Biography
John L. Spivak was an anti-fascist investigative journalist — author of 'Secret Armies,' exposing native fascist networks — who was jailed twice in one week in late March 1940 on criminal-libel charges, first in Coraopolis near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on a complaint by an ex-Dies-committee investigator. Handcuffed and, per New Masses, 'mauled' by police, he was held on $5,000 bail in prosecutions widely seen as retaliation for his exposés.
