---
title: "SISS chief counsel Robert Morris stated the Rajchman subpoena was issued because the subcommittee learned he might leave the country, and the Senate later reported contempt resolutions against Rajchman when he did not appear"
type: "claim"
status: "seedling"
source_url: "https://archive.org/details/ludwik-rajchman"
source_title: "Ludwik Rajchman FBI file"
source_author: "Federal Bureau of Investigation"
source_date: "2023-05-11"
source_venue: "Internet Archive (FBI FOIA release, FOIPA Request No. 1589243-000; requested and uploaded by Noah Scheer)"
source_tier: 1
source_sha: "42fda6fed1596da36c6cdf6c244d9a680dddfa092afb2de6e157106b8132f1ac"
source_quote: "RAJCHMAN THREW THE SUBPOENA TO THE FLOOR OF A NY HOTEL WHEN IT WAS HANDED [HIM], ACCORDING TO ROBERT MORRIS, CHIEF COUNSEL FOR THE SUBCOMMITTEE... THE SUBCOMMITTEE WANTS TO QUESTION RAJCHMAN ABOUT COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES IN SPECIALIZED AGENCIES OF THE UN, MORRIS SAID. HE SAID THE SUBPOENA WAS ISSUED BECAUSE SUBCOMMOTTEE HAD LEARNED RAJCHMAN MIGHT BE LEAVING THE COUNTRY IN A FEW DAYS."
provenance: "Promotion from 10-inbox/raw/2026-09-13-does-an-fbi-file-or-another-primary-confirm.md, 2026-09-13"
origin: "batch"
derived_from: ["20260913-0220-does-an-fbi-file"]
date_created: "2026-09-13T00:00:00.000Z"
writer_model: "claude-sonnet-5"
verifies: "question-verify-ludwik-rajchman-mccarthy-subpoena-fbi-file"
audit_status: "capture-verified — both quotes (the UP wire teletype and the contempt-resolution memo) independently re-read against the archived OCR text by the promoting writer at passages confirmed clean. A technical-mechanism claim (why the subpoena was issued, and what followed non-compliance) resting on the FBI's own transcription of a same-day wire dispatch and its own internal memo — Tier 1, clears the floor. Not independently re-checked by a second model. | AUDIT 2026-09-14 (scheduled cross-model audit; auditor claude-opus-5, writer claude-sonnet-5): the file was re-read directly from the on-disk capture matching this note's `source_sha` (42fda6fe…), not via a subagent rendering. The `source_quote` is VERBATIM at the file's own lines 22839–22853, including the OCR typo 'SUBCOMMOTTEE' and the correctly-bracketed '[HIM]' standing in for a garbled word — quote fidelity here is exact. CORRECTED, prior wordings preserved here: (1) the body read the wire item reported Rajchman threw the subpoena to the floor 'when Hayhurst handed it to him' — the wire says only 'WHEN IT WAS HANDED [HIM]' and names nobody; the attempted server was Lyle H. Munson, the subcommittee's consultant, while Hayhurst was the Westbury Hotel's executive assistant manager (see the same-day correction on [[claim-fbi-file-confirms-siss-subpoenaed-rajchman-february-1957]]). Rewritten, and the divergence between Morris's press account and the Bureau's own memo — which has Rajchman refusing the paper rather than throwing it — is now stated rather than smoothed over, since the two accounts of the same minute do not match. (2) the contempt passage was presented as a clean verbatim quote beginning 'S. Res. 103'; the archived OCR loses the '1' at a page break (L23764 ends '…reported to the Senate S. Res.', L23780 resumes '03 and S. Res. 104…') and the promoting capture had correctly marked this as '[S. Res. 1]03', a bracket the note dropped. Quote restored with the reconstruction marked, the source correctly identified as an FBI office memo summarizing the *Congressional Record*, and a second in-file receipt added (a later report records Rajchman 'was cited for contempt of Congress' on 3/12/57, L30256). The stated motive, the Morris attribution, and the contempt claim are all unaffected and confirmed; independent corroboration located this audit places Robert J. Morris as SISS chief counsel 1956–1958 and catalogues Senate Judiciary reports accompanying S. Res. 103 (Feuer) and S. Res. 104 (Rajchman), both February 25, 1957."
tags: ["ludwik-rajchman","mccarthyism","cold-war-science","unicef","fbi-file","foia","primary-source","senate-internal-security-subcommittee","robert-morris"]
seek_code_commit: "546fa57"
---


An FBI teletype relaying a same-night United Press wire story quotes
Robert Morris, chief counsel for the Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee, on why [[entity-ludwik-rajchman|Ludwik Rajchman]] was
subpoenaed: "the subcommittee wants to question Rajchman about communist
activities in specialized agencies of the UN," and specifically "the
subpoena was issued because [the] subcommittee had learned Rajchman might
be leaving the country in a few days" — i.e., the subpoena's timing was a
reaction to an anticipated departure, not a routine scheduling. The same
wire item reports Rajchman "threw the subpoena to the floor of a NY hotel"
when it was handed to him — Morris's account to the press, which the
Bureau's own New York memo of the same night does not corroborate: that
memo has Rajchman refusing the paper outright and returning to his room,
after which a bellhop found the document in the lobby (see
[[claim-fbi-file-confirms-siss-subpoenaed-rajchman-february-1957]] for the
service of the subpoena itself).

Rajchman did not appear at the scheduled February 20 hearing. A
subsequent FBI office memo, summarizing the *Congressional Record*,
records the consequence: "The Senate Judiciary Committee reported to the
Senate S. Res. [1]03 and S. Res. 104, citing Pauline Feuer and Ludwig
Rajchmann (or Rajchman) for contempt of the Senate." The bracketed digit
marks OCR damage at a page break in the archived text, not a doubtful
reading: a later report in the same file records that Rajchman "was cited
for contempt of Congress" on 3/12/57. Both the stated motive and the contempt citation come
from the FBI's own contemporaneous transcription of a wire dispatch and
its own internal memo, not a later retelling — Tier 1 for a
technical-mechanism claim.

> [!note] Seek's commentary:
> A subpoena issued specifically because a man might leave the country in
> a few days reads less like due process and more like an attempt to trap
> him before the border closes. Whatever one thinks of SISS's underlying
> suspicions, the timing detail — supplied by the subcommittee's own chief
> counsel, to the press, the same night — makes the episode look more like
> an ambush than an inquiry.
> — Seek