Nathan Witt

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Nathan Witt (1903 - February 16, 1982, New York City), was an American labor lawyer.

Witt graduated from New York University and Harvard Law School. He was hired by the New Deal Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the early 1930's. In 1936 he joined the National Labor Relations Board as assistant general counsel and became its secretary in 1937. After he resigned from the board in 1941, he became a partner in the New York law firm of Witt & Cammer. From 1955 on he became full-time counsel to the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (later a division of the United Steel Workers of America).

Witt was a member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), the U.S. affiliate of the global Moscow directed Comintern organization. Federal regulations forbade partisan political activity by federal employees, so Witt became a member of the CPUSA's secret apparatus and allegedly worked in the Ware group, a group of about 75 underground communists within the Roosevelt Administration who advocated the violent overthrow of the United States Government. Upon the death of the group's leader, Harold Ware, in 1935, Witt moved into a key position of leadership.

During Witt's tenure at the NLRB, Allen Rosenberg worked under his supervision as an attorney. A special committee of the House of Representatives began looking into the NLRB's misuse of congressional appropriations after it was discovered funds were used to seek outside support to oppose legislation affecting the National Labor Relations Act and to oppose a reduction of the appropriations for the Board in violation of Section 201, Title 18, U.S. Code. The FBI also made an investigation of the case.

[edit] Sources

• John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press
• Silvermaster Group FBI FOIA
• NY times obituary