Stephen J. Spingarn

Stephen J. Spingarn (September 1, 1908 – August 6, 1984) was a mid-20th-century American lawyer and civil servant in the Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and (briefly) Dwight D. Eisenhower administrations, including Special Counsel and Administrative Assistant to Truman (1950) and lastly commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission (1950–1953) during transition to Eisenhower.

Writings on the mid-20th-Century often cite his official writings during office; less often, they describe him in text.

Background Stephen Joel Spingarn was born on September 1, 1908, in Bedford, New York. His father, Joel Elias Spingarn, was a professor of comparative literature at Columbia University, co-founder of Harcourt, Brace & Co., Republican Party supporter who ran for Congress in New York with an endorsement from President Theodore Roosevelt, and later chairman of the board of the NAACP. His uncle was Arthur B. Spingarn (1878-1971). Lewis Mumford was a close family friend: he bought their family home in Leedsville, New York.

He attended Phillips Exeter Academy. He started studies at Yale University but, after working summers as a U.S. National Park ranger in the Mesa Verde National Park, decided to stay West and settled on the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he graduated in the mid-1930s and passed the Arizona State Bar.

During World War II, he served as a colonel in the 5th Army Counter Intelligence Corps (1943-1945). On August 3, 1948, Chambers would appear under subpoena before HUAC and name White among more than half a dozen former federal officials as part of the Ware Group ring he ran. He provided details about his meetings with White, also included in his 1952 memoir, Witness. Among those named was also Alger Hiss (friend of Max Lowenthal – see below.) Having submitted three articles written for the Saturday Evening Post with journalist Milton Lehman on "How We Caught Spies" during World War II, Spingarn had New York City Mayor Bill O'Dwyer and producer Ray Stark, help him pitch his articles for a movie in Hollywood. Leaving Washington as the Hiss Case started, Spingarn landed meetings Buddy Adler at Columbia Studios, Sam Briskin at Paramount Studios, and Armand Deutsch at MGM Studios but failed to close a deal. In early September, President Truman's secretary called him to come home and work on the presidential election. However, Spingarn also suspected that Lowenthal (and Connelly) "stuck the knife in me." Phileo Nash told Spingarn it was Connelly, influenced by Lowenthal: I mentioned that Max Lowenthal had once told Niles, and possibly others that I was a Facist, that was in 1949, because I told Lowenthal I favored wiretapping under proper controls... Nash said it was quite possible that Max Lowenthal was very vindictive, and he mentioned that Max Lowenthal is currently spending much time in Matt’s office with L’s son. Spingarn further recalled: There was an operation run, more or less, under the supervision of Max Lowenthal in the basement of the White House which was to prepare answers to the charges that McCarthy was hurling so freely during all that period and get them ready in a hurry, not wait until the lie had gone around the world before the truth has gotten its pants on. I remember Herb Maletz–good man–worked in that thing and one or two others whose names I can't remember at the moment. Max Lowenthal was very much involved in that, and in his book The Truman Presidency, Cabell Phillips has me teamed up with Max Lowenthal in running that operation, which is not correct. I did an awful lot of work on the McCarthy stuff, but I did it in terms of trying to devise some machinery, or system, or operation.

Spingarn died on August 6, 1984.