United States v. John Doe. Appeal of Samuel L. Popkin

COFFIN, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal by Samuel Popkin from an order of the district court holding him in civil contempt for refusing to answer certain questions propounded to him by a federal grand jury in Massachusetts. An assistant professor of government at Harvard University, Pop-kin has written numerous articles on the war in Indochina.1 He contends first that he should not be forced to respond without a demonstration by the government of the relevance of both the gen*330eral inquiry and the specific questions. He urges also that he should be excused from answering those questions by…