William Remington - Early Life and Public Career

Early Life and Public Career

He was born in New York City and raised in Ridgewood, in Bergen County, New Jersey, by Lillian Maude Sutherland (1888-?) and Frederick C. Remington (1870–1956). His father worked for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.; his mother as an art teacher in New York. Remington was admitted to Dartmouth College at age 16, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude in 1939, and earned a Master's degree from Columbia University in 1940. Remington's parents were poor and demanding and he developed a somewhat unconventional and flamboyant personality. From an early age, he was drawn to radical leftist politics, and declared to his friends that he was a Communist when he was 15. In college, he became active with members of the Young Communist League, and later the Communist Party of the United States. In testimony, Remington stated that while he was a Republican when he entered college, he "moved left quite rapidly" and became a radical but was never a Communist Party or Young Communist League member at Dartmouth. Whether or not he ever officially joined the party later became a point of contention in his legal battles.

Remington was employed in a number of posts, principally as an economist:

• Tennessee Valley Authority, Knoxville, Tennessee, September 1936 to May 1937
• Workers Education Committee, Knoxville, April to August 1937
• Junior Economist with the National Resources Planning Board, Washington, D.C., May 1940 to July 15, 1941
• Associate industrial economist in the Office of Price Administration of the Office for Emergency Management, from July 1941 to February 1942;
• Assistant to the Director of the War Production Board, February 1942 to October 1943
• Assistant to the Director of Orders and Regulations Bureau in the War Production Board, October 1943 to 1946
• President's Council of Economic Advisers, March 1947 to March 1948

For his position with the Office of Price Administration, Remington was required to undergo a loyalty-security check, which began in 1941. He admitted having been active in Communist-allied groups such as the American Peace Mobilization, but denied any sympathy with communism and swore under oath that he was not and had never been a member of the Communist Party. His leftist affiliations raised concerns, but the investigation was superficial and his security clearance was approved.