UNDER ATTACK
New York
The officers of the Alexander Defense Committee, an organization providing funds for legal defense and family relief to persecuted opponents of the South African regime, announced June 2 that the committee will refuse to comply with an order by the Justice Department to register as an "agent of a foreign principal. The "foreign principal" named by the Justice Department is Dr. Neville Alexander, a young scholar now serving a ten-year sentence in South Africa's notorious Robben Island concentration camp for his. opposition to apartheid.
Civil- liberties attorney Stanley Faulkner, who has been retained as counsel by the Alexander Defense Committee, notified Assistant Attorney General J. Walter Yeagley that the committee "has no intention of filing as a Foreign Agent" as it "does not consider that it comes within the meaning of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 as amended." According to Mel Wulf, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union: "The Act was intended to disclose the relationship between a domestic agent and a foreign power by whom he is employed. It was never intended to require registration by a domestic group organized to defend an individual against persecution by a foreign government."
ADC officers Paul B. Boutelle, Dave Dellinger, Berta Green: and Robert H. Langston, who face possible ten-thousand-dollar fines: and five-year prison sentences for refusal to register, protested the order in.a letter to. President Johnson. The letter cites the president's speech of May 26 at a White House reception commen-. orating the third anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity.
Johnson pledged the U.S. to aid the peoples of Africa in their efforts.to win "freedom, equality, justice and dignity" and declared: "The foreign policy of the United States is rooted in: its life at home. We will not permit human rights to be restricted 7 in our own country....We will not live by a double standard -professing abroad what we do not practice at home, or venerating at home what we ignore abroad."
The ADC letter states: "If you should permit the Justice Department to proceed against the Alexander Defense Committee, you would demonstrate that American policy abroad is indeed consistent with American policy at home, but, alas, not in the defense of human rights but in their suppression; you would deny Americans the right to aid those abroad who are suffering for the cause of human rights, and you would deprive those who are struggling for human rights in Africa of support by their American friends." The committee has not yet received a reply from the president.
Numerous organizations and individuals have rallied to the support of the ADC. Statements denouncing the government's demand
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that the committee register as a foreign agent have been received from Mel Wulf, legal director, American Civil Liberties Union; Rowland Watts, president, Workers Defense League; the Executive Committee, Emergency Civil Liberties Committee; George Houser, executive director, American Committee on Africa; Stokeley Carmichael, chairman, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Paul.. Booth, national secretary, Students for a Democratic. Society; and others. :
The Alexander Defense Committee was formed in February 1965 to provide funds for the legal defense of Dr. Alexander and ten other South Africans who had been convicted of "sabotage" for forming discussion groups to consider methods of fighting apartheid. Since the appeals in the Alexander case were lost, the committee has given financial aid to the destitute families of the victims. and has provided funds for legal defense and family relief to other persecuted opponents of the Verwoerd regime. _.
The committee, all of whose officers are American citizens, has no Salaried personnel. and has no agency agreement of any. kind with anyone. Its officers decide. what cases the committee will. support on the basis of specific pleas , for aid. — :
In 1965, the ADC, asa part of its educational and fund— raising campaign, sponsored an American lecture tour by exiled | South African liberation leader I.B. Tabata. It is planning a similar tour later this year for Franz J.T. Lee, a young South African who has written and lectured extensively. on South African affairs since living in West Germany. The Cann Gouyone or), issued a fund appeal signed by Congressman John vonyers, Jr., one of the sponsors: of the ADC.
The officers of the ADC have declared their intention to fight this harassment by the Justice Department by all. legal means available to them. Funds are urgently needed for the legal fight as well as for the continuing work of the committee. Contributions and inquiries should be addressed to: Alexander Defense Committee, 874 Broadway , and Floor South, New York, N.Y., 10003.