BRANDED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403440003-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: January 11, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403440003-7
AK IIULE APPOA R D 11 January 1986
ON PAGE
Branded
Chicago. Penn Kimball. was a liberal Demo-
crat being smeared by other liberal
EIS NOT OFTEN that one gets to
know in real life a character out
a novel. but for Years the hero of
been corresponding with
Franz Kafka's The Trial." a man
By Garry Wills
who has suffered before an invisible
tribunal for almost 40 years. .
My acquaintance began, eight
years ago. at a lunch with members
of the Columbia School of Journal-
ism. One of the school's professors
told me that he had recently heard,
from a scholar's work in old letters
at the Library of Congress, how he
was secretly branded a crypto-com-
munist by Cold War liberals when
he worked for The New Republic
during the 1940s.
It was an interesting case of the
McCarthyism that preceded Joseph
McCarthy. The man, whose name is
Democrats. Mr. Kimball thought he
would see what else was being said
abouth and applied under
the ,of information Act for
any files the FBI or the CIA might
have opened on him.
As usual, It was a long and diffi-
cult process to pry material out of
the FBI, but the results. when finally
produced. were staggering. Not only
was there a fie on Mr. Kimball. but
one on his wife - both of them full of
false information, unsubstantiated
allegations and mistaken connec-
tions. Yet this had been the basis for
Mr. Kimball's rejection by the For-
eign Service when he- applied to It
after serving in the Marines in World
War II - and probably for his being
passed over for a job in the Kennedy
administration.
So far, the CIA has refused to re-
the main part Mr. Kim-ball's
ftle to him. His valuable 1983 book
experience. "The Fie," had to
be based mainly on FBI documents.
But Mr. Kimball. a persistent 70-
year-old man of principle, has kept
after the Last m th Senator Lowell
Weicker . Conn.. his con-
gress on secur clem-wice.- read
the s eon Mr. KiMbaU,
sa i FaMv im the man's
there is no
reason why the file could not. and
should not, be released - along with
an apology to Mr. Kimball for the
injustices done to him over the
The very agency that collected
and disseminated the false Informa-
tion has the right to decide whether
to retain it - an absurd situation, as
Senator Weicker points out. There
should be an independent review
board to decide disputed cases like
Mr. Kimball's.
Mrs. Kimball, who was also
wronged by the government agen-
cies, is now dead. but Mr. Kimball. I
am glad to say. is still alive and
rightly kicking. It Is time for The Tri-
al
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/11: CIA-RDP90-00965R000403440003-7