Biography
Irving Weissman was a Spanish Civil War veteran, decorated United States Army veteran and Communist Party organizer. Authorities arrested him on August 17, 1951. A federal jury convicted him in the Pittsburgh Smith Act trial and imposed a five-year sentence, but the conviction was later overturned and the prosecution dropped. During the 1953 trial he was jailed for refusing to identify other party members and completed a sixty-day contempt sentence on October 18, 1953; he remained held afterward until a $20,000 Smith Act bond could be supplied.
National Guardian, October 19, 1953, national page 16: William Albertson and Irving Weissman were reported to have completed sixty-day contempt terms October 18, but would remain detained until $20,000 Smith Act bonds were supplied. The Committee for Constitutional Bail was seeking funds. Completion of the contempt term is not physical discharge, and the report supplies no endpoint for continued detention or exact contempt admission date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/national-guardian/1953-10-19-5-52-nat-guardian.pdf
