Cornell, Charles Olney, 1911-1989

<p>Charles Olney Cornell (1911 – 1989) was an American Communist.</p>

<p>Cornell was born on March 14, 1911, in Cochise, Arizona. While a teacher in San Francisco in the 1930s, he became active in the American Trotskyist movement and joined the newly founded Socialist Workers Party in 1938.</p>

<p>The SWP proposed that Charles Cornell go to Coyoacán, Mexico, where Leon Trotsky was living in exile to work as one of his bodyguards. Cornell served on Trotsky’s staff from June 1939 to August 1940.</p>

<p>On May 24, 1940, Mexican Stalinists machine-gunned Trotsky's household and subsequently Charles Cornell and Otto Schüssler, one of Trotsky's guards from Germany, were arrested by the police.</p>

<p>At first the police suspected Trotsky and his secretaries of having organised the raid, but soon realized this to be wrong. After two days and at the personal intervention of Trotsky, both Schüssler and Cornell were released.</p>

<p>Cornell, who was present, could not prevent the fatal attack on Trotsky three months later on August 20, 1940, carried out by the Stalinist agent Ramón Mercader, who had infiltrated the household and stabbed him in the back of the head with an icepick.</p>

<p>With Joe Hansen, Cornell overwhelmed the assassin and handed him over to the police.</p>

<p>On his return to the United States, Charles Cornell remained a member of the Socialist Workers Party in New York City for a couple of years, but never had any important role in the party. Eventually he gave up political activities and went into the real-estate business, first in Connecticut, and later in Arizona. He died on January 1, 1989.</p>

<p>Charles (Olney) Cornell was born on March 14, 1911 in Cochise, Arizona.</p>
<p>Earning his lving as a young teacher in San Francisco, Cal., Cornell in 1935 became a member of the Trotskyist Workers Party (WP) there. When in 1936 the majority of the Workers Party, in accordance with Trotsky's turn towards 'entryism', decided to join the ranks of Norman Thomas' Socialist Party (SP) as a Trotskyist faction, Cornell followed. However, the entryist phase came to an end already in 1937. Cornell from the very beginning was a member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) which was launched on January 1, 1938 under the leadership of James P. Cannon as American section of Trotsky's Movement for the Fourth International which in September 1938 became the Fourth International. Leon Trotsky had been granted asylum in Mexico in January 1937. From Spring 1939, he, together with his wife Natalia, his grandson, some secretaries and domestic helpers, lived in a house at Coyoacan, a suburb of Mexico City. Since Trotsky as well as Mexican authorities were deeply convinced of the menace of a Stalinist assault at the life of Stalin's arch-foe, the house was fortified and other percautionary measures were taken against potential attacks. Frequently, young and devoted Trotskyists from various countries came to Mexico in order to serve as secretaries and/or bodyguards to Trotsky. Most of those young comrades were Americans sent to the Trotsky household by the SWP. Thus, Jake Cooper, Joseph Hansen, Walter O'Rourke (Ketley), and Robert Sheldon Harte were the young Americans serving as guards (or, secretary-guards) in 1940, and so was Charles Cornell, too, whose period of service there ran from June 1939 to August 1940.</p>
<p> When on May 24, 1940, a machine-gun assault led by Mexican Stalinist painter David Alfaro Siqueiros took place, but was survived by Trotsky and his family, Charles Connell together with a guard from Germany, Otto Schussler, was arrested by Mexican police colonel Leandro Apolinar Sanchez Salazar who was charged with the investigation of the attempted assault. At the beginning of his investigation he suspected Trotsky and his secretaries of having staged the raid, but soon realized that he was wrong. After two days and at the personal intervention of Trotsky, both Schussler and Cornell were released.</p>
<p>Some three months later, Cornell was present at Trostky's residence at Coyoacan but could not forestall a second - this time fatal - assault against Trostky: the perfidious ice-axe murder committed on the later afternoon of August 20, 1940 by Stalinist secret service agent Jaime Ramon Mercader del Rio Hernandez, who used the alias names Jacques Mornard and Frank Jacson, respectively. Together with Joseph Hansen and the other guards, Cornell at least could overwhelm Mercader and surrender him to the police.</p>
<p>Cornell later gave a lively and colorful account about the time he spent in Coyoacan titled With Trotsky in Mexico which was published in the August 1944 issue of Fourth Itnernational, the theoretical journal of the SWP (reprinted in 1969).</p>
<p>Back to the United States, Cornell for a couple of years remained a member of the New York branch of the SWP but never played any important role in the party. He soon withdrew from political activities and engaged in real-estate development and home building, first in Connecticut and later in Arizona. After retiring in 1988, he moved to San Mateo, Cal., where he died after a longer struggle against leukaemia on Janaury 1, 1989, leaving his wife Betty, a daughter and a son.