Dear
You probably have heard that Dr. Sidney Weinbaum will soon undergo trial.
Dr. Weinbaum was born in Russia, and came to the United States in 1922. He became
a citizen in 1927. For two years he was a student at the California Institute of Technology,
obtaining his BS degree in 1924. He spent five years in industrial work, and then
was Research Assistant and Research Fellow in Chemistry at the Institute from 1929
to 1943, and he received the PhD degree in Physics in 1933. He then worked in the
aviation industry until 1946, and for the jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1946 to 1949.
In 1949 he was removed from his position because of his classification by the
Army as a poor security risk. The California Institute of Technology appealed the
case. At the appeal hearing he was charged with having been a communist in the middle
1930’s. He denied the charge under oath, having himself chosen to make a statement
under oath rather than an affirmation. He I snow faced with three charges of perjury
and five of fraud, permitting a possible sentence of forty years. No charges of violation
of security regulations have been made.
A group of his friends (Professors James Bonner, Charles DePrima, Paul S. Epstein,
Linus Pauling, and Verner Schomaker) are now raising money to be used in an effort
to achieve a full presentation of evidence at Sidney Weinbaum’s trial.
We are writing to ask if you can contribute a small (or large) sum to help in
this work. Checks may be made out to Linus Pauling, and sent to him at the address
2500 Fairpoint Street, Pasadena 8, California.
Sincerely yours,
