Day of Judgment

From the beginning of the Judy CoplonValentin Gubichev espionage trial, Manhattan's big, moon-faced Federal Judge Sylvester Ryan had been getting a hotfoot from the defense lawyers almost every day. Even after Judy fired her bench-baiting lawyer--brassy, little Archie Palmer--in midtrial, things did not improve. The court got her three lawyers who had been assisting Archie. Judy pouted and said she didn't like them. Then the attorneys pouted. They obviously hoped to appeal on grounds that Government Girl Judy Coplon was the victim of prejudicial treatment: as the trial drew to a close last week, they refused to cross-examine Government witnesses, made no final statement to the jury.

Hot Blood. Unlike them, Abraham L. Pomerantz, Gubichev's lawyer, battled hard for his client. The substance of his defense: the stolid Russian, a $6,050-a-year engineer for the U.N., had not kept his Manhattan trysts with Judy to receive state secrets from her, but only to express his "hot-blooded" love. But when the jury came in, after 19 hours and 10 minutes, its foreman announced that the verdict for both defendants was: "Guilty."

Judy stared accusingly at the jury with tears welling up in her eyes. Her alleged lover, Gubichev, looked only infinitely bored.

He was just as impassive, two days later, as he was called up to be sentenced. Speaking calmly in Russian (he speaks English well), he read a complaining statement to the court. The U.S. had violated his diplomatic immunity, he said, and what's more, the FBI had tried to get information about Russian military affairs from him.

Judge Ryan listened intently. Was there, he finally asked, anything further? U.S. Attorney Irving Saypol rose. He had a letter from the U.S. Attorney General. He said: ". . . Upon the recommendation of the Department of State, it is recommended that Your Honor suspend any sentence against this defendant ... [if] he departs from the U.S. within two weeks . . ."

Smiling Defiance. Gubichev smiled. The judge stared sternly, and then, before agreeing to the Government's request, voiced his pent-up indignation on Gubichev: ". . . You came here as an emissary of peace; you were acceptable among us in the role of a friend . . . but you betrayed the cause of peace. You have, by your acts, attempted to destroy the hopes of millions . . . And you do all this with arrogance . . . there is a smile on your lips . . . you are defiant of all humanity." Then, sentencing Gubichev to 15 years in prison, and suspending the sentence, the judge warned that he would still have to face some day another tribunal, the "omnipotent Judge, who will pass judgment on us all."

After that, Judge Ryan turned to Defendant Coplon, asked if she had anything to say. Judy Coplon replied firmly: "Not at this time, Your Honor." Speaking like a sorrowing father banishing a daughter from his doorstep, Judge Ryan read her a lecture too:

"You have brought dishonor on the name you bear . . . and tragedy upon your family . . . You have been disloyal to the country which has nourished you . . . My observation of you during the trial and my knowledge of the facts convince me that the seeds of disloyalty still find root within your breast." Judy, too, got 15 years. With the sentence she had received for espionage in Washington last summer, it added up to a maximum of 25 in all.

That did not quite end the CoplonGubichev case. Though the State Department's request for a suspended sentence (made for the sake of U.S. nationals behind the Iron Curtain) had given Gubichev a chance to go scot-free, he didn't jump at it. Obviously he had to wait while the Kremlin made up his mind for him. His attorney went ahead with plans for appeal--just in case his bosses left him in the lurch. But they didn't. After four days, Gubichev got his orders: he would be shipped out on the Polish liner Batory, the useful Communist vessel which had once carried off ex-Communist Spy Gerhart Eisler as a stowaway.

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