Carl Binger


Carl Binger, AKA Carl A. L. Binger, was a 20th-century American psychiatrist. He wrote books and articles on a wide range of topics, including medicine and psychiatry, and testified in the trial of Alger Hiss.

Background

Carl Alfred Lanning Binger was born in 1889, the son of Frances and Gustav Binger. He had three siblings: Elsie Naumburg, Robert Binger, and Walter D. Binger. He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1914.

Career

In 1943, E. B. White consulted Binger, a pioneer in the field of psychosomatic medicine, during a nervous breakdown in the spring of that year.
In 1946, Binger was certified as a psychiatrist after deferral for insufficient training.
In the summer of 1951 he resigned his position of directing the two-million-dollar-endowed Mary Conover Mellon Foundation out of concern for the "sexual development of undergraduates in an atmosphere of supervision by matriarchy."

Hiss Case

Binger's wife was a college classmate of Alger Hiss's future wife Priscilla at Bryn Mawr College. Binger himself was a friend of Louis Weiss, brother of Carol Weiss King. King was a member of the International Juridical Association, of which Hiss (and several others in the Ware group had been a member.
On August 17, 1948, The New York Times interviewed Binger during a conference on mental health and reported: In the 1949 Alger Hiss trials, Binger served as a defense witness by analyzing Whittaker Chambers's activities, writings, and behavior during trial but without ever meeting or interviewing him.
In his testimony with Hiss's lead attorney Claude Cross, the following exchange occurred: In his testimony with Prosecutor Thomas Francis Murphy, the following exchange occurred regarding the Pumpkin Papers: Summing up Binger's input to the case, John V. Fleming wrote:

Personal and death

Binger was one of the oldest friends of American journalist Walter Lippman.

Awards, honors

In 1959, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Works

  • . W.W. Norton, 1966.
  • . W. W. Norton, 1945.
  • . 1945.
  • . University of Chicago Press, 1949.
  • . W. W. Norton, 1967.
  • . W. W. Norton, 1970..

    External sources

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Category:1889 births
Category:1976 deaths
Category:American psychiatrists
Category:20th-century American Jews
Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Category:Harvard Medical School alumni
Category:20th-century American psychologists