TREASON CHARGES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 July 1943, Page 4

TREASON CHARGES

LAID AGAINST EIGHT AMERICANS INCLUDING TWO WOMEN. FOR BROADCASTING IN AXIS SERVICE. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day. 1.30 p.m.) WASHINGTON, July 26. Eight Americans, including two women, who have broadcast regularly from Germany and Italy on behalf of the Axis war effort, have been indicted for treason. Announcing this, the At-torney-General, Mr Biddle, said they will be brought to trial when caught. Six are native Americans and two are naturalised Americans, of German birth. The indictments are similar, each alleging that the defendant aided the United States’ enemies by repeated breadcasts, designed to persuade American citizens to decline to support the United States’ conduct of the war. The indictments involve a charge which carries the death penalty. The defendants are Ezra Pound, aged 57, Robert Best, aged 47. Frederick Kaltenbach, aged 48, Douglas Chandler, aged 54, Edward Delaney, ' aged 57, Constance Drexel, aged 48, Jane Henderson, aged 50, and Max Koischwitz, aged 41. Five of the accused persons were formerly Press correspondents, and Kaltenbach, a former United States Army officer, is described as the American counterpart of Lord Haw Haw. Jane Anderson was saved from death by the State Department’s intercession after being arrested as-a spy by the Spanish loyalists.