Today’s post is on an obscure side note in antenna history. Henry Jasik is perhaps best known in antenna engineering circles as the Editor of the indispensable Antenna Engineering Handbook. However, he also played a minor role as a witness in the McCarthy Hearings.
Transcripts of the McCarthy Hearings (1953-54 Volume 4), made public in 2003, show that Jasik’s clearance was suspended and he was subjected to extensive questioning in the course of an investigation into “subversion and espionage” in the Army Signal Corps. Jasik drew investigators’ attention because his wife, Esther Gerson Jasik, was the sister of a prominent and well-known Communist, Simon “Si” Gerson.
Mr. Jasik.For the record I might state that in all my life I have met him [Gerson] at the most a half dozen times and these have been mainly on social occasions. Just a matter of one family visiting another, so that my association with him has been not what you call close by any means. I am not in sympathy with his views or ways of achieving them. I certainly don’t have any knowledge of what his part of the family is up to, that is, beyond what I read in the newspapers.
Investigator’s pressed Jasik for information on Gerson and to explain his wife’s political views. Here is a sample:
