Paul Crouch

Paul Crouch /pʊəl kraʊtʃ/ (June 24, 1903 – November 18, 1955) was an American communist activist and then paid government informer regarding communist infiltration in the U.S. federal government. Crouch biographer Gregory Taylor has called him a "naïve, ill-educated recruit" to the Communist Party. Oppenheimer biographers Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin have claimed that he was the "most highly paid" informer for the Justice Department in 1951–1952.

Background

Paul Crouch was born in Moravian Falls, North Carolina, on June 24, 1903.

Career

Communism Crouch was a worker, secretary, and newspaper editor. In April 1924, he joined the U.S. Army. Milton A. Abernethy, and many others as Communists. He alleged that Communist conspiracy had reached the White House and inspired the civil rights movement.

During his testimony on May 6, 1949, he spoke at length about efforts by the CPUSA to continue to infiltrate the U.S. Army. He also mentioned alleged communists known to him, including Harry Bridges (strike organizer), William Schneiderman (California CP), Robert Oppenheimer (atomic scientist), including Haakon Chevalier (translator). Clearly, the committee tried to connect Crouch to the Hiss Case. During the years 1934–1937, he testified that he had worked under J. Peters, Max Bedacht, daughter Elsa Bedacht, and Peter's replacement Rudy Baker. He knew George Mink. He also knew Alexander Trachtenberg well.

In 1953, Crouch testified in a deportation hearing of Jacob Burck that he had often seen Burck at Communist Party meetings, yet failed to correctly identify him at that hearing.

Discredited

On January 5, 1953, an appeals board overturned the decision regarding the loyalty of Mary Dublin Keyserling, wife of Leon Keyserling, both New Deal economists. After being cleared of disloyalty, Mary Keyserling was reinstated to her role in the Department of Commerce but both Keyserlings retired from their government roles on January 9. Crouch, J. B. Matthews, and Senator Joseph McCarthy were their chief accusers. Mary Keyserling returned to work in government roles under President Johnson.

Reporters Joseph Alsop, Stewart Alsop, and Drew Pearson began to challenge Crouch's realibilty as a witness after his testimony in United States of America v. Kuzma, et al. In May 1954, United States Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. announced he was investigating Crouch for possible perjury and to determine his suitablity as a government witness in future trials. The following month, affidavits accusing Crouch of multiple cases of perjury were filed which led to the overturning of the deportation order against Pulitzer-prize winning political cartoonist, Jacob Burck. Within a few months, Justice stopped using Crouch as a witness.

Death

Crouch died on November 18, 1955, at the hospital of the University of California at Berkeley in Berkeley, California, of cancer of the throat and bronchial tubes.

Legacy At his death, one of the people whom he had accused wrote: In his testimony before the Courts, Congressional Committees, and Loyalty Boards, Crouch did just what he was hired to do and, whatever may be said about him, he gave his employers full value of what they wanted of him. He died lonely and despised by those who used him. Those who hired him remain respectable and powerful. They used him and when he was no longer useful they threw him aside. There are plenty of others to take his place. His very death was a final act of service to his hirers, for by it he became purged of his evil doing and they, of their responsibility for using him, for of the dead we should speak only good. Our Attorney General will now be spared the embarrassment of answering questions about the progress of his long delayed "study" of Crouch's conflicting testimony or about what is being done to right the wrongs done his victims.

Works

‘’Broken Chains’’ (unpublished manuscript about his CPUSA career 1925–1942)

Images

Paul Crouch testifies against Clarence Hiskey Paul Crouch 1951 (Getty Images)