In memory of Bartley Crum, Fighter for Jewish Rights

"I shall be telling this with a sigh," wrote Robert Frost about the road less travelled by. The same emotion can be experienced about the story of Bartley Crum, a fascinating, charming figure, an honorable man , a Roman Catholic who fought courageously for causes he considered just and in which he strongly believed. Among them were the fight against anti-Semitism, solving the plight of Holocaust survivors, and support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Sadly, his life ended at the age of 59 in a tragic way, suicide after a life of alcohol, addiction to drugs, and barbiturates.

Some well-known non-Jews, Arthur Balfour, Winston Churchill, Lloyd George, Clark Clifford, Martin Luther King, and General Orde Wingate, contributed to the fight for the emancipation of the Jews, to finding a haven for European Jews, and to the struggle for the creation of a Jewish state. One of the overlooked and little-known valiant participants in that struggle was Bartley Crum.

Bartley Crum, a handsome, hard drinking, tough, politically Republican San Francisco lawyer, was known at first as a player in the elite corporate legal fraternity, especially for William Randolph Hearst, and for his active role in politics. His roster of legal clients embraced both Hollywood celebrities and leftist trade unionists. In Hollywood, he was the lawyer for Rita Hayworth in her million-dollar divorce from Prince Aly Khan, as well as attorney for Orson Welles, John Garfield, and Montgomery Clift. Outside La La Land, he acted for the Australian-born Harry Bridges, head of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union who, as an alleged Communist, was threatened with deportation, and for the young Jack Kennedy.

Possessor of a clear sense of justice, Crum, a Republican, worked with communists and took on leftist causes. He was one of the four lawyers in 1949 defending the "Hollywood 10" who were subpoened to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities headed by J. Parnell Thomas. He also endorsed Paul Robeson's American Crusade against Lynching founded in 1946 and also supported by Albert Einstein and Lena Horne, but which was characterized by the FBI as a "communist front." As a result of these activities by Crum, his phone was tapped, his mail was opened, and he was kept under close watch by the FBI.

Crum, the politically connected lawyer, was also the campaign manager for Wendell Willkie, the Republican challenger to FDR in the 1940 presidential election. Willkie was one of the few leading politicians at the time sympathetic to the plight of the Jews. Wilkie's book One World affected Crum, who adopted Willkie's view of universal justice. Crum joined Willkie in speaking strongly for the need to clear out the Dispaced Persons (DP) camps in Germany. If not, Jews might engage in mass suicide, or they would fight their way into Palestine. Crum, as did Willkie, supported the cause of Jews while the British government and prominent American figures were hostile or indifferent. One sign of this was Crum's support of RKO in the production of Crossfire, the 1947 film noir drama that dealt with U.S. domestic anti-Semitism.

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