Word: popkin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Evans said he was disappointed that the University Police had not discovered the cab driver's identity. "When the academic freedom of (Samuel L.) Popkin was abused, the University rushed into action, but when my physical person was set upon they didn't act." Evans said yesterday...
...UNEXPECTED RELEASE from jail last week of Samuel L. Popkin lecturer in Government, and the disbanding of the Boston grand jury investigating the Pentagon Papers leak, ended a protracted pressure campaign by government officials who sought as yet undetermined information about Popkin's connection with Daniel Ellsberg '52 and other persons...
...Popkin is no flaming radical. Though an opponent of the Viet Nam War, he has received Government funds to support research visits to South Viet Nam. He is also a friend of Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, now under indictment for giving the Pentagon papers to the press. When a Boston federal grand jury asked Popkin what he knew about the papers, he answered that he had not read them before their publication and had no knowledge of how they had been leaked (he was in Hong Kong at the time). After some complicated legal maneuvering, he refused to answer two questions...
...unusual move, Harvard President Derek Bok, former dean of the law school, appeared in court to defend Popkin and asked that the sentence be dropped so that "a conflict not exist" between the Government and the academic community. Besides, Bok said, he had been told that the Government did not intend to call Popkin back before the grand jury anyway. Government attorneys quickly answered that if Popkin would talk the grand jury was anxious to listen. With that, Judge W. Arthur Garrity concluded that Popkin should go to jail until the grand jury is dissolved, which may happen...
...Popkin's Harvard colleagues were generally angered by what they felt was governmental harassment of unfriendly intellectuals. But they were wary of giving scholars a special immunity to grand jury questions. "Who is a scholar?" asked Constitutional Law Expert Martin Shapiro. "Once you establish this rule, then nearly everyone can claim it." Political Scientist Arthur Maas agreed: "If professors continue to claim they are not subject to the normal obligations of citizens, they are going to do more harm to the scholarly enterprise than good." In the end, grand jury excesses against scholars, like those involving newsmen, may redound...