Remorse & Punishment

There was something oddly inanimate about jail-pallid, soft-eyed little Chemist Harry Gold, 39, as he walked into a Philadelphia courtroom last week to face sentence as an atomic spy. He had a strained, unhealthy air and he sat almost immobile, with his eyes straight ahead.

Gold had long since confessed and pleaded guilty. U.S. Attorney Gerald A. Gleeson limited himself to a dispassionate summation of the prisoner's career as a Soviet agent. In the light of the week's news, it was a flesh-creeping tale of how Gold had acted as courier between British Atomic Spy Klaus Fuchs and a Soviet consulate clerk named Anatoli Antonovich Yakovlev. Fuchs had been privy to the deepest U.S. atom secrets, and Gold had carried a treasure of horror in his soft hands.

Gold's attorney rose to plead for mercy and to point out that the little chemist, since his arrest, had given the FBI information which led to the arrests of other Soviet agents in the U.S. The lawyer was Philadelphia's squarejawed, conservative John D. M. Hamilton, onetime Republican National Chairman.

Hamilton, court-appointed and serving without pay, spoke for three hours, making a plea for pity and understanding of his client. He described Gold as the "most selfless man I have ever met in my entire life." He characterized him as a man who had often borrowed money from loan agencies to lend to fellow employees in need. He said that Gold had received no money from Russia, had entered the Soviet web believing that he was helping an ally. After that "he was entrapped."

Two days later, after the Government had recommended a 25-year term, Spy Gold rose to speak of the things "uppermost in my mind." He had, he said, received the most "scrupulously fair treatment" by the FBI and by the courts-- treatment he would never have got "in the Soviet Union or any of the countries dominated by it." He was concerned over those who had been "besmirched by my deed--my family, my friends, my country . . ." He said: "There is a puny inadequacy to any words telling how deep and horrible is my remorse."

Federal Judge James P. McGranery rejected the U.S. Attorney General's recommendation, and meted out the heaviest prison sentence possible under the espionage law--30 years. He did it, the judge said, "to deter others in the future," and pointed out that under the law, he might have sentenced Gold to death.

Last week a federal court of appeals reversed the conviction of Judith Coplon, ex-Justice Department analyst convicted of trying to pass secret documents to the Russians. The court's reason: legal blunders by the FBI in gathering the evidence and making the arrest. The court was sure, however, that her "guilt is plain." She still stood convicted by another court, on a charge of stealing the documents.

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