August 7th 1958; Washington's Court of Appeals has quashed playwright Arthur Miller's conviction for contempt of Congress after a two-year legal battle. In May the year before, a judge convicted Mr Miller for refusing to tell the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) the names of alleged Communist writers with whom he attended five or six meetings in New York in 1947.

He had been questioned by the HUAC in 1956 over a supposed Communist conspiracy to misuse American passports and willingly answered all questions about himself. But the playwright, married to actress Marilyn Monroe, refused to name names on a point of principle saying: "I could not use the name of another person and bring trouble on him."