The leak was golden for Cincinnati’s Republicans. Just weeks before the 1953 city council elections, an agent from the local FBI office dropped a file on the desk of Cincinnati’s Republican City Manager, implicating the new Charter-appointed Planning Director in Communist activities.

Ever since 1924, when the Charterite reform movement ended Republican boss rule in Cincinnati, the G.O.P. had tried to dismantle the pillars of the Charter movement, from proportional representation to non-partisan ballots and - especially - city planning. A strong city plan hampered the ability to award patronage jobs and municipal construction projects to political supporters.

Into this battle in 1953 stepped Sydney H. Williams, a rising star in city planning. Williams had worked on a comprehensive plan for San Francisco, which led to a faculty appointment at the University of California at Berkeley. On the San Francisco project, Williams worked with Cincinnati-based consultant Ladislas Segoe, a true star in the planning field.

The Berkeley appointment required Williams to sign a loyalty oath, stating that he was not a Communist and had not had Communist affiliations for the past five years. Although Williams had been a member of a Communist youth organization before he enlisted in the Navy for World War II, he was no longer a party member. He signed the oath.

The San Francisco FBI office had been keeping a close eye on Williams and discovered that Williams had attended a Marxist study group just four and a half years earlier. This study group was allegedly sponsored by the Communist party. The FBI shared this information with university administrators, who promised Williams that, if he resigned and left the state, the FBI would nor harass him further. Williams resigned and began looking for work.

With the support of Ladislas Segoe, Williams applied for the City Planning Director job in Cincinnati. In 1953, the city was under Republican control and implementation of a comprehensive city plan was stalled by political inertia. The Cincinnati Planning Commission was essentially gridlocked and unable to find a planning director to satisfy Republican and Charter interests until Williams showed up.

McWilliams charmed both parties and the Planning Commission voted to hire Williams. Two members, Charterite Henry Bettman and Wallace Collett, an “Eisenhower Republican” appointed by the Charterites, negotiated his contract. Williams voluntarily told Bettman and Collett the reason he left California. Bettman and Collett were satisfied that Williams was no Communist, and Cincinnati’s loyalty oath only specified that the individual was not a member of the Communist party at present. Williams started work in April 1953 and amazed everyone with his industry and communication skills. The Metropolitan Master Plan roared back to life and back on schedule.

In September, an agent from Cincinnati’s FBI office dropped Williams’ file on the desk of City Manger Wilbur R. Kellogg, who took the information to the Republican-controlled city council. The FBI had acted illegally, and Kellogg kept his source a secret. Among the Republican city councilmen was Douglass M. Allen, who was a reporter and editor for the Cincinnati Times-Star. According to city planning scholar Laurence Gerkens:

“The Republicans secretly considered the political use of this information for eleven days. Then, still not informing anyone in Charter, City Manager Kellogg met with Sydney Williams in the presence of Republican Councilman Douglass Allen, the newspaperman, and confronted him with the FBI-provided data. Williams was shaken by the Bureau’s breach of promise. In his defense, he stated that he really didn’t understand their concern at this time as he had shared that information with Bettman and Collett at the time of his appointment.

"The Republicans had not been aware that Bettman and Collett knew about Williams’ Communist associations. With this political windfall, and still failing to inform Bettman, Collett … and the Charter members of council, Allen rushed to the Hamilton County Republican Committee headquarters on Ninth Street and then to the Times-Star. The Times-Star published the news that the new planning director was an admitted Communist and that the two Charter-appointed members of the planning commission who had arranged for his employment, Bettman and Collett, knew that Williams was a Communist when they hired him.”

Here is what Gerkens meant by “political windfall.” In 1953, Wisconsin’s U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was at the pinnacle of his power, finding evidence of Communist infiltration throughout the American Government. Although hostilities had just ended, American soldiers had not yet returned from fighting Communists on the battlefields of the Korean War. The Soviet Union had just detonated its first hydrogen bomb. If the Republicans could tie the Charter Party to Communism, Charter was dead and so was city planning.

After a contentious City Planning Commission meeting, a trial in all but name, Williams was forced to resign. Republicans, smelling blood, ramped up the electoral machine, aimed at almost certain victory in November. According to Gerkens:

“The Republican campaign focused on condemning Bettman and Collett for their unAmerican activities, and for their callous disregard for the sensibilities of the families of the American servicemen who were dying in Korea at that time in defense of the American flag. Republican campaign ads featured Communist subversives’ bombs and the gravestones of American GIs.”

In response, the Charter party attacked the smear campaign aimed at Bettman, Collett and Williams. The Charter campaign stressed civil rights and human decency.

On election day, a record number of voters marched to the polls. By dawn of the next day, it was clear that the Republicans had met defeat. Charter achieved victory by a narrow margin - 51.5 percent - but victory nonetheless. Charter held five of nine council seats and the right to choose the mayor. In what came to be seen as the first local rejection of Senator McCarthy’s reckless demagoguery, Cincinnati voters chose the high road.

The new Charter government declined to rehire Sydney Williams, who went on to a successful career in California.

This post is based on “The ‘Trial” of Planning Director Sydney H. Williams" by Laurence C. Gerckens, Queen City Heritage, Winter 1988.