Kelly, executive director of the U.S. Committee for Justice to Latin American Political Prisoners (USLA), was released from the State Security prison in Lima on January 19. He was then handed an “invitation to leave Peru,” which he had little choice but to accept. But he was not formally expelled from the country, and there will be no charges pending against him in Peru.

Kelly was arrested January 9 while taking photographs in downtown Lima. He was held at the State Security prison along with some 700 Peruvian trade unionists, political activists, and journalists arrested between January 6 and 11. In all, more than 1,000 persons were detained as the military sought to head off a three-day general strike.

Upon learning of the mass arrests in Peru and the detention of its executive secretary, USLA launched an emergency campaign. A picket line was held January 17 at Peru’s UN mission in New York.

As of January 19 twenty-seven persons were still being held at State Security in Lima. At least fifteen of these were expected to be transferred to the jails of the Callao Military Zone—a branch of the armed forces notorious for the torture of prisoners.

Among those still being held were Alfonso Barrantes Lingan, president of Democratic People’s Unity (UDP) and Herrera Montalvo, general secretary of the seaman’s union.  
 
February 1, 1954
BOSTON—Violence and the threat of violence were the outstanding features of Senator [Joseph] McCarthy’s latest “hearing” in the New England area. It set the atmosphere and struck the keynote of what the Boston Globe today called “the most tumultuous Congressional sessions ever held in Boston.” A flying squad of seven deputy marshals was present to manhandle witnesses and spectators who were not already intimidated and terrorized by the presence of the fascist Senator from Wisconsin.

One spectator was, in the words of a TV announcer on the spot, “jet-propelled” by five burly guards from the 12th floor hearing into the snowbanks of Devonshire St. A witness and his attorney were “escorted to the door in rough fashion,” according to the Globe. Another attorney was threatened with similar treatment. All a witness had to do was answer sharply and the marshals’ hands were already seizing his arms, waiting only for McCarthy’s command to throw the man out.

It is correct to demand that the Bar Association protest the illegal and forcible methods employed by McCarthy to cow witnesses and lawyers alike. But it would be foolish to place reliance on such protests as a means of stopping McCarthyism. Their creation of a lynch atmosphere around McCarthy’s victims and their attempts to popularize “rough stuff” as the only proper treatment of anybody who defies the witch hunt are calculated and deliberate.  
 
 
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