CLINT JENCKS

CHARACTER SKETCH DETAIL

36, affable, charismatic, plain spoken, labor union organizer, activist for social justice, and family man.

Clint faces five years in prison because of lies Harvey Matusow told as a witness against him at trial.  Embellishing their meeting at a New Mexico guest ranch in 1950, Harvey falsely testified that Clint had admitted to being a communist and to planning a mine strike to sabotage Korean War production.  Convicted of perjury on the strength of that testimony, Clint seeks out his old friend Albert Kahn and asks him to track Harvey down and publish Harvey’s memoir.  Clint's only hope is that Albert will succeed and set the record straight.

What does Clint believe? That the truth will set you free. He stood by this guiding principle while staging one of the most famous mine strikes in American history. And while on trial for supposed communist subversion and sabotage. And when he approached Albert to pluck Harvey and his manuscript of confessions out of the wilderness. And now, as he awaits exoneration or imprisonment.

All he can do is watch the events unfold in real time as the clock for submitting his appeal ticks down. That, and practice forgiveness and grace. When Harvey agrees to come clean about his lies on the stand in the Jencks case, Clint and his wife greet him with compassion and outstretched arms. “Welcome back to the human race,” Clint pens Harvey in a memorable letter. But will Harvey’s return be enough to save Clint from prison?

BIO NOTES

A veteran of the Air Force in World War II, Clint was an organizer for the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (or “Mine-Mill”, for short).  In 1946, Mine-Mill sent Clint to New Mexico to organize mostly Chicano mine workers and, beginning in 1950, he led a strike there at the Empire Zinc Company Mine.  The strike garnered national attention when, after authorities jailed picketing workers, their wives, sisters, and children took to the picket lines, leading to a union victory in 1952. The strike also caught the attention of two blacklisted filmmakers, who made a movie about the strike, Salt of the Earth, starring Clint as himself. 

Labeled a communist-inspired movie by anti-communist forces in Congress and in the press, the film caused a furor and indirectly led to Clint’s indictment on perjury charges alleging that he had falsified a “loyalty affidavit” stating that he was not a Communist Party member in 1951, when the strike was raging.  Having met Clint at the San Cristobal Ranch outside of Taos, New Mexico in 1950, Harvey Matusow was the key government witness against Clint at trial. 

Clint’s case eventually made its way up to the Supreme Court, where it was overturned.  The Court’s landmark decision in Jencks v. United States affirmed the right of criminal defendants to see records of government contact with witnesses against them - a principle that remains a cornerstone of American criminal law today. In the wake of the decision, the United States Congress enacted legislation that came to be known as the Jencks Act.