Galbraith Will Not Give More Senate Testimony

John Kenneth Galbraith, professor of Economics, will not reappear before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee to answer charges by Sen. Homer E. Capehart (R-Ind.) that he had "praised Communism" and had "discredited the American economy."

In place of additional testimony, Galbraith submitted a six-page statement which was placed in the Committee's record at a secret executive session March 31. The University economist had previously demanded that he be allowed to testify further, but he said last night he had "yielded to the suggestion of a supplementary report."

Although Sen. William J. Fulbright (D-Ark, the chairman, publicly announced March 21 that a decision on Galbraith's recall would be made at the executive session. Galbraith revealed that he was asked unofficially to prepare the written statement for presentation at the secret meeting.

Capehart Denies Implications

Faced with strong opposition from fellow Republicans, Capehart reportedly denied that he had made the implications about Galbraith which were attributed to him.

Galbraith warned in his statement which was released in Washington last week that if witnesses before Congress must fear attacks on their records, they will refuse to testify. "If they are to be given a saliva test for security, they may hesitate," he said.

Capehart stiffed open discussion by identifying non-confirming opinion with sympathy for Communism, according to Galbraith. The Senator "injudiciously lifted two paragraphs from context from the pamphlet, edited them to heighten the effect, and cited them as evidence that I am sympathetic to Communism," Galbraith added.

"There is no question as to the Senator's actions, and I suggest that the Committee include these pages in the record as a permanent souvenir for connoisseurs of this dubious practice," he said. Appended to the statement was the section of the Galbraith pamphlet "Beyond the Marshall Plan" on which the Indiana senator based his accusations.

Galbraith reaffirmed that the implications were false and said that he had been generally defended against them. "False charges rarely do lasting damages," he said.

He added that, contrary to the belief of Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey, confidence in the economy cannot "be lost in a day. The idea that candor would imperil economic stability is, almost certainly, ill conceived, if the economy were vulnerable to words, it would have succumbed ages ago."