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Aptheker, B NY Times.P65 74 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21 , 1965 California Coed, 21, Is the American Communist Party's Foremost Ingenue By JOliN CORRY Writes on Negro IIIstory Spedal to n. N~ Toll'll T1aIu BERKELEY, Calif., Nov. 19 they are pen pals, dl..scussing In 1~3 he was one of 16 Ch'n \\ ;11'. ,,"as called 1..3. Pa· -BetUna Aptheker, who grew party programs and recrulbnent authors whose books were re­ sionaria.. That's ril;ht. she says, up In Flatbush, pestered ball­ efforts among youths. Commu­ moved by the State Department Krupskaya. was Lenln's wife. pla.yers for autographs outside nism, Miss Aptheker says, has from Its overseas libraries. A s the daughter o( a leading Ebbets Field and visited Pros­ enormous appeal for young peo­ Most notably, he has written Communist, Miss Aptheker was on pect Park every Sunday. Is, at ple. Negro history. nol entirety happy in grade 21, the foremost Ingenue of the She dismisses as "sectarian" Miss Aptheker says that in Communist party, the criticism. often voiced by 1962, when she told her father school. Teachers, she says, some­ times discriminated against her, She Is also a history student extreme Jeftists, that the party she was joining the party, he on the Berkeley cantpus of the Is a collection of tired men and did not ten her to I'C!COnslder; and some parents were not University of California. There, women. In truth, she says, the he did not tell her of jail tenns, pleased when their children amid Its stone and glass splen­ party is the "vanguard" of the fear or even glory. She recalls wanted to play at her apart· dors, a young man raced up American len, staking out Its that he simply said, "Well, if mcnt. to her 1a.st },{onday and said advanced positions. you w~nt to." and that ended the conversation. Itleolugy lind Outln;ljo the 'Supreme Court had just The 196" Campaign Her mot her Is al<;o a Com· ruled tllat Communists could !I1i:'s Aptheker saj';; her pa r· munist, and into the f2mily' !,; not be compelled to register "Everyone said we were finks ents hied neither force hcr for supporting Johnson In 1964., sixth·floor apal·tment on Wash­ to with the Government. Into Communism nor to shield "Yippee," she shouted. Like but they fail~ to understand l :lg~ :l n A,·eauc III Crookl),n her f rom It Ideology, she in­ & cheer leader at a California our tn/e position, which was came m" nv mcn and \Vemen. football game (something she much more complex," she AAYS. ful! of ooleinlcs and dialoa-Ul?, to sists, was balanced by family has nc\'er seen) she spun into "Goldwater was a neo-fasclst dlsclI:<.S Ma1'xism at the dinner outingS and other aspects of the alr, heels tucked under her and as early as 1960 the party table. domestic lite, body. recognized that neo·fascism pre­ The tate Elizabeth G).l rley Nevertheless, as a child she "WonderCul," she said, "just sented the main danger to the Flynn, once the head o( the par­ first came to kno'v that her wonderful." country." ty, w~ a vJsitor, So was parents were somehow set a.part 'I1te week before, In a lelter Miss Aplhekcr Is 5 fttt 2 W. E. B. DuBois, who helped from other people. In particular, to The Daily caIlfornian, the Inches tall, shuns make--up and to (ound the National Associa­ she recalls a leacher in the tion for the Advancemel\l of student newspaper, Miss Apthe­ wears her haIr pulled back se­ sixth grade. She says: Colorro People and ' ...·ho died in "This one woman was very ker wrote: verely from her forehead. She l "I bve been for 3. number of Ghana, a. Communist, at 93. I nasty because my (ather w~ a gestures with both hands, Det.Uoo. Apt.heker----._­ Communist. She Singled me out years, I am now, and I intend '[ Lo,'ed n er' spreads her fmgers open for ;;;. nd tllrned all her prejudices to remain & member of the E xuberantly :MIss Aptheker, Communist Party of the Unit­ emphasis, and pursues argu­ on me." ed States." ments \\,"ith measured intensity. recalls Miss Flynn's causes and It was better at Erasmus Hall "It Is time to afflrm the right Recently she married Jack campaigns and So1-ys: High School. Miss Apthekel"s to be a Communist," she said, Kurzweil, who is ~ tudying (or "I loved her very much. She marks improved although she adding that under the Subver­ a rloctorate in electrical engi­ was very gentlc and dignified. nearl} expelled for refuslng neering. She considers Aptheker was sive Activities Control Act of Even in prison they cailed her to take part in a CiVil Defense 1950 she owed the Governmcnl her public name, however, and Miss Flynn." it Is as Apthcl<er that she Is drlli. Later In high school she "$12.150.000 I' ml 5.075 YC? I·s in M iss Aptheker remembers Mr. tried to Conn a human rights pnSon" (or failing to register. listed In the unlver-slty records. DuBois, who left most of hi s The name, in fact, is promi­ committee (or civil rights ac· Miss Apthckcl', who Is a papers to her father, as "tre­ tivities. member of the party's national nent in American Communism, mendously learned, but very Herbert Aptheker, Bettina's (a­ She also joined Ac:tvanee, which youth commission, asserts tha t courteous and gallant." J . Edgar Hoovcr. the director Commwllst membership among ther, directs the American In­ The celebrated names of Com· sUtute for Marxist Studies in of the Federal Bureau of In­ the young has gro"'tl fourfold munism are as familiar to Bet­ vestigation, calkd a Communist In t he last five years. New York and is usually de­ tina Aptheker as, say, the name scribed as the party's leading youth group, and later she be. The youth commission, which theoretician. Ringo Starr to a high school came a member of a DuBois has headquarters in New York, girl. Yes, she tells someone who Club, which Mr. Hoover said ha.s a dozen members. In the ukcd. D o l o~:<i tbarrllr\. the was another. a.bsence of a national oonvention Loyalist heroine of the Spanish 74 SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1965 California Coed, 21, Is the American Communist Party's Foremost Ingenue In 1959 the Apthcker family lac dealer, the Sheraton·PaJ... er her Dame.DOl' hl!1' hwbaDd',s, visited France, Czechoslovakia ace In San Fra.ncl.sco and The u4 at le&!l; 0lIe letter heJd out and Hungary, where Miss Ap­ Oakland Tribune for allegedly the threat of death the\<er met, among other not­ reCusing to hire Negroes. Miss Aptheker is bemused. ables, Premier .Janos Kadar. She has also been tn Jail she sal'3. by what she considers Generally the family spent twice, most recently Co_ demon­ tbe excessive $Crotin) or tlle po. late July and early August trav­ strating III the Free Speech lice; She says sh once picked eling, the Apthekers driving to Movement, which disrupted the up her phone--this was before Vermont to pick up their daugh­ university last December and her recent announcement-and ter at camp. The camp was not which she helped to lead. heard a tape playing back part socialist, M.i ~s Aptheker says, On the Berkeley campus, with ot a conversation she had had but she prized it because it was its more than 27,000 students, the day before. Someone~ she fuUy integrated. dissent blossoms easIly. Each sunnises, wu tapping her In her 3<Ioiescence Miss Ap­ day thousands of handbUls are phone. theker twice marched in Wash­ passed out and hundreds of pos­ Still, there b & coUegtat. mgton-once to protest nuclear ters and broadsides praise or gaiety here. At Berkeley there weapons, once to advocate damn dozcns of causes. seems to be uttle opprobrium the nuclear test ban treaty. In ft;Ont of Sproul Hall, where attacbed. to being a Communist. In New York at the age of the great battles of the Free A student, for example, passes 11 three of her ribs were Speech Movement were fought, Wss Aptheker, stops. turns cracked dUring a pacifist de­ stodents sit at tables to collect and yells: monslnttion in Father DUffy money, gather signatures for ·'Yah. you're & Communist,. Sq.uare. Miss Apthckcr, who petitions or pass out literature. and so's your old man." s,,"lld :l policeman hac! hit her Young Amclicans for Freedom Then he smiles and wavC9 with a C:llb, did not t ell hel' and young TroL<;kylsts may sit and Miss Aptheker waves back. is: pa .. cnt~ :o.OOllt it b :!c"lu:-:c l;h<!! next to one another Without ex· It an old joke. "didn't w:tnt to worry them and changing more than frosty war.ted to Co to a movie tha t glances. night with a boy I really Iikt.'<l Sometimes on the far left anyway." The ribs g rew bacl{ there Is a sullen intensity that crooked. explodes into political nihilism: III California, Miss Apthckcr A group waVing a banner that has marched to protest the Bay proclaimed it as the ProVisional of PigS and the war in Viet. OrganiZing Committee for namA She has picketed a. Cadil. True Marxism-Lcnin1sm once pre--empted the front row in a peace maroh that was supposed to Include aU shades of liberal opinion. "Highly sect"ltian." Miss Ap­ theli:er says.
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