John Abt - Early Life

Early Life

Abt was a graduate of the University of Chicago, and from its law school. He practiced real estate and corporate law in Chicago from 1927 to 1933.

He was the Chief of Litigation, Agricultural Adjustment Administration from 1933 to 1935, assistant general counsel of the Works Progress Administration in 1935, chief counsel to Senator Robert La Follette, Jr.'s Committee from 1936 to 1937 and special assistant to the United States Attorney General, 1937 and 1938. In 1948, he worked with the Progressive Party of former Vice President Henry A. Wallace.

Abt was also a member of the Ware Group, a covert organization of Communist Party operatives within the United States government in the 1930s which actively aided Soviet intelligence by passing on government information, as well as furnishing assistance to members of the CPUSA. Abt's sister, Marion Bachrach, was also a member of the group. After the group's founder, Harold Ware, was killed in an automobile collision in 1935, Abt married Jessica Smith, Ware's widow.

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