HEALY'S ADMISSION OF GUILT
[The following statement was issued by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International on March 1.]
* * *
1. The physical assault upon Comrade Ernest Tate of Great Britain on November 17, 1966 by hooligans of the Socialist Labour League organized under the direction of its general secretary, T.G. Healy, took place while Comrade Tate was attempting to sell the International Socialist Review and the pamphlet Healy "Reconstructs" the Fourth International on the pavement in front of Caxton Hall, a public meeting place in London. e facts about this disgraceful assault are now well-known to the world Trotskyist movement and to many British socialists and trade unionists.
2. Following this attack, Comrade Tate protested the outrage in a public statement which was printed in several small papers of the working-class movement in Great Britain. He asked that a working-class commission be set up to inquire into the circunstances of an assault which was directed against his right to sell socialist literature on a public street, an issue of vital concern to every socialist group or party.
3. 1.G. Healy thereupon rushed to utilize the courts of Her Majesty; and by writs and threats of writs forced two of the small papers to withdraw Tate's statement and pay him what can only be called extorted money. He further demanded that Comrade Tate himnself keep silent or face being hauled into court and suffering the penalties of the law. Needless to say, Comrade Tate is continuing to tell what happened and continuing to sell the literature of the world Trotskyist movement. It is clear that up to this point Healy was in the wrong.
4, The leadership of both the American and Canadian Trotskyist movement quickly responded to this shameful business by demanding that the SLL place T.G. Healy on trial and expel all those responsible for the assault. We fully endorse the letters of the Americans and Canadians in this matter.
5. After remaining silent for some months, Healy finally replied in the form of an 11,000-word statement put out by the so-called "International Committee of the Fourth International." This document along with a statement by an American supporter of Healy, fT. Wohlforth, flatly justify the assault and resorting to Her Majesty's law subsequently.
6. The charge made against 1T.G. Healy is a grave one. The only appropriate and competent body that can examine the factual basis of the charge is a commission of inquiry drawn from the workers' movement. We reject Healy's arrogant stand that the charge is subject to examination only by a commission of representatives of the "organizations concerned." Negotiations between organizations is not involved. It isa matter of investigating and examining a case of hooliganism inside the working-class movement. It can only be concluded from Healy's rejection of this procedure that he recognizes there could be no other outcome than a verdict of guilty against hin.
7. We repeat that what is at issue at present is the simple question of facts in the case. Was Comrade Tate brutally assaulted and sent to the hospital to prevent him from selling his literature? Is it not true that Healy inspired this attack directly? Healy, the SLL and the so-called International Committee prefer that these questions be judged by Her Majesty's courts on the basis of Her Majesty's law. The writs of that law, to be sure, are backed by the police powers of the capitalist state. And this, apparently, is Healy's strongest weapon. Meanwhile the literature and