Word: polumbaum
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Before the House Committee on Un-American Activities last year, TV Scriptwriter Theodore S. Polumbaum of the United Press took refuge in the Fifth Amendment: he refused to say whether he was or ever had been a Communist. Next day U.P. fired him. Polumbaum, it said, had "intentionally created a doubt as to his honesty . . . and [his] conduct . . . was incompatible with the best interests of journalism...
...American Newspaper Guild protested the discharge, contending that Polumbaum should be judged on whether his copy had shown bias, not on his nonjournalistic activities. But it agreed to let an arbitrator, appointed by the American Arbitration Association, decide. Last week, after deliberating for two months, Arbitrator George Spiegelberg, a Manhattan trial lawyer, upheld the discharge, though he thought that U.P.'s specific reasons for the firing had not been proved. Nevertheless, Spiegelberg held that "The fact that the customers of U.P. would or might believe that U.P. retained a biased reporter . . . gave U.P. just and sufficient cause for discharging...
Theodore S. Polumbaum, the UP man, will appear in connection with the questioning of Daniel Fine, teaching fellow in Medicine...