JOHN A. CLEMENTS - TELEGRAM UNSIGNED - HFSID 9011354

JOHN A. CLEMENTS
The businessman and newspaper owner sends this telegram to Benjamin Mendel
Telegram unsigned, 8½x5½. New York, New York, November 15, 1967. Sent to: “Benjamin Mandel, Senator Eastland/ Senate Office Building Wash DC”. To “My Dear Ben”. In the telegram Clements apologizes to for not being able to make it to a retirement party held in Mendel's honor. JOHN A CLEMENTS (1900-?) was a newspaperman who later became involved in the public relations and advertising businesses. After serving during World War I, Clements began working for the New York Journal. He then moved on to the New York Daily Mirror, working as an associate editor. In 1936, Clements began working as the public relations director of the Hearst Corporation in New York City. He eventually purchased his own weekly in 1941, the Hunterdon Republican, a leading politically independent newspaper serving Hunterdon County, New Jersey. BENJAMIN MANDEL (1887-1973) was a New York City school teacher and activist. He joined the Communist Party in 1920 as "Bert Miller" and eventually became Organization Secretary for the New York district. Mandel was elected to the organization's Central Committee at its Fifth congress in 1927, and reelected as a "candidate member" at its sixth convention in March 1929. By the later 1930s he had become a dedicated anti-communist, and as "Benjamin Mandel," served as the research director for the Dies Committee from 1939 to 1945. He worked with the New York legislature during the Rapp-Courdert inquiry into the presence of Communist teachers in New York schools. In 1951 he became research director in the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, and stayed in that position until his retirement in 1967. Top and bottom edges irregular from perforation. Toned, especially at edges. Otherwise, fine condition.