Fine Refuses to Testify to Velde at Washington Probe

Dr. Daniel Fine, Teaching Fellow in Medicine, yesterday refused to tell Harold H. Velde's House Un-American Activities Committee, meeting in Washington, whether he is now, or ever has been, a member of the Communist Party.

The 29-year-old doctor, who is senior assistant resident physician at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, also declined to answer questions on supposed Communist associations when he was an undergraduate and medical student at Yale.

Fine invoked the First and Fifth Amendments as grounds for his refusal to answer the Committee's questions.

Following his testimony, he issued a statement to the press, in which he charged that the tactics of the hearings "reflect the punitive and vindictive attitudes of the committee toward all those who act upon the conviction that its proceedings traduce the right of dissent and non-conformity.

"Thus, it punishes by publicity that which it cannot constitutionally declare unlawful."

He accused the Committee of using methods similar to the inquisitors of history.

Meanwhile, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital authorities said that the relationship of Fine with the hospital is a "matter for the trustees of the hospital to determine." They added, however, that the trustees "undoubtedly will act in conjunction with the Harvard Corporation in the matter."

Fine's refusal to answer brings to four the number of such cases pending before the Corporation.