Boris Brasol, Chief Witness of U.S. in Court Suit, Indicted for Anti-semitism

Anti-Semitism was injected as an issue in a United States Court suit Friday afternoon in the case of the Russian Volunteer Fleet vs. the United States government, when the attorneys for the Russian Fleet sought to impeach the credibility of the governments chief witness on the grounds of his anti-Semitism.

The witness whose testimony was attacked is Boris Brasol, a member of the old Czarist Russian aristocracy, whom Charles Recht, attorney for the Fleet, sought to picture as a modern Haman. The anti-Semitic trail was taken up by Recht in the course of his questioning of Brasol’s legal activities in Russia.

“Name some of the leading cases in which you were employed in Russia,” said Recht.

Brasol instanced two cases.

“Give us some more,” said Recht.

“I handled several thousand cases. Do you want me to go on endlessly?”

“Were you ever connected with the Beilis ritual murder case?” demanded Recht.

The attorney for the government, H. Briand Holland, was quickly on his feet with objections to the question.

“What do you propose to show,” interposed Commissioner Myron C. Cohen, before whom the suit is being tried.

“We propose to prove that this witness’s mind is biased—that in Russia his anti-Semitism was notorious—that in this country since his arrival he has been a propagandist—that he has been associated in this country with the publication of a forgery—that he has been exposed in the public prints—that he labors under the belief or affects to believe to be a Bolshevist is to be a Jew, and that accordingly, all of his views of Soviet issues are colored by this anti-Jewish phobia, and that consequently his testimony on Soviet affairs is undependable.

“I profoundly regret,” said Recht, “that I am forced to introduce this angle into the case, but the government need not be surprised. I have warned them repeatedly. There are hundreds of experts on Russian affairs. There was no need to take this particular one, but they have taken him, despite my warnings that if they did, I would impeach the worth of his testimony. They have acted contemptuously in the face of my warning. It is an affront to the millions of taxpayers who are Jews for the United States Attorney to have spent the money he has on this witness.

“We propose to show,” continued Mr. Recht, “the unreliability of the witness by such statements of his as the following to be found in his utterances, namely: that Kameneff was involved in a post office robbery, and that Trotzky has stolen and secreted some eighty million golden roubles. We propose to show it by his participation in the Beilis ritual murder case, and by #is association in the spreading of the forgery of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

The injection of the Jewish angle brought forth the suggestion from Commissioner Cohen, that perhaps it would be best for him to withdraw, and allow a non-Jew to sit in his stead. The lawyers for the government, announcing their own desire for Commissioner Cohen to continue, upon the suggestion of the Court, there was a lull in the legal proceedings in order to communicate with the Attorney-General at Washington.

When word from the Attorney-General came suggesting that the Commissioner continue his hearing, Mr. Holland, for the government, arose to express his pleasure at the continuance of the Jewish judge in the case.

Friday’s session of the court was concluded with the admission into the record for identification of two volumes written by Brasol—”The World at the Cross Roads” and “The Balance Sheet of Sovietism,” which Mr. Recht charges revealed Brasol’s anti-Jewish, anti-Soviet prejudice.

Brasol was also asked to identify some articles of a series of expose articles dealing with Brasol among others which appeared in Hearst’s International Magazine in 1922.

The general hearing of the case is expected to take at least another week.