor Party candidates: Benjamin Fielding for Lieutenant Governor, Harry J. Chapman for State Controller, Joseph Lucchi for Attorney General, John T. Loughran for Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, and John Abt for Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals. However, his name and those of two others were later withdrawn before the election in favor of the Democratic candidates.

In October 1946, he (as ACWA general counsel) joined other "liberal and progressive groups" in forming the new Progressive Party.

Progressive Party (1948)

In February 1948, Abt left the Amalgamated and Lee Pressman left the CIO to go work for the Progressive Party to support its presidential candidate, former Vice President Henry A. Wallace. At the time, the Washington Post dubbed Abt, Pressman, and Calvin Benham "Beanie" Baldwin (C. B. Baldwin) as "influential insiders" and "stage managers" in the Wallace campaign. He also supported the candidacy in New York of Vito Marcantonio, a leader of the American Labor Party.

CPUSA Counsel (1950–1970s)

From 1951 to 1953, Abt joined Vito Marcantonio and Joseph Forer in defending the CPUSA on a charge from the McCarran Act.

In 1965, the Supreme Court ruled that individuals may invoke their constitutional privilege against self-incrimination and refuse to register with the Government as members of the US Communist Party. Abt considered this decision as his greatest legal victory.

(In 1996, it became known that Abt was referenced in Venona decrypts #588 KGB New York to Moscow, 29 April 1944 and #687 KGB New York to Moscow, 13 May 1944. )

Named by Pressman (1950) Called again before Congress to give testimony on Communist Party activities, on August 28, 1950, Lee Pressman reversed his previous decision to exercise his Fifth Amendment rights and gave testimony against his former comrades. Pressman stated: In my desire to see the destruction of Hitlerism and an improvement in economic conditions here at home, I joined a Communist group in Washington, D. C., about 1934. My participation in such group extended for about a year, to the best of my recollection. I recall that about the latter part of 1935— the precise date I cannot recall, but it is a matter of public record — I left the Government service and left Washington to reenter the private practice of law in New York City. And at that time I discontinued any further participation in the group from that date until the present. He stated that he had no information about the political views of his former law school classmate Alger Hiss and specifically denied that Hiss was a participant in this Washington group. Although he made no mention of having himself conducted intelligence-gathering activities, his 1950 testimony provided the first corroboration of Chambers' allegation that a Washington, DC communist group around Ware existed, with federal officials Nathan Witt, John Abt and Charles Kramer named as members of this party cell.

Angela Davis (1970)

In 1970, NAACP lawyer Margaret Burnham worked with Abt to defend Angela Davis, her friend since childhood, and later wrote the foreword to Abt's memoir.

Later, he married Vita Barsky.

Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer (University of Illinois Press 1993).