Carl Winter; U.S. Communist Party Official

Carl Winter, 85, one of the first members of the U.S. Communist Party to be convicted under the Smith Act, which made it illegal to conspire against the government. Winter, the party’s Michigan chairman, served five years in federal prison after he and 10 other party members were convicted in 1949 on conspiracy charges. He faced additional charges after his release, but in 1957 the U.S. Supreme Court made a narrower definition of the Smith Act and in 1963 all charges against Winter were dropped. He later became editor of the Worker, the Communist Party’s newspaper and then co-editor of the World, its successor, now the People’s Weekly World. In New York City on Nov. 16.