William Worthy - Right To Travel Controversies

Right To Travel Controversies

Worthy traveled to China (1956–57) and Cuba (1961) in violation of United States State Department travel regulations. At the time he entered China, Worthy was the first American reporter to visit and broadcast from there since the country's communist revolution in 1949. While in China Worthy interviewed Samuel David Hawkins, an American soldier who was captured by the Chinese during the Korean War and defected to China in 1953. His passport was seized upon his return to the U.S. from China and American lawyers Leonard Boudin and William Kunstler represented Worthy in an unsuccessful lawsuit seeking the return of his passport. Without a passport, Worthy traveled to Cuba in the early days of Fidel Castro to report on the Cuban revolution, and upon his return to the U.S. he was tried and convicted for "returning to the United States without a valid passport." Worthy was again represented by Kunstler, who successfully persuaded a federal appeals court to overturn Worthy's conviction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found the restrictions unconstitutional. The court held that the government could not make it a crime under the Constitution to return home without a passport. Years later, Kunstler wrote in his autobiography, My Life As A Radical Lawyer, that the Worthy passport case was his "first experience arguing an issue about which I felt passionate," was the "first time I had ever invalidated a statute," and that success "confirmed my faith in the justice system."

Folksinger Phil Ochs wrote a song called "The Ballad of William Worthy" about Worthy's trip to Cuba and its consequences.

The Committee for the Freedom of William Worthy was formed in 1962 and was chaired by A. Phillip Randolph and Bishop D. Ward Nichols.

Worthy was a conscientious objector in World War II, and in 1954 he voiced early opposition to American involvement in Vietnam after he visited Indo-China in 1953.