Our writ issued in this case (358 U.S. 917, 79 S.Ct. 289, 3 L.Ed.2d 237) to review a judgment of the Court of Appeals (4 Cir., 260 F.2d 21) affirming petitionr § conviction under the so-called membership clause of the Smith Act. 18 U.S.C. § 2385, 18 U.S.C.A. § 2385. The Act, among other things, makes a felony the acquisition or holding of knowing membership in any organization which advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force or violence. The indictment charged that from January 1946 to the date of its filing (November 18, 1954) the Communist Party of the United States was such an organization, and that petitioner throughout that period was a member thereof, with knowledge of the Party's illegal purpose and a specific intent to accomplish overthrow 'as speedily as circumstances would permit.'
The validity of this conviction is challenged on statutory, constitutional, and evidentiary grounds, and further on the basis of certain alleged trial and procedural errors. We decide the issues raised upon the fullest consideration, the case having had an unusually long history in this Court. For reasons given in this opinion we affirm the Court of Appeals.
Statutory Challenge.
Petitioner contends that the indictment fails to state an offense against the United States. The claim is that § 4(f) of the Internal Security Act of 1950, 64 Stat. 987, 50 U.S.C. § 781 et seq., 50 U.S.C.A. § 781 et seq., constitutes a pro tanto repeal of the membership clause of the Smith Act by excluding from the reach of that clause membership in any Communist organization. Section 4(f) provides:
'Neither the holding of office nor membership in any Communist organization by any person shall constitute per se a violation of subsection (a) or subsection (c) of this section or of any other criminal statute. The fact of the registration of any person under section 7 or section 8 of this title as an officer or member of any Communist organization shall not be received in evidence against such person in any prosecution for any alleged violation of subsection (a) or subsection (c) of this section or for any alleged violation of any other criminal statute.'
To prevail in his contention petitioner must, of course, bring himself within the first sentence of this provision, since the second sentence manifestly refers only to exclusion from evidence of the fact of registration, thus assuming that a prosecution may take place.
We turn first to the provision itself, and find that, as to petitioner's construction of it, the language is at best ambiguous if not suggestive of a contrary conclusion. Section 4(f) provides that membership or office-holding in a Communist organization shall not constitute 'per se a violation of subsection (a) or subsection (c) of this section or of any other criminal statute.' Petitioner would most plainly be correct if the statute under which he was indicted purported to proscribe membership in Communist organizations, as such, and to punish membership per se in an organization engaging in proscribed advocacy. But the membership clause of the Smith Act on its face, much less as we construe it in this case, does not do this, for it neither proscribes membership in Communist organizations, as such, but only in organizations engaging in advocacy of violent overthrow, nor punishes membership in that kind of organization except as to one 'knowing the purposes thereof,' and, as we have interpreted the clause, with a specific intent to further those purposes (infra, 367 U.S. at pages 219-222, 81 S.Ct. at pages 1481-1483). We have also held that the proscribed membership must be active, and not nominal, passive or theretical (infra, 367 U.S. at pages 222-224, 81 S.Ct. at pages 1482-1484). Thus the words of the first sentence of § 4(f) by no means unequivocally demand the result for which petitioner argues. When we turn from those words to their context, both in the section as a whole and in the scheme of the Act of which they are a part, whatever ambiguity there may be must be resolved, in our view, against the petitioner's contention.
In the context of § 4 as a whole, the first sentence of subsection (f) does not appear to be a provisions repealing in whole or in part any other provision of the Internal Security Act. Subsection (a) of § 4 makes it a crime
'for any person knowingly to combine, conspire, or agree with any other person to perform any act which would substantially contribute to the establishment within the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship * * * the direction and control of which is to be vested in, or exercised by or under the domination or control of, any foreign government, foreign organization or foreign individual * * *.'