Posted on 12/06/2001 3:10:47 PM PST by PatrickHenry
This is an obituary about a dead communist lawyer, not particularly thrilling; but you must read it to see who interned at his radical firm back in 1971. Amazing what gets printed in the New York Times:
December 2, 2001
Robert Treuhaft, Lawyer Who Inspired Funeral Exposé, Dies at 89
By PAUL LEWIS
Robert Treuhaft, a crusading radical lawyer who inspired his wife, Jessica Mitford, to write her best seller "The American Way of Death," died in New York on Nov. 11. He was 89.
As a union lawyer representing longshoremen in the San Francisco area in the 1950's, Mr. Treuhaft was enraged by the exorbitant fees undertakers charged, frequently consuming a widow's death benefits.
After organizing the Bay Area Funeral Society to reduce the cost of funerals for union members, Mr. Treuhaft encouraged his wife to write an exposé of the funeral industry, taking a year off from his Oakland law practice to help with research.
The result was "The American Way of Death," first published in 1963. Miss Mitford, who was known as Decca and who died in 1996, dedicated the work to her husband with gratitude for "his untiring collaboration."
In a 1993 interview, Miss Mitford said that initially she had not been interested in the subject. "Then Bob started bringing home the trade publications like Casket and Sunnyside, Mortuary Management -- all those wonderful names -- so I began to study them," she said.
When the British novelist Evelyn Waugh remarked that the book seemed to have been written by two people, Jessica Mitford's sister Nancy wrote back saying: "Clever of you to see the two voices. I am quite certain much of it was written by Treuhaft who is a sharp little lawyer, and who certainly made her write it in the first place."
In 1976 Gov. Jerry Brown of California appointed Mr. Treuhaft to the state Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers.
Robert Edward Treuhaft was born in New York on Aug. 8, 1912, the son of working-class immigrants from Hungary. His mother eventually came to run her own hat shop on Park Avenue; his father, a waiter turned bootlegger, became part owner of a Wall Street restaurant.
Raised in the Bronx and then Brooklyn, Mr. Treuhaft won a scholarship to Harvard, where he studied law.
After working for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in New York, Mr. Treuhaft was rejected by the Army on medical grounds at the start of World War II and went to work for the Office of Price Administration in Washington; there he met and fell in love with Miss Mitford.
The couple could scarcely have been more different in upbringing. She was one of the blue-blooded Mitford sisters, a daughter of Lord Redesdale and sister to Nancy, the novelist; to Diana, who married Sir Oswald Mosley, the British fascist leader; to Unity, one of Hitler's cronies; and to Deborah, who became Duchess of Devonshire.
Miss Mitford was recovering from the loss of her first husband, Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill's nephew, who had been killed on a Canadian Air Force raid over Germany and with whom she had eloped to fight with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Mr. Treuhaft and Miss Mitford were married in 1943; Miss Mitford accepted his proposal before he had finished making it. They moved to San Francisco, where Mr. Treuhaft started a radical law firm that specialized in fighting every kind of discrimination and social injustice.
Both joined the United States Communist Party and were frequently investigated and harassed by government officials; for many years they were denied passports, for example. But by 1958 they had grown disillusioned with Communism and left the party.
In 1964 Mr. Treuhaft was one of four foreign lawyers expelled from Portugal by the fascist government of Premier Antonio de Oliveira Salazar after they had tried to investigate penal conditions in the country.
In 1971 he accepted a young Yale lawyer named Hillary Rodham (now Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton) as an intern.
After his wife's death, Mr. Treuhaft completed her last book, "The American Way of Death Revisited." He was working on a collection of her letters at the time of his death.
Mr. Treuhaft is survived by a stepdaughter, Constancia Romilly, and his son, Benjamin, a New York piano tuner who runs the Send a Piano to Havana Project, shipping old pianos to Cuba.
Both joined the United States Communist Party and were frequently investigated and harassed by government officials; for many years they were denied passports, for example. But by 1958 they had grown disillusioned with Communism and left the party.
Back in the 1930's and 1940's many young Americans joined the Communist Party .... many also traveled to Spain to fight against Franco and the Nazis. Fighting the Nazi's and Franco's fascists in Spain was considered to be a brave and romatic endeavor at the time ... Have you ever read Ernest Hemmingway? Can anyone reasonably call Hemmingway a Commy?
Even Ronald Reagan was attracted by the appeal of socialist ideology in the late 1930's.
My grandfather (a very conservative self-made millionaire) at one time was a "Wobbly" (Member of the "Socialist Workers of the World" Party) because he was upset with the way large companies were exploiting women and children who were paid pennies a day to perform piecework. Later, he became a rum runner and casino owner in Nevada and California.
Robert Treuhaft was a radical lawyer and crusader against injustice with a Socialist point of view. He denounced Communism, most likely because of the excesses of Russia under Stalin. However, I also suggest that he died quite wealthy because the law made him rich. He was not really a Commy.
Hitlery is not really a Commy. She is a fundamentally and totally corrupt person without a trace of conscience who only desires power for power's sake.
She is founding member of the "New Democrats" ["New Social Democrats"] in the U.S. which makes her closer to being a type of National Socialist than being a Communist.
People loved Bob [Treuhaft] because of his manifest integrity and courage. He had an instinctive respect for others and was a mentor to countless young lawyers, including Hillary Clinton, and his black receptionist, whom he encouraged to go to law school, said: "He was the wings under my wings."
In high school, Hillary was a conservative Goldwater Girl. But throughout her college years, Hillary identified with far Left politics. At her Wellesley commencement speech, she railed against capitalism and criticized the keynote speaker, Senator Edward Brooke, for being ?out of touch.? Interestingly, in 1993, Hillary had her Wellesley senior thesis placed under ?lock and key.? (Washington Times 7/13/1999). While attending Yale Law, Hillary?s politics became very radical. She interned with Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children?s Defense Fund (CDF), and later worked for Stalinist lawyer Robert Treuhaft.
Who is Hillary Rodham Clinton?.
Bobby Seale's lawyer introduced Hillary to Robert Treuhaft and his wife Jessica Mitford. Both were avowed communists, and Treuhaft for years served as the attorney for the Communist Party, USA. As the result of this meeting, Hillary spent the summer of 1971 as an intern in Treuhaft?s law office in Berkeley.
When she arrived at Wellesley College in 1965, she discovered beauty and truth. "It was a time of surging idealism," writes Sheehy, "with bards such as Joan Baez crooning in her crystal-pure soprano." Later, while at Yale Law School, Hillary spent a summer working for Robert Treuhaft, the Communist attorney and defender of the Black Panthers in Oakland, California. (He was also the husband of Jessica Mitford.) "Hillary was only mildly interested in the Panther cause," Treuhaft says, "but she did want to work for a left-wing movement law firm. Anyone who went to college or law school would have known our law firm was a Communist law firm."
Hitlery is not really a Commy.
Doesn't look like Treuhaft ever "denounced Communism" if the following quote is accurate:
"Hillary was only mildly interested in the Panther cause," Treuhaft says, "but she did want to work for a left-wing movement law firm. Anyone who went to college or law school would have known our law firm was a Communist law firm."http://www.nationalreview.com/20dec99/nordlinger122099.html
America's Fifth Column ... watch PBS documentary JIHAD! In America
Download 8 Mb zip file here (50 minute video)
I find this kind of stuff fascinating...
"Miss Mitford was recovering from the loss of her first husband, Esmond Romilly,
Winston Churchill's nephew, who had been killed on a Canadian Air Force raid
over Germany and with whom she had eloped to fight with the International
Brigade in the Spanish Civil War.
Mr. Treuhaft and Miss Mitford were married in 1943"
Heavy involvement in, of all things - the Funeral Industry... hummm, what did Hitlery learn?
Yep.
(Redbloodedam., thanks for your continuing pings on all Chinese and North Korean articles. Very much appreciated.)
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